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

stainluss

Anne-Marie!! wrote: »

Premed in Galway is the best fun ever! Only 5 weeks in and everyone is great friends, and its a nice laid back year before the hard work starts

I assume youre doing the 6-year?

jumpguy

In Section 1 of the HPAT, I found in the practise test I had some prior knowledge with some of the questions. Should you take this information into account or just try and go by the information on the paper? Are the questions fictional?

tracker-man

Deleted User wrote: »

At the end of the day it's an aptitude test, no matter how you dress it up as something you can learn, you either are good at reasoning or you're not. No 2 day course can teach you logic, that's a long term skill. I'm not going to get into petty arguments over these courses because I've made my decision not to ask my parents to pay criminal fees for a course which I don't think is worth the money for what you're getting. The people running them might as well be random punters as you can read in comments by people who have done them in this thread.

So far on this thread we have been referring to the HPAT prep courses in general - courses this, courses that - but we haven't mentioned any specifics at all! What I'm getting at is, yes there are some courses out there run by the chancer who sees desperate students and wants to make a quick buck over a weekend. But, there are also courses which have been running over the past few weeks by highly qualified individuals (in their respective fields) that are extremely effective in preparing for the HPAT.
I believe one certainly can train for the HPAT and any aptitude test for that matter. One can improve their score with practice and persistence and some guidance is key too.
"No 2 day course can teach you logic" - Yes, you are correct. But thats not to say one cannot learn to think logically, train themselves to think logically over a period of time. I am doing it for about 20 minutes every night and 2 hours each weekend. There are HPAT prep courses out there that are extremely well run and extremely beneficial, I go to one, and although I may not realise how good it has been until I get the HPAT result after the LC, I can see already that my logical reasoning has improved in leaps and bounds.

jumpguy

jumpguy wrote: »

In Section 1 of the HPAT, I found in the practise test I had some prior knowledge with some of the questions. Should you take this information into account or just try and go by the information on the paper? Are the questions fictional?

You're not supposed to bring your own knowledge into account but to base your answers purely on the information provided. I don't know if the questions are ficitional or not, but it shouldn't matter either way.

tracker-man

tracker-man wrote: »

So far on this thread we have been referring to the HPAT prep courses in general - courses this, courses that - but we haven't mentioned any specifics at all! What I'm getting at is, yes there are some courses out there run by the chancer who sees desperate students and wants to make a quick buck over a weekend. But, there are also courses which have been running over the past few weeks by highly qualified individuals (in their respective fields) that are extremely effective in preparing for the HPAT.
I believe one certainly can train for the HPAT and any aptitude test for that matter. One can improve their score with practice and persistence and some guidance is key too.
"No 2 day course can teach you logic" - Yes, you are correct. But thats not to say one cannot learn to think logically, train themselves to think logically over a period of time. I am doing it for about 20 minutes every night and 2 hours each weekend. There are HPAT prep courses out there that are extremely well run and extremely beneficial, I go to one, and although I may not realise how good it has been until I get the HPAT result after the LC, I can see already that my logical reasoning has improved in leaps and bounds.

Oh I completely agree that you can improve your logical reasoning if you practice enough, but I'd wager much of that is improving your innate skill rather than building a skill not previously held. I'm sure there is something to be learnt from the HPAT courses, but I doubt there is something taught in them that you couldn't learn elsewhere for free. The HPAT was introduced as a grind proof test to reduce the number of repeat LC students from the intensive grind schools filling most of the places. It's not a perfect system by any means, but I do believe it weeds out those who have an ability in logical reasoning from those who are able to regurgitate reams of information to get 600 points in the LC, but who aren't necessarily suited towards medicine. We've seen this as high scorers in the LC have had poor HPAT scores and thus not gotten a place.

Alice10

Is there a written part of the hpat?
i was looking at hpat ulster practise questions and there was one:

"Consider the material provided and develop a fluently written
piece of prose that integrates the ideas and information.
Your response will be judged on:
• the quality of thought and understanding applied
• the use of language to express ideas and information."
it just gave a load of statistics and graphs to write about

does anybody know if there is questions like these in the hpat?!

Jessibelle

Alice10 wrote: »

Is there a written part of the hpat?
i was looking at hpat ulster practise questions and there was one:

"Consider the material provided and develop a fluently written
piece of prose that integrates the ideas and information.
Your response will be judged on:
• the quality of thought and understanding applied
• the use of language to express ideas and information."
it just gave a load of statistics and graphs to write about

does anybody know if there is questions like these in the hpat?!

Hey Alice10,
there's no written part to the HPAT Ireland, just three sections on abstract, logical and emotional reasoning.
Good luck

bythewoods

H2student wrote: »

Okay this is a pretty stupid question, but that are we allowed to bring in the test centre apart from a bottle of water? (like, are we allowed to bring a watch/stopwatch?)

I was definitely wearing a watch last year during my HPAT.
Also, you can bring in pencils, erasers and pencil-toppers,etc but you're not allowed bring in a pencil case.

I also remember bringing in a packet of tissues because I was dying of a cold that day.

jumpguy wrote: »

In Section 1 of the HPAT, I found in the practise test I had some prior knowledge with some of the questions. Should you take this information into account or just try and go by the information on the paper? Are the questions fictional?

The answer is always given in the question IIRC, so you don't need to use prior knowledge, or at least you shouldn't.

Saying that, it can come in handy.
I remember in the practice tests there was quite a few questions on Scientific method (placebos, double blind testing, etc) which are covered at the beginning of Biology. I vaguely recall familiarising myself with this. I can't see it doing any harm to anyone if they knew a bit about it.

Also, there was some (very basic) probability in one of the questions on Section I last year two.
Doing that in HL Maths meant I knew I was right.]
Saying that, no knowledge of probability would've really been necessary.

Overall, there's nothing you can really study for it though, as you've no idea what they'll throw at you. Read through the questions as if you know nothing about them anyway, instead of applying prior knowledge.

tracker-man

Just thought prospective med students should read this.


http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055799819

Carsinian Thau

stainluss wrote: »

I assume you're doing the 6-year?

They'd have to be if they're doing premed.

zam

tracker-man wrote: »

Just thought prospective med students should read this.


http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055799819

This is scary.

pfannkuchen

tracker-man wrote: »

Just thought prospective med students should read this.


http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055799819

Anyone reconsidering their decision after reading that? It didn't put me off, so I don't think anything ever will!

zam

pfannkuchen wrote: »

Anyone reconsidering their decision after reading that? It didn't put me off, so I don't think anything ever will!

I don't know if it put me off but it definitely made me think a lot more... Also really didn't help to read that in the middle of studying for the mocks.

tracker-man

zam wrote: »

I don't know if it put me off but it definitely made me think a lot more... Also really didn't help to read that in the middle of studying for the mocks.

Hasn't put me off as such but has made me think even more seriously about my choices... think I'll stick with med though :pac: Its a pity some people have to go through that to get to where they want to be though :mad:

bythewoods

pfannkuchen wrote: »

Anyone reconsidering their decision after reading that? It didn't put me off, so I don't think anything ever will!

If you would like to be put off, I can pm you my timetable for this semester. And I'm only in first med. Early morning starts and late night finishes will make you cry. :P

theowen

bythewoods wrote: »

If you would like to be put off, I can pm you my timetable for this semester. And I'm only in first med. Early morning starts and late night finishes will make you cry. :P

Could you give you give us a brief outline actually? Also, how much would you study per day/weekend?:D

Xtina!!

theowen wrote: »

Could you give you give us a brief outline actually? Also, how much would you study per day/weekend?:D

Was just about to ask that but you beat me to it!:p

tracker-man

Xtina!! wrote: »

Was just about to ask that but you beat me to it!:p

haha, I PM'd him even before this! I think he might be sorry he offered!

Xtina!!

tracker-man wrote: »

haha, I PM'd him even before this! I think he might be sorry he offered!

Im sure bythewoods wont mind!:p

Psychedelia

Does anyone know when we're meant to get our ticket for our HPAT exam? and any other relevant literature?

Xtina!!

Psychedelia wrote: »

Does anyone know when we're meant to get our ticket for our HPAT exam? and any other relevant literature?

As far as I can remember you get emails and the ticket around 2 weeks before the exam.

bythewoods

bythewoods wrote: »

If you would like to be put off, I can pm you my timetable for this semester. And I'm only in first med. Early morning starts and late night finishes will make you cry. :P

Yes, do tell!

The post has more angered me than put me off med. It's a disgrace that the young doctors of this country are being made work illegal hours. It's frustrating to no end how inefficient our government is at organising anything, but especially health care. But hey, one can always emigrate to greener pastures (or warmer climates !

bythewoods

theowen wrote: »

Could you give you give us a brief outline actually? Also, how much would you study per day/weekend?:D

tracker-man wrote: »

haha, I PM'd him even before this! I think he might be sorry he offered!

Xtina!! wrote: »

Im sure bythewoods wont mind!:p

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, do tell!

Oh.. I was actually joking... but alright.

First off, I'm a her not a him, tracker-man.

Eh, I'm in First med in Trinity and was basically whinging about my timetable because I'm so tired after the week.

It's a lot tougher than most courses, pretty much every other course apart from maybe engineering or something, who have mingin' timetables as well. So if you're considering medicine, you'll have to basically realise you won't be able to live the college partaaaaaay lifestyle if you want to do well.

Timetable-wise, we have about 4 or 5 lectures in the mornings 3 mornings a week. On Tuesdays and Fridays, we have 2 hour PBL (Problem-based learning or small-group learning) sessions where we're split up in small groups to research andd discuss things related to our lectures (This week we had Ethics, for example, but it's done in short blocks and is quite diverse- anything from Burns to MS to whatever.

In the afternoons we have labs and broad curriculum modules once a week.
This semester, I'm doing 2 hours of literature & medicine on Monday evenings- it's worth very few credits and is kind of a nice break from the more academic subjects. Of course, you could've picked anything from a language, to history, philosophy, perception of art, bioethics, life sciences or whatever.

We have practicals in our 3 main subjects- for anatomy we've got Dissections for 3 hours, for physiology we've got 3 hours on anything from nerve impulses (electrocuting your class mates, good craic) to respiration (breathing into machines and stuff, bit tedious) - they'll be related to your lectures at the time- and finally, for Biochemistry it's 3 hours on whatever's relevant to lectures. Yesterday I was doing Spectrometry which was dull out and I wasn't actually finished for 3 and a half hours (and it was rushed at that, because I was coming home for the weekend and needed to speed myself up to make the last bus home!)
This semester, I'm also going to have to do first aid stuff out in James' hospital on wednesday evenings until 8.30pm (After a full day... )

We have one afternoon a week off, but it may work out that that'll be the same evenign I'll be in James' so there'd be no point in going home in the meantime.
We have tutorials and GP visits in James' Hospital and in Tallaght Hospital occasionally, so you've to factor in commuting times too.

The work load is pretty huge, so from now on any hours off I might have between lectures or whatever will have to be spent in the library. This week I'm planning on doing about 2 or 3 hours in the library every evening. Before my exams in December I was doing about 14, 15 hours a day during my study week. I had a lot of cramming to do though, I won't be doing as much for my exams this term as hopefully I'll be better organised.

It's a huge commitment, but I'm not trying to turn anyone off it.
It's really interesting and I do love it. If you're willing to put in plenty of work, it's brilliant.
I love my class, and we're pretty close-knit as we spend soooo much time together. We've had a few great nights out together too, so it's all about working hard and partying hard too.

Hope my rant helps, feel free to pm me any other questions and I'll answer them there instead of going off-topic here.

zam

Xtina!! wrote: »

As far as I can remember you get emails and the ticket around 2 weeks before the exam.

Do you know how they assign test centres? The RCSI woman told me that the centre there was really small so I registered on the first day to get it but there wasn't a choice of where to go...

Xtina!!

zam wrote: »

Do you know how they assign test centres? The RCSI woman told me that the centre there was really small so I registered on the first day to get it but there wasn't a choice of where to go...

Not sure how they assign the test centres, but when you apply on the HPAT website you choose which county you would like to sit your exam, which Im sure you did. I chose Cork and then two weeks or so before the exam I was told it was in Neptune Stadium, just outside Cork City. I dont think you get a choice for the exact venue, as I heard there was also a test centre in UCC. You can choose the city but I dont think you can choose the venue in your chosen city.

bythewoods

bythewoods wrote: »

Oh.. I was actually joking... but alright.

First off, I'm a her not a him, tracker-man.

Eh, I'm in First med in Trinity and was basically whinging about my timetable because I'm so tired after the week.

It's a lot tougher than most courses, pretty much every other course apart from maybe engineering or something, who have mingin' timetables as well. So if you're considering medicine, you'll have to basically realise you won't be able to live the college partaaaaaay lifestyle if you want to do well.

Timetable-wise, we have about 4 or 5 lectures in the mornings 3 mornings a week. On Tuesdays and Fridays, we have 2 hour PBL (Problem-based learning or small-group learning) sessions where we're split up in small groups to research andd discuss things related to our lectures (This week we had Ethics, for example, but it's done in short blocks and is quite diverse- anything from Burns to MS to whatever.

In the afternoons we have labs and broad curriculum modules once a week.
This semester, I'm doing 2 hours of literature & medicine on Monday evenings- it's worth very few credits and is kind of a nice break from the more academic subjects. Of course, you could've picked anything from a language, to history, philosophy, perception of art, bioethics, life sciences or whatever.

We have practicals in our 3 main subjects- for anatomy we've got Dissections for 3 hours, for physiology we've got 3 hours on anything from nerve impulses (electrocuting your class mates, good craic) to respiration (breathing into machines and stuff, bit tedious) - they'll be related to your lectures at the time- and finally, for Biochemistry it's 3 hours on whatever's relevant to lectures. Yesterday I was doing Spectrometry which was dull out and I wasn't actually finished for 3 and a half hours (and it was rushed at that, because I was coming home for the weekend and needed to speed myself up to make the last bus home!)
This semester, I'm also going to have to do first aid stuff out in James' hospital on wednesday evenings until 8.30pm (After a full day... )

We have one afternoon a week off, but it may work out that that'll be the same evenign I'll be in James' so there'd be no point in going home in the meantime.
We have tutorials and GP visits in James' Hospital and in Tallaght Hospital occasionally, so you've to factor in commuting times too.

The work load is pretty huge, so from now on any hours off I might have between lectures or whatever will have to be spent in the library. This week I'm planning on doing about 2 or 3 hours in the library every evening. Before my exams in December I was doing about 14, 15 hours a day during my study week. I had a lot of cramming to do though, I won't be doing as much for my exams this term as hopefully I'll be better organised.

It's a huge commitment, but I'm not trying to turn anyone off it.
It's really interesting and I do love it. If you're willing to put in plenty of work, it's brilliant.
I love my class, and we're pretty close-knit as we spend soooo much time together. We've had a few great nights out together too, so it's all about working hard and partying hard too.

Hope my rant helps, feel free to pm me any other questions and I'll answer them there instead of going off-topic here.

Sounds pretty intense! Glad to hear you enjoy it though, I suppose when you really love what you're studying you're willing to put in the work.

A Neurotic

I'm in bythewoods' class. Allow me to play Devil's Advocate

bythewoods wrote: »

It's a lot tougher than most courses, pretty much every other course apart from maybe engineering or something, who have mingin' timetables as well. So if you're considering medicine, you'll have to basically realise you won't be able to live the college partaaaaaay lifestyle if you want to do well.

An esteemed colleague of ours went out partying every single night this week and attended every single lecture/tutorial. I believe the term is platinum week

Also, the workload in Medicine is hard in a different way to other courses. Law students don't have nearly as many hours but have a huge workload of reading material to get through in their own time. I live with three European Studies students and they're constantly under pressure with essays and the likes. Science students get a lot of assignments and lab reports. Medicine's not so bad, in that we're one of the few courses that had exams before Christmas. We get very few essays or assignments. Thus our workload is split in half over the year, and we can forget everything we learned before Christmas for our Summer exams. We have about 20-25 hours a week of college. I can't remember which, but I believe either Dentistry or Science first years had something closer to 30 hours last semester.

bythewoods wrote:

In the afternoons we have labs and broad curriculum modules once a week.
This semester, I'm doing 2 hours of literature & medicine on Monday evenings- it's worth very few credits and is kind of a nice break from the more academic subjects. Of course, you could've picked anything from a language, to history, philosophy, perception of art, bioethics, life sciences or whatever.

Apologies for the plug, but I've written a bit more about the selected module here.

bythewoods wrote:

This semester, I'm also going to have to do first aid stuff out in James' hospital on wednesday evenings until 8.30pm (After a full day... )

Optional. There's 100 places and it costs €75. There are 160 in our class...

bythewoods wrote:

We have tutorials and GP visits in James' Hospital and in Tallaght Hospital occasionally, so you've to factor in commuting times too.

Going to Tallaght (I've only had to do it once, won't have to again this year) is a balls BUT we get a discount on tea for being "staff" :cool:

bythewoods wrote:

The work load is pretty huge, so from now on any hours off I might have between lectures or whatever will have to be spent in the library. This week I'm planning on doing about 2 or 3 hours in the library every evening. Before my exams in December I was doing about 14, 15 hours a day during my study week. I had a lot of cramming to do though, I won't be doing as much for my exams this term as hopefully I'll be better organised.

It's a huge commitment, but I'm not trying to turn anyone off it.
It's really interesting and I do love it. If you're willing to put in plenty of work, it's brilliant.
I love my class, and we're pretty close-knit as we spend soooo much time together. We've had a few great nights out together too, so it's all about working hard and partying hard too.

Agree 100% with all of this, apart from the 15 hours a day of cramming. You psychopath

And in my opinion, studying for 2-3 hours a day logistically still leaves plenty of time for fun.

Speaking as someone who failed all of my Christmas exams miserably (really, really miserably), I love the course and can't really see myself doing anything else. It's true that a lot of what we're learning can be tedious, and boring, and irrelevant... but a lot of it is far more interesting than that. I find dissections in Anatomy, labs in Biochem (we're playing with rat livers on Friday :cool:) and most of Physiology in general very interesting, and I have a HUGE interest in the psychology lectures and tutorials.

In short, it's a really great course and the work load shouldn't put anyone off.

PS rumour has it 70% of our class failed our Anatomy exam

bythewoods

I knew you were going to come here and give a pedantic reply to my post!

A Neurotic wrote: »

Optional. There's 100 places and it costs €75. There are 160 in our class...

Apparently it's only optional if your First Aid certs are up to date, maaaate.
I don't have one, so, eh, looks like I'll be spending my Wednesdays in James'

A Neurotic wrote: »

Going to Tallaght (I've only had to do it once, won't have to again this year) is a balls BUT we get a discount on tea for being "staff" :cool:

There's also a discount on sandwiches...

I've been out there 3 times I think...and will be out there again on Thursday. I've been to James' many, many times.

It depends on what GP you're assigned to or w/e.

But yeah. Choose medicine folks. It's great.

A Neurotic

bythewoods wrote: »

I knew you were going to come here and give a pedantic reply to my post!

It's what I do.

bythewoods wrote:

Apparently it's only optional if your First Aid certs are up to date, maaaate.
I don't have one, so, eh, looks like I'll be spending my Wednesdays in James'

But there's surely at least 300 students in first year Health Sciences courses? Are they running the course again during the year? Logic error
Meh, I'm the only person who's enthusiastic about it anyway, so it's all the same to me.

Sorry about the off-topicness. Do Medicine. I save lives daily. Etc.

briankirby

Hey guys,how much harder is section 3 in the real thing?Iv been findin it tough enough on the practice tests so it could be an absolute disaster for me in the hpat.
Also,i was reading an article about the hpat recently and it seems that u have to specify whether you are male or female.Any1 know y this is,considering we already have cao numbers?