Opinion on UMAT Test Style (1 Viewer)

[koreafantasy]

a) An IQ test where they measure your raw, natural talent and intelligence, and you cannot do anything to improve it? (like you were born straight and can't turn gay no matter how hard to try. Intelligence is a trait you are born with.)

OR


b) An exam where practise gets you far. Like the HSC.

People keep telling me its b) and i really hope it is. I really need peace of mind as I got in the 61st percentile and feel like complete junk and dont even want to tell my parents cause its embarrassing as fuck. I didn't even sign up for med nor i want to pursue it, I signed up for UMAT because i wanted to measure how smart i was. Therefore, I felt that practising for it skewed my actual raw ability so therefore i did no preparation to keep my result 'pure'.

So is the UMAT an accurate measurement of smartness or is it just a superficial 'practise-makes-perfect' test.

Thanks.

 

[HSC2014]

IQ tests do not measure "hereditary intelligence" imo

 

[Menomaths]

Practice makes perfect test, much like chess.

 

[nerdasdasd]

a) An IQ test where they measure your raw, natural talent and intelligence, and you cannot do anything to improve it? (like you were born straight and can't turn gay no matter how hard to try. Intelligence is a trait you are born with.)

OR


b) An exam where practise gets you far. Like the HSC.

People keep telling me its b) and i really hope it is. I really need peace of mind as I got in the 61st percentile and feel like complete junk and dont even want to tell my parents cause its embarrassing as fuck. I didn't even sign up for med nor i want to pursue it, I signed up for UMAT because i wanted to measure how smart i was. Therefore, I felt that practising for it skewed my actual raw ability so therefore i did no preparation to keep my result 'pure'.

So is the UMAT an accurate measurement of smartness or is it just a superficial 'practise-makes-perfect' test.

Thanks.

People who did not practice would generally have lower umat scores, so I would learn more towards a "superficial test".

 

[Medman]

It's a mixture of both. More so B in my opinion.

 

[Riproot]

As long as you have some sort of ability you can improve.

I know people who went from like 40th percentile to 90th+ in a year or two.

 

[AB940]

I wouldn't beat yourself up about it.
No, you aren't meant to prepare for IQ tests (not what the UMAT is, anyway) but that doesn't change the fact that many people do prepare for the UMAT and if you're accustomed to the question style you will most likely do better than someone who isn't. On a large scale this skews the results.

UMAT is indicative, not definitive. I've heard of people getting like 30th percentile one year and 90th the next. I definitely understand why its implemented but no testing system is without flaw and the UMAT certainly isn't an exception to that. It's of a similar format to many IQ tests based on the kind of questions they ask, but the results can't really be compared. I also think IQ tests are pretty ridiculous, to be honest. So yeah DW about it.

 

[Medman]

^Agreed

 

[kcwm]

I am already at uni and 21 years old, and I think this helped a lot in my umat result.

The umat isn't really the second option of the one you provided because there aren't any learning outcomes you can check off during study, but it isn't really like the first one because you need to think in a certain way to be able to do the test well, and you learn to think in that way.

In essence the umat is testing how efficiently you can identify the correct information and then accurately interpret that information to answer a given question, and it does this in three areas. I don't think I would have got the same UMAT mark had I done it in year 12, because I've learned how to think 'properly' in the sense of what the umat is testing.

But just from what I heard/overheard other people talking about on the day and afterwards, a lot of people just don't have the right methodology to answer the questions. Practice can help with this, but so much of what people do is just unfocused crap where they just throw themselves at questions over and over. I guess this could help in S3 a bit, but there's no point in just reinforcing the bad habits you might have in section 1 and 2. Reading widely is the best way to study for section 1, and it helps with S2 but really with S2 you either get it or you don't and that's just the way it is.