Medicine

UnknownEntity

Hi there, I will be doing my Leaving Cert this year and I am hoping to get into medicine. I have a few questions and hopefully some people on here can help me with them.

1) I've heard of a few people who didn't get enough points in the hpat so they did one year in college, did the hpat again and then transferred. How exactly does this work? Do you have to do a specific course to make up for that one year? Are there additional fees for transferring?

2) How difficult is the hpat relative to the Leaving Cert. I'm doing pretty well in my Leaving Cert subjects at the moment and I got 7 H1's in my summer exams but my main worry is the hpat. I've heard of lots of people who did well in the LC but not the hpat. Can anyone tell me if you have to be good at any subjects in particular to be good in the hpat or are there no links?

3) Finally, can any successful students please give me any tips? Are hpat courses worth doing? I'm currently practising on me**ntry. My results are decent enough but how indicative are they of the real hpat?

Thanks a lot for the help and I would seriously appreciate any help from successful students.

polkadot7

1) I just did the LC so I'm not sure on this, but I'm almost sure that it doesn't matter what course you do in first year in this situation. You just re-apply the next year for medicine, although I'm sure it would be beneficial to do a course that would be helpful to you in some way in your study of medicine.

2) To me there is no clear link between the HPAT and any particular subject (I did the HPAT this year). Being good at mental maths would be helpful though, as you are not allowed a calculator but need to do some maths in your head occasionally. Being good at problem solving and critical thinking is very important as well as working well and quickly under pressure. Having a good vocabulary is important too esp for section 2. If you read the blogs on m******y you will find lots of tips and advice on all of this.

3) I think the courses are worth doing as you receive so much resources to prepare with and you have access to help on forums etc. The mock exam at the workshop is good too as you experience real exam conditions and get to meet like-minded students. I'm not sure how indicative the results are. If your results are looking good, take it as a sign that you are preparing well and heading in the right direction, but don't take it as a given that you will do as well in the real thing. Having said that, if your results are very poor on those practice exams, I couldn't see a miracle happening on the day! It's worth mentioning also that Acer (who make the hpat exam) are aware that students are taking preparation courses and are changing the exam accordingly to try and give everyone a level playing field. The m******y questions are a good indication of what to expect but keep an open mind and don't panic if you see an unfamiliar style of questioning on the day of the exam.

UnknownEntity

polkadot7 wrote: »

1) I just did the LC so I'm not sure on this, but I'm almost sure that it doesn't matter what course you do in first year in this situation. You just re-apply the next year for medicine, although I'm sure it would be beneficial to do a course that would be helpful to you in some way in your study of medicine.

Isn't it possible to do some kind of health related course and then skip the first year of medicine if you do get it the second time? I've heard of people who have done this.

2) To me there is no clear link between the HPAT and any particular subject (I did the HPAT this year). Being good at mental maths would be helpful though, as you are not allowed a calculator but need to do some maths in your head occasionally. Being good at problem solving and critical thinking is very important as well as working well and quickly under pressure. Having a good vocabulary is important too esp for section 2. If you read the blogs on m******y you will find lots of tips and advice on all of this.

3) I think the courses are worth doing as you receive so much resources to prepare with and you have access to help on forums etc. The mock exam at the workshop is good too as you experience real exam conditions and get to meet like-minded students. I'm not sure how indicative the results are. If your results are looking good, take it as a sign that you are preparing well and heading in the right direction, but don't take it as a given that you will do as well in the real thing. Having said that, if your results are very poor on those practice exams, I couldn't see a miracle happening on the day! It's worth mentioning also that Acer (who make the hpat exam) are aware that students are taking preparation courses and are changing the exam accordingly to try and give everyone a level playing field. The m******y questions are a good indication of what to expect but keep an open mind and don't panic if you see an unfamiliar style of questioning on the day of the exam.

Thank you very much for your help. If you did m******y, as well as all the practise exams, did you use the drills and other questions too or was it mainly just the exams?

jeonahr

polkadot7 wrote: »

3) I think the courses are worth doing as you receive so much resources to prepare with and you have access to help on forums etc. The mock exam at the workshop is good too as you experience real exam conditions and get to meet like-minded students. I'm not sure how indicative the results are. If your results are looking good, take it as a sign that you are preparing well and heading in the right direction, but don't take it as a given that you will do as well in the real thing. Having said that, if your results are very poor on those practice exams, I couldn't see a miracle happening on the day! It's worth mentioning also that Acer (who make the hpat exam) are aware that students are taking preparation courses and are changing the exam accordingly to try and give everyone a level playing field. The m******y questions are a good indication of what to expect but keep an open mind and don't panic if you see an unfamiliar style of questioning on the day of the exam.

For m******y did you just avail of the online resources or did you go to the workshop?
If you did go for the latter, do you think it was worth it?
Also when do you think the best time to start preparing was for you?

Mr Rhode Island Red

To be honest, from what I've seen and heard, if you were going to do well in the HPAT, you'll do well in it anyway, with or without a revision course.

I might be in the minority here, but save yourself a few hundred euros, do the practice exam papers that ACER provide, maybe get a book on psychometric testing, familiarise yourself with the questions, and see how you get on.

There's this notion nowadays that if you don't do revision courses you aren't doing it properly, and companies like the one mentioned already prey off this notion.

reason vs religion

Afaik, none or next to none transfer into medicine. (The dropout rate is very low.) Instead they withdraw from their course, reapply through CAO and enter first year. Considering that, the year done in the other course isn't taken into account (but, as a poster above said, something like Biomed would probably be useful!). Transferring like that, though, would mean you wouldn't qualify for the government subsidy for the first year of medicine, requiring that you pay €5-7k in fees, on top of the €3k student contribution, and afaik Susi, if you qualify, won't give you any funding for that year either. So..avoid that route!

Hpat and LC are different types of test. It's not possible to directly compare them. Indirectly, there's probably a strong correlation between those who do well at maths and those who do well in the critical thinking section, and a slightly weaker correlation with those who do well in the spacial reasoning section.

Although the Hpat provider claims that prep courses don't improve your score (it was one of the premises behind introducing test) they quite clearly do, whether merely because it familiarises you with the test or because it's possible to learn the basic steps for attempting the questions. Bmat, the UK equivalent, has its past papers and answers for the last ten years or so on its website. Only section one is relevant to Hpat. Have a look at those, as well as spacial reasoning tests from elsewhere on the web, and see how comfortable you feel. I certainly think, though, that the prep courses are useful.

polkadot7

UnknownEntity wrote: »

Thank you very much for your help. If you did m******y, as well as all the practise exams, did you use the drills and other questions too or was it mainly just the exams?

I didn't start preparing in enough time to get through all the exams, and I did very little of the drills. In the time I had I just focused on the practice exams.

polkadot7

jeonahr wrote: »

For m******y did you just avail of the online resources or did you go to the workshop?
If you did go for the latter, do you think it was worth it?
Also when do you think the best time to start preparing was for you?

I availed of the online resources and went to the workshop. I thought the workshop was very good. The package is not cheap but if it will help you to succeed in the hpat it's worth it. The mock exam in the workshop gives you a good experience of the tense exam atmosphere and will highlight your weaknesses. They read out the same instructions as you will hear on the day of the actual hpat so it is good for getting familiar with the whole process so nothing is new on the day. The workshop was also good for giving advice on how to adapt your thought process to tackle problems and they really motivate you on the day too. I left the workshop feeling a lot more motivated and positive and actually looking forward to the challenge ahead! Having said all that, doing the workshop or even m******y is absolutely not essential. It is a help, but acer are trying to nullify that by changing questions so be aware of this.

I didn't start preparing properly until Christmas but I would recommend starting preparation as soon as possible (ideally the summer before 6th year or even in 5th year, you could get the hpat package in the February after the hpat the year before yours so you would have it for a full year). After Christmas in 6th year you will have pres as well as orals/practicals looming so start as early as possible to keep the pressure off yourself (a little!).

Also just to note, m******y is not the only source of resources. You can get lots of resources for free online or from people you might know who have done the hpat. You also get practice exams when you register with acer.