study tips for upcat

So you're staring down the UPCAT.

It feels like this huge, scary thing, and everyone has an opinion. Your tita says you need a review center. Your cousin says to just study your high school notes. It's a lot of noise.

Let's get a few things straight.

First, know how this works.

Your admission isn’t just your test score. It’s mostly your University Predicted Grade, or UPG. That number is 60% your UPCAT score and 40% your high school grades from Grade 8 to 11.

So yes, all those late nights studying for a random history quiz actually mattered. If your grades weren't great, the UPCAT is your chance to pull them up. But if you were a consistent honor student, you're walking in with a big advantage.

Don't study everything. Study the right things.

The test covers Science, Math, Language Proficiency, and Reading Comprehension. You can't master all of that in a few months. It's impossible. So you have to be smart about it.

Start with a diagnostic test. Seriously. Find one online and take it like it's the real thing. The point isn't to scare yourself; it's to find out where you're weak. If you bomb the math section but crush reading comprehension, you know where to spend your time. Stop reviewing what you already know.

For Science, focus on understanding the big ideas in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science, not just memorizing formulas. They want to see if you can apply concepts. And for Math, it's all about your high school fundamentals—algebra, geometry, that sort of thing.

Both the Language Proficiency and Reading Comprehension sections have questions in English and Filipino, so you have to be ready to switch back and forth. For the reading parts, a good trick is to read the questions first before you read the whole passage. It saves a lot of time.

The clock is your biggest enemy.

More people fail because they run out of time than because they don't know the material. You have to practice with a timer. Get used to the pressure of answering quickly.

Here's a true story. A friend of mine, let's call him Mark, is a genius. Top of his class, the works. He went into the UPCAT thinking he could just think his way through it. He burned almost ten minutes on a single, super-hard math problem near the start of the section. It was one of those questions about a 2011 Honda Civic driving between two points at some weird speed. He solved it, sure. But that meant he ran out of time to answer the last 15 questions, which were probably much easier. He didn't get his first choice.

Don't be Mark.

The rule is simple: go for the easy points first. A hard question isn't worth more than an easy one. If you're stuck on something for more than a minute, circle it, skip it, and come back if you have time.

On the day of the test...

The small things can make or break your day.

• Know where you're going. Visit the testing center a few days before so you're not scrambling and stressed on the morning of the exam.
• Sleep. Don't cram. An exhausted brain doesn't work well. Get a full night's sleep.
• Eat breakfast. But don't overdo it. You should absolutely bring snacks and a drink with you. There are no scheduled breaks.
• Bring a jacket. Test rooms are always freezing.
• Get there early. At least 30-60 minutes before your time slot. It gives you a buffer to calm down and get your head in the game.

When you're sitting there, read the instructions. Read them again. You don't want to be the person who loses points for shading the bubbles wrong.