Which UCAT subtest is the hardest?
Verbal Reasoning. In 2026 it had the lowest average, 602 out of 900, against 640 for Decision Making and 675 for Quantitative Reasoning. It also gives you the least time of the three scored subtests: 30 seconds a question.
Radiocarbon dating
Living things take in carbon throughout their lives, including a small amount of a radioactive form, carbon-14. When an organism dies, it stops taking in carbon, and its carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate. By measuring how much carbon-14 remains in a piece of wood, bone or cloth, scientists can estimate how long ago the organism died.
The method has limits. After about fifty thousand years, too little carbon-14 remains to measure reliably, so older material cannot be dated this way. The amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has also varied over time, so raw results must be calibrated against records of known age, such as tree rings counted year by year.
Contamination is a further risk. A sample that has absorbed newer carbon, for example from groundwater or from careless handling, will appear younger than it really is. Laboratories therefore clean samples carefully and often date several samples from the same site.
Archaeologists also stress that the method dates the death of the organism, not the use of the object. A beam cut from an old tree, or reused from an earlier building, may give a date earlier than the building in which it was found.
Statement: A beam reused from an older building could make the building it was found in seem older than it is.
The worked answer
Statement: A beam reused from an older building could make the building it was found in seem older than it is.
Answer: A: True
- The method dates when the tree died, “not the use of the object”.
- A reused beam “may give a date earlier than the building in which it was found”: True.
Every subtest in 2026
| Subtest | Average | Top 10% from | Seconds each |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verbal Reasoning | 602 | 710 | 30 |
| Decision Making | 640 | 760 | 63 |
| Quantitative Reasoning | 675 | 820 | 43 |
The same order held in 2025: Verbal Reasoning 602, Decision Making 628, Quantitative Reasoning 661.
Why VR scores lowest
- 44 questions on reading passages, in 22 minutes.
- True, False or Can't Tell turns on one word: some, all, only.
- There is no time to read every passage in full.
The method: UCAT Verbal Reasoning strategy
Your hardest subtest
The average is not you. Sit one timed mock and fix the subtest where you lost the most marks first.