How to score well in UPCAT without spending a fortune

 You see a lot of ads these days – some in front of schools, some in front of tutorial centers – about UPCAT preparation. Some signs are posted on meralco posts, too.

They mean one thing: HS seniors are  preparing now for the UPCAT in August.

 You’ll be surprised to know that some tutorial centers will charge an astronomical fee for attending a class with a dozen or so reviewers listening to the same lectures given to you in your high school. OK, if you can afford it, go ahead. It won’t hurt, but you’ll be spending good money.

 What you need now is a rigorous test preparation, not listening to lectures.

Just as tennis players prepare for tournaments by playing tennis, just as runners prepare for marathons by running, you should be preparing for tests by taking tests.

 That is what you have to do: take tests, and more tests.

 And you are better off doing it online, where simulated tests are timed, and your scores immediately shown, and your averages are taken so you could see your progress.

 Try it now. Go to www.prep4college.net and take tests for 15 days FREE.  Take unlimited tests in all subjects and get your test averages. After 15 days, you can tell us if you need more time.

 Online test preparation at www.prep4college.net is the best way to prepare for UPCAT without spending a fortune.

Vacation is over. Start preparing for UPCAT now!

Ok.   You're back now from a great time at the beach. Time to get  real now. Time to start thinking about themore serious thing of preparing for college. If you're thinking UP, Ateneo, or De La Salle, you'd better start thinking of passing their college admission tests (CATs)

UPCAT is scheduled on August, 5 months from now. Depending on your "mental condition" now, you may need anything from 5 months to 1 month.

If you've been a pretty good student in high school, you could get by with a month of intensive test preparation. Otherwise, if you barely passed your English, math, and science courses, 5 months may not even be enough, sorry.

First thing to do now is to find out how well-prepared, or how ill-prepared you are. And the best way to find out is to test yourself. Testing doesn't only mean finding out if you can solve problems in algebra or geometry.  Like other CATs, UPCAT is a timed, i.e., you have something like 5 hours to complete it. So you need to find out too how quickly you can come up with answers. In other words, you need to take simulated tests, which puts you in time pressure.

And where do you go for this kind of testing?

Well, sign up for a FREE 15-day trial period at prep4college  ( www.prep4college.net), the online test preparation. Take lots of tests for 15 days. At the end of the period, you'll know your test scores and averages in major test subjects. You'll get a good picture of your current state of preparation, and you can decide whether to sign up for  a longer review period or not.

Here's the link:  www.prep4college.net

Do your sons or daughters need to attend review centers to prepare for UPCAT?

 

 That depends on their present stage of preparedness.

 For those who have barely passed their  English, Math, and Science  courses in high school,  intensive review of the subject matter might be necessary.

 For those who already have sufficient familiarity with the subject,  review centers are not necessary.

What these students should be doing is to take simulated practice tests. Lots of tests. Daily. 

 Intensive, rigorous taking of simulated tests with time pressure is the best way to train. Review centers using this test preparation methodology will surely be helpful.

 But why pay thousands of pesos to review centers when a more accessible and more cost-effective test preparation is available online?

 Prep4college’s online test methodology prepares students for UPCAT with  the intense, repetitive taking of simulated tests. Simulated tests are drills, consisting of short ( 10 to 25 minute tests).

 They are the equivalent of “sparring sessions” boxers like Pacquiao engage in during their intensive training weeks before a match. 

 At prep4college, all tests are graded, and averages of the test scores in the 3 main courses are instantly displayed. Thus, you can see weekly or even daily the progress your son or daughter is making.

 Check it out at www.prep4college.net . Have your son or daughter try it out for FREE for 15 days.  After that period, we’ll send you a “report card” showing the student’s strengths and weaknesses. You can then decide whether he should go to a review center or not.

How to prepare for this year’s UPCAT

If you are set to take the UPCAT on August this year, what should you be doing now?

Should you be reviewing grammar? Arithmetic? Algebra?

And where will you start? Go back to the text book or workbook and review concepts and theories?

Test preparation must be methodical, so you don’t waste time. It must be rigorous like a good workout in the gym or on the road. You can’t just hit the books aimlessly and re-read chapters you went through before – in your first, second, or third year high school.

Here is a suggestion.

Go and take practice tests. Now.  Take tests which are automatically graded.  Test booklets which have correct answers at the back are not good enough, because there is  always the temptation to peek. Not only that, but you will be taking tests which are not timed. UPCAT is a timed test ( it runs for 5 hours),  you must solve problems and answer test questions in the given time. You may finally solve a problem, but if it took you 15 minutes to solve one word problem in algebra, you won’t have time for the others.

So the tests you take must be graded (i.e., test scores should be immediately available), and you must take them under time pressure. In other words, you must take simulated tests, tests which will prepare you for the actual pressure you will face in the real UPCAT.

When you take simulated tests, your scores will identify your strengths and weaknesses.

You could be good in some fractions and percentages, but weak in word problems in algebra. Or you could be scoring well in chemistry but not in physics. By taking tests, you will know that topics to spend a lot of review time on.

There is one website where you can take simulated tests. Go to www.prep4college.net , register, and start taking tests for two weeks. It won’t cost you anything. There are tests in reading comprehension, tests in grammar, and in math and science subjects. Each test you take is timed, and will be scored. After two weeks, you will see your grade averages, and you will know what your state of preparation is right now.

Here’s the link to the best available online test preparation for UPCAT:  www.prep4college.net.

How much time do you need to prepare for UPCAT?

 

How much time does one need to prepare for a tennis match, or a 10K fun run?

Well, that depends on how well conditioned you are for the event.

How much time do you need to prepare for the UPCAT?

Same answer: it depends on your present condition.

Remember that UPCAT runs for five hours, testing your verbal skills( English language proficiency and reading comprehension), quantitative skills (mostly  arithmetic and algebra) and knowledge of science ( mostly chemistry, biology, earth science, and  physics).

Do you have sufficient mastery of the subject matter?

If your grades in high school English, Algebra, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are just so-so or even just “average,” you may need more than several months of intensive, repetitive taking of practice tests.

UPCAT test dates are August  4 and 5 this year; you have just 5 months to review and take practice tests.

If your grades are fantastic, if  you  are a consistent honor student, well, maybe you can spend a  month frolicking in the beach and partying at night. But you will still need maybe a month or two of intensive test taking.

Want to know how prepared you are right now? Go to www.prep4college.net and take practice tests for a week or two. At the end of the two week period, we will grade you in specific subjects and give you an assessment. If you  take enough practice tests for two weeks, you will know what your state of preparedness is.

Sign up now for FREE.  Prep4college is the best available online test preparation for UPCAT.

Now is the best time to prepare for UPCAT

The other day, Pag-asa officially declared the start of summer. Hot days  from hereon.  Final exams in mid-March. The school year ends. Lent on the first week of April. Vacation time!

Who wouldn't want to trek to Baguio to escape Manila’s oppressive heat?

Or  schedule beach holidays in Boracay?  When the semester ends, the fun begins for many students.

But for some, summertime is the time to get serious. Serious preparation for the tough UPCAT. While others are jumping into the waters of Matabungkay or Nasugbu, or mountaineering in Mindanao, others are deep into algebra, English language, trigonometry, and arithmetic.

Those are the guys planning to enter UP in school year 2013-14. For them, now is the best time to start preparing for UPCAT, and not when school term starts again in June. Without homework and the distraction of daily classes, serious students can devote a few hours a day to reviewing their algebra, geometry, and arithmetic.

UPCAT test dates are on August 4 and 5 this year. That  leaves only 5 months to prepare.

Those who have nothing but fun in mind this summer will find that when they begin their preparation in June, they will have barely two months left  before the test dates.  Believe me, two months won't be enough.

So look far ahead. Unless you have been passing your math and English subjects with great grades, 5 months may even be too short!  OK, go to Bora and enjoy. Have fun.

But come back  after a week and get real serious…… if you’re serious about going to the country’s premier university.

And just so you’ll have some idea how the UPCAT looks like, check out www.prep4college.net , the best online test preparation available. Try it  for 15 days, and have a feel of what it would take to pass the UPCAT and qualify for admission into UP.

What it takes to enter UP

Two things will determine whether you can be admitted to UP  or not : performance in the UPCAT and 2) the  weighted average of final grades obtained in the first three years of high school.

The top-ranking applicants, based on the quota and cut-off grade set by each campus, will qualify.

Let’s say you qualify for admission in a particular UP campus, say, UP Manila or UP Mindanao.  Your next problem is getting accepted in the college in that campus offering the course program you want to enroll in. 

You could be qualified to enter a UP campus, but you still must find a course program that will accept you.And if you don’t have very good grades when you graduate from high school, you will have to make up for that by doing very, very well in the UPCAT.

To help you do very well in UPCAT, check out the online test preparation at www.prep4college.net. It will surely boost your  test performance, and make up for your grades in high school, if they weren't all that great.

Apply in UP, Ateneo, and La Salle

Cast a wide net.

No matter how great a student you think you are, don’t think of applying only in your No. 1 choice of college.

In the first place, you can never be sure you can be admitted to your “ first choice” school. So many things can happen to upset that plan.  At UP for example, you can score very well in UPCAT, but if the quota for the college that is offering your course is filled up, and you are dead set on that course program, you may want to take that up at Ateneo or La Salle instead.

For example, if it’s business admin you want, and the quota in UP is filled up, and you don’t want to take up economics or engineering or whatever your second choice of program is, you may just want to get into La Salle which has also a very good business administration program.

So the smart way is to apply to the top 3 – UP, Ateneo, and La Salle – and to pass all the CATS. If you are admitted, then you can carefully consider relevant factors such as the cost of tuition, the daily commute to and from the school (commuting across metromanila is  just godawful), the kind of campus environment, quality of student services, availability of financial assistance, how strong the alumni is ( a factor in getting employed after graduation), and whatever else matters to you  (you should consider the kind and quality  of students you will have for classmates).

So cast a wide net. Don’t just apply in one. The really smart people prepare for all three  CATs.

Go to www.prep4college.net , the online site that prepares you only for UPCAT, but also for Ateneo’s College Entrance Test ( ACET) and La Salle’s Freshman Entrance Exam (FEE).

Choosing a college for your son or daughter: UP, Ateneo, or La Salle?

As a parent, you’d really want to send your son or daughter to the best college. Identifying the best schools in the Philippines is easy. UP, Ateneo, and La Salle are  unquestionably the top three. But remember that your son or daughter is not enrolling in a university, he or she will be enrolling in a specific college or institute of a university, so the question of which university is best for your son or daughter is better framed this way: which university offers the best academic program for the course chosen.

Say your daughter wants to take up accounting. Which of the top 3 are known  for their accounting programs?  If you go by CPA board results, it would seem UP and La Salle appear superior to Ateneo ( this is just an opinion).  But if your daughter wants to take up math as a major, then Ateneo or UP looks better than La Salle ( again, this is just perception).

Now, if your son wants to take up computer engineering, UP would be top choice.

In short, it all depends on the specific course program.

The public perception is that La Salle is tops in business management, UP in engineering, and Ateneo for social sciences.

But then again, there are other factors that should weigh in. If “affordability” is critical, then UP is your first choice,  since its tuition fees are practically a small fraction of what it costs to send a son or daughter to La Salle and Ateneo.  No question there: Ateneo and La Salle are tops in matriculation costs.

But whichever school you’d choose for your son or daughter, he or she must pass either the UPCAT of UP, the Ateneo College Entrance Test, or the Freshman Entrance Exam of De La Salle University.

And the best way to prepare for any and all of these admission tests is to enroll at prep4college,  the top  test preparation website (www.prep4college.net).

What is this UPCAT?

What is the UPCAT?       

 
According to the UP website  (www.up.edu.ph),  UPCAT,  arguably the toughest of all College Admissions Tests (CATs) in the Philippines,  is a five-hour examination consisting of subtests on Language Proficiency, Science, Mathematics, and Reading Comprehension.

Standardized scores on these subtests are combined with the weighted average of final grades in the first three years of high school to determine qualification in UP. 

 

But because UP is a public school supported by taxes, it implements a policy of democratization to make its studentry more representative of the country’s population by including socio-economic and geographical considerations in selecting applicants for acceptance.

For more information on the UPCAT, please contact:


                                   The Office of Admissions
                                   University of the Philippines
                                  1101 Diliman, Quezon City

Telephone Numbers: (+632) 9818500 loc. 3827, 3828, 3831
E-mail: oadms@up.edu.ph
Websites: UP Office of Admissions and UPCAT Online Application

Thinking of UP, Ateneo, or La Salle?

Thinking of  UP, Ateneo, or La Salle?

Why not? If you are serious about getting a college education that prepares you best for the career or job you have in mind, you are right to think about these schools. There is no question that these are the top three universities in the country, based on rankings made by  reputable organizations here and abroad.

Just like you, many, many others are thinking of getting into UP, Ateneo, or La Salle.

UP in particular.  If you’re thinking of UP, you will be competing against nearly 70,000 high school graduates! UP attracts the most number because it is the best among the top 3, and also because it charges the least expensive matriculation fees.

Same situation when a lot of guys are courting the  same pretty girl in your school.  The competition gets tough.

And that is why the CATs are very tough:  they’re designed to separate the best grads from the merely good.  Being “good” will not be enough, sorry.

So if you are really serious about getting into UP, Ateneo, or La Salle, you need to get serious about preparing for UPCAT and the admission tests given by Ateneo and La Salle.

If you are, check out  www.prep4college.net , the online preparation site designed to boost your test performance in these CATs.

Get serious, sure, but get real, too: you won’t make it without serious test preparation.