11 Plus Exams Forum

How much time do you need to spend on preparing for the bmat ? DD has a concert to perform in a few weeks before which will mean significant rehearsal time. I am thinking it is a bad idea. What are people's experience from previous years been?
Many thanks
H5

I am not sure if things have changed in recent years, but when my DS took the BMAT 6 years ago, it was taken in early November. I do not remember him doing an awful amount of prep for it. Then again, he never did much prep for any exam!

DD2 did the BMAT as practice in year 12 and got a fairly good score after quite a lot of revision but decided that she needed far more practice to do the actual course this year. She did a BMAT course in Oxford (lots of other venues as well) run by Oxbridge students who have achieved high scores themselves. If you google "BMAT Crash Course" their details will come up. DD2 describes it as really quite good and much better than Kaplan whose materials she has also seen.
BMAT like to say that the material you need to know for section 2 (the science section) is GCSE level but it does include many bits of AS and A2 as well. The BMAT organisers are rather disingenuous in that they include material from ALL the different gcse exam boards which goes quite a lot further than any single gcse board. You would be much safer revising all of the AS syllabus in all 3 sciences as well as M1 AS Maths even if you are not doing A level maths. Most of the Physics questions in section 2 were closely related to AQA M1 Maths.
The first year DD did the BMAT she got 7.1 6.1 5A and the second year (after realising the slight half-truths from the examiners about the content and doing more work) she got
7.6 7.4 4.5A.
The essay section requires a structured essay and is not time pressured with a choice of questions and is marked by 2 examiners.
In answer to your question I would say that the BMAT requires a considerable amount of work but it may depend on which unis your child is applying to since some use it as a cut-off for interview and others like high scores.

Would second crash course recommendation - great course but make sure you book in time as it gets full quickly. Dd said BMAT was the hardest exam she'd ever done but don't let that put you off! She only did it once and didn't score as highly as little Magwich but still managed to get places at two BMAT universities, including Cambridge, so I think most people find it very challenging and don't score that highly. Little Magwich's scores are really very good indeed.

There's a thread on TSR which discusses which Cambridge colleges want which scores - they are mostly only concerned with the first 2 sections (usually wanting a score in the high fives or a six and above) and Oxford's website details their way of scoring all 3 sections and the correlation of results and offers of places.Congratulations to your DD Delta - what subject is she reading at Cambridge?

Thanks very much for your advice especially to magwich. Perhaps, doing the concert wouldn't be a good idea !
What about the ukcat? May I ask how long did little magwich spend on the preparation for that. My dc will probably have to do it before the summer holiday as we are too busy in the summer to do it. Is that a really bad idea given that all preparation will have to done alongside A2 work and taking part in end of term concerts etc. Most people recommend doing the ukcat in the middle of the summer holiday but this isnt viable for us.
Many thanks
H5

Also, I am curious about why your dc decided on cambridge rather than oxford for medicine?

Cambridge as I understand does not let you leave to do your clinical experience now.

Many thanks

Sorry I didn't make it clear - DD is applying for Vet Med and for this you have to do the BMAT for Cambridge and RVC.
She did try the UKCAT a few times at home but got execrable marks!! I guess its a completely different set of things they are looking for and its a good job she did not have to rely on it!

Dd is doing medicine. She did UKCAT in early August and spent 3 weeks preparing, mainly using an online site called Medify which was excellent. She went for Cambridge because she preferred it as a place when she visited. She felt it was more 'down to earth' than Oxford, but it's a very individual thing. She also had high UMS at AS so thought Cambridge was a better bet and she was pretty much guaranteed an interview. She also wasn't bothered about moving after 3 years. Btw, it's possible Oxford may change and remove that option as they have been affected by the change of policy at Cambridge. Hope this helps. Do Pm if you want more info.

I suspect the whole thing of doing the clinical elsewhere may go shortly as more courses become integrated and not separated into 2 distinct halves. Certainly used to be a lot of shuffling at one time.