*** HPAT and Medicine 2017 ***

ciara18

Hi everyone seen as we are the next lot to suffer through the HPAT and the struggle for medicine, I'm making this thread so that everyone can help each other with regards to their queries about the HPAT 2017, and applying for Medicine.

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ciara18

Anyone started HPAT prep yet?

Cob9

ive been nonchalantly following the 2015 and 2016 threads up until now. this now applies to me directly, well then let the panic set in :"D

i have started proper prep since June, but have been doing a few of the careers services practice questions provided to me by my schools guidance councellour throughout 5th year in my spare time.

whats everyone else at out of curiosity.

catmister

how is everyone preparing for the hpat?

Beggles123

Hello fellow HPAT victims,👍🏼😂
I have been preparing for HPAT since early Transition Year...but now because the Acer HPAT papers are only valid for 12 months I no longer have access to them.
I know I should have printed out the hard copies but to be perfectly honest I have gone through each paper thoroughly at least twice already & I need some new material ASAP.
Although I will be doing the ******** Course in December & will have access to new material I would like to remain in touch with the HPAT between now & then.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated☺️

catmister

where did you get the acer hpat papers?

wyoml

Does anyone know how the new points system for 2017 will effect things?

Beggles123

I ordered them online off of their official website catmister

ciara18

wyoml wrote: »

Does anyone know how the new points system for 2017 will effect things?

No-one can accurately predict how the points will be affected next year but it's possible that larger grade bands could lead to a small drop in points I suppose

Taco Chips

ciara18 wrote: »

wyoml wrote: »

Does anyone know how the new points system for 2017 will effect things?

No-one can accurately predict how the points will be affected next year but it's possible that larger grade bands could lead to a small drop in points I suppose

I would have thought larger grade bands will mean more people sitting on the same leaving cert points, so the HPAT will be worth even more and that would mean a points bump or more places going on random selection.

CH1123581321

Anybody have any tips on timing/ how to speed up answering test questions?

CH1123581321

Just out of curiosity, what colleges are you all applying for medicine to and do you have any preferences?

nol980

CH1123581321 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, what colleges are you all applying for medicine to and do you have any preferences?

All of them.. order of preference is UCD, TCD, RCSI, NUIG, UCC. UCD is the dream but of course will be lucky to get into any of them

Pharmacy

Hi, I was just wondering if any of you know if there's any difference between the 5 medicine courses in Ireland? I live in the west and I probably will put NUIG as my first choice, my only hesitation is whether NUIG holds the same stance and merit as the colleges in Dublin (RCSI, UCD and TCD). Basically, what i'm trying to figure out is whether the college you go to matters in the end.

Thanks.

FirstDraft1

Pharmacy wrote: »

Hi, I was just wondering if any of you know if there's any difference between the 5 medicine courses in Ireland? I live in the west and I probably will put NUIG as my first choice, my only hesitation is whether NUIG holds the same stance and merit as the colleges in Dublin (RCSI, UCD and TCD). Basically, what i'm trying to figure out is whether the college you go to matters in the end.

Thanks.

Not at all. Your results matter, not your college. Pick the college you actually want to go to.
(Go Cork! :P)

CH1123581321

Would any of you be able to tell me how many questions right out of 110 in the hpat should we be getting in order to have some hope at getting medicine?
Now I know since section 1 and 2 are worth 40% getting more questions right in them would be more beneficial than getting them right in section 3 as its only worth 20% but I'm just wondering if ye have any general idea?

jeonahr

Would anyone recommend any preparation courses for the hpat? eg. at The Institute or such?

em0192

jeonahr wrote: »

Would anyone recommend any preparation courses for the hpat? eg. at The Institute or such?

hey I did the m****try course and I found it very useful

abbadi

How was the hpat today for all who did it ? Any comments ������

Camellia33

abbadi wrote: »

How was the hpat today for all who did it ? Any comments ������

Definitely more difficult than both DSoG and IoE grinds sample tests! Time pressure was also more of an issue for me than normal, maybe I was being more slow and careful because it was the real thing.

ML98

Just wondering how people found it today? I can't help feeling really disappointed I worked so so hard for it but I feel like it went so bad like I don't think I have a hope of getting med now! Especially with section 2 which I'm usually really good at, I felt like I was picking the best of a load of bad answers. Does everyone feel like this after it?

abbadi

I did the med course and was really good at section 3 but I was disappointed with the Qs today because they were kinda mostly the same and not like what I studied for. Section 1 had a lot of data interpretation and not a lot of problem solving or logical reasons. I really didn't like the Qs about where everyone was sitting. Hopefully points go down or we're overthinking it and it went okay idk 4 more months to go ��

InsertCoins

I thought section 1 was pretty nasty. Didn't have as much logical reasoning style questions. It was mostly interpreting graphs (if I'm remembering correctly). Did anyone else think a lot of these graphs/diagrams were a bit all over the shop? I'd to re-read a few of them a couple of times before they made any reasonable amount of sense (even then I'm sure I made mistakes with at least some of them).

Section 2 and 3 seemed okay, but you can never be sure.

All in all, I have to say that I'm disappointed with today. I did all of the sample ACER papers (lol) and the Career Services prep course and was doing quiet well (or so I thought at least). So yeah, I guess I was reasonably confident of my chances, but after today I'm definitely not.

nol980

Insertcoins I feel the same. In fact I can't remember seeing a single logical reasoning question. It was awful.
The first graph about the ages had options such as the chance a 50 year old Male would live till 60 but in the key there was no bar for 50 year olds.. does that automatically dismiss this option?
Hadn't a clue for the table question so guessed them all
Section 3 was weird in that the mapping techniques on ******** were rarely useful, there were lots of 8x8 grids and difficult transformations.
I was predicted 85-95th percentile by m€dentry but guessed about half of the questions today and was nowhere near confident with those remaining. Currently reconsidering my options as have to accept that I likely won't get medicine.

InsertCoins

@nol980: Yeah that first question took a few reads and even then I'm very doubtful about it. I didn't spend too long on it because I knew I had to move on and was still pretty nervous and hadn't settled in (that first question didn't help :P)

I think the circular seats question's grid represented who sat beside who, so for people at opposite ends of the grid you'd have to look at the very bottom square to see if they sat beside each other and so on. I could definitely be wrong on this (again I rushed through it).

TBH I'm not surprised that a lot of the techniques that you learned at the M******y courses weren't useful. They've been trying to remove the advantage that people doing prep courses had in section 3 in recent years (making it worth half as much as the other two sections, changing questions etc).

nol980

InsertCoins wrote: »

@nol980: Yeah that first question took a few reads and even then I'm very doubtful about it. I didn't spend too long on it because I knew I had to move on and was still pretty nervous and hadn't settled in (that first question didn't help :P)

I think the circular seats question's grid represented who sat beside who, so for people at opposite ends of the grid you'd have to look at the very bottom square to see if they sat beside each other and so on. I could definitely be wrong on this (again I rushed through it).

TBH I'm not surprised that a lot of the techniques that you learned at the M******y courses weren't useful. They've been trying to remove the advantage that people doing prep courses had in section 3 in recent years (making it worth half as much as the other two sections, changing questions etc).

Same here. Thinking back, I definitely rushed that question and it wasn't even that hard. Don't really understand what you mean regarding the table q but tbh just relieved it wasn't something insanely simple/obvious. I wouldn't have had a chance at s3 if it wasn't for m€dentry but yeah I agree they did make it obvious that they are trying to shy away from the learned techniques. The wait until June is going to be agonizing!

Izumi998

I agree with all of you I felt something was missing from Section I- there were way too many data interpretation questions. I always finished Section II in time or only had a few questions unread- today I probably may have missed ten or more which makes me feel disappointed in myself primarily. Section III, just as you have all said, was not too kind to us either. There were those certain types of questions which were in nearly every ACER sample paper and my Career*ervices practice papers that made no appearance today.

But then, on the other hand, they're never going to fulfil our expectations simple as. The thing with HPAT is we should've (and subconsciously probably did!) expect the unexpected. InsertCoins, I completely agree about the advantage of courses being diminished. They're trying to stop any courses from becoming too helpful. For us and future HPAT students (hopefully not us anymore, we'll be in med school, away from that!) courses have become only a sort of tool to make us more confident, there's so much they can really help with.

They truly do want to test our potential, intellect and mental capacities from the stimuli we receive on the day, not all the stuff we hope to see. On the way, they seriously test our resillience to stress! (like "the universe" in that Section II q!)

theWildCard

My first post here.

My tactic for S1 was to do the questions i felt were easier at first. when i reached the end of s1 i had not done the first age data qs, seat qs, square qs (the 31B22 b sht) and the cake part. I had like ten minutes to finish these but my mind was completely blown so i had to guess a lot of those. I only got to figure out the seat qs thoroughly. I really didnt know how to attack a lot of these... harder than im used to.

Section 2 went great. But, it was hard to finish. i had to skip 2 qs. Normally i have ten minutes before the times up!

Section 3 had a different style than im used to as well. i guess i will get 23, 26, 14 correct. What do you think thats equivalent to in terms of percentile and overall score? I have 565 points LC points

BalladStar

Hi guys,

Did anyone else notice a mistake on the Circular Table question in Section One?

They named 3 girls and 3 guys at the start, and then one of the guys names changed inexplicably a couple of lines later???

I've emailed them to ask in any case... just in case it was a reading error on my part!!

xx

nol980

BalladStar wrote: »

Hi guys,

Did anyone else notice a mistake on the Circular Table question in Section One?

They named 3 girls and 3 guys at the start, and then one of the guys names changed inexplicably a couple of lines later???

I've emailed them to ask in any case... just in case it was a reading error on my part!!

xx

Oh please god you're right and that question won't be counted...

mbh008

Did you guys get any question on an American woman in section 2? And did you guys say indifferent or something like hostile?
(Just hoping it's a trial question)

BalladStar

Yeah there was a question about an American woman in Edinburgh..

I chose C I believe.. defensive and wary.. wasn't really sure however!!!

xx

Username_17

I found section 2 much harder than usual! I was getting it done in time on the acer practice tests but missed out on nearly 10 questions for the real thing. Did anyone else find section 2 took longer than the practice exams?

vanilla_bean

Username_17 wrote: »

I found section 2 much harder than usual! I was getting it done in time on the acer practice tests but missed out on nearly 10 questions for the real thing. Did anyone else find section 2 took longer than the practice exams?

Section 2 was a bit more vague than the practice ACER exams I did. I found there were a few questions where there seemed to be 2 possible answers.

Got55

i chose indifferent for the american woman question!! I didn't notice any aggressive behaviour! oh lads section 3 what even

mbh008

Got55 wrote: »

i chose indifferent for the american woman question!! I didn't notice any aggressive behaviour! oh lads section 3 what even

Me too because at the end the other woman was saying something like why would they care I'm only a stranger
But I'm still not sure
I hated section 2 all the options were plausible

InsertCoins

theWildCard wrote: »

My first post here.

My tactic for S1 was to do the questions i felt were easier at first. when i reached the end of s1 i had not done the first age data qs, seat qs, square qs (the 31B22 b sht) and the cake part. I had like ten minutes to finish these but my mind was completely blown so i had to guess a lot of those. I only got to figure out the seat qs thoroughly. I really didnt know how to attack a lot of these... harder than im used to.

Section 2 went great. But, it was hard to finish. i had to skip 2 qs. Normally i have ten minutes before the times up!

Section 3 had a different style than im used to as well. i guess i will get 23, 26, 14 correct. What do you think thats equivalent to in terms of percentile and overall score? I have 565 points LC points

Sounds pretty similar to my experience with the test.

We can only speculate in terms of what scores we might have gotten. The number of correct answers has little to do with scores. It's based on a distribution of scores and marked based on what percentile that you're in.

I'm just pretty damn worried because section 3 is only worth half as much as the others and that section 1 could really bring down my overall score.

InsertCoins

mbh008 wrote: »

Me too because at the end the other woman was saying something like why would they care I'm only a stranger
But I'm still not sure
I hated section 2 all the options were plausible

Isn't that what they're going for, though? They give you a choice of possible answers and you have to determine the one that is best?

Got55

Any one else run out of time for section 1? </3

CH1123581321

Oh yeah ha ha, like big time, I had to blindly guess a good 15+ without even reading the questions

InsertCoins

CH1123581321 wrote: »

Oh yeah ha ha, like big time, I had to blindly guess a good 15+ without even reading the questions

Try not to dwell on it. I know you're disappointed but loads of people didn't get section 1 finished and even then it was very tough. Remember, it's your percentile that matters and NOT the number of correct answers.

vanilla_bean

There's nothing we can do about it now, it's done and dusted. I'm trying to forget about until I hear from UL. It's a learning experience if nothing else
Best of luck with the leaving cert!

Prisoner24601

Definitely follow up on that and try to get ACER to clarify.

InsertCoins

Did anyone else get the question on the deaf people, in Section 1?

mbh008

InsertCoins wrote: »

Did anyone else get the question on the deaf people, in Section 1?

The one with the vowels and stuff?
I got it, I hope it's not a trial because it was kinda nice

InsertCoins

Yeah, that one.

sunshine98

mbh008 wrote: »

The one with the vowels and stuff?
I got it, I hope it's not a trial because it was kinda nice

What is a trial?

InsertCoins

We don't all get the same questions on the day. Most of the questions will be the same that every else got, but some are trial questions that only some people get. Apparently, these questions are only intended to gather statistics on how it was answered and doesn't count towards towards your final score.

sunshine98

InsertCoins wrote: »

We don't all get the same questions on the day. Most of the questions will be the same that every else got, but some are trial questions that only some people get. Apparently, these questions are only intended to gather statistics on how it was answered and doesn't count towards towards your final score.

Oh I didn't know that, that's interesting thank you!

theWildCard

Are you talking about the questions with four boxes with audio or/and video stimulus and answers to what they think they heard or saw?

mbh008

Yes that one