Everything HPAT and medicine for 2010 (R1 points post #1247)

Calum196

I thought we could start a new thread for this for 2010...

Does anyone know what the story is with the UMAT preparation material ?, They have been saying that they are updating it for weeks now...

Anyway, who's applying to do the HPAT this year ? How are you feeling ?

clartharlear

Last year, a lot of people had the mistaken assumption that points for medicine would come significantly down, whereas I have the impression that only very few got in with under 550 points. If people realise that it's still just as hard (harder?) to get in, will fewer people bother with the HPAT?

IHeartChemistry

I'm goin for it, Feelin pretty good about it now, having said that give it 3 or 4 months time and I'll be freaking out probably... Practise test is pretty easy, apparenlty though the real one is way harder...so I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed!

Pinksocks

I going for the hpat but i doubt il get enough points in the LCor the hpat for that matter

Adventure

If you are good in honours maths & english you'll do fine in the HPAT.

Hopeful med applicant for 2010 here! The HPAT is on my 18th birthday this year, how annoying. Hope it goes well, otherwise I'll have to legally drown my sorrows. Going insane crunching numbers for potential HPAT/LC combos before realising I've no idea how I'll score in it!

HQvhs

Don't worry about the hpat. Don't even think of it until the day. Focus on LC points, at this stage they're the only thing you can possibly affect. And trust me, they are still the deciding factor in getting in. Easier said than done I suppose. Though I got in this year and focused on points. The only prep for hpat was to sit down with the practice book a few weeks beforehand. Other than that I set the hpat to one side until that Saturday.

CosmicLove

I wanna do medicine too!
I'm gonna sit the HPAT but tbh I doubt I'm gonna get the LC points.

A couple of my friends who are also interested in maths & I were discussing those HPAT prep courses/grinds at lunch one day. Apparantly they're really good, but really dear, so not really worth it.
Is anyone here taking them?

Goober2810

im hpoing to do medicine too id say i should get about 550 hopefully that'll be enough.

can any1 tell me how the test is marked, i've done the practise test. is there 110 questions on the real thing or what is the story?

HQvhs

Again, I can only speak from experience with doing the hpat last year, but the practice courses are a waste of time and money. Unless you spent a considerable portion of your time over a long period improving your logical reasoning etc. there is no way to materially improve your score.

There are 110 questions IIRC, but it isn't 1 mark for each correct answer you give. ACER give each question a weight depending on how many people got it correct, so an answer that few people got would be worth more than one that everyone got. As such, they can fit the results onto a bell curve where 150/300 will be the 50th percentile roughly. This also means results are comparable from year to year.
(Also, each section is worth 100 marks, and there are three sections)

Dubs

you can always tell who the first-timers are

Calum196

ACER is very keen on maintaining the bell curve. Once results are calculated, as per the weights and exclusions of some questions, they are scaled using a formula depending on the difficulty from year to year... I think we can be sure that percentiles will remain roughly the same.

One thing that could happen however this year is a substantially lower number of applicants, causing the bell curve to widen, a bit... after that it should remain constant from year to year.

LizT

CosmicLove wrote: »

I wanna do medicine too!
I'm gonna sit the HPAT but tbh I doubt I'm gonna get the LC points.

A couple of my friends who are also interested in maths & I were discussing those HPAT prep courses/grinds at lunch one day. Apparantly they're really good, but really dear, so not really worth it.
Is anyone here taking them?

Hey guys, just wanted to say prep courses are a complete waste of time and money. ACER have even admitted there's nothing you can learn from it and the medical times had a front page article supporting this statement a few weeks ago. All they do with you is time management - and you can figure that out from the info online anyway. I've done a HPAT (a slightly different one for entry into SLT up north) and I know from personal experience there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can learn for it. All you can do is be familiar with the layout of the paper and keep track of your timing.

Hope this helps!!

clartharlear

Well, ACER have been hired to provide a 'grind-proof' test, so it's less that they're "admitting" there's nothing you can learn from prep courses and more that they're "claiming" it.

I'm in two minds about the prep courses myself. They must be of wildly varying quality due to the secretive nature of the test for which they prepare. At least you know your maths teacher has passed maths exam and had some sort of maths teacher training. There is no quality/qualification assurance for HPAT training.

HOWEVER, I do disagree that there's nothing more than timing to be learned. Section One-wise, "Wide and critical reading"? What could be better than wide reading of critical reasoning questions and discussion thereof? Section Three-wise, I firmly believe that practice helps a lot.
Also, the provision to the student of a little bit more comfort and confidence walking into that exam hall can be priceless in some cases.

LizT

By all means, pay for a course if you truly think it will help you. I am speaking from personal experience when I say I don't think there's anything to be gained from it. If you have the natural aptitude you should be fine, if not then maybe medicine isn't the career for you.

However I do accept that some people feel the need to attend courses and grinds to give themselves a sense of security - fair enough, each to their own.

Judging by my school Medicine is still as popular as ever; a list was put up of people who want to do the HPAT and about 15 people have signed. That's like, nearly 10% of my whole year.

Trainee_Account

When applying as a mature student for entry into medicine. Am I right in saying that the RCS don't accept any mature students? Also do you need any grades in any leaving cert science subjects?

Does anyone know if the Radiography course in TCD takes in and mature students??

jumpguy

Medicine was and still is very popular.

Does anyone know when the HPAT practice test is released this year? Is the practice test changed every year? I could buy it this year, then next year and I'd have two different HPAT practice tests. It might be ungrindable...but I'd feel most comfortable if I had it done twice before the real deal.

shamoono

jumpguy wrote: »

Medicine was and still is very popular.

Does anyone know when the HPAT practice test is released this year? Is the practice test changed every year? I could buy it this year, then next year and I'd have two different HPAT practice tests. It might be ungrindable...but I'd feel most comfortable if I had it done twice before the real deal.

Only 3 questions from section 1 has been changed...everything else is the same as last years practice test

shamoono

lizt wrote: »

By all means, pay for a course if you truly think it will help you. I am speaking from personal experience when I say I don't think there's anything to be gained from it. If you have the natural aptitude you should be fine, if not then maybe medicine isn't the career for you.

However I do accept that some people feel the need to attend courses and grinds to give themselves a sense of security - fair enough, each to their own.

I think that it's none of your business if a person doesn't have the aptitude, then maybe if medicine isn't for them. You should really just worry bout urself for now.

LizT

shamoono wrote: »

I think that it's none of your business if a person doesn't have the aptitude, then maybe if medicine isn't for them. You should really just worry bout urself for now.

I don't really think I need to worry about myself as I'm already in university doing the course I want to do.

I only meant the reason they introduced the HPAT was to give people with the aptitude who can't regurgitate two years worth of material in two hours a fair chance to get medicine. In my opinion it should be introduced for more courses.

whadabouchasir

God am I glad I don't have to sit that fcukin Hpat again!Seriousl thogh I don't think that grinds make any difference.I don't know of anyone in my year in medicine who did grinds for the Hpat.Practice might help a bit but spending hundreds on grind courses is just unnecessary,and remeber it'll allbe woth it because its the best course ever(well the three weeks of it so far anyway!)

zam

A revision course probably wont help you - after all it is an aptitude test! Does anyone know if ordering the sample papers from the company is worth it? They're very expensive... speaking of expensive, the test itself... €95?!?!

jumpguy

shamoono wrote: »

I think that it's none of your business if a person doesn't have the aptitude, then maybe if medicine isn't for them. You should really just worry bout urself for now.

Why is it none of his business? Are we not allowed to give our opinions now?

I think the aptitude test is a great idea...it allows for more than someone with just academic-based education skills a chance and will broaden the mix of med-students. Instead of a massively majority female, book-smart crowd coming in every year.
Give more people a chance than just those ridiculously academically skilled...

bythewoods

Adventure wrote: »

If you are good in honours maths & english you'll do fine in the HPAT.

Nah, not really true tbh.

I've met people who got A1s in both who did bad HPATs. A good few people actually.

On the other hand, Maths was by far my worst subject and I'm doing Medicine in Trinity thanks to the HPAT. So there you go.

Piste

Trainee_Account wrote: »

When applying as a mature student for entry into medicine. Am I right in saying that the RCS don't accept any mature students? Also do you need any grades in any leaving cert science subjects?

Does anyone know if the Radiography course in TCD takes in and mature students??

Nope, there are 15 mature students in my year (1st year medicine) with a range of degrees from physiotherapy, dentistry, genetics and radiography.

cweeva

Has anyone here done the UKCAT for medical entry to the UK? How does it compare with the HPAT? I've done the UKCAT and I know the types of questions are differant but how does it compare in terms of difficulty, time management etc?

tracker-man

cweeva wrote: »

Has anyone here done the UKCAT for medical entry to the UK? How does it compare with the HPAT? I've done the UKCAT and I know the types of questions are differant but how does it compare in terms of difficulty, time management etc?

Hey,
I did the ukcat too, sent my uk application yesterday! Thank god its done and dusted and i can forget about it! How did you do in the ukcat? I scored below average in two sections and above average in two sections. My overall average being 620.
From what i hear and from what i've seen in practice tests, i think the hpat will be more difficult!

cweeva

tracker-man wrote: »

Hey,
I did the ukcat too, sent my uk application yesterday! Thank god its done and dusted and i can forget about it! How did you do in the ukcat? I scored below average in two sections and above average in two sections. My overall average being 620.
From what i hear and from what i've seen in practice tests, i think the hpat will be more difficult!

yup got my ucas application in yesterday aswell, don't really want to go to england though, would much prefer to do medicine in Ireland so I'm putting wayyyy more effort into this HPAT than I did the UKCAT.
I got 662.5 average. Very happy with it seein as I only found out a week before it that I had to do it!! Got above average in all sections, 750 in the decision analysis one... happy out:)
But I'm afraid this HPAT is going to be alot harder.... and I really don't wanna go forking out tons of money for preperation courses...:/

theowen

cweeva wrote: »

yup got my ucas application in yesterday aswell, don't really want to go to england though, would much prefer to do medicine in Ireland so I'm putting wayyyy more effort into this HPAT than I did the UKCAT.
I got 662.5 average. Very happy with it seein as I only found out a week before it that I had to do it!! Got above average in all sections, 750 in the decision analysis one... happy out:)
But I'm afraid this HPAT is going to be alot harder.... and I really don't wanna go forking out tons of money for preperation courses...:/

Don't so? I found the one I did totally useless, perhaps detrimental in fact, as it gave me a false sense of security :rolleyes:

Junior D

Did the ukcat and got 600. Bit annoyed cause thats fairly bad. scord higher that average in two but lower in two. Hate those shapes questions, they ruined it for me:mad::mad::mad: