*Everything HPAT and Medicine 2014*

Slow Show

AtomicKoala wrote: »

Yeah that's what I was thinking, I never really intended it as a fair test, however I wasn't expecting the official practice test to be such a massive waste of time - it really struck me as quite badly made, did you find it quite different to the real deal.

I found the ACER Practise Tests more like the real HPAT than anything else tbh, I think they're the most useful tool. I think I found Section 1 to be fairly on a par with the real thing (In ME there are heaps of questions that require you to do quite a bit of maths and serious problem-solving, there were very few of these in the real thing, I don't remember there even being one that couldn't be done in your head), for Section 2 you can really ignore how well you did in Practise Test 1, I would say in the real thing it was more like Practise Test 2 but a bit harder again. Section 3 yeah I don't remember it being all that different to the practise tests either, I remember being a little 'heh' about the fact that the questions in the real thing were a bit all over the place rather than 10 of each type (Pick the Middle, Next in Sequence, Missing Segments) in a row neatly.

18/30 is a great score for S3 btw, there were a lot of days where I was happy to hit 10 and I did quite well in S3 in the real thing.

Oh God, I could not be paid enough money to sit this test again! :P But I'm in Pre-Med now and naturally have lots and lots of free time so if anyone has any questions in the run-up to Saturday give me a shout on this.

EoghanIRL

24/30 section 3
24/35 section 2
Section 1 23 right only .

I can improve : it was good to do it under strict conditions . I just need to practice section 1 this week . I thought section 2 was different to actual acer tests .

EoghanIRL

Slow Show wrote: »

I found the ACER Practise Tests more like the real HPAT than anything else tbh, I think they're the most useful tool. I think I found Section 1 to be fairly on a par with the real thing (In ME there are heaps of questions that require you to do quite a bit of maths and serious problem-solving, there were very few of these in the real thing, I don't remember there even being one that couldn't be done in your head), for Section 2 you can really ignore how well you did in Practise Test 1, I would say in the real thing it was more like Practise Test 2 but a bit harder again. Section 3 yeah I don't remember it being all that different to the practise tests either, I remember being a little 'heh' about the fact that the questions in the real thing were a bit all over the place rather than 10 of each type (Pick the Middle, Next in Sequence, Missing Segments) in a row neatly.

18/30 is a great score for S3 btw, there were a lot of days where I was happy to hit 10 and I did quite well in S3 in the real thing.

Oh God, I could not be paid enough money to sit this test again! :P But I'm in Pre-Med now and naturally have lots and lots of free time so if anyone has any questions in the run-up to Saturday give me a shout on this.

I'm good at s2 and 3.
Advice on section 1 please.

SoundInfluence

Chuck_Norris_ wrote: »

31/26/23
Didn't think the S2 was representative of what the ACER practice exams or the actual HPAT is like at all! :pac:

Not at all.. I think most people from what I could notice had the best part of 5 minutes to spare which is quite ridiculous to be honest!

comeclosa

Just gonna throw this out here:

Remember the importance of staying calm on the day! The HPAT is a funny thing, and it can go all sorts of ways. I know a lot of you will feel underprepared, but at the end of the day, you're all smart people if you're aiming for Med, and I'll still say that even though you can prepare to a certain degree, a lot of it is based on your own natural aptitude.

If this helps some of you: I went into my HPAT last year with the attitude of "if it's meant to be it's meant to be". I hadn't done any prep courses beforehand and had only done the 2 ACER practice tests.
And though it was nerve wrecking, and though I did barely scrape by, I still got into my first choice course of Med in TCD.

So do try to stay calm and be confident in yourself!

Slow Show

EoghanIRL wrote: »

I'm good at s2 and 3.
Advice on section 1 please.

Alright, gonna go through a few tips that really helped me.

-Eliminate definite wrong answers. Even if you're guessing, it's easier to guess between two answers than four. In most cases, ignoring definitives eg answers containing the words 'never' and 'definitely' works well, instead focusing on answers containing words like 'likely'.
-Don't get too hung up on very difficult questions. Very few people will actually get these right. If you're spending too long on such a question, eliminate definite wrong answers and pick between what you have left, and move on. No one really knows what the story is with weighting, but regardless it's not worth getting one really difficult question right and ending up having to make a poor attempt at easier ones which would take less time.
-If a lot of questions follow one paragraph/imagine, dedicate enough time to it at the beginning without getting overly worried about wasting time, you'll likely to be able to answer the questions based on it very quickly once you understand the stimulus material whereas if you don't fully understand the stimulus, you could mess up quite a few questions.
-Shout out to Project Maths Statistics, but remember when it comes to graph-like questions, correlation DOES NOT equal causality and should not be treated as such. Never assume one variable is caused by another just because it's implied, unless it's the best of a lot of very bad options.
-Iv stuck on time, the option with the greatest amount of words (generally for the long paragraph-type questions) is often the right answer. Not always, and it's not a decision that shouldn't be made unless very stuck for time.
-Don't panic if something appears like gibberish to you. Your brain takes a while to get used to strange stimuli, it's pretty much what the HPAT is trying to test with Section 1 I think. Just take a deep breath or whatever calms you down, and work through it. I remember being totally freaked out for a minute by some strange never-seen-before type of graph last year in S1, but noooothing in the test requires prior knowledge of complicated statistics, it's all do-able.

These were taken from a PM I sent last year giving advice to someone else and then my own veteran knowledge, hope it helps! Anything else, really, give me a shout, I know what a stressful week this is. :pac:

EoghanIRL

Slow Show wrote: »

Alright, gonna go through a few tips that really helped me.

-Eliminate definite wrong answers. Even if you're guessing, it's easier to guess between two answers than four. In most cases, ignoring definitives eg answers containing the words 'never' and 'definitely' works well, instead focusing on answers containing words like 'likely'.
-Don't get too hung up on very difficult questions. Very few people will actually get these right. If you're spending too long on such a question, eliminate definite wrong answers and pick between what you have left, and move on. No one really knows what the story is with weighting, but regardless it's not worth getting one really difficult question right and ending up having to make a poor attempt at easier ones which would take less time.
-If a lot of questions follow one paragraph/imagine, dedicate enough time to it at the beginning without getting overly worried about wasting time, you'll likely to be able to answer the questions based on it very quickly once you understand the stimulus material whereas if you don't fully understand the stimulus, you could mess up quite a few questions.
-Shout out to Project Maths Statistics, but remember when it comes to graph-like questions, correlation DOES NOT equal causality and should not be treated as such. Never assume one variable is caused by another just because it's implied, unless it's the best of a lot of very bad options.
-Iv stuck on time, the option with the greatest amount of words (generally for the long paragraph-type questions) is often the right answer. Not always, and it's not a decision that shouldn't be made unless very stuck for time.
-Don't panic if something appears like gibberish to you. Your brain takes a while to get used to strange stimuli, it's pretty much what the HPAT is trying to test with Section 1 I think. Just take a deep breath or whatever calms you down, and work through it. I remember being totally freaked out for a minute by some strange never-seen-before type of graph last year in S1, but noooothing in the test requires prior knowledge of complicated statistics, it's all do-able.

These were taken from a PM I sent last year giving advice to someone else and then my own veteran knowledge, hope it helps! Anything else, really, give me a shout, I know what a stressful week this is. :pac:

Thank you . Some great tips

ConorR32

So, what are you all doing? One school week to go! Scary times!

proudi

little sis... wrote: »

Anyone do the hpat course in Sheldon park hotel want to compare results from the mock today?

S1:20 S2:25 S3:29

I wasn't completely happy with the exam at all. Particularly with the mistakes throughout. One of the questions in section three wasn't doable because of it. I think my score is ok though, considering I felt horribly sick sitting the exam.

BBHenry

comeclosa wrote: »

Just gonna throw this out here:

Remember the importance of staying calm on the day! The HPAT is a funny thing, and it can go all sorts of ways. I know a lot of you will feel underprepared, but at the end of the day, you're all smart people if you're aiming for Med, and I'll still say that even though you can prepare to a certain degree, a lot of it is based on your own natural aptitude.

If this helps some of you: I went into my HPAT last year with the attitude of "if it's meant to be it's meant to be". I hadn't done any prep courses beforehand and had only done the 2 ACER practice tests.
And though it was nerve wrecking, and though I did barely scrape by, I still got into my first choice course of Med in TCD.

So do try to stay calm and be confident in yourself!

Thank God, thought I was the only one not doing a prep course, my aim is if I don't get it this year I'll reapply next year and try ME. Really find it nice to study, section one is definitely a pain with the timing though but fingers crossed for Saturday :cool::cool::cool:

andersio

God, did section one at practice test 2 now on time. Went to hell, 50% correct. Practice test one was much easier

yoyojc

So out of the 44 questions in section how many about would you want to be getting right?

Alot of people on here are scoring in the high twenties... is that good enough?

yoyojc

yoyojc wrote: »

So out of the 44 questions in section how many about would you want to be getting right?

Alot of people on here are scoring in the high twenties... is that good enough?

And I know it's obviously dependent on how you do in S2 and S3 but if you do good in them?

JDOC1996

yoyojc wrote: »

So out of the 44 questions in section how many about would you want to be getting right?

Alot of people on here are scoring in the high twenties... is that good enough?

I've got notes from the institute of education prep course. They say that everyone gets at least 1 third of the questions wrong, so I assume that if you're getting in the high 20s you're doing pretty well.

SoundInfluence

Anyone in kingfisher hall in Galway? And know what's it like as a centre?

Slow Show

SoundInfluence wrote: »

Anyone in kingfisher hall in Galway? And know what's it like as a centre?

I've been in it for college exams, it's very big, for those it felt packed and like everyone was rather close together, would say it'd be a little less so for the HPAT. It's grand like, personally preferred my exams in the Bailey Allen purely for the nicer aesthetics but it won't hinder your performace. :L A helpful tip would be to go check out the exam centre yourself if you can before the test, I had prior knowledge of the Bailey Allen Hall where the test was on last year and even small things like that can calm your nerves.

Eurovisionmad

Slow Show wrote: »

I've been in it for college exams, it's very big, for those it felt packed and like everyone was rather close together, would say it'd be a little less so for the HPAT. It's grand like, personally preferred my exams in the Bailey Allen purely for the nicer aesthetics but it won't hinder your performace. :L A helpful tip would be to go check out the exam centre yourself if you can before the test, I had prior knowledge of the Bailey Allen Hall where the test was on last year and even small things like that can calm your nerves.

I can safely say that for the HPAT last year, in Kampus Kitchen in UCC anyway it was absolutely jammed, I suppose with the different arrangement of questions in each book meant they didn't need to make sure students couldn't see each others answers.
I remember quite vividly it was packed because at the start of S2 I decided to go to the toilet, I got tangled in the chair and table which were jammed up against other students and very loudly fell in the deathly silence :L some people in my year in Med now still go "Oh my god! You were the person that fell in the HPAT?!" still haunts me!

Eurovisionmad

Actually I probably shouldn't be freaking ye out with such a story less than a week before the HPAT, best of luck of course, ye'll be grand, it's not as bad as people go on about!

andersio

Anyone in Goldsmith hall Trinity?

Slow Show

Eurovisionmad wrote: »

I suppose with the different arrangement of questions in each book meant they didn't need to make sure students couldn't see each others answers.

Was that actually a real thing? I feel like all the books were the same, from my sly glances either side of me during it.

AtomicKoala

ConorR32 wrote: »

So, what are you all doing? One school week to go! Scary times!

I've got the Pre exams so... eh, nothing. I have a half day on Friday after French so I'll rest up and look at some drills.

Slow Show wrote: »

Was that actually a real thing? I feel like all the books were the same, from my sly glances either side of me during it.

The impression I've gotten from reading the rules makes such a transgression seem like a heinous crime, I think I'll avoid moving my neck at all

Eurovisionmad

Slow Show wrote: »

Was that actually a real thing? I feel like all the books were the same, from my sly glances either side of me during it.

Well like if it wasn't real and ACER were just trying to scare people into not copying then surely they'd announce that the booklets aren't the same??? I only ever heard it from ME that they weren't the same, and most certainly where I was in Kampus Kitchen I had the option to copy from about 5 other people around me, cramped didn't even describe it!

Slow Show

I dunno like I just remember discussing it with people afterwards and them having like the same first question and all that.

Haha it actually would have been fairly easy to copy, it's not really a thought that occured to me though, in an exam like the HPAT where ~75% of people aren't going to do well enough to make the cut, it's a bit pointless to put faith in some random geezer beside you. I just looked to see how fast I was moving in relation to others (not advisable really!).

EoghanIRL

Last day of pres tomorrow : physics and biology.

Then I will practice as I have Thursday and Friday off aswell.

Kirby2k07

Anyone know if the newspapers/cao released the numbers doing the hpat/med this year yet, up or down the number are compared to last year? Hopefully static pointswise finger crossed

sunnydee

Okay is anyone else getting just really really nervous? It's my second time round, but I still feel just as unprepared. I didn't get 625 in the leaving, but assumed getting a decent hpat score would get me in. Easier said than done..

Flickka

sunnydee wrote: »

Okay is anyone else getting just really really nervous? It's my second time round, but I still feel just as unprepared. I didn't get 625 in the leaving, but assumed getting a decent hpat score would get me in. Easier said than done..

I'm going through phases of feeling physically sick about it and then meh whatever will be will be. I'm just going to do my best to keep stress to a minimum over the next few days as its not likely to achieve anything. Easier said than done though
Are you studying another course at the moment or did you take a year out?

Microphone Head

Does anybody know what the RCSI exam centre is like?

sunnydee

It's nearly 100% all in your head imo. If you're stressing out on the day, you won't get anywhere, regardless of how many hours you spent on practice exams etc. I know it's hard sitting there with 110 questions to do, and knowing that your whole entire career depends on it. But if you dwell on that in the exam, your concentration will go out the window. Yep I'm in college atm!

Flickka

sunnydee wrote: »

It's nearly 100% all in your head imo. If you're stressing out on the day, you won't get anywhere, regardless of how many hours you spent on practice exams etc.

Well that's the stance I'm taking on it at the moment seen as I've completely slacked off on prep in the past few weeks
What course are you studying?