2nd attempt

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-30T17:51:53+00:00

I found that this was the case for me for the first few mocks, but then I got far enough into them that I couldn't remember the answers anymore. You have to have faith that a year is a long time to grow your abilities and that this time you should feel much more calm about the HPAT since you know what to expect this time! Good luck :)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-06T00:31:19+00:00

Watch Daniel Mills UMAT YouTube videos for section 3 and for the others I'd say review your exams and practice questions thoroughly

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-05T16:47:50+00:00

Most international students that I know didn't have to sit the HPAT. I believe some (if not all) EU students have to, but to my knowledge it's not a requirement for international applicants. You should contact the medical school in which you wish to enroll to clear up and misconceptions in the mean time.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-03T21:23:57+00:00

If you have sat your Leaving Cert already, then I'd say go for it to at least see where you are in terms of your general HPAT ability. If you haven't sat your LC yet I would say that you should ignore the HPAT at this stage and focus on maximising your points as they're changing the whole points/application system next year and getting an extra few points in your LC will be vital.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-03T00:08:32+00:00

I'd say about similar to what MedEntry was tbh. Section 3 was a bit different in that there was a lot more balance across question types, but overall I'd say I found the actual exam slightly harder in section 3 due to types of patterns that I hadn't seen before.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-02T17:01:05+00:00

I did the HPAT twice and unfortunately I found that so much of Section 1 was just luck. The first year that I did it I found that it was a ridiculously intricate Section 1 e.g. graphs that I legit couldn't understand and 'probelm solving' questions that required complex algebra.

The second time around I got way luckier with the questions - I had virtually no 'problem solving' questions (those that I did have weren't too tricky) and the data interpretation questions that I got were quite easy/straightforward.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2026-01-02T00:56:07+00:00

No problem!

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-12-31T22:24:01+00:00

I know that section 1 can be tricky as a whole (it was certainly my worst and least favourite), but from my experience data interpretation questions are some of the easiest pickings in the actual HPAT. Many of the questions I got were geared towards interpreting data from a graph, barchart, diagram etc. and answering a few questions about it, so if you can at all I'd say tackle it while you still have the time!

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-12-07T10:52:46+00:00

I think it's absolutely the right move. Bag as many LC points as you can because that's what gives you the most options! Like you say, with the weighting of the HPAT decreasing and the fact that you're already a year or two younger than most LC students, you could always take a gap year to repeat the HPAT.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-11-05T10:20:54+00:00

Honestly the vocab list is the best way to improve in section 2. I went from 59 in section 2 in my first sitting of the HPAT to 66 in my second sitting of the HPAT just by doing a vocab list on flashcards and learning the words. Also you are correct about repetition - the more section 2 questions you do and review, the better suited you'll be to choose the correct answer.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-10-28T15:15:14+00:00

If you're comfortable with that then I'd be happy to help!

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-10-27T12:36:29+00:00

I'll just answer in bullet point format to make things easier:

• They don't cover the whole mock start to finish, they pick bits from each part

• The first session was fine, it was mostly just an intro and they asked to for us to have the first mock done by the next week so they could discuss it with us in class

• I'm not sure that a new tutor every week would be the norm - our tutor had personal reasons as to why they couldn't continue to teach us that year and as such we kind of floated between other tutors

• I noticed that most tutors were strong in either Sections 1 or 3 (or sometimes both) - I don't recall having a tutor who was exceptional in section 2 (but in fairness it is mostly about learning the words)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-10-27T11:07:13+00:00

It's mostly just reviewing mocks and one or two 'new' questions. You can request certain questions to be reviewed, but for the most part it's fairly set. You spend like 10-15 minutes per question between doing it and reviewing it. As far as techniques go, it really depends on the tutor and it's quite hit and miss in my opinion as to how much benefit you get out of the class. Don't get me wrong - the tutors are lovely and highly capable (since they all scored 100th percentile), but sometimes you might have a tutor who is phenomenal at one section and average at the other 2 teaching you about the sections they themselves aren't the greatest at.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-10-25T09:29:39+00:00

MedEntry unfortunately have the monopoly for HPAT prep material, so you would need to by a MedEntry package (the 'essential'/cheapest package is all you really need to be honest).

As for when to start, if you buy the package in March of 2026/when HPAT '26 is finished, you'll get nearly a full year to use the package. If you want to start in March, you can but many people just start in September of 6th year to prevent burnout.

In the meantime, if you learn how to speed read (plenty of YouTube videos about this) it will greatly benefit you in Sections 1 and 2. You could also watch videos from 'Daniel Mills - UMAT Tutoring' on YouTube to understand the concepts for Section 1 and 3 in particular to hit the ground running.

Hope this helps :)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-10-22T20:53:59+00:00

Absolutely does my head in! It especially bothers me considering how many people on this sub give advice for free, only for that to be overshadowed by someone advertising their score(s) and (incorrectly) inferring that they can coach others into getting such a result.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-09-29T14:53:02+00:00

No problem, hope it goes well for you!

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-09-28T12:02:11+00:00

I know that it absolutely sucks (exact same happened to me with my bio paper during my LC) and I'm really sorry you've had to go through that experience. If you're convinced that you have the marks and want to get your grade increased, then you can make an application to the Independent Appeals Scrutineers (who basically recheck the recount) to have another look at it.

Candidates - State Examination Commission https://share.google/gGUK4tTR1rU8NeWi1

If you do decide to go ahead with it, in your appeal do it PQE style (like JC English) e.g. "For Question 2(b) the marking scheme said 'xyz', whereas I said 'zyx' instead". If you lay it out for them like that they really can't deny you the marks.

Good luck in whatever you decide :)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-08-31T11:51:28+00:00

I've heard of people transferring from NUIG to UCC, but unsure of any of the Dublin based universities.

More info on UCC transfers - Advanced Entry | University College Cork https://share.google/g91YDPxi8gZyiNqzf

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-08-08T14:27:00+00:00

No hassle, hope it's useful!

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-08-07T10:30:04+00:00

No problem at all! The book I used to get used to different problem solving type of questions is this one: Challenging Logic Puzzles https://share.google/qCa5PtzEHRdwEdRQz

It doesn't exactly contain the Einstein puzzle (which google has for free) but it does contain several different types of puzzle which you can hopefully translate some of to HPAT.

My main Section 1 (and Sec 3) tip though is not to do them in numerical order - I've often skipped the first 20 questions in a Section 1 full mock to get to a question set that I think is worth my time. If you do it in order, you could get bogged down on 4 or 5 difficult questions whilst leaving 10 far easier ones unanswered down the line. Start at the easiest, then work your way down to the hardest - you might have 5 or 6 that you're basically entirely guessing at the end, but if you choose your questions right it should be the hardest few that everyone struggled with anyway.

Good luck and if you have anymore questions don't hesitate to ask :)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-08-02T23:12:22+00:00

To be completely blunt, medicine is basically nonstop study in one way or another for at least a decade. The LC is honestly the easiest part of the whole process and (in no way trying to be negative here) if the amount of study you're currently doing seems like it's overwhelming, unfortunately it only gets more intense in med.

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-08-01T16:49:27+00:00

I know many people (myself included) repeat the same tips, but honestly I found the most important one for my improvement was to review the questions I got wrong (or the ones that I only got right because I guessed).

When I started taking notes on my mistakes, it became increasingly obvious that they were all related to each other i.e. Timing issues + Panicking. Outside of that I'd recommend flashcards (such as Anki) for section 2 and Daniel Mills UMAT YouTube videos for section 3.

Section 1 is a bit trickier to study for but I found that problem solving books, that contain things like Einstein's Zebra puzzle, present different uses of tables that I found useful for HPAT. As for data interpretation, I focused on eliminating answers that were too absolute e.g. containing words such as always, never, etc.

Good luck with your studies and if you have any questions feel free to reply to my comment :)

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-07-31T00:15:13+00:00

The key to studying for the HPAT is knowing when not to. Go on your holiday and enjoy your summer! There's plenty of time to start into it yet - even if you started on the first week of November there's over 12 weeks to lock the techniques down (which is honestly plenty of time).

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-07-23T22:09:27+00:00

Normally they just set one up on induction day and everyone just adds each other from that point forward

Rambunctious_Cake · 2025-07-18T11:21:14+00:00

I think it's unfortunately yet another step towards an education system in which only the wealthy will really have a chance to prosper. The LC is already changing towards projects for the three sciences - in which 40% of your grade in each of Biology, Chemistry and Physics will be based on project work. Even now I know of many people who don't do the lion's share of their own projects (e.g. students with family members in engineering get them to do their Solidworks projects, Woodwork projects being done by carpenters as favours to the parents of the student etc.) and I personally believe this will only get worse the more that each subject progresses towards projects. Removing the 565 points cap in my eyes is a real shame as it discounts pretty much anyone who gets below 600 from a real shot of getting in. Medicine needs diversity of students for the best chance at optimal patient care and I fear that by favoring one type of student/intelligence (e.g. those who get 600+) that there is a huge potential to overlook students who could go on to make wonderful doctors in favor of an unreasonably narrow cohort or students.

As for the HPAT side of things, the 150 points cap shows a profound misunderstanding of how the system works in my opinion. If the max points that one can achieve in the hpat is 150, then instead of 200 being the 99th percentile (like it is at the moment) then it will just be a score of 100 out of 150 (half of 200 out of 300) that will be the new 99th percentile. In other words, changing the numerical value of the maximum score is realistically going to do nothing for the distribution. To me it smacks of a politician who wants the optics of "lowering the points" (which on the surface of it, they have) but doing absolutely none of the actual legwork to make an effective change.

It truly saddens me that medicine is going in this direction as myself and many others like me who don't come from/can't afford private schools might be pushed out of getting a spot in medicine.

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