The BMAT has now been discontinued. All applicants for undergraduate medicine in the UK will be required to sit the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) for their application. Check out our wide selection of Free UCAT Guides to get started with your preparation.
It’s a fact that sooner or later, BMAT Testing Day will come and your whole medicine application will depend on your performance in this two-hour exam. How you spend the days, weeks and even months before this date is equally important, as an effective preparation plan could be the difference between success and failure!
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Why Create a BMAT Preparation Plan?
As with many important things in life, preparing and planning are essential to ensure you do things right. While it may be tempting to just jump straight into your BMAT revision, having a plan for how you will use your time and approach the task is going to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your work.
Really, there are countless reasons why you should plan out your BMAT preparation, so here are just a few examples:
- You will have a complete understanding of your BMAT journey before you’ve answered a single practice question.
- You won’t lose time deciding topics to study or sections to focus on; you will have already planned this out!
- You can set clear milestones that will help with your sense of progression.
- You can gather your resources early on so you’re not searching last minute for an effective question bank or past paper collection.
- You can ensure nothing has been forgotten (provided you planned carefully)!
- There will be no last-minute cramming as long as you’ve given yourself enough time.
The planning phase of your preparation isn’t going to eat up much of your available time and will save you potentially hours overall as you won’t need to organise your studies on the fly. However, different people have different needs, so you need to ask yourself the question of how your preparation will properly benefit you. One of the first things to consider is your timeframe.
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When Should I Start Revising for the BMAT?
BMAT preparation plans are not a “one-size fits all” type of thing and only you can truly tailor your schedule to your own needs. However, it’s good to consider other people’s advice and understand the requirements of a hypothetical “average applicant”.
For most admissions tests, the general suggestion is to begin studying for the BMAT six weeks before the test. Since the BMAT is taken on a set date each year (typically in October starting from 2022), this would mean that you should be creating your preparation plan to begin in August. Six weeks probably doesn’t sound like a lot when compared to how long students are expected to revise for their final exams. However, it’s important to remember that 2/3rds of the BMAT can’t be revised for in a traditional sense.
Section 2, meanwhile, will require you to learn a lot more subject knowledge, but all of the questions in the BMAT cover knowledge at a GCSE level rather than your current level of education. That’s not to say that the questions are easy, but it means you’ll likely have a good understanding of most of the syllabus early on in your prep. So once again, practice questions and past papers will be the most effective preparation techniques.
Using practice questions and past papers will generally prepare you for the BMAT quicker, so you may not need to spend months working on it. However, the BMAT is likely not going to be the only priority during this time. The vast majority of applicants sitting the BMAT will also be sitting the UCAT earlier on, as the number of universities that accept the BMAT is very small compared to the UCAT. You’ll have until late September to sit the UCAT, which is right in the middle of your BMAT preparation time. Of course, sitting the UCAT is going to require its own preparation plan, and that’s still not everything!
Your UCAS application and Personal Statement will need to be submitted by October 15th, two things that take even more time and preparation! Plus you have your school work to worry about, potential last-minute work experience during the summer holidays and you’re interview preparation, all in the span of six months! Needless to say, it’s a lot.
So coming back to the BMAT specifically, it may not be wise to pack all of this revision into just six weeks, knowing you’ve got all this other stuff to do. Of course, six weeks is still a very valid option, if you sat the UCAT early, got ahead of your personal statement or are confident in your school work. It’s all down to the individual and their circumstances and abilities.
But if you need longer to prepare, what would be a reasonable length of time? As long as you have the time available, you could begin practising your skills months in advance, perhaps even a year early! Pretty much everything the BMAT tests is applicable outside of the exam so you may already be skilled at some of the question types without knowing. For the sake of example though, we would say that three months would be a good amount of time to start seriously preparing for the exam. Even if you’re smashing every practice question you try, it’s still important to practise consistently to keep your skills sharp with mock exams. BMAT-specific questions are ideal to use, but similar practice questions can also be found in admissions tests like the NSAA and TSA, so check out some of these past papers to get even free resources!
However, preparing for this length of time means you’re going to have to focus on all the other aspects of your application and school work alongside your BMAT prep. It may be that you would rather dedicate a shorter period of time solely to the BMAT. This can be hard to do with so much else going on, but it’s possible if you manage to get your UCAT, PS and UCAS application all out early. The absolute minimum amount of time we would suggest for a sensible preparation schedule is three weeks, about half of the average recommended time.
It’s an extremely short amount of time, but it’s time you can set aside just for BMAT prep (and school work of course). With a greater level of focus, it’s possible to achieve just as much as if you spread your time out across multiple different tasks. However, this strategy would only be recommended for someone who is already decently skilled at what the BMAT is testing and would be using the time to perfect their skills rather than build them.
There are pros and cons to each of the three preparation strategies, so it’s down to you to decide where your priorities lie:
Pros
- Gives you lots of time to understand and practise every aspect of the BMAT.
- You will have time to discover and strengthen any particular weaknesses.
- There’s flexibility in how much time you spend on a particular section or topic.
Cons
- Your time will be split between a lot of different things.
- Milestones may be too spread out to properly motivate you.
- Some skills may not be as fresh on the testing day if you worked on them earlier in your plan.
Pros
- There’s enough time between you and the exam to avoid stress.
- You can work in smaller slots (1 hour per day).
- You should have plenty of resources to last until the testing day.
Cons
- You will still need to work around other parts of your application.
- There’s not much time available to re-evaluate things if something isn’t working right.
- Some skills may not be as fresh on the testing day if you worked on them earlier in your plan.
Pros
- You will be able to dedicate all of this time to the BMAT with good planning.
- Longer, more intensive sessions may be more effective for your way of learning.
- Everything you’ve learnt should be fresh in your mind when it’s time to sit the real thing.
Cons
- The stress of the exam may get to you easily at this stage and affect your concentration.
- You will need to ensure you submitted your UCAS application and PS early.
- Some BMAT courses may finish running at this stage (thankfully, the 6med BMAT Crash Course runs until just days before the actual test).
Of course, you shouldn’t feel shackled to just these three options. There’s plenty of middle ground when it comes to BMAT preparation so you can spend as long as you feel is necessary to prepare! We believe these examples work well as guidelines for your own plan, so let’s now see how you could design your own preparation plan based on each of these three-time scales!
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3 Month BMAT Preparation Plan
Starting with the longest preparation plan, let’s look at how you could use these three months to become a BMAT master! We’ll go through month by month and see what you can do in this time to truly develop your skills:
Month 1
This is the first month of your full-on BMAT preparation and you have a long road ahead of you, for better or for worse! The key thing to remember with this preparation structure is that you’re working on other things outside of the BMAT. Therefore, the tasks that you set yourself may feel a bit spread out when looking at them in a vacuum, but it’s all in service of the sense of ease that a longer revision schedule provides. The reason you’ve decided to choose this route is likely because you don’t want the stress of last-minute revision and cramming, so spreading your tasks evenly makes the most sense.
BMAT Research
In your first two weeks of preparation, the best idea is to perform in-depth research into the BMAT and everything surrounding it. This will include all of the following:
- The basic structure of the BMAT
- The specifications and formats of the three sections
- The scoring and results systems
- The registration process and test centre locations
- University BMAT Score requirements
- Previous year’s BMAT results and averages
This is a lot of information to take in, which is why it’s best to spread out your research over a couple of weeks. Having a greater understanding of the BMAT itself than your competition will benefit you in the long run as you’ll know exactly what you’re doing. Information on most of these topics is relatively easy to find (you can find information about everything listed above within 6med’s collection of Free BMAT Resources and Guides), so you’ll have plenty of bedtime reading to get through!
BMAT Resources
Within this time, it will also be a good idea to begin researching and collecting the resources that you intend to use during your preparation. There is a good variety of free resources available to use, including guides, past papers and question banks (such as BMAT.Ninja), but it may be difficult to sustain a three-month preparation schedule on these alone.
Luckily, there are plenty of options for additional support providers to choose from, offering a wide selection of resources to utilise. The best materials and services you can find include:
Combining any of these resources together will benefit your preparation schedule immeasurably (and all of these options are available from 6med, with most being included in the BMAT Bundle!)
Early BMAT Practice
Of course, it’s never too early to begin your BMAT practice, but at this stage, there’s not as much need to go fully into it. Once you’ve got a better understanding of the BMAT, spend some time getting to know the questions. Don’t worry about timing or scoring yourself, perhaps don’t even worry about getting them right! Just take some time to go through the different question types and see how they’re structured. If you have worked solutions available, even better! You’ll be able to see exactly how certain questions are answered using the general skills and techniques the BMAT requires.
As well as this, you may also want to check out a past paper. Again, this doesn’t have to be anything too serious so don’t worry about doing it under exam conditions or getting a great score. Just work through the sections and see how difficult you find it. If it takes you a long time to finish the paper, then you know that timing will be an area to work on when your practice fully begins.
Section 2 Revision
Lastly for this month, you’re going to want to ensure you have a plan for your Section 2 revision. These questions all require direct subject knowledge, so your preparation is going to be more like a traditional exam. You have four subjects to worry about here: Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. But remember that they will all be covering topics at a GCSE level, so most of the required knowledge should already be fairly simple to you.
When it comes to revising for these subjects, it’s up to you whether you want to revise each topic equally or prioritise your weaker topics. You may already be very comfortable with Biology so a quick refresher may be all you need, while you may need to dedicate more time to Physics if it’s a topic you don’t quite get. The best way to determine this will be to simply try some questions. You’ll soon see where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
TLDR; Research the BMAT exam, get your preparation resources together and start working through practice questions and Section 2 Revision.
Month 2
At this stage, you should be very well-versed in what the BMAT is and what it’s testing you on. You will have laid the groundwork for your preparation already, so your job is now to develop your skills and progress through your practice resources. This is the point where you’ll be wanting to dedicate at least an hour per day for at least 5 days per week.
BMAT Courses
If you haven’t yet, the beginning of this month would be a great time to fully immerse yourself in the theory behind the BMAT through different types of BMAT courses. These courses are designed to go through everything you need to know about the test, including knowledge and tips for each section and general exam advice.
There are plenty of courses to pick from, with the two major types being Live Courses and Video/Text Courses. There are benefits to each, so our guide to choosing a BMAT course will help you make the decision.
BMAT Practice Questions
You should already know by now that practice is the most effective way to prepare for the BMAT, so the majority of your prep time from now on will be dedicated to working through practice questions and papers. We would recommend individual practice questions rather than full papers to start with, as your first goal should be to consistently answer questions correctly without assistance.
This process takes a while, which is why one hour per day will help you make progress without burning out. Since there are three sections, it makes sense to practise them one at a time rather than mixing them all together at this stage, so you may wish to dedicate one week to each section to get to grips with them. If you find that you need more time on one, you can come back to it afterwards. We would typically recommend practising in the order of the exam but other may find it easier to begin in a certain place. Let’s look at this section by section:
Section 1
Section 1 is the simplest of the three sections to practise as the questions aren’t based on subject knowledge but on general thinking skills that can’t really be revised. You’ll have seen plenty of tips on how to tackle these questions though, so now’s the time to put them to use. Of course, there are two types of questions here, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, so you may wish to separate these two question types when preparing, although this is only recommended when starting out. Bear in mind though that the questions are mixed in the actual BMAT paper, so you’ll need to get used to switching between the two.
Section 2
Preparing for Section two is a bit of a slower process, as you’re likely going to have to revise a lot of topics before your take on your practice questions. You shouldn’t need to spend hours reading through every textbook you own thankfully, but it’s still good to refresh your memory on these topics before going fully into the practice questions.
We would definitely suggest separating the four topics at first when preparing as shifting from maths to chemistry in the same study session will likely just cause confusion and slow down progress. Section 2 is likely the one that you’ll need to spend the most time revising as there are plenty of topics to revise, so you may need to set aside an extra week for it.
Section 3
Section 3 is the most difficult section to effectively prepare for as it’s an essay-based task. While it’s easy enough to actually answer practice questions, the issue comes from getting marks and feedback. You’ll find it difficult to improve your work if you don’t get feedback, so there are some options available. Family, friends, peers or mentors are all viable options if they have a decent level of writing skills themselves. But if none of these options are available, various Essay Marking services are also available, with the option to submit a single essay or purchase bundles to get feedback on various practice essays.
At this stage in your prep, we would suggest trying to write one essay per day for 5 days. In the test, you’ll have a 30-minute deadline but it won’t hurt to give yourself a bit of leeway at this point so that you can ensure you know how to write a high-quality, complete essay before trying to do it under exam conditions. Most applicants find that the most challenging aspect of the time limit is using time to plan the essay. You should never attempt to jump straight into writing without some sort of idea or structure in place, so train yourself to develop a simple essay plan in five minutes of less.
BMAT Past Papers
By the end of the month, you’ll have gone through 100’s of practice questions! Your skills will be sharper and you’ll begin to feel confident in your abilities. With that in mind, it’s time to properly test those abilities with a full mock exam. Whether you use a past paper or a specially designed BMAT mock paper, you’re going to want to try at least one test in full exam conditions before the end of this month.
This is best done in a realistic BMAT exam simulator (such as the one available for free from BMAT.Ninja), but the important thing is that you adhere to the time limit. On your first attempts, you may not finish all the questions or complete your essay, but that is perfectly normal. The idea of completing a mock exam at this stage is to show where you currently are in your progress so that you can understand where you need to improve. You should hopefully be in a much better position than you were when you first began your preparation, but there’s still more work to do, which is what you’ll be focussing on in Month 3!
TLDR; Take an hour each day to work through practice questions, consider taking a BMAT course and start taking past papers under exam conditions.
Month 3
With around 30 days left until the BMAT, this is the time you’re going to need to spend perfecting your abilities and getting the scores that you need on your mock exams. There aren’t as many steps that you’re going to need to take compared to the previous months as it’s all about practice!
How should you organise this last month though? For the last four weeks of your prep, we feel that you should be sitting at least two mock exams per week at first. That’s a lot for sure, but there are enough past papers to sustain that level of work. These should always be under strict exam conditions otherwise you aren’t going to get yourself working fast enough for the real thing. As well as answering the questions, these mock exams are about training yourself to complete the exam effectively within the given time limit. As such, exam conditions are a must.
Always check your score from these exams and see what went right and wrong. From this information, you can then focus the rest of your preparation on your weak areas. If you’re consistently losing marks to Section 1 Problem-Solving questions or Section 2 Physics questions, then you should be spending your preparation time developing your skills in those areas to ensure you won’t lose those marks again. As always, it will be tricky to get feedback for your Section 3 essay, so don’t feel the need to get every single one marked.
How should you structure a typical week during this month though? Let’s break it down!
- Aim to complete a mock exam at the beginning of the week (Sunday or Monday). This will give you an understanding of what to revise over the week.
- From your results, you should identify what you need to improve on and spend a few days working on them with practice questions and research advice.
- Towards the end of the week, you should then take on another mock exam and see where improvements have been made (Friday or Saturday).
- You should still take breaks and days off during this time (2 days off would be ideal). You may want to spread these days between your prep days or keep them together at a set point in the week. Choose whichever option will help you to stay relaxed.
The Final Week
Towards the final week, you may want to focus solely on the mock papers. At this point, you’ve been preparing for over two months so this time should be spent ensuring you can put everything you learnt into practice. Taking between four and five papers this week would be best, with the other days left free for either emergency revision or maintaining your mental health before the big day. As important as it is to ensure you’re ready, it is also important to ensure that you don’t burn out at the last minute. It’s the most stressful point in the preparation schedule, so taking days off to relax are not wasted days by any means.
By the end of this week, the scores that you are achieving in your mock exams are the most representative of what you will achieve in the actual test. Being in the actual exam centre may shake you up a little bit, which could hurt your result, but generally, you should be able to perform just as well as you have been during your practice.
If you’re not achieving the scores you need to be at this stage, it can be extremely disheartening, but the key is not to panic. Emergency all-night cramming is going to do nothing but affect your mental state and make it even less likely that you’ll perform well in the BMAT. Instead, take the time to truly analyse your results and see what you’re getting wrong. This process is mostly going to be relevant for Sections 1 and 2 as you will have definitive results that you can work from. Once you’ve found your weakest areas, you will need to dedicate some time to revising and researching the topics so you can get as much of an understanding of them as possible. Just be sure not to go overboard as trying to work beyond your capabilities will not improve your performance.
TLDR; Continue with your work and continue to sit regular mock exams. By your last week you should be feeling more than ready for the exam, but ensure you don’t overwork yourself with extra breaks towards the end of the month.
So that covers a pretty typical three-month preparation plan for the BMAT. However, not everyone will need to begin preparations that far in advance. Stretching out your preparation in smaller sessions doesn’t work for everyone, so what does a shorter preparation plan of six weeks look like?
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6 Week BMAT Preparation Plan
This plan has less than half the time available than the three-month plan, so how can you get yourself to where you need to be in this amount of time? Let’s go through it week by week to see what you need to do:
Week 1
Similar to the first month of the three-month preparation plan, this first week should be spent getting to grips with the BMAT as an exam. You may have already done some research into it, but this is your chance to truly get a good understanding of what lies ahead of you. Again, this is also the best time to round up your resources and get yourself ready for the next few weeks. You’re probably not going to be able to spend hours researching the BMAT but it’s important to check out as many guides as possible to ensure you can start your revision as easily as possible.
If you’re feeling up to it, you should also begin to look through some practice questions or even a mock paper. It doesn’t need to be a full attempt, just a casual look at what the questions and papers look like so you’re prepared for Week 2!
TLDR; Research the BMAT exam, collect your resources and begin working through practice questions.
Week 2
This is the week that you’ll begin to properly take on practice questions. But first, you may wish to explore some more tutorials and tips in order to develop your BMAT knowledge. This will help you speed up your progress when answering the practice questions so you can get to a comfortable position to start taking mock exams.
Once you’re ready, spend a few hours working through your chosen question bank. You’ll get a feel for how you need to approach each section and begin to pick up on the quirks and trends of each.
TLDR; Spend a couple of hours a day working through practice questions and analysing your results.
Week 3
Your revision will need to be getting much more focussed at this stage. One of the best ways to do this is to dedicate specific days to specific sections. It can be difficult to retain skills when you’re practising with a mixed grab-bag of questions, so focusing on one section or even one topic will help you perfect them faster. Just be sure to plan your days out effectively!
At the end of the week, try to sit an actual mock exam to see how you perform under exam conditions. You likely won’t be achieving the grades you want at this point, but it’s a good measure to see how much work you will need to put in. This is a good way to commemorate the halfway point of your preparation!
TLDR; Focus your practice with specific sections individually and take a full mock exam to judge your progress.
Week 4
As you pass the halfway point, it’s time to start being stricter on yourself regarding your practice. You should focus more on timing yourself and ensuring you can answer all types of questions without support. Be sure to focus on your weakest areas to create a well-rounded skill set in time for the test. Analysing your results is everything right now, as you should always be seeking areas to improve.
Once again, be sure to complete another mock exam to review your progress. From next week you’re going to need to be taking mock exams regularly as you move closer and closer to the testing date.
TLDR; Ramp up the difficulty and begin strengthening your weakest areas. Complete another mock exam too.
Week 5
Now is the time to really buckle down on your mock papers to ensure you are completely comfortable with sitting the exam. You will need to be as strict as possible with yourself in these tests as you should be preparing yourself for the conditions set in the actual exam. This goes for the marking as well, you need to be getting accurate results in order to properly estimate how you will perform on the real thing. We would suggest taking three or four mock papers during this week, with some hours also set aside for practice questions and revision of the topics you’re struggling the most with.
If by this point you still seem to be underperforming, it may be a perfect time to attend an intensive BMAT course. These will typically be full-day courses that are run by expert tutors. They will cover every section of the BMAT in great detail, explaining the theory behind the topic, discussing the question structures and providing worked examples of each type of question in the exam. These courses are the perfect way to quickly improve your skills and gain some valuable tips for the exam in an interactive setting.
TLDR; Sit regular mock exams and use the results to influence the rest of your preparation. There’s still time for an intensive BMAT course to quickly boost your skills.
Week 6
By the end of this week, you will need to be performing at a high level in order to enter the BMAT confidently. Of course, more mock papers are essential (four or five ideally), but you should also take some time to relax and mentally prepare yourself for the test. Working non-stop for the whole week is going to drain you and reduce your chances of success, so taking some additional time off to recharge will be exactly what you need to get in the right headspace.
After taking one final mock exam a day or two before the BMAT testing day, you should take a look at how far you’ve come over the last six weeks. You’ve prepared so much for just two hours of work, but it will have all been worth it once you’ve walked out of that testing centre confident that your performance will be enough to impress that admissions team!
TLDR; Finalise your prep with more mock exams to confirm your current abilities before the exam.
It may feel quite rushed compared to the three-month timeline, but six weeks still gives you a decent amount of time to ensure your success without becoming too stressful. However, is it possible to do all of this in half the time? For some applicants, we believe it might be:
3 Week BMAT Preparation Plan
Before beginning, it’s important to understand that not everyone will be able to effectively prepare in this amount of time. In fact, pretty much no one will be able to put in the same level of work as the previous timelines in just three weeks. However, there are instances where long periods of preparation just aren’t feasible. It’s not ideal, but it is possible to get ready for the BMAT this quickly if you’ve got the drive and strength to do so. You likely won’t be as well prepared as those who studied longer, but you will still have a fair shot at success!
Week 1
With only three weeks to work with, you’re not going to have much of a chance to ease yourself into the BMAT mindset, but it’s still important to do some research. We would recommend taking a day to read through some BMAT guides and learn as much as you can about the exam. You will also want to take some time to learn some tips and tricks for each section to improve your skills early in the process.
By the end of the week, you need to be spending at least two hours each day working on practice questions, more so on the weekends. You might not be able to take a full day off for the next few weeks, although this would be the best week for it if you can. Either way, you need to ensure you’ve scheduled plenty of breaks within your revision timetable. Finish the week off with your first full mock exam so that you can review your performance and plan your strategy for the following week.
TLDR; Move quickly into your preparation and try to learn as much as possible about the exam in this first week. Remember to sit a mock exam!
Week 2
As well as practice questions, it’s time to begin incorporating mock exams into your daily schedule. Sitting one per day may be a bit too much but it is necessary to try out as many as you can in the time you’ve got. These tests not only help you sharpen your skills but give you the most accurate indication of how you will perform in the real thing, so keep an eye on any trends that emerge as they will help you find room for improvement very quickly.
On the days when you aren’t sitting a past paper, be sure to spend your time improving the weak areas that have been discovered through the mock exams. A mixture of practice questions and tutorials will help you develop your understanding and build on your practical skills to ensure you don’t keep making the same mistakes.
TLDR; Regular mock exams and practice questions will be essential, be sure to identify your weakest areas.
Week 3
In the other schedules, the final week was a time to not just finalise your progress and confirm your skills, but also to take a step back and get yourself in the right mental state for the exam. In this timeline though, you’re going to need to be working up until the last day in order to make sure you’re fully prepared. Of course, you shouldn’t work yourself to death doing so, but you’re likely able to cope with, and potentially live off of, the adrenaline and stress that comes from last-minute preparation. As long as you pace yourself sensibly, you should be able to enter the BMAT with everything you’ve learnt fresh in your mind and ready for success!
In terms of what you’ll actually be doing, it’s basically the same as the other timelines, minus a lot of the time off! Daily mock exams, reviews and revision will be your priorities here to ensure your get yourself to a good stage by the final days before the test.
If you really aren’t at the place you need to be by this point, there is still some hope. Most intensive BMAT courses run right up until a few days before the BMAT, so be sure to attend one if you’re having doubts about your performance at the beginning of this week. Having a full day of well-structured preparation will give you the chance to very quickly boost your abilities. After that though, it’s all down to you. By the time you’ve finished your final mock exam, you should be feeling confident that the scores you’ve been achieving will be good enough to get you your offer.
TLDR; Get as much practice done as you can, focusing on mock exams. It’s not too late for a last-minute intestine BMAT course if you need to dedicate a full day to preparation.
Remember that these three preparation plans are simply guidelines for you to build your own schedule that is tailored to your needs. You can spend more than three months preparing or you can begin at any point in between our suggested starting points. What’s important is that your revision plan works for you and helps you to develop as an applicant and test-taker. Just keep these ideas in mind if you’re unsure how to use your time appropriately.
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Last Minute BMAT Tips
Unfortunately, there are people each year that may leave their preparation to the last minute for any number of reasons. If this is you, or if you still find yourself underperforming in the last week or so of preparation, then these tips will help you boost your skills quickly:
- Intensive BMAT courses cover everything you will need to know in a relatively short period of time. Plus, they tend to run right up until a few days before the exam!
- Worked solutions are essential for quickly learning from your mistakes. Not many free question banks offer these and not all paid question banks offer high-quality worked solutions, so be sure to find one that is made by BMAT experts.
- You’ll need to sit at least one mock exam per day until the actual testing day. Pay close attention to your results each time so you can know where to improve. If you’re struggling to find someone who can review your Section 3 Essay for you, you can use an essay marking service that offers a quick turnaround or an express service!
- Online forums such as The Student Room will be filled with people who are or have been in a similar situation to you, they may have some really useful advice.
BMAT Testing Day
This day is going to be incredibly stressful, perhaps even more so than your UCAT test date. It’s your last chance to ensure you get an interview at a medical school, so you need to ensure you do well. So what can you do to ensure the day goes as smoothly as possible?
- Provided you’ve been preparing effectively beforehand, you may benefit more from taking some time off the day for the test. A little last-minute preparation won’t hurt, but it can be just as valuable to relax, take your mind off of the BMAT and get yourself fully charged for the following day.
- The last thing you want to do is show up to your exam tired, so be sure to get a good night's sleep. Go to bed at a sensible time and don’t distract yourself or keep yourself awake until late in the night. It may be difficult to get to sleep with all the stress of the following day building up, so practising some meditation techniques may help ease your mind.
- You should organise your journey to the testing centre at least a few days before. This will include your travel arrangements, route and what time you need to leave.
- Ensure you have given yourself plenty of time to account for any accidents or delays. You cannot be late for the BMAT!
- Bring plenty of food and water with you for before and after the test. During the test, you need to bring a completely clear water bottle.
- Organise something enjoyable to do after the exam, like going for a meal or to the cinema. That way, the testing day won’t be all doom and gloom, you’ll have something to look forward to as well.
There is so much to consider for just a two-hour exam, but all this planning, preparing and worrying will be worth it in the end. We hope that the process will now be a lot easier for you as you’ve gained an understanding of how you should be using your time.
Remember that 6med offers everything that you need for your BMAT revision under one roof, from free guides, to practice questions to 1-1 tuition. Be sure to explore all of our available options today, including our massive BMAT Bundle!
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