UCAT Scoring

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Understanding the UCAT scoring

Key Things to Know About UCAT Scoring:

  • No negative marking: Make sure to attempt every question.
  • Complicated Statistical Analysis: Your scores are not just based on the number of questions you answer correctly known as the raw score, but it also involves various factors such as difficulty level of the question, Point Biserial Correlation Coefficient (PBCC), Item Response Theory (IRT), and relative scores with the other students.
  • From Raw to Scaled scores: The raw scores are converted to scaled scores, which range from 300-900 for each subtest, i.e., Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, and Quantitative Reasoning. The individual scaled scores are added up to provide a consolidated score, ranging from 900 to 2700.
  • Situational Judgement (SJ) Scoring: It’s important to note that the Situational Judgement Test is scored separately and does not contribute to your total scaled score for the cognitive subtests. SJT scoring involves assessing how your responses align with those of a panel of experts. You will receive a separate score and often a band ranking for this section.

You’ll be graded with one out of the four bands by the panel of healthcare experts.

Band 1: Excellent Performance

Your responses were consistently in line with the panel of experienced healthcare professionals and are considered to be the most appropriate actions in the given scenarios.

Band 2: Good Performance

Many of your responses aligned well with the model answers, indicating a strong situational judgement and professional behaviour in healthcare scenarios.

Band 3: Modest Performance

Your responses showed notable deviations from the model answers, indicating areas where your understanding of appropriate professional behaviour may need further development.

Band 4: Low Performance

This band indicates a low level of performance in situational judgement.

Note: It is important to score within the top three bands in your SJ test as many universities do not consider and reject applications with a band score of 4.

More about the scoring models used by Pearson VUE:

1. Point Biserial Correlation Coefficient (PBCC):

The PBCC model plays a vital role in ensuring the quality of the UCAT:
  • A low PBCC for a question can indicate a problem with that question. For instance, if high-achieving test takers in a subtest consistently get a question wrong, or vice versa, then the PBCC for that question will be likely low.
  • The UCAT always uses questions with a high PBCC (typically ≥ 0.3), which shows a strong link between overall performance in the subtest and success on that specific question.

2. Differential Item Functioning (DIF)

  • This ensures that questions perform similarly across different subgroups of test-takers, promoting fairness.
  • DIF occurs when students of similar age or same skill set have different probabilities of answering the same question correctly. UCAT tries to keep the DIF to the lowest level in order to conduct a fair and unbiased test.

3. IRT - Rasch Modelling:

  • The UCAT marking specifically uses Rasch modelling, which is a concept under IRT. Rasch models mainly focus on questions of equal discrimination. The probability of a correct response in this model depends only on the test-taker’s ability and the item’s difficulty.