MEDICAL education has been transformed by the Health Profession Admission Test (HPAT), which allows all Leaving Cert students with more than 480 points to apply for medicine, writes LOUISE HOLDEN
Under the old system, only those scoring very high Leaving Cert points (in the region of 570) were guaranteed entry to medicine.
Former education minister Mary Hanafin hailed the new system when it was unveiled three years ago. From now on, she said, students would no longer need a “perfect Leaving Cert” to enter medicine.
Under the new system, all students with more than 480 points can apply. Entry is decided by a combination of your CAO points and your result in the HPAT.
Essentially, the test, which examines spatial and logical reasoning, problem-solving and interpersonal skills, allows candidates with lower scores in the Leaving Cert to make up the difference and get into medicine. On the flip side, high CAO scorers who perform poorly on the HPAT are kept out.
The introduction of the test has whipped up a flurry of debate.
Students are caught in the middle. The following is an objective guide to the exam that 3,000 Irish students will sit in February 2010.
WHAT IS THE HPAT?
Devised by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), the HPAT is an aptitude test that claims to measure a student’s abilities in a range of skills regarded as important for medicine.
Anyone who has taken an IQ or aptitude test will be familiar with some aspects of the HPAT, chiefly the spatial and logical reasoning tests in Section 3. The other two sections test for problem-solving and interpersonal skills. The exam is multiple choice and takes two-and-half hours to complete.
HOW DOES THE HPAT FIT WITH THE LEAVING CERT?
The HPAT is marked out of a total of 300 points. This score is added to the candidate’s Leaving Cert score. However, once a student achieves more than 550 CAO points, the value of his or her Leaving Cert result is reduced – to one point for every five actual CAO points achieved. Therefore, a student who gains 600 points in the Leaving Cert will only be able to use 550 + 10 (560) and if he or she scores a low mark, of say 100, on the HPAT, his or her combined score of 660 will be easily beaten by a student who gets 540 CAO points and scores 200 on the HPAT, with a total of 740 points.
HOW DO I APPLY?
You must apply online through the CAO using the CAO website (www.cao.ie). You will be given a CAO number to quote when you are applying for the HPAT exam. If a paper application is submitted to the CAO, your CAO/HPAT number will not be available until after February 10th and this will be too late to register for HPAT-Ireland.
It’s vital to remember that medicine is now a restricted application course. That means you cannot add medicine after the initial closing date of the February 1st, 2010 as it has been added to the restricted list of courses due to the introduction of HPAT.
Using the number provided to you by the CAO, you must apply for the exam itself at www.hpat-ireland.acer.edu.au. Registration for the test is now open and the deadline for entries is Monday, January 18th, 2010. The cost of application is €95.
WHEN AND WHERE ARE THE EXAMS HELD?
HPAT-Ireland will be held on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 in centres around the State. This is the only opportunity students have to sit the exam in 2010.
HOW MANY IRISH STUDENTS APPLY AND HOW DO THEY GET ON?
The test was held here for the first time last February; there were approximately 3,000 applicants. Irish students’ scores ranged between 70 and 230. There were about 500 undergraduate places on offer from the five medical schools last year.
CAN I REPEAT THE HPAT?
Yes, as many times as you like, but you have to wait for a year each time.
SHOULD I GET GRINDS?
ACER, the body which devises the HPAT, “does not endorse any training college and actively discourages candidates attending them. They are a waste of the candidates’ (or their parents’) money.” However, there are a number of Irish tuition centres now offering short courses in HPAT preparation, with prices ranging from €200 to €400.
One HPAT course provider acknowledged that there is no syllabus for the exam, and admitted that “no tutor can claim to teach you how to do the HPAT.” However, the spokesperson claimed that practise in the test environment and familiarity with the paper helps students to perform at their best. “Each time we hold a mock test we have at least one student who fills in the boxes out of sync. This is where preparation helps. Feeling prepared is being prepared.”
Every guidance counsellor in the country has been sent a sample HPAT exam book from ACER.
Irish Timescolumnist Brian Mooney suggests guidance counsellors should hold a mock HPAT exam for interested students in school, given that the students can purchase the practice booklet through the ACER website. "This is exactly how schools organise mock exams for other exams. The students can purchase the practise booklet and the schools can replicate the exam environment in school."
The practise handbook is available for purchase from ACER’s website for €22 plus postage.
DOES THE HPAT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST FEMALE STUDENTS?
Research undertaken by the five Irish medical schools found that the overall performance of the 3,000 applicants was gender neutral, that is the performance of males was identical to that of females.
Contrary to media speculation, there is no evidence to suggest that the HPAT favours “male intelligence” over “female intelligence”.
What has happened as a result of the HPAT, however, is that students who get 550 points or higher in the Leaving Cert have less of an advantage over those who get between 480 and 550, than they had in the past.
Because the majority of Irish students who get more than 550 points are female, girls have lost out. Whereas last year 60 per cent of those securing a place on medical degrees were female, this year the balance is back to 54 to 46 (female to male).
IS THE WHOLE SYSTEM A BETTER, FAIRER ALTERNATIVE?
The HPAT was introduced to evaluate a candidate’s ability to use knowledge rather than just learn things off by rote. The hope was that a more diverse constituency of students would be able to get into medicine as a result.
Based on one year of the HPAT, the exam has had the immediate effect of bringing the male:female entry to medicine ratio back to 46 to 54 from 40 to 60. Whether it has a similar balancing effect for other unrepresented groups in medicine will require more time and research to establish.
The move betrays a tacit acknowledgement, say critics, that the Leaving Cert doesn’t suit boys as much as girls. Instead of reforming the Leaving Cert appropriately, these exams side-step the high achievers, they argue. There are plans to introduce similar admission tests for other high point scoring courses. Those who oppose these tests say they undermine the Leaving Cert and have not been properly researched for use in the Irish system.
Testing time: two students get ready for HPAT
Jennifer Lee, 17, a Leaving Cert student at the Institute of Education Dublin will take the HPAT in February
“The HPAT makes a huge difference. It puts a huge amount of pressure on the student: it’s good results combined with a good score in the test.
“I haven’t done it yet, so it’s hard to say, but I have a feeling there’ll be a lot of preparation, which will take time from other areas. I’ve started doing a prep course on the test here in the institute and we’re going through the question types. There are patterns beginning to emerge and we’re looking at examples of how to do the test, as well as looking at general papers.
“So many people ask me why I want to do medicine and it’s always very hard to give a good answer. I always had a big interest in science and the whole medical field – it just really appealed to me. I’m also really interested in the interaction with people. I’d looked at dentistry and science, but I suppose there’s an absence of personality, compared to medicine, which puts me off them.
“I’ll apply to every college in Ireland, but I have already applied to Scotland and England as well. I’d love to go to Trinity, but I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. I don’t think I’m the sort of person who could be a GP, but I’d love to work in hospitals, in surgeries, that kind of thing.’’
Orla Gildea will repeat the HPAT in February
“I did the exam last year and just missed out, so I’m repeating.
“You have to do the HPAT, so I think there’s no point complaining about it. It’s a good idea, as people with less than 550 points have at least a chance of getting in if they do well in the HPAT.
“There isn’t a great difference between students who get 550 and 600 points. Clearly they are well capable.
“Last year, I don’t think anyone knew how they did in the HPAT until the results came out. So much of it is guesswork.
“Students with a great Leaving Cert thought they would still get in, but that was not always the case.
“For anyone about to do it, it’s definitely worth preparing for the exam. The more you grasp how it’s laid out and the different questions that are asked, the better you will do. You definitely need to be relaxed.
“There’s no point stressing out about it; the purpose is to test your natural ability. But make sure you know how the test is laid out; that will help you to relax.’’
- In conversation with Eoin Cunningham
Hpat: Try This At Home
The following is an extract from a HPAT sample paper:
1) Botanists studied a rainforest in Nicaragua that had been ravaged by Hurricane Joan in 1988. They found that in the following 10 years the number of tree species had increased by at least 200 per cent and up to 300 per cent in eight storm-affected plots. Other plots not affected by the hurricane showed little if any such increase.
From this information, it can be concluded that
A. Hurricanes play an important role in ensuring the long-term survival of tropical rainforests.
B. When the dominant trees in an area of tropical rainforest are destroyed, other species are given a chance to flourish.
C. The overall life of a tropical rainforest is increased if large areas are occasionally levelled to the ground.
D. The productivity of a tropical rainforest will be maximised if large areas are occasionally levelled to the ground.
2) In the following passage, an adolescent boy talks about living with a physical disability.
“As I have been physically disabled all my life, I have managed to cope with the purely practical problems arising with a minimum of fuss. I felt no loss, because I had no feelings of ‘normality’ to compare with. One of my physical problems is that I am short, about 127 centimetres tall. I was constantly mistaken by strangers for a little kid. It’s a real pain for a 16-year-old boy to be handed a kid’s menu every time he enters a restaurant. It is even worse when mere coherent speech is greeted with awe.”
For the writer, the main problem with his disability is
A. The embarrassment of being so short.
B. Never knowing what it is to be ‘normal’.
C. Dealing with other people’s preconceptions.
D. Coping with the practical problems caused by his condition.
Answers: 1 B, 2 C
