MedEntry Blog

Be under no illusions: the HPAT is the single hardest and most important test you will ever sit. This is a scary (and for some maybe terrifying) thought. So what can you do to make it less daunting? The answer may seem counter-intuitive: the best way to make HPAT seem do-able is to face it over, and over, and over again. How? By completing high quality, full length trial exams under timed conditions. HPAT is scary because it is so different to any other test you have done in school – it is much harder, much longer and much more...

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...

Some students who are preparing for HPAT wonder if they should get a private tutor for HPAT or attend weekly HPAT classes. Often this is because that is what they are used to doing in high school. But HPAT is very different to school and therefore requires a different approach. Here we suggest a much more effective (and much cheaper) way of preparing for HPAT: group study. The benefits of group study are well known: it is more social, more enjoyable and more effective, particularly for tests such as HPAT.  Extensive pedagogical research has shown that group study is far...

Are you all aboard the express train to Procrastination station? Are you experiencing a motivation crisis? Are you just about ready to give up?   Well you’re not going to give in to the internet, not this time. I am here to remind you WHY you should be studying for the HPAT right now.   1.     The HPAT is one test. If you do well in the HPAT, you will have significant leeway with your leaving cert results, which is not one test but a result based on a series of assessments and a number of different subjects over...

So you’re going into your final year of schooling, and you’re super duper set on being a doctor. There are lots of ways you can keep hold of medicine as a big picture throughout this long and sometimes arduous year. By putting some of these points into action now, you will increase your chances of getting straight into med, pump up your motivation over the year, and be an awesome doctor in the future!   ·          People – get amongst them! Medicine is all about the people. In your career you will interact with others from diverse backgrounds, and...

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...

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...

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...

So you’ve decided to spend x hours per week preparing for the UMAT. Well done on making a commitment! But it doesn’t end there. The next step is to squeeze as much as you can get out of those HPAT preparation hours. One way of doing this and making the questions work for you is to carefully review solutions. When going through HPAT practice questions, it’s very tempting to avoid reading the solutions for one reason or another. As someone who achieved 100th percentile in the HPAT, I’ll try to make a case for reading the solutions all the time....

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...

Keeping the balance is something we all struggle with in our final year of schooling, myself included. At the commencement of the year, I jumped into everything. Then, at the end of term one, I crashed, and in term two I tried to do nothing. Neither of these worked for me, and over the remainder of the year I learnt some important lessons about keeping the balance. Not only was I happier and more well-rounded as a result, I was also able to succeed in both HPAT and in my final exams.     The golden rule for staying well-rounded...

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...

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...

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.   1.     Practice ACER exams and read their worked solutions. ACER offers 3 full-length practice exams; these are a must-do before the exam! They ’ re a little bit easier than your average MedEntry exam, so they ’ re great for that last minute confidence boost. ACER also gives you worked solutions to every...

Organisations such as the ACER like to promote the myth that HPAT courses are a waste of money. This is because ACER has a hidden agenda. Newspapers like to run stories with headlines such as: “HPAT prep courses declared waste of money”, or “HPAT courses a waste of money”, or “Are HPAT preparatory courses time well spent or a waste of money?”, or “Private courses branded PreMed are a waste of money” etc. Such articles create apprehension, doubt and fear among students and parents, so newspapers publish them to sell more newspapers. Furthermore, those who have vested interests rally and...

HPAT preparation courses are run throughout Ireland leading up to the HPAT each February. A typical HPAT course will include: HPAT focused lectures, advice tips and strategies to ace the HPAT, a practice EXAM exam with results and feedback, as well as many additional resources for HPAT preparation such as trial HPAT papers, practice HPAT questions, HPAT guides and HPAT drills. Studying Medicine or Health Sciences in Ireland has become extremely competitive, particularly at institutions like the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI GALWAY), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Cork (UCC) and...