BMAT / UCAT

BMAT refers to the Biomedical Admissions Test and is a 2-hour paper required for select medical, dental and veterinary courses. Meanwhile UCAT is the abbreviated term for the Universities Clinical Aptitudes Test. The UCAT was once only offered in the UK (and was called UKCAT) but has since been expanded to Australia and New Zealand. The UCAT tests a range of skills, including verbal reasoning, situational judgement and overall decision making.

At this time, the BeMedics MSAP course does not support either the BMAT or UCAT. However, there are lots or resources online that you can use to help you with them and having done the MSAP course will certainly help you with situational judgement questions. The only real way to prepare yourself for the BMAT or UCAT tests is to practice past papers, to familiarise yourself with the types of questions you will be asked. Remember, ‘learning’ questions is not a good idea as you will not know what questions are likely to come up. Familiarity with the ‘types’ of questions, is very different to memorising or learning practice questions.

When can you take the BMAT/UCAT?

The two tests have slightly different registration dates and final deadlines. For candidates taking the UCAT, registration usually opens in May, The BMAT tends to have two possible registration dates, usually in June and September. It is important to note that the UCAT and BMAT exams will need to be taken in the year of application and can’t be sat outside of that.

In terms of taking the test, the BMAT has two specific test dates, usually one in August and one in October. Meanwhile UCAT candidates can normally take the test any time between July and October.

While both tests are designed to help assess a student’s suitability for an undergraduate medical degree, it’s worth bearing in mind that the two exams place a slightly different emphasis on what they’re testing, so it is worth investigating. It is also worth noting that not all medical schools will need you to take the test.

Our table below describes albeit briefly the various elements of the tests. BeMedics at this time does not offer any bespoke training in either of these tests, but we encourage you to investigate these and speak to your school counsellor for details. There is quite a lot of open resource online guiding students available on the internet.

BMAT / UCAT Comparison