Blogs

2nd September 2025
5 Months Until HPAT
Five months until the HPAT testing period begins! Are you feeling overwhelmed or stressed by your workload this year? Stress is a common problem that affects all of us at some point in our lives, but is stress bad for you? According to Kelly McGonigal stress isn’t the problem, it’s the mind’s negative response to stress that’s the problem. McGonigal ex ...
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19th August 2025
HPAT Scoring Myths
Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on the internet and on forums about how HPAT scores are calculated. This blog will provide clarity and avoid you being misinformed! Myth #1: HPAT scores are based on raw marks Some people claim that your HPAT score or percentile ranking can be calculated from your raw score (the number of questions you got right). This is naïve a ...
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11th August 2025
Should I Attend a MedEntry HPAT Workshop?
MedEntry workshops have become famous over the years for their engaging, effective and enjoyable nature. You may be wondering whether you should attend a MedEntry HPAT workshop. The answer is a resounding yes! Here are three reasons why: 1. MedEntry HPAT Workshops are Comprehensive MedEntry HPAT workshops cover everything you need to know for HPAT success, including: ...
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7th August 2025
Attention Parents: 5 Ways to Help Your Son or Daughter Get Into Medicine
Great things never come easy. Medicine is an incredibly rewarding, secure, well paid and respected profession in Ireland. It's also the hardest course to get into. Furthermore, the final years of secondary school are a stressful and demanding time for your son or daughter, and the need to sit HPAT places additional pressure on them during this time. Thankfully there are ways ...
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24th July 2025
Why Is HPAT So Hard?
Most current medical students and doctors would agree that HPAT is probably the hardest and single most important test they ever sat in their career. Many students, especially those who do not prepare effectively, are shocked by the difficulty of HPAT. Some who do prepare become disillusioned by the difficulty of HPAT. So why is HPAT so hard? And what can you do about it? Read on! ...
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13th July 2025
Making Time for HPAT: Eat That Frog!
Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. – Mark Twain Brian Tracy’s 5 minute YouTube video discusses a time management strategy that has changed many people’s lives (including mine!). This strategy involves organising your tasks by priority. It discusses time management in the context of t ...
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1st July 2025
Didn’t Do Well in HPAT? Here’s How to Bounce Back in 4 Steps
The HPAT is one of the two criteria for undergraduate medicine in Ireland, often holding equal weighting to the Leaving Cert. There are many factors that can influence performance in HPAT, and receiving a lower mark than expected may feel like all our efforts have gone to waste. I’ve been there before, and although it may feel like the end of the world (I certainly felt that way), I can ...
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25th June 2025
HPAT Results: What to Do With Your CAO
HPAT results are usually released in late June. After months of waiting to find out your HPAT results, it can feel quite overwhelming to finally receive them! After all of the hard work and preparation for HPAT, everyone wants to get a great HPAT score. However, it is important to know what to do if things don’t go as well as you had hoped. It’s not the end of the world and if you ...
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15th May 2025
Distributed Practice and the HPAT: What You Need to Know Part 1
Over the last few years various catch-phrases have circulated in the education sector: “study smarter not harder”, "do less work for more reward” and others. They can seem too good to be true. Nevertheless, there is one system that eclipses all others in the research conducted, the widespread implementation and the unanimous praise it has received from sci ...
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4th May 2025
Everything You Need to Know About the HPAT
Do you want to study medicine in 2026? If so, you will need to sit the HPAT 2026. This blog describes everything you need to know about the 2026 HPAT. What is the HPAT? HPAT stands for Health Professions Admission Test. It is a test developed by ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research). HPAT is used to help select students into medicine in Ireland. The HPAT tak ...
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