MedEntry Blog

At MedEntry, we are committed to continuous improvement and constantly strive to improve the services we offer our hard working students. Our Learning Management System is all about  you  and this feature is another way we personalise your HPAT training.   Retry your incorrect exam questions   Once you have completed a practice exam on the LMS, you can now re-attempt any questions that you answered incorrectly!   To retry an exam:   1. Click on the Practice Exams icon in the HPAT course (accessible by clicking the HPAT link in the menu on the top of each page):   2....

There are a wealth of resources available to you on the LMS. You can check your progress by visiting the Check Progress page, either by clicking on the icon on the homepage of the LMS or by clicking on the icon next to the ‘Check’ section under HPAT resources:      When you arrive on the Check Progress page, you can view your progress with the practice exams or drills by clicking on the relevant tab:   Practice exams You will see a drop down list of your HPAT exams and information about their completion. Click on the drop-down arrow...

The final school year is a stressful time. Add in HPAT and the pressures of getting into medicine, and stress levels can rapidly sky rocket. As a parent it is easy to succumb to feelings of powerless as you watch your son or daughter struggle to prepare for such an important and difficult exam. However, there are many things you can do to boost their performance and have a positive impact on their wellbeing.  1. Provide a sound working environment  HPAT is a two and a half-hour test requiring extreme concentration. The best way to prepare is to complete full length...

Many students who have scored 100th percentile in the HPAT have said that preparing for HPAT is like preparing for a marathon. There are many similarities: they both require significant motivation, consistent practice over a period of time and a clear head under pressure. Not to mention that for many people both a marathon and the HPAT are the hardest challenges they have faced so far in their lifetime. So what can we learn from marathon runners that will help us prepare for the HPAT? Step 1: Develop muscle In the HPAT you will have a limited amount of time...

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOMTZ7PPLg  discusses a time management strategy that has changed many people’s lives (including mine!). It discusses time management in the context of the workplace, but the strategy is applicable to HPAT and high school/university study too. This blog summarises the key points.  As Mark Twain said, if the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that’s probably the...

As many of you would have noticed, HPAT preparation takes time. And I mean a LOT of time! It’s often overwhelming trying to get those HPAT practice exams you’d promised yourself to get done as well as study for that first chemistry quiz if you’re in 6th year, or keep up with your GAA training.    In many cases, students often lose time, confidence and their interest in HPAT since it simply adds to their already overwhelming workload. So before you start stressing about the upcoming HPAT exam, let’s just take a quick look at how you can manage studying...

For some people sitting HPAT, those nerves may not hit until the day of or the night before HPAT. We get butterflies in the stomach and perhaps even the need to vomit. These feelings are natural and can even help us to do better. But, for those of us who have difficulty handling the nerves, there are a few simple things to do to minimise them. Make sure you have everything that you need in advance A few days before the HPAT, read through the admission ticket and instructions and make sure that you have everything you need. Print out...

Most people find sitting the HPAT a nerve racking, stressful experience, but that does not mean you should allow those nerves to get the best of you.  There are some simple ways to help you get through this period and come out feeling great about your chances.  Take some of the pressure off of yourself.  If you’re anything like me, you expect a lot from yourself and that can result in a large amount of unnecessary pressure. That pressure can prove to be your undoing, but there are simple ways in which to take some of that pressure off. Remember...

With the exception of the Non-Verbal Reasoning component (section three), HPAT is primarily comprised of written – rather than pictorial – questions. Thus, it stands to reason that your HPAT preparation should include improving your reading skills. With that in mind, here are some of the many strategies you can use to develop your reading efficiency for HPAT.  Firstly, you must ensure that you read every single component of the stimulus, particularly for section two (Understanding People). A past HPAT stimulus, for example, described a middle-aged man. This information was included in the introductory stem of the stimulus, but nowhere...

Your final year is a juggling act between all-important tests and exams with your other commitments, be it sport, music or a part-time job. On top of this, you have to squeeze in quality time for your family, friends and personal relationships. Well, once you leave this final year, you may find the added pressures of medical school can be overwhelming at times! Here are my trialled-and-tested tips for reining in the chaos that University can be at times. Honestly, if someone had given me these three pointers in my first few weeks at university, it would have made the transition...

Preparation is key for any exam, and UMAT preparation is no different. But we’ve all had that horrible experience when the nerves hit, and all that preparation is thrown out the window because your brain is more interested in stressing itself out than answering the exam questions. But you can, of course, prepare for that too. 1.    Practice Since I’m supposed to be telling you what to do when it feels like preparation isn’t working, you might not expect a synonym for “preparation” to be the top tip. But it is, so hear me out. Nothing is as reassuring...

There are many different approaches to problem-solving that have been established in psychology. Firstly, there’s the Thorndike paradigm, which involves blind trial and error 1 . More purposeful approaches are the Gestalt approach, and the cognitive approach. The Gestalt approach involves solving problems as a whole 2 . You see the problem, you see what you have, and then you try to see how everything fits together. If the question is routine, it’s very easy to figure it out. If it isn’t, well, sometimes you gain insight, but sometimes you come up with an idea based on what you’ve encountered...

Have I prepared enough for HPAT? As school assessments begin to pile up and the date of the HPAT exam looms closer, this one question can create great anxiety. As a MedEntry workshop helper, questions like, “when did you start preparing for the HPAT?” and “how much practice did you do every night?” are amongst the most frequent that I receive. With such a high-stakes exam like the HPAT, it can often feel like no amount of preparation is enough. This feeling can become increasingly dominant as the exam approaches, and you may find yourself ‘hitting a wall’ with your...

For many students, HPAT preparation begins with enrolling in a HPAT tuition program such as MedEntry. But boy, there sure is a lot of stuff on here, isn’t there? How exactly should you use all of the resources, such as Practice Exams, Drills and Eureka? In this post, I’ll share how I navigated the MedEntry LMS to ultimately achieve 100th percentile in the HPAT.   The HPAT is such an important of your application to medical school. Obviously it is unfeasible to spend as much time on the HPAT as you do on schoolwork, so I found that treating the...

The new LMS provides even easier access to your HPAT video guides. Simply click on the blue ‘Video Guides’ icon under the ‘Learn’ category to access all of your HPAT preparation video guides. On the LMS you will find video guides that cover all three HPAT sections: Logical Reasoning and Problem Solving, Understanding People and Non-Verbal Reasoning. You will also find specific guides covering particular types of question, for example, Pick the Middle, Missing Segment, and the new Transformation type of question in the Non-Verbal Reasoning section. Challenging concepts in HPAT will be tackled and explained in detail. These HPAT...

Preparing for the HPAT is similar to preparing for a marathon: it requires training, preparation and strategies to optimise your performance on the test day. Just as an athlete prepares for a major sporting event, so you must prepare yourself to sit HPAT, which is one of the most important exams that you will face in your career. We can learn much from athletes about optimising performance in HPAT, as outlined in this TED talk by Martin Hagger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG7v4y_xwzQ This talk discusses how highly successful athletes prepare themselves before a competition. The main points are summarised below, with an emphasis...

So you ’ re in 5th year of secondary school and thinking about pursuing a career in medicine. You ’ ve got great grades as well as the people skills to become a doctor, so there should be no problem getting in. Then you find out about the HPAT. You hear that it is a major obstruction to your journey, and only a select few are able to succeed in it. You hear about all the people who have done poorly despite studying so hard. You may even hear about the people who passed that didn ’ t do much...

Does the thought of HPAT day make you cringe and consider hiding in your room? That ’ s how I felt in the weeks that led up to HPAT. Being a student in my final year of high school I had rarely been in a position where I was sitting an exam which was so important for determining my future career pathway. Sure I had been through many school exams and academic competitions, but I felt that no test or assignment I had previously completed could compare to the importance of the HPAT. In my fresh teenage eyes the HPAT...

Rather than assessing your knowledge, the HPAT is an exam which isolates certain deductive skills that will be important in work as a doctor and requires you to apply them in various scenarios. Therefore, if you wish to succeed in the HPAT, you will need to nurture these skills, sharpen them and know exactly when to use them. If your eager mind has begun this uphill climb towards HPAT success and if you have thoroughly scoured the LMS and still seek ways to better your logical reasoning, this guide will show you how.   Logical Reasoning & Problem Solving questions...

Medicine is largely a people-oriented career, which is one of the reasons HPAT tests how well you can understand people in a personal and professional setting. Whilst you can try to “study” for this section of the exam, the best way to develop and refine your interpersonal skills leading up to the HPAT is via emotional reflection and understanding certain concepts. ‘Understanding People’ questions will frequently require you to assign a specific emotion a person might be feeling at a given time. This blog will cover how to approach such a question methodically, in various steps.   STEP 1: Recognise...