Do you have any tips for the BMAT? It's coming up rlly soon and I'm freaking out :( thanks xxx
Hello! Sorry this took a while, I have been really busy these past few weeks, I hope you see this and it still helps! :)
First of all, good luck everyone taking the BMAT next week. I’m sure you’ve been preparing and revising so I’l give you some tips for the day!
Arrive in good timeIt’s the same advice I give for any exam/interview, but being there in plenty of time and not having to rush will help! It gives you a little bit of time before to calm down and get in the zone
Section 1 and 2If you don’t know a question really quickly/don’t know how to work it out then leave it! It’s similar to the UKCAT, it’s better to go through and get as many done that you know are right, rather than spend a while on a question, get it wrong and then miss out on later marks because you’ve run out of time.
Keep an eye on the time, but don’t clock watch. In section 1 you have an hour to do 35 questions. which is just less than 2 minutes per question. However, don’t check after every question how long it took, I simply aimed for benchmarks, after 20 minutes I wanted to be at question 11/12 etc. I’m fairly sure I got to the end of section 1, but didn’t have time to check them. Just remember there are no negative marks so in the first section especially, it is worth guessing.
In section 2 it’s 30 minutes, but you have a lot less time (and I found that i had to think about them more. Aim for about 1 minute per question, but if you initially read a question and don’t know how to work out the answer, move on.
I pretty much ignored all of the physics questions unless they were immediately obvious to me. I hadn’t taken physics at A level and although i read over my GCSE notes before hand, I was more confident on the biology/chemistry/maths, so I focused on those.
Section 3You’ve probably already heard it but they are looking at your ability to communicate just as much as your knowledge. I knew nothing about the topics on my exam (2013) and looking back on the questions, I can’t actually remember which one I picked! (I think it was the one about surgeons and mortality rates). Don’t overthink your choice, you’ll waste time at the beginning. Read through them all AND read what the question asks of you, because you may like a topic but realise you have no idea how to answer part of it, whereas another question you can think of points for all three parts of the answer quite easily.
Read the quote, if it’s a long one then break it down/highlight key words. There will always be three points underneath each quote/question that you need to address, and you should address them fairly equally. Write down some points for each one, and mentally split your answer page into 3 equal parts, so you know if you’re going over/might need to fill out the answer a bit more.
Don’t write ridiculously small, because although it might seem like you’ll get more down on the page, you’ll probably just run out of time and not cover all the points in the question adequately.
Don’t waffle, keep sentences to the point and try to avoid repeating concepts. Remember they want to see your ability to communicate your opinions clearly and use good English, as well as being able to explain concepts and weigh up two sides of an argument.
General adviceThe two hours goes really quickly and you will be working to the end of each section, take some water in, but you probably won’t need it (and definitely don’t have time to be taking lots of drink breaks).
Don’t look too much into the results. Most universities use it as part of the whole picture, rather than having a specific cut off (the exception I think is Imperial, but you’d have to check).
