Why I used Notion for the UCAT

If you've read any of my other posts, you will know that I'm a huge fan of Notion and that I recommend everyone have their own Notion set up. This is how I use Notion for exams. I use Notion for almost everything and studying for the UCAT was not different. Here's how and why I used Notion for the UCAT.

1. Information Collecting and Sorting

If you've read any of my other posts, you will know that I'm a huge fan of Notion and that I recommend everyone have their own Notion set up. This is how I use Notion for exams. I use Notion for almost everything and studying for the UCAT was not different. Here's how and why I used Notion for the UCAT. 1. Information Collecting and Sorting There are loads of websites and blogs out there about the UCAT. And many of them (like mine!) provide useful tips and strategies and the problem is that just

There are loads of websites and blogs out there about the UCAT. And many of them (like mine!) provide useful tips and strategies and the problem is that just that. There are loads of them. It is not feasible to read through every single blog post about the UCAT and remember to use all the tips. I used Notion to pick out the strategies that seemed most useful and summarised them. In this way, when I am revising I only read what's relevant. Similarly, the great thing about Notion is that it has very logical and tight structure. It's basically like using notebooks with a filing system for those notebooks and a filing system for that filing system but without all that paper. It's a much more efficient way to study.

2. Recording Mistakes

Everyone will tell you the way to get good at the UCAT is to make mistakes and to (very crucially) learn from them. And no, this does not mean just look at the answer and go oh yeah I know how to do that now. It's important that you actually understand why you made that mistake and actually internalise how to do it next time. I found that I tended to fall into the I know how to do that now trap and make the same mistake a couple days later. That's why I used Notion to record my mistakes.

This may sound overboard but I feel that everyone should do something like this. Basically, I created a table with the headings of question, mistake, answer and why. This way you are really forced to dissect and internalise your mistakes. NB this is a very time consuming strategy, especially if you're like me and make tons of mistakes but it's very much worth it. So what I did was to write out the question I messed up on, the mistake I made, the answer to that question and why I made that mistake but also why that is the answer. This is hard, but it is very much one of the best ways to study for the UCAT.

3. Generating My Own Strategies

Finally, I used Notion to record my own strategies that I develop as I worked through questions. This is similar to the first point but you may find that as you do more and more questions, certain tips and strategies you find on the Internet aren't that helpful. Equally, you may develop your own types of strategies and it is very important to record these so you remember them. See my strategies here.

To be honest, I could've done all of this with pen and paper but in a bid to go completely paperless I decided to use Notion. I just feel using Notion keeps me organised and means I don't have to carry around tons of paper with me. And when you're making as many mistakes as me, you will be using a ton of paper. Plus I simply enjoy typing and using tech rather than pen and paper. But yes, I admit you could use pen and paper to do any of these. Nonetheless, doing these things really helped me with my UCAT and hopefully they will help you too.

See how I was preparing for the UCAT here and my strategies I used to get 3000 in the UCAT here.