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Imat Topic List by Section
Imat Topic List by Section
Imat Topic List by Section
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Admissions Consulting UCAT & BMAT & IMAT & Personal Statement & Interviews & Math/Science
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Admissions Consulting UCAT & BMAT & IMAT & Personal Statement & Interviews & Math/Science Summer '
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If you are familiar with medical admissions, you might have been looking
at other tests, such as UCAT, BMAT, and now, maybe even the IMAT. The
IMAT is used by various medical schools in Italy to assess the best
candidates for the places available. In this blog, we’ll break down the IMAT
structure by specific topics per section, any potential pitfalls as well as a
good score to aim for.
To start off with, there has been some talk about making the IMAT test an
online test, however, the 2020 IMAT exam will definitely be a pen and
paper test.
The IMAT consists of 60 multiple choice questions and lasts 100 minutes.
The 60 questions are divided into four sections:
2. 12 Chemistry
3. 18 Biology
Before you begin this section you should understand what kind of
questions you’ll get. They obviously will not involve any calculator work,
and this is something you should remember, since some of the questions
might be tricky and you might think them too complex. However,
remember that everything that is in the exam is there for you to do in
around a minute - which means you need to read the question and work it
out in that time.
In terms of specific types of questions you can get in each section we have
the following…
2. Drawing a conclusion
3. Identifying an assumption
7. Applying principles
Each of the seven question types will need a specific approach. First of all
familiarising yourself with the questions in the exam context, do some past
paper work for this, and secondly of course understanding which types of
questions you find difficult. As a general rule, it always helps to scan
through the entire passage and try to figure out the main point. Since we
have only 100 minutes for 90 questions, you need to think about what the
best approach is for you. Perhaps you are able to understand the main
point simply by looking at the last few sentences. If English isn’t your first
language, it might be necessary for you to refer to the entire passage - but
do so quickly and effectively.
Of course you will find your own personal tricks and ways to improve the
speed of reading the question, or even answering it - through practice and
improving other skills, such as the ability to read and consume information
in a rapid and accurate way. Reading and practicing these questions are
important.
1. Relevant Selection
2. Finding Procedures
3. Identifying Similarity
The above types of questions might seem a little odd sounding, but they’re
pretty simple to identify once you know what each type of question is
assessing:
If you have done any sort of exam preparation for entrance exams in
school, you’ll know that non-verbal reasoning is something that requires a
lot of practice as a lot of it is intuitive. With questions based on data
extraction practice helps too, any mental mathematics exercises you do
(even if this is just not using your phone in the shops but using your mind)
will help you. But don’t get too worried about the way you'll approach
them, with practice you’ll gain much more confidence.
If you look at the verbal reasoning questions, the same advice stands.
Practice makes perfect. But this is a little different because in this
subsection of logical reasoning you’re able to identify specific types of
questions:
So what is a good score in this section? In the past years, this section had
nearly 20 questions. Now, with only 10 out of the 60 questions of the paper
you should aim for anything from 5.5 points (obtained from 5 correct and 5
incorrect answers) to 7.5 points (obtained from 5 correct and 5
unanswered questions).
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
A section which follows logical reasoning, is general knowledge. In past
years, this section would contain only 2 questions, and so on the large part
would be ignored. However, things are different since now this section
makes up 12 out of 60 IMAT exam questions, a significant 20% of the
paper.
GK 1. Literary Culture
GK 2. Historical Culture
GK 3. Philosophical Culture
GK 4. Social Culture
GK 5. Political Culture
The vast majority of information which will be given and asked will have
strong links with Italy. It’s difficult, and perhaps impossible to know what
will be given to you as a way of assessing your understanding of culture,
but a good start is covering the basics - going through all past paper
questions, and going to a question bank which will provide you with
enough opportunity to practice your general knowledge skills. This might
be an IMAT exam-specific question bank, or it might simply be trivia
questions oriented to Italy.
In terms of a good score in this part - it’s hard to say. It will depend on how
lucky or unlucky you are with the questions given, perhaps you’ll find that
you somehow know all the answers. You should of course always look to
the question for clues, sometimes you’ll have the answer right in front of
you. On average you should aim to get around 6 questions correct, giving
you a score of 9.0, however this is assuming you don’t just guess, since
that will bring your score down by -0.4 for every incorrect answer.
Once you have completed both logical reasoning and general knowledge,
you’ll move onto the questions which involve topics from specification for
the subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths.
BIOLOGY
As you might recall, the specification for Biology consists of the following
six chapters:
BIO 3. Bioenergetics
You will likely need to remind yourself of various diagrams that deal with
enzymes and their substrates, as well as remember the names of
enzymes important for various processes in the normal functioning of the
human body.
The cell as the basis of life chapter involves the following topics:
1. Cell theory.
2. Cell size.
4. Viruses.
7. Cell cycle and cell division: mitosis and meiosis - chromosomes and
chromosome maps
This is a slightly more intense chapter, not only because of the wider
scope of topics but because these topics will require you to correctly label
or identify various properties of cells (plant or animal) that will seem
similar or almost the same. Because of this, you’ll probably need to rely on
diagrams and some interactive methods of ensuring active recall is part of
your studying process.
1. Life cycles.
6. Prokaryotic DNA.
1. Mutations
3. Evolutionary theories.
The final chapter explicitly stated is Anatomy and physiology of animals and
humans. For this chapter we’re looking at:
3. Homeostasis
Now, here we’re back to slightly more ambiguous grounds. You’re applying
for medicine and so of course expect a lot of questions to come up on this
chapter and the above-stated topics. However, “animal tissues” as well as
“anatomy and physiology” are pretty ambiguous… and extremely wide
scope topics. Around half of your six years will be spent studying these
three points, so when you’re preparing make sure to remember that. No
one expects you to pass second year’s histology classes, only to have a
general understanding of the widescope of these topics. You should know
all the systems on the surface - for example the organs involved, maybe
some main blood vessels, as well as a little about how each system is
influenced by hormones and what effects it has on other systems and
perhaps specific organs of the body.
Once you get to the part of the IMAT exam which tests your Chemistry,
Physics and Maths skills, you know you’re nearly at the end. So one of the first
things to do here is to breathe. Check the time and see how well you’re doing,
because most of the time you’re likely to have been quite rapid in your
progress through the other sections, because of the pressure you feel. This is
why it’s so crucial to make sure you practice doing past paper tests - or at
least practice doing 60 questions and the appropriate ratio of each subject in
the 100 minutes you have allocated on the day.
CHEMISTRY
When we look at Chemistry, you know you’ll be dealing with quite an array
of topics. We’ll look through them all right now, to make sure any advice
which is specific to a section of the Chemistry syllabus is given.
Here you will mainly need to make sure that you know the definitions of
Ideal Gases and are familiar with the concepts of compounds, elements as
well as of course feel comfortable with the idea of a system and
homo/heterogeneity. Primarily memorisation, so make sure to dedicate
some time to learning them.
Elementary particles
Again, not a very challenging area but you need to make sure the
foundation concepts such as that of elementary particles, structure of an
atom and important definitions such as that of electrons, neutrons and
protons are very much solid in your mind. You’ll save a lot of time second
guessing yourself on the day of the exam if you make sure you spend
significant time ensuring you are certain you know what each concept
means.
Transition elements.
As you might expect this section will rely on your understanding of trends.
This means that you need to not only understand the periodic table, albeit
even superficially, but to also remember what happens if you go across or
down a periodic table. A lot of questions which include these topics will be
about true or false statements as well as matching up elements of the
same group and/or period.
Binding energy.
Polarity of bonds.
Some of the above topics will need you simply to remember trends and
definitions (electronegativity and intermolecular bonds for example) whilst
others will need you to understand not only the definition and its
application, but also to be able to calculate the answer to the problem
posed.
This is a widespread chapter and will require a lot of time for you to be
comfortable with it in the IMAT exam. A lot of the topics might be
something you’re familiar with, so you should just brush up on your
knowledge and leave it at that - yet perhaps you won’t have covered
everything here, for example the skill of quickly and without a calculator
balancing simple reactions and dealing with elementary stoichiometric
calculations. This is not complicated to do if you have lots of time and a
calculator by your side, but in the context of the IMAT exam it becomes
increasingly problematic. Because of this you should try to simulate these
questions under exam restrictions as well as making sure you have
worked out some sort of methodology for solving the questions presented
to you in the exam.
This chapter looks less at your knowledge in terms of definitions but more
at your ability to problem solve, even though of course they help you to
have the foundation of understanding which allows you to solve questions
quickly and correctly. You should make sure you’ve done plenty of practice
problems so you’re not startled by the different ways in which the
knowledge can be assessed.
Oxidation and reduction chapter will cover the topics listed below:
This chapter is pretty straightforward and will need you to understand the
relationships between oxidation and reduction as well as what happens to
each element in a reaction when it is acting as an oxidizing agent or a
reducing agent. Calm approach (don’t cram) to secure fundamental
knowledge and you should be fine.
The pH scale.
Hydrolysis.
Buffer solutions.
A lot to look at here, but like with redox chemistry, once you understand
the relationship between acids and bases you should be able to
understand the rest of the content which is asked of you in the exam. You
H!. Need any help?
might have a mix of quite wordy and calculations related questions, it’s
good to feel comfortable in both scenarios, so make sure you practice and
seek out different types of questions.