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Physics Admissions Test 2025

Would you say it is too late to try and 'revise' for the PAT given less than a day or two?
The overall content is not that hard, it is most of the recent PAT past paper physics questions which seem to be written in a way that is hard to decipher.
I feel completely lost but haven't given up.

And on an unserious note, do you think 40% is enough to get shortlisted (this is being very, very optimistic)?

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

Hi! My PAT is tomorrow so I feel u the stress is real :frown:

( I'd say it's still worth it!

Of course you're quite short of time, but if u have tomorrow free-ish then doing maybe like 2 past papers to feel the difficulty level, then completing the specimen paper to understand the new format would do you good! Honestly a lot of what makes the PAT hard (for me at least) is that easy marks can be lost just for reasons of carelessness. So if you struggle with e.g. quick mental maths, reading the question, or being intimidated by big wordy questions etc. then you can spend tomorrow doing questions under time pressure, then going and correcting them and trying again, to get used to checking your answers in an exam setting.

40% wouldn't be quite enough I think. I imagine that it's format you're dropping marks on, so don't fret, that'll come to you much more readily with one or two practice papers! Based on previous admissions reports, the automatic interview threshold is about 60%, but they also consistently interview people below it because they understand that some people can just be having a bad day when they do their PAT. So I'd say around 55 would be good to see.

I'd also say don't worry about it because I did my first past paper in August and got 38. My next paper I got about 45. The one after that I got 57. And then I finally got 63, which was above the automatic shortlisting mark for that year. So I'd say even just a few papers really do make all the difference!

Sorry for the long reply, but good luck in the PAT! :smile:

Reply 2

WerkaS

Original post

by Anonymous

Hi! My PAT is tomorrow so I feel u the stress is real :frown:

( I'd say it's still worth it!
Of course you're quite short of time, but if u have tomorrow free-ish then doing maybe like 2 past papers to feel the difficulty level, then completing the specimen paper to understand the new format would do you good! Honestly a lot of what makes the PAT hard (for me at least) is that easy marks can be lost just for reasons of carelessness. So if you struggle with e.g. quick mental maths, reading the question, or being intimidated by big wordy questions etc. then you can spend tomorrow doing questions under time pressure, then going and correcting them and trying again, to get used to checking your answers in an exam setting.
40% wouldn't be quite enough I think. I imagine that it's format you're dropping marks on, so don't fret, that'll come to you much more readily with one or two practice papers! Based on previous admissions reports, the automatic interview threshold is about 60%, but they also consistently interview people below it because they understand that some people can just be having a bad day when they do their PAT. So I'd say around 55 would be good to see.
I'd also say don't worry about it because I did my first past paper in August and got 38. My next paper I got about 45. The one after that I got 57. And then I finally got 63, which was above the automatic shortlisting mark for that year. So I'd say even just a few papers really do make all the difference!
Sorry for the long reply, but good luck in the PAT! :smile:

Hi,
It does really depend on the papers. 2015 was 94% (favourite paper so far with the balance of questions) and now working on 2021 about 36%, change in format and the style of questions really made me think whether I have actually learned the content. I think I have done papers 2010 to 2021 so far, thinking about doing 2022 to 2024 tomorrow as well as going through the summer assignements from the preparation course but I feel like I have hit a wall with my non-existent free time. I kind of mainly started revising for it early september and I know I should of started earlier but most topics on the syllabus weren't covered in class and the summer was nowhere near productive.

The 40% was me reflecting on the more recent papers which I struggled on (just a delusional thought that that was enough), but I have higher hopes that it will be more decent for 2025.

Thanks though!

(edited 3 months ago)