UCAT Study Group: Where to Find One and How to Practise

Use a UCAT study group for what the official practice tests leave out: a score, a comparison by subtest and someone to argue the rationales with. Keep the timed practice itself solo, and give the group's hours to pace and Quantitative Reasoning.

The test in 2026: four subtests in one sitting

UCAT ANZ, the version for Australia and New Zealand, sets four separately timed subtests in one sitting of just under two hours (UCAT ANZ test format). Each is scored from 300 to 900, and wrong answers cost nothing. The test isn't adaptive either: UCAT ANZ says your answer to one question doesn't change which questions you see next. The last column is the arithmetic that shapes every practice session:

Each subtest also has 90 seconds of instructions, two minutes for Quantitative Reasoning. The 2026 ANZ window ran from 1 July to 5 August, and universities had results in early September (UCAT ANZ test cycle); booking had opened on 3 March. As of November 2026, the 2027 dates weren't listed. In the UK, the UCAT Consortium sets its own dates on ucat.ac.uk.

UCAT ANZ's 2026 statistics show what a total means. Across 17,341 candidates, the three cognitive subtests summed to a mean of 1,964 out of 2,700 (UCAT ANZ, 2026 statistics):

The subtests don't sit level. The 2026 means were 619 for Verbal Reasoning, 655 for Decision Making and 691 for Quantitative Reasoning. Quantitative Reasoning also spread widest, from 530 at the 10th percentile to 880 at the 90th.

What each subtest asks for

UCAT ANZ's own descriptions point to where practice has to go:

• Verbal Reasoning: eleven passages with four questions each, so about two minutes a passage, and "you are not expected to use prior knowledge".
• Decision Making: logic, arguments and statistics. Some questions are multiple choice, and others ask for a yes or no against each of five statements, so budget more than the 63-second average for those.
• Quantitative Reasoning: questions that "most often refer to charts and graphs", and which UCAT ANZ says are "less to do with numerical facility and more to do with problem solving".
• Situational Judgement: clinical scenarios with up to six questions each, needing no medical knowledge.

Scoring the free mocks as a UCAT study group

UCAT ANZ's practice tests come in four versions, A to D, each timed, with extended-time and untimed sets too (practice tests). They're free, and a review screen shows which answers were wrong, with an Explain Answer rationale for each. What they don't do is score you: they "are not set up to save your result or provide a score". The question banks don't remember your progress either, and UCAT ANZ advises noting which questions you've attempted.

That gap is a job for the group. Keep one shared sheet, with a row per member for each practice test:

1. Correct answers per subtest, counted from the review screen.
2. Questions left blank when time ran out. With no marks lost for a wrong answer, every blank is a free mark thrown away, so this column should fall to zero.
3. The subtest each member reviews first, chosen from their own two lowest rows, not the group's.
4. Question-bank items attempted, by bank and number, so nobody repeats a set by accident.

UCAT ANZ suggests using the practice tests nearer your test date, so space the four across the last weeks before your window rather than one week. Sit each at the same hour, so the sheet compares like with like.

How much preparation went with higher scores

Sanat Kulkarni, Jayne Parry and Alice Sitch linked a questionnaire to the records of the 2017 UCAT, sat by 14,332 UK residents aged 16 to 20 (BMC Medical Education, 2022). Of the 5,439 who answered, those who used the free official timed practice tests scored about 68 points higher in total, the largest link of any resource. Paid commercial materials went with about 38 points, a school course with about 37, and free commercial products with no significant gain. Sitting the test a second time went with about 67 points. Students from the most deprived areas were less likely to use the official tests at all, and the authors suggest more free resources could narrow that gap. Hours mattered most, with no ceiling in sight:

Read it as a link, not a promise. The up-to-10-hours difference wasn't statistically significant, and only 34 respondents had done no preparation. The study had no record of school grades, and those who answered had scored higher than those who didn't. The 2017 test also included Abstract Reasoning, which today's four-subtest format leaves out, and the gains were mainly in abstract and quantitative reasoning. One of the authors sits on the UCAT Consortium's board, which supplied the data.

For a UCAT study group, the useful finding is where the hours went. Timed practice on official tests carried the strongest link, so the group's job is to keep members sitting them on schedule, not to replace them with talk.

Situational judgement: less group time than you'd think

In the same study, preparation had "little association" with Situational Judgement results. Only two kinds stood out for reaching the top two bands of the 2017 UK test: a school course, and more than 40 hours of preparation. So give the subtest a short round, not a whole meeting. UCAT ANZ says it assesses integrity, perspective taking, team involvement, resilience and adaptability, so take one of those per round. Each member rates the same five scenarios against the clock, at 23 seconds an item. Then the group talks only about the items where ratings split by more than one step. Quantitative Reasoning and Decision Making keep the rest of the hours.

What stays out of the chat

UCAT ANZ counts as misconduct "using the test questions, their content or information about them for purposes other than for sitting your test" (UCAT ANZ misconduct). Upheld cases can end with all results cancelled, a ban from future sittings and the outcome shared with admissions centres and universities. Members test on different days across a window of several weeks. Describing a question to someone who sits later uses "information about" it for something other than your own test. Talk about question types and timing, never about questions you saw.

Finding members at 16 and 17

Start with your own year group: students applying to medicine or dentistry at your school or college share the calendar and can meet in person. Online, StudyDuo's rooms admit people from 16, and its Find Partners search includes UCAT among the interests, with filters for country and city. Timed sittings fit Focus Room, where nobody talks. Rating situational judgement items together needs sound, which a 1:1 session has once both of you have a verified photo. In the UK, a 16- or 17-year-old's 1:1 partner is always another 16- or 17-year-old.

Forums, Discord servers and social media groups also carry UCAT threads. Whichever one your UCAT study group grows out of, keep your phone number, your school and your booking details to yourself. Leave any chat that asks you to move somewhere private. Our safety guide for online study rooms has a part for teens and parents. If you're applying after a degree instead, the test is different: see our GAMSAT study group guide. Once you're in, medical school study groups work differently again, and an online study group covers the quiet hours in between.