What happened to the BMAT
Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing, the Cambridge University Press & Assessment arm that built and delivered the test, withdrew from admissions testing and discontinued the BMAT along with several of its other papers. The last BMAT sitting was October 2023, for 2024 entry. Every UK medical and dental school that had used it moved to the UCAT from 2025 entry, so there is no longer any UK course that requires or accepts a BMAT score.
If you are applying now, the UCAT is the test you need. The BMAT pages that remain online, including this one, are for context rather than preparation.
What the BMAT was
A two-hour paper in three sections, sat on paper in a test centre:
Section 1, Thinking Skills (60 minutes). Problem solving and critical thinking, with no subject knowledge required.
Section 2, Scientific Knowledge and Applications (30 minutes). Biology, chemistry, physics and maths pitched at GCSE level but applied under heavy time pressure.
Section 3, Writing Task (30 minutes). One short essay chosen from a small set of prompts, usually a proposition to explain, argue against, and then resolve.
Sections 1 and 2 were machine-marked and reported on a 1.0 to 9.0 scale. Section 3 was double-marked, with a 1 to 5 score for content and an A to E grade for quality of English.
The distinguishing feature was Section 2. Where the UCAT tests reasoning alone, the BMAT expected recall and application of actual science, which is why applicants who had dropped a science at A-level often found it the harder of the two tests.
Who used it
Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL were the long-standing core users, alongside a handful of other UK medical schools and a number of international ones. Requirements varied year to year, and some schools weighted individual sections rather than the total.
Do past BMAT papers still help?
For UCAT preparation, only in a limited way. Section 1's critical-thinking material overlaps with UCAT decision making, and the Section 2 science bank is reasonable revision if your science is rusty. But the UCAT is computer-based, faster, and structured differently, so BMAT papers are no substitute for UCAT-specific practice under real timing.
For Oxbridge interviews, Section 3 is more useful than it looks. Building an argument, taking the counter-position seriously, and resolving the two is close to what a medicine interview asks you to do out loud.
Finding a tutor
Look for tutors with explicit and recent UCAT experience rather than a BMAT background. The tests reward different habits, and familiarity with the current format matters more than history with the retired one.