Davenn Bacud’s (Un)reliable and (In)complete NMAT Guide

National Medical Admission Test season is here! Read on for tips on how to survive NMAT from , who took NMAT last October 25, 2015 and got 99% percentile rank.

What To Study

1. Do not buy MSA because practice questions there are not the same in NMAT.
2. Download the PDF given by NMAT as a sample exam. Print out and answer it. Rationalize why that is the answer. Most of the questions will be taken from here, such as same concepts, but in a different question style.
3. Do not memorize the examples of the figures. It will just be useless, rather keep on practicing.
4. Study basic math concepts, especially the rules of exponents and reading the graph.
5. Study basic knowledge of physics from the book, focusing in the chapter summaries. It is very important to memorize OHM’s Law, especially the formula. Most of the questions in physics will be usually about electricity, especially OHM’s Law. They are equally distributed in mechanics, optics, acoustics, thermodynamics and such. Some of you may feel lazy studying physics but do not ever take OHM’s Law for granted. It is very important. Remember that your advantage is physics.
6. Study basic inorganic and organic chemistry. Hydrocarbon is also included in the test. Memorize the structure of Benzene, Toluene and Aniline. There are only 1-2 questions in biochemistry. Study radioactivity too (alpha, beta, gamma particles G.)
7. To pharmacy-premed students: do not study chemistry because you already know that well. Just study physics. To other premed students, read chemistry. Try Leah4sci in YouTube.
8. Download and review the glossary of psychology and sociology books. Most of the questions are simple.
9. Study the flow of current and symbols of circuits. Parallel and series circuits topics appeared in the exam.
10. Study about genetics and heredity or watch ‘Biology Crash Course’ on YouTube.

Before the Exam

1. Sleep early the night before NMAT.
2. Make sure to eat breakfast before going to the testing center.
3. Take a bowel movement before leaving home.
4. Bring your own food and water as most of the cafeterias in UST are crowded. (I wasn’t able to eat my lunch, poor me.)
5. Bring a jacket.
6. Better wear a watch with you because time is the enemy. (My watch was broken in the morning that’s why I didn’t finish the quantitative part. I did not notice the time.)
7. Go directly to your assigned building in the morning. Be in the testing room early so you can relax before the exam.
8. Most of the other examinees in your room will be reviewing NMAT right before the exam. But do not do the same. You will just feel nervous as you will be reading everything quickly.
9. Just pray – from the start of the NMAT exam until the announcement of results. Pray that you will get 99+!
10. Be positive and relax.

During the Exam

1. Be quick in answering quantitative/math. This is what I did. It was almost time and I have only answered 16 items, so I shaded all the letter B. (however, I only half-shaded them) My instincts say that NMAT likes B answers, trust me. B-C are theorem. Based on it, examiners tend to place the correct answers of computation questions in the middle, hence it is either B or C. But in NMAT, it is really B (I’m not perfectly certain but trust me.) If you just want to guess the answer, better choose B or C or I will hit you.
2. If you don’t really know the answer, exclude the choices which you find to have impossible answers. Do not just guess. But if you can’t exclude anything, your last resort would be letter B (I bet you that.)

“Lastly, let me remind you that NMAT is simple. Don’t panic! You can follow my tips or not, but if you do, just copy-paste this on your phone,” Davenn said.

comments