UCAT: Section 2 (Understanding People)

Section 2 of the UCAT primarily deals with understanding and empathising with different types of people in various scenarios. The key skill being tested in this section is your emotional intelligence, which is central to UCAT Situational Judgement questions. In other words, how good you are at placing yourself in other people’s shoes in order to understand how they might feel, think or act. Some questions may also ask you to explore a person’s attitude or motives in various scenarios. As a general rule, there are 3 broad categories of questions. These are:

1. Dialogues

2. Passages

3. Reflections

Dialogues are a conversation between two or more people. Questions here will usually focus on how people feel after something is said to them. Passages are texts where you have to interpret the actions of the people involved. Questions here may ask you to suggest what might happen after the described scenario. They may also ask you to explain a person’s motive for a certain action within the scenario. Finally, reflections focus on an individual’s thoughts and feelings about certain events. Questions here usually ask you to describe how the individual is feeling over the course of the reflection. A dialogue, passage or reflection can revolve around an almost limitless number of scenarios. However, these scenarios can be broadly split into medical and non-medical scenarios.
 

Medical Scenarios

Medical scenarios usually consist of:

• A doctor’s relationship with their patient

• A doctor’s relationship with a patient’s family member/friend

• A doctor’s relationship with a nurse or other medical staff

Questions for these scenarios may ask you to empathise with the patient and describe how they may be feeling (e.g. after an operation). On the other hand, they may also ask you to suggest how a doctor should act when delivering bad news or discussing sensitive information about the patient. These scenarios are especially relevant if you are sitting the UCAT for medicine, because they reflect the communication and empathy skills expected in healthcare.
 

Nonmedical Scenarios

Nonmedical scenarios are understandably much broader. However, common topics include:

• A parent’s relationship with their child

• A person’s relationship with their friend

• A person’s relationship with their partner

• A student’s relationship with their teacher

Similar to medical scenarios, the questions will primarily ask you to focus on the behaviour, thoughts, feelings, attitudes and/or motives of one or more people in the scenario.
 

General tips for both scenarios

Now for some tips. Let’s start with the basics. UCAT 2026 is a time constrained test, so understanding UCAT timing across each subtest is important. So just like UCAT Verbal Reasoning, I recommend reading the question before reading the text. This will allow you to read the irrelevant parts of the passage faster and focus more of your time on the relevant parts. Another thing I would recommend is to approach each scenario with an open mind. An interesting proverb I was once told was “honest people see honesty in others”. I think this is quite a good mindset to have for Section 2 as you are more likely to get the right answer if you try to see the best in others when reading these scenarios.

And that’s it! You should now have a clearer understanding on what to expect in Section 2 of the UCAT exam. If you would like extra practice alongside your study, GradReady’s free UCAT resources can help you consolidate these strategies. Best of luck with your UCAT preparation!