Thursday, 5 April 2012

Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests: The Medical School Versions #2

This is a sister post to my UKCAT one and is an introduction to/some advice for taking the BMAT. The BioMedical Aptitude Test is used by a few universities in the UK (Cambridge, ICL, Oxford, and UCL  for medicine at the time of writing) as an admissions test to help differentiate between high achieving applicants and show potential for higher education. Basically, it's another hurdle.

Preparing For The BMAT

You will probably be able to take the BMAT at your school and this year it will be on the 7th of November. You will need to register (make sure you do) and pay an entry fee.

The BMAT has 3 sections:
-  Aptitude and Skills (tests problem solving, reasoning, data interpretation etc. multiple choice)
- Scientific Knowledge and Applications (ability to apply knowledge from maths and science (up to Key Stage 4 level), multiple choice)
- Writing Task (select, develop and organise ideas and communicate effectively in writing; one essay from a choice of four titles)

Your raw mark in converted to a score out of 9 for each of the first two sections (to one decimal place). The average candidate is supposed to score 5.0, the best candidates 6.0 and exceptional candidates above 7.0. For the third section, you get a score 0-5 for 'quality of content' and a letter score E-A for 'quality of written English'.

As with the UKCAT, preparation by practicing the question styles is important. For the BMAT, however, there definitely is material to revise (section 2). The material is meant to be up to KS4, but that does not make the questions easy, or GCSE level, the important aspect here is applying knowledge. A further point is that the some of the stuff may not have been on the syllabus of the exam board you took your science and maths GCSEs with. I mainly used 'How To Master The BMAT' to prepare. It was helpful because, as well as having lots of practice questions, it also had a very condensed revision guide to all the science and maths in it, so you could quickly refresh your memory and check if you had missed anything vital at GCSE. Practice papers are also available from the BMAT website. There is a '400 Questions' book (equivalent to the UKCAT I mentioned in my other post), and although I didn't use it, I expect it would be useful (I had a slightly random selection of books based on what my local bookshop had).

Cuteness break - the world's smallest species of chameleon:


The BMAT is a paper exam so it would probably be useful to practice writing the essays under timed conditions. Also: you only get one side of A4 for the essay. That's right - there's a line limit, and no planning space. This is to encourage you to be concise and organised with your thoughts, not a challenge to write illegibly small. Be aware that you have more than enough time to fill this paper, so take the time to make sure that you're filling it with something good. Part of the score for the essay comes from 'quality of written English', so make sure that your spelling and grammar won't let you down!

There are bound to be courses promising to boost your score. I stuck to books and practice papers, so I don't know how useful these are, but it's probably worth getting an independent opinion on them before signing up.

Being Strategic With Your Score

'Aha!' You cry. 'but I won't know my score before applying, you fool, Erin!' And you're right, so if you use 3 of your 4 medicine UCAS choices for BMAT universities then you're taking quite a gamble that your score will be good. I've got a friend who did this, applying to London schools and Oxford,  and it worked for her. If you're confident (hopefully based on having done a few practice papers) and you want to, then do it, but be aware that it is a risk, and if you have a bad day you could blow all your chances of getting an offer at once. The stuff about checking how they use your score still applies (and it can differ between individual Oxbridge colleges as well as between universities), e.g. some may not look at your essay, so if essay-writing isn't a strong point it may not matter, whereas some will discuss your essay at interview. Some also use BMAT cut-offs. 

And Finally...

Prepare well, but most importantly relax so that you can do your best in the exam. If you're reading this because you're taking it, rather than for nostalgia, then good luck! (:

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