The UCAT Situational Judgement (SJT) guide.
SJT isn't a knowledge test — it checks whether your professional judgement matches how medical and dental schools expect a clinician to behave. Here's how it's scored and how to reason to the intended answer.
Situational Judgement presents realistic workplace scenarios — usually involving a student, trainee or junior colleague — and asks you to rate the appropriateness or importance of possible responses. It measures professional values, not intelligence, and it's reported separately from your cognitive score as its own scaled score.
What SJT actually measures
The subtest is built around the values expected of health professionals: patient safety, honesty and integrity, working within your competence, respecting others, and raising concerns appropriately. You're not asked what you personally would do — you're asked to judge responses against that professional framework. The right answer is the one a good clinician would endorse, which is often not the most comfortable or self-protective option.
How it's scored: a separate scaled score
In UCAT ANZ, Situational Judgement is reported as its own scaled score between 300 and 900 — separate from, and not added into, your cognitive total. (Note: the UK UCAT reports SJT in bands; the ANZ test uses a scaled score, so ignore any "Band 1–4" advice written for the UK.) Scoring rewards how closely your responses match the intended judgement, so a near-miss — rating something "appropriate but not ideal" instead of "inappropriate" — can still earn partial credit. Because it's reported separately, universities use it differently from the cognitive score: some as a genuine selection factor, others more as a check. Confirm how your target programs weight it on their own admissions pages.
- Patient safety comes first, always.
- Be honest — never cover up or mislead.
- Stay within your competence and escalate when unsure.
- Don't ignore a problem, and don't over-react past your role.
How to reason to the intended answer
Work from the principles, not your instinct. Anything that risks a patient, hides a mistake, or oversteps your role rates as inappropriate. Anything that addresses a concern directly, honestly and at the right level tends to rate well. The most common trap is the middle path that feels "diplomatic" but actually delays raising a genuine safety issue — politeness never outranks patient safety. Equally, don't leap to the most dramatic action (going straight over everyone's head) when a direct, proportionate step is available first.
Common questions
Can you study for SJT? +
Yes — not by memorising facts, but by learning the professional-values framework and practising enough scenarios that you reason from principles rather than gut feeling.
How is SJT scored? +
In UCAT ANZ it's reported as its own scaled score between 300 and 900, separate from your cognitive total, and rewards how closely your responses match the intended judgement — including partial credit for near-misses.
Does SJT count as much as the other subtests? +
It depends on the university. Some treat the SJT score as a real selection factor and others weight it less. Check each program's admissions page for how they use it.