Overview of UCAT Scoring

As soon as you’ve sat your UCAT test, you will receive your results in the format that you can see below. Note, however, that Abstract Reasoning has now been removed from the UCAT test, so this row will not appear on your score report.

If you acquaint yourself with the format of the score report, then, on the day of the actual test, you will know exactly how you have done, and what it all means, without having to go away to try and figure it out.

Introduction to the UCAT scoring system

The UCAT is made up of 115 separately marked questions (not including Situational Judgement, which is marked separately, as described later in this guide). The overall mark equates to the number of questions answered correctly. While there is no negative marking, it is not the case that one correct answer equals one mark. Instead, a conversion is used which takes the raw marks from each of the sections and converts them into a score (300-900) that allows the sections to be compared and collated. This is because each section has a different number of questions, and each section needs to be weighted, or scaled, evenly in order to give a balanced overall score.
The situational judgement section of the UCAT is scored separately. Full marks are awarded for fully correct answers, and partial marks may be awarded for responses that are almost correct. The overall score, furthermore, is not summed into a numerical result, but instead into a band, ranging from 1-4, Band 1 being the highest, and Band 4 being the lowest.

Individual sections and their scoring

Verbal Reasoning

• The verbal reasoning section will ask you to read passages of text roughly 250 words long and then you will answer 4 questions relating to what you just read.
• In total, there are 11 passages of text, so 44 questions overall.
• This is a very time pressured section, with only 2 minutes to read each passage and answer the 4 questions.
• Each of the 4 questions equates to 1 mark, 4 per text, which is then processed via the UCAT algorithm to give you a score between 300 and 900.

According to the UCAT official test statistics for 2024, the average adjusted score for verbal reasoning was 601. This is always the lowest average score of all the sections of the UCAT. This pattern is seen every year in the UCAT results, with verbal reasoning proving to be the hardest section in which to achieve the highest marks.

These are the average scores in recent years:

 Decision making

• This section comprises a series of logic questions, mainly testing your ability to extrapolate information from statistics and evaluate arguments.
• There are 35 questions in this section of the UCAT, and they need to be answered in 37 minutes.
• There are two types of questions: multiple-choice questions and ‘yes’ or ‘no’ statements.
• The single answer, yes/no, questions will each earn you 1 mark if answered correctly. However, the multiple-choice questions are different: here 2 marks will be awarded for a fully correct answer and 1 mark for a partially correct response. Your raw mark will be translated into a score between 300 and 900.

The average scores in recent years are listed below:

Quantitative reasoning

• The quantitative reasoning section is the closest to a maths test that the UCAT has. In this part of the UCAT, you are required to use basic GCSE maths skills and problem-solving capabilities.
• This section consists of 36 questions, to be completed in 26 minutes. The answers are given in multiple-choice format, and you will be awarded 1 mark for selecting the correct option. At the end, again, these marks will be converted into the UCAT score, between 300-900.

This is the section where candidates tend to score highest on average. Here are the average scores for recent years:

Total Score

The scaled scores for each section are then added together to give a total out of 2700.

The total and average scores for recent years (calculated without the inclusion of Abstract Reasoning) are as follows:

 Situational judgement
As mentioned in the introduction, the Situational Judgement section is scored separately.

• There are 69 questions that need to be answered in just 26 minutes.
• You will be given scenarios and actions/considerations which you need to rank in order of appropriateness/importance.
• There are two types of questions:

1. Questions where you are asked to judge how appropriate/important in your opinion a given action appears to be.

2. Most appropriate / least appropriate questions: where you have three possible responses and from them you choose the most and the least appropriate response for the scenario with which you are presented.

• In the scoring of these questions, you are given a gradation of scores based on how correctly you answer the question, with full marks being given for completely correct answers and partial marks for those ranking the answers mostly, but not completely, correct.
• The overall score is not summed into a numerical result, but instead a band (ranging from 1-4). 1 being the lowest, and 4 the highest.

Each band comes with a little contextual explanation, and you will receive one of the following descriptors:

In 2024, 38% of people achieved a band 3, which was the highest band proportion. The next highest was band 2 (36%), while band 1 and band 4 were each awarded to 13% of candidates.

Here are the situational judgment scores from recent years:

 How will my score be used?

As explained more in-depth in our free UCAT Universities Guide, your UCAT score will be used differently depending on the medical/dental school you are applying to. Some will use it to rank you against your fellow applicants, with only those achieving the top x% being given an interview. Other universities, however, apply an arbitrary cut-off mark, where, if you score below the cut-off mark, your application will not be progressed. Generally, however, most universities use your UCAT score as only one element of their selection process, considering all aspects of your application. With these universities, if you do not score as well as you had hoped for in your UCAT, it might be that your academics can help bolster your application and vice versa.

See our free UCAT Universities Guide for more helpful information in this respect.