So with all things going well you’ve arrived at the HPAT exam venue with plenty of time and well rested, ready to put all the knowledge you’ve gained from MedEntry to use. However, now you have to make it through the last short while before you sit down and start the HPAT test. Here’s five tips to help you survive. Go to the bathroom. Make sure you head to the loo not long before you are due to start the HPAT because the last thing you need is to have to take a bathroom break in an already time constraining...

Napoleon Bonaparte once famously said “an army marches on its stomach”, and that is as relevant for HPAT as it was for the French Armies that Bonaparte commanded. Making sure you put the right things into your body in the lead up to HPAT is vital to making sure that you perform well on the day of the test. I’m sure you are well aware of what a quality diet consists, so in this post I’ll serve up a couple of key tips for the immediate lead up to test day. The Night Before: As you would expect, the night before...

The HPAT is so commonly viewed as a test of intelligence and aptitude, that we forget how crucial it is to improve our mental endurance for this exam. In fact, the endurance required for the HPAT is much greater than that required for any end of year school exam. Not only is the HPAT as long as or longer than any school exam (2.5 hours), but the nature of each individual question requires much greater focus. This need for enhanced application to each question is due to our inability to draw upon a year’s worth of content and knowledge, as is...

1. The HPAT is an aptitude test so you can’t prepare for it. Wrong! Preparation for the HPAT is key. Not only is it extremely important to complete practice exams and HPAT style questions, the MedEntry guidebooks and video guides are vital in helping students develop the necessary mind-set and techniques to tackle the HPAT. You wouldn’t walk into a Leaving Cert exam with no study done so why should you walk into the HPAT without any preparation?   2. You can cram for the HPAT. This is a serious no no. Cramming in the week before the HPAT is the...

What is HPAT? HPAT stands for Health Professions Admission Test. It is a test developed by ACER and used to help select students into medicine, and other competitive health science courses at university. The HPAT consists of questions in three main categories: Logical Reasoning and Problem Solving, Understanding People and Non-Verbal Reasoning.   What courses require HPAT? The following courses require HPAT:   University Course Trinity College Dublin Undergraduate Medicine University College Dublin Undergraduate Medicine Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Undergraduate Medicine University College Cork Undergraduate Medicine National University of Ireland, Galway Undergraduate Medicine University of Limerick MSc Occupational Therapy MSc...

After completing a practice exam on the MedEntry Learning Management System (LMS), you will now be able to view/print a detailed report on your exam performance in comparison to other MedEntry students. The report can be accessed by clicking the "View Report Card" link on the exam attempt solutions page, or under "View Solutions" on the exam summary page: Some of the details in this report include: Your overall exam grade and percentile ranking, in comparison to other MedEntry students. Your grade and percentile ranking for each of the exam constructs (Logical Reasoning and Problem Solving, Understanding People, and Non-verbal Reasoning): Details on your...

One thing I found extremely useful on the days coming up to, and the day of the HPAT was the knowledge that I was confident with my exam timing. Whilst you have no control over the questions that will appear on the HPAT on the day, you have complete control over your timing. This sense of control can help to ease your nerves on the day of the exam, and prove extremely useful in keeping calm throughout the HPAT. Time management also increases the chance of you finishing the HPAT exam… remember, if you do not attempt a question you have...

You may have heard that stress negatively impacts on performance. You may have been told that if you are too stressed in the lead up to an important exam such as HPAT, you won’t do well. You may have been advised to look for ways to relieve your stress. While this may be true, in some cases trying to get rid of stress can actually cause you to become more stressed. A different approach, which might sound crazy at first, is to embrace your stress. The following three strategies will not only help you manage stress, but will also boost your...

This impending Saturday is without a doubt one of the most terrifying – yet unusual days of the year. Throughout the past years, I have uttered the phrase “The HPAT is a game” innumerous times, and now, on the brink of becoming an actual doctor (finally!) and exiting the world of HPAT, I thought I’d pass on my suggestions for this game. Suggestion 1: Your mood is your top priority. The HPAT is designed in such a way that your mood greatly impacts your performance. Why? Because it’s an exam of emotions, of empathy and of understanding. Feeling stressed/anxious/overwhelmed will ultimately...

Students often find non-verbal reasoning questions the most difficult initially, especially if they have never encountered them before. Here are a few tips to help tackle these questions from an experienced HPAT tutor.  Tip 1: Keep it Simple. Non-verbal reasoning questions will require you to find the most simple and logical answer. It may feel like the questions are out to trick you, and that may lead to you trialling overly complex rules. However, in many situations, the simple pattern is the correct pattern. Having this in mind will help form your approach to the questions. For example, if you have...

To some lucky people it comes easy, but for many this is the section with some of the most difficult questions in the exam. Whether you are just starting your HPAT preparation or are deep in your practice so far, the following tips from an experienced tutor who scored highly in this section should help you maximize your score: Firstly, read the introductory text included in the passage.  • This appears before the actual body of the passage and is often written in italics or brackets. Although this may seem like an obvious tip, many students don’t take the time to read...

Looking for some tips on how to improve your score in Logical reasoning and Problem solving?  Terrified by long passages with scientific jargon and perplexing puzzles? Worried about running out of time? Remember the following advice and you’ll be well on your way to maximising your score.    1. Read the question stem first This construct can often be time-consuming due to lengthy passages that may contain complex ideas or complicated technical terms. Although it might be tempting to start reading the passage straight away, it’s always a good idea to read the question stem first. Sometimes, you’ll be able to...

Your venue for the HPAT can become a very scary place very quickly. While being academically prepared is extremely important for HPAT, it is also useful to know what to expect when you get to the venue. Firstly, you’ll see a range of different students at the HPAT venue – while some are great to have a conversation with before the exam commences; others, not so much: 1. The Downplayer – This is a student who will consistently talk about how they have not done any practice for the HPAT, keep reinforcing that they’re going to fail and claim to have...

Life isn’t the only thing full of surprises. The upcoming HPAT exam could hold a range of new, never-before-seen questions and it is important to know how to deal with these in an exam situation.  The first step is to identify these types of questions in reading time. When looking through your HPAT exam booklet, mentally note these questions and have them simmering away in the back of your mind. By doing so, you’ll be better prepared for these “surprises” and less likely to panic when you go on to attempt these questions. When writing time begins, start doing the questions...

In last year's HPAT, there were some changes to non-verbal reasoning questions in the HPAT. Although the structure, number of questions and broad types of questions were the same (pick the middle, missing segment, next in the sequence etc) there were three main differences: A few completely new question types that had not previously appeared in the HPAT A different approach to pick the middle questions required compared to previous years’ HPAT A shift towards more positional type questions In this blog, we will briefly go through these changes and explain how MedEntry is updating our materials to ensure our students are well prepared for the...

ONLY 3 WEEKS TO HPAT - WHAT SHOULD I DO?   There are three weeks left until HPAT! Are you completely freaking out? Feeling utterly under-prepared? Never fear! These 4 simple steps are sure to make you ready for any HPAT question thrown at you.   Practice ACER exams and read their worked solutions. ACER offers 3 full-length practice exams; these are a must-do before the exam! They are a little bit easier than your average MedEntry exam, so they are great for that last minute confidence boost. ACER also gives you worked solutions to every question, which lets you see...

This article is written from the point of view of a student sitting the UMAT, which is the Australian/New Zealand equivalent of the HPAT. The main difference is that the UMAT is 134 questions and 3 hours long with the 3 constructs blended. So you HPAT students just keep that in mind as you read on................. If you’re a student who likes being prepared and in control, you’ve probably tried to imagine what the actual day of the UMAT will be like. You might be asking yourself some of the following questions – How early do I need to get there?...

To be mentally tough is to resist the urge to give up in the face of failure, to maintain focus and determination in pursuit of your HPAT goals, and to emerge from adversity even stronger than before. Everyone can benefit from strengthening their resilience skills.  Mental toughness comes from thinking like an optimist. People who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local and changeable. When in the face of adversity, try to say to yourself, “It’s going away quickly; it’s just this one situation, and I can do something about it.” Analyze your beliefs and emotions about...

Stereotype threat can affect the way students perform in the HPAT.  Some students are vulnerable to “stereotype threat.” This is being aware the group they belong to is often stereotyped as intellectually inferior. The fear of confirming the stereotype by doing poorly on a test actually creates an anxiety. It is this anxiety that poorly affects their performance on a test, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Consider this study conducted at Stanford:  A group of undergraduates — some athletes and some not — was given a test made up of questions from the Graduate Record Examination (G.R.E.), the admissions test for graduate...

Are you having a hard time motivating yourself to study for the HPAT? The tools we often reach for when we need to get ourselves moving are carrots (rewarding ourselves once a tough job is done) or sticks (depriving ourselves of something we want if we fail to do it). These are "extrinsic rewards". But such  extrinsic  rewards and punishments are not as effective as  intrinsic  ones. Intrinsic rewards come from your own person - you believe that if you do a certain thing, it will make you a better, more knowledgable person.  Here, six ways to find the intrinsic interest...