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3. Quantitative Reasoning

3. Quantitative Reasoning

Quantitative Reasoning

General Tips

Quantitative Reasoning maths will mostly be at a GCSE Grade 5 level. The difficulty does not come from the calculations but from doing these at about ~40 seconds per question (26 minutes for 36 questions = 43.3 seconds).

  • Practice using a numberpad. You can increase your speed quickly with one.
  • Sharpen your mental maths.
    • Get comfortable with estimating; for example if a calculation comes down to 1.8/1.7 you can look for any option that is just above 1, immediately eliminating any below 1.
    • If the answer options are not too close to each other, you can round numbers to make them easier to manage. For example, 197 * 423 might need inputting in the calculator, but 200 * 400 doesn’t.
    • x% of y = y% of x: e.g. 2% of 50 = 50% of 2
Skipping

While most questions are designed to be doable in the time constraint, some are designed to waste your time. Don’t be afraid to skip especially in this subtest.

Before you skip, read the question; sometimes you will be given a lot of text for a very straightforward calculation. Where questions are in a set of 4, they are likely to be of increasing difficulty and build upon the previous ones. If you get stuck, think about what you did in the question before.

M+, M-, MRC

Another hurdle is practicing using the UCAT calculator. M+, M- and MRC shortcuts allow you to store numbers in the memory and add to them as needed.

M+ = adds a value to the memory (shortcut: P)

M- = substracts a value from memory (shortcut: M)

MRC = recalls the memory (shortcut: C)

Pressing MRC/C twice in a row clears the memory

The shortcuts are just the letters, with no Alt

  • Alt + C = reveals the calculator
  • C = shows the memory / clears the memory

Assumed Knowledge

There are certain things that the exam assumes you will know and won’t provide. This is not an exhaustive list.

  • Basic perimeters and areas, volumes of cuboids
  • Volume of a prism/cylinder: cross sectional area x length
  • Circle related terms – e.g. tangent, chord, segment
  • Formulas for percentage change ((new – old) / old * 100), speed = distance/time
  • Conversions: metric units, money
  • Miscellaneous facts such as weeks in a year (52), seconds in an hour (3600)

You can work out the following intuitively, but here are some other helpful formulas:

  • Acceleration = change in velocity / time
  • Final value from compound interest = initial value * (1 + rate)years
  • Final value for depreciation = initial value * (1 – rate)years

Frequent Topics

Again, this is not an exhaustive list.

  • Areas and volumes of 2D and 3D shapes
    • You will be provided with equations for anything beyond what is in ‘assumed knowledge’
  • Taxes
  • Pie charts
  • Mean/Median/Mode – sometimes the answer options are statements comparing these values instead of numbers
  • Ratios
  • Direct and inverse proportion
  • Scale factors
  • Reading tables/graphs

For short write-ups of questions people sometimes find challenging, check out the below:

Taxes
Inverse Proportions