Blogs

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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9th April 2025
What is HPAT 2026?
HPAT stands for Health Professionals Admission Test. It is one of two main criteria used by most universities in Ireland to select students into high demand health related careers such as medicine (the other being the Leaving Certificate). Unlike traditional school and university exams which assess knowledge, HPAT assesses generic skills, including logical reasoning and problem solving ...
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7th April 2025
How to Prepare for the HPAT in 5th Year
So you’re in 5th year and you’re thinking about pursuing a career in medicine. You’ve been getting great grades and you have 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 can be a major obstruction to your journey, and only a select few are able to succeed in HPAT. You hear about all the peop ...
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23rd February 2025
HPAT is Over! What Now?
For the few weeks leading up to the HPAT in February, it can seem like the entire world revolves around it. Working on full exam HPAT mocks, HPAT guides and the Question Bank becomes your priority! Often you put off worrying about day-to-day issues until after the day of the HPAT. So, when the test date does roll around, and you walk away from your computer with your head held high, having ...
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14th February 2025
A Student’s Experience Sitting HPAT Online 2025 (Plus Some Tips!)
I just sat HPAT 2025 online – and what a relief to have it over with! Overall it was as I expected with no major surprises, having done practice exams on MedEntry’s online platform. Check in process The check in process was similar to what was outlined in the ProctorU video emailed to us by ACER. I logged into the ProctorU site a little early, and when th ...
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10th February 2025
Top 10 HPAT Tips for the Last 24 Hours
So, your HPAT testing day is nearly here and you’ve been working up to it consistently. Now it’s time to put your HPAT strategies into practice. Here’s some advice to help you be at your prime in the last 24 hours leading up to the HPAT: Relax the Day Before Spend the day before doing something you enjoy, something relaxing, something fun and something th ...
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8th February 2025
HPAT Nutrition
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 thi ...
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