Applying to Oxford or Cambridge is a pretty big deal. You need to make sure you know the process. Getting into either of these universities will be life-changing.

Oxbridge Admissions HAT guide

For Cambridge, applicants are required to submit a Supplementary Application Questionnaire (SAQ). This is needed in addition to the Ucas form,  to provide a complete picture of themselves as an applicant.

Cambridge applicants will also take subject-specific tests, either prior to or at their interview. Bmat and Ucat exams are sat prior to interviews.

Specific Oxbridge Entry Tests

  • Law at Cambridge, most colleges will require you to take the Cambridge Law Test
  • All medical and veterinary students will be expected to sit the BMAT test (a test of scientific aptitude) before being offered a place in their chosen course
  • If you’re studying a course that’s more mathematical or scientific in nature, then your college may require you to sit the Thinking Skills Assessment
  • The Law National Aptitude Test (LNAT) is essentially an aptitude test that shows universities if you’re suitable to study law

For Oxford applicants, the majority of tests required are more subject-specific. Most subjects will require students to sit a written test that demonstrates that they have an aptitude for the subject area.

Oxford doesn’t have an SAQ, but it does require applicants for most courses to take a test as part of the application process.

Both universities ask some applicants to submit examples of written coursework as part of the application.

Your personal statement is likely to be used as a guide to what to ask you at the interview.  Therefore, make sure you’re able to talk confidently about anything you include.

Interviews at Cambridge normally take place in one college. Often on a single day. Oxford applicants will usually stay for at least a couple of days and may be interviewed at multiple colleges.

If you can’t decide on a college, you can make an open application. A computer program will allocate your application to a college for you. Once allocated, your application is treated exactly like any other.

Oxbridge 2023- HAT admissions test papers

We hope you find our Oxbridge 2022 – HAT Admissions test info useful.

Our 2023 HAT Admissions test guide

How to get a High HAT score? 

There is no particular syllabus that a student can pick up and start working on. It is based on all the historical knowledge that the student has acquired to date. The key skills that are required in this process are insight imagination and that need to be understood by the tone of the audience and what is being left unsaid.

School Entrance Tests has its own YouTube practice test videos channel. For example, our Thinking Skills Assessment YouTube video below:

Best HAT practice

  • The HAT questions that will come will be based on situations that the students might have encountered in the past in history lessons and articles.

A general idea of human history and specifically about political history will come in handy in this kind of examination.

The intention of answering questions and tackling issues will come naturally.

Using past HAT papers and practicing accordingly will be one of the best ways for coming up with better answers.

Oxbridge HAT admissions advice

Materials to Practice for the 2022 HAT exam 

For the 2022 HAT examination, the students can practice from all the past papers from 2020, 2021 and even before 2020.

Furthermore, there are many mock papers available on websites that will allow the students to practice better.

How to score high HAT marks

The main task for scoring good marks is not always to have a good knowledge of history.

Rather, students should be reading the document that will be provided in the examination and draw some of its features.

For example, if a student is provided a document highlighting the Mughal Empire, then he or she might not have any knowledge about that period in history.

What they will need to do is understand and summarize what the document is stating in their head and point out some salient features, advantages, what could have been done better, and kind of instances to raise the bar.

What is the HAT admissions test? 

The HAT:

  • Has only one section called the source analysis section.
  • Stands for History Assessment Tests.
  • Is a 1-hour examination.
  • Assesses basic historical knowledge.

Tips for Scoring Better in the HAT Admissions test 

  • The HAT assesses students’ history knowledge. For example, how well they were able to interpret historical sources.
  • Most of the time, the sources are very obscure. So, it’s important that students read them multiple times to build an idea of what the author is trying to say there.
  • Some HAT questions are quite complex. It’s therefore vital to reading each HAT question multiple times.
  • Start your HAT preparation as early as possible.
  • Practice mock questions to build your HAT question knowledge about what HAT questions tend to look like.

Other Oxbridge entrance 2024 test practice resources

Oxbridge 2024 admissions