The UPCAT test is conducted for the selection of students into the field of dental medicine, which include both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The bachelor of dental surgery is a five year duration course followed by a one year internship. The master’s program is of three year duration. The Association of Private Medical and Dental College of Uttar Pradesh is the authority for conducting of the UPCAT- dental and UPCAT MDS exams under the norms put forth by the honorable high court of UP. The UPCAT- dental exam is purely for the Indian candidates while foreign candidates are allowed for the post graduate entrance test.
Admissions to undergraduate courses require completion of 17 years at the time of joining and the basic eligibility criteria is a pass in higher secondary with a minimum of 50% marks for general category and 40% marks for reservation category. Those who have completed BDS successfully and those who possess a two year postgraduate diploma are able to appear for the postgraduate entrance exam. The PG diploma students can pursue their MDS in the specialty they have already done. All these qualifications are of value when they are given by colleges under the Dental Council of India. At the time of admission of all the required original documents have to be submitted to the authorities.
The UPCAT exam as the name suggests, is conducted by the state body, but the medium of examination is in English only. The application forms for the tests are available at the reputed dental colleges of UP. There is also a possibility to download brochure and other details from the official website. The requisite amount of fees has to be paid through bank draft and duly filled application has to be sent to the Association of Private Medical and Dental Colleges of UP. The month of June is the most likely period for conducting UPCAT exam.
The syllabus for the undergraduate entrance exam covers the detailed topics in Physics, Chemistry and Biology of grades 11 and 12. As this is a medical entrance more attention should be given to biology followed by the other two. There is chance for application level questions as well so intensive understanding of the subjects is a must. There is a lot of information on the website of the UPCAT on how to prepare UPCAT. The MDS entrance test is based on BDS subjects in detail.
The UPCAT- dental consists of 200 multiple choice questions with three hour duration. The questions covers the four sections, Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology with 50 each. There is no negative marks for wrong answers and for marking multiple answers to the same question. The correct answer is to be found out from the four choices provided and are to be shaded in the OMR sheets using black ball point pen or an HB pencil as mentioned in the instruction given in the examination answer sheet. The PG entrance test is for 100 marks with 100 multiple choice questions. This two hour paper has got negative marking for the wrong answers.