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THE IMAT ADMISSIONS TEST - EVERY SECTION

AND TOPIC

HOME / MEDICINE IN ITALY NEXT (

by Sophia E Hodgkinson August 10, 2020 22 min read

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.

The IMAT, or International Medical Admissions Test, is usually the only

academic marker that Italian universities will ask for when giving you a
place at medical school. For some non-native English speakers, some
Italian medical schools and universities may ask that you take an English
proficiency exam. This is not only because the courses are taught in
English, but a high level of English language is a necessity for having the
best understanding of the exam questions.

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:

1. 10 Logical Reasoning & 12 General Knowledge

2. 12 Chemistry

3. 18 Biology

4. 8 Physics & Maths

Every question is multiple-choice, with 5 potential answers. There’s

negative marking and that’s slightly daunting to some because it means
not only are you dealing with the time constraint of 100 minutes for 60
questions - giving you just over a minute per question, but also with the
probability of losing points for incorrect answers. We’ll discuss what to do
in a few paragraphs, where we’ll think about what kind of strategy to
employ with this exam.

IMAT TOPIC LIST BY SECTION

LOGICAL REASONING
The first section of the exam, and this is good news since this is quite easy
to get points in - is Logical Reasoning. In the past years you would do a lot
of questions on logical reasoning at the beginning of the paper, many more
than you have this year which was both good and bad. The number of
questions this year is 10, which is significantly less than in the past, but it
still makes up nearly a fifth of the IMAT exam.

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.

Officially we have two types of logical reasoning questions:

1. Critical thinking: questions that involve reasoning using everyday

written language. Questions focus on the skills involved in
understanding and evaluating arguments.

2. Problem solving: questions that involve reasoning using numerical

and spatial skills.

In terms of specific types of questions you can get in each section we have
the following…

Critical thinking: seven question types to assess different skills to do

with extracting information from written language.

1. Summarising the main conclusion

2. Drawing a conclusion

3. Identifying an assumption

4. Assessing the impact of additional evidence

5. Detecting reasoning errors

6. Identifying parallel reasoning

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.

Problem solving: three question types to assess different skills to do

with extracting, applying and interpreting data as well as patterns.

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:

1. Relevant Selection: as you might understand from the title, this is a

question where you’ll be dealing with an excess of information and
you have to make a decision - in a short space of time, as to what
information is relevant to this question. You'll often be looking at a
real world context, and tables for data extraction.

2. Finding Procedures: this type of question relies on you being able to

identify and correctly execute a method of solving the problem at
hand.

3. Identifying Similarity: the final type of question will have some

figures within a particular context. You will have to appropriately
work with the figures and understand the context enough to figure
out the solution to the question posed to you through finding the
relationship between the components introduced within the context.

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.

Let’s unpack some common worries which might accompany your

preparation: when it comes to non-verbal reasoning, sometimes you just
have no idea what the pattern is. And that’s ok. Try to relax and just let
your mind intake the visual information. Next, try to do the questions you
feel most uncomfortable with first. Perhaps do more of them, until you feel
comfortable with the type of questions you currently avoid. Try to consult
friends who you know are strong in this area, read the explanations of as
many sources as possible… also get yourself a question bank. Those are
completely essential because practice makes perfect, and they can
provide lots of insights from statistics to advise you on where you can
improve.

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:

LR 1.1 Summarising the Main Conclusion

LR 1.2 Drawing a conclusion

LR 1.3 Identifying an assumption

LR 1.4 Assessing the impact of additional evidence

LR 1.5 Detecting reasoning errors

LR 1.6 Identifying parallel reasoning

LR 1.7 Applying principles

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.

Within general knowledge a number of topics will be addressed, ranging

from literary, historical, philosophical, social and political culture. The
questions you’ll be presented with are not based on any specific part of
school curricula. Cambridge assessments say that their aim is to “test the
candidates’ interest and knowledge in a wide variety of fields”.

When it comes to questions, you’ll be looking at five main areas: literary,

historical, philosophical, social, and political culture:

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.

For each given subtopic of general knowledge (literary, historical,

philosophical, social, and political culture), you should look for key figures
in Italian history, as well as in the wider contexts such as the European
Union or various other organisations which exist to ensure global
cooperation.

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 1. The Chemistry of living things

BIO 2. The cell as a basis of life

BIO 3. Bioenergetics

BIO 4. Reproduction and inheritance

BIO 5. Inheritance and Environment

BIO 6. Anatomy and Physiology of animals and humans

A lot of topics might be included in the above 6 chapters, so it’s best to

consider how to prepare for the subject early in your studying process, as
Biology is by far the most abundant in question number: 18 out of the 60
questions. One possible way to prepare is to approach your study partners
for their guidance, thoughts and experiences. Additionally approaching
those who have already sat the exam is always a good idea, however, keep
in mind there will be many changes which will be implemented in the
upcoming 2020 cycle of the exam.

From our experience, as well as the specification which cambridge

assessment has openly published to help those preparing for the IMAT
test, the topics which make up the above chapters to focus on are the
following:

For the chemistry of living things we should concern ourselves with:

1. The biological importance of weak interactions

2. Organic molecules in organisms and their respective functions;

3. The role of enzymes

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.

3. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, animal and plant cells.

4. Viruses.

5. The structure and function of the cell membrane and transport

across the membrane.

6. Cellular structures and their specific functions.

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.

For Bioenergetics we’re concerned with the following topics:

1. The energy currency of cells: ATP

2. Redox reactions in living things

3. Photosynthesis, glycolysis, aerobic respiration and fermentation

Although technically only 3 topics, these are quite heavy in terms of

content you need to be comfortable with. A lot of the IMAT exam questions
will rely on you making very rapid decisions on the validity of a statement
(identifying a false statement for example). This means you need to be
sure in yourself and no doubt that your preparation is enough for you to
correctly answer the question. Of course you will have doubts, but if you
prepare enough for all chapters, but in particular this one, since it involves
a lot of equations of similar-sounding names, it will help you not waste
time worrying if you answered correctly.

Reproduction and Inheritance is an interesting and very content heavy

chapter, it involves the following topics:

1. Life cycles.

2. Sexual and asexual reproduction.

3. Mendelian genetics: Mendel's laws and their applications.

4. Classical genetics: chromosomal theory of inheritance - inheritance

patterns.

5. Molecular genetics: structure and replication of DNA, the genetic

code, protein synthesis.

6. Prokaryotic DNA.

7. Eukaryotic chromosome structure.

8. Genes and regulation of gene expression.

9. Human genetics: mono- and multifactorial character transmission;

10. Hereditary diseases - autosomal and linked to chromosome X.

11. Biotechnology: recombinant DNA technology and its applications.

To succeed in answering questions about the above topics, you should

really also consider engaging tools which will allow you to spread out your
learning over a period of time. It’s very hard to cram this part, since a lot of
the topics involve similar-sounding terminology. Having a visual aid in
your learning when talking about anything from sexual and asexual
reproduction, to genes is important - since the concepts we’ll be looking at
are abstract. You’ve never been able to untangle a gene, you’ve never
actually seen what meiosis or mitosis looks like, yet this is something
you’ll be tested on, and for that reason it’s worthwhile to invest your time
and effort into getting things right.

For the penultimate chapter which is specified by Cambridge

Assessments, Inheritance and Environment we’re looking at:

1. Mutations

2. Natural and artificial selection.

3. Evolutionary theories.

4. The genetic basis of evolution.

Surprisingly, or perhaps, not so surprisingly if you’re familiar with these

topics - this chapter shouldn’t be so hard to tackle. A lot of what you will
need to know is logical, linked together in a clear way and won’t require
extensive diagrams or calculations to understand. Just try to treat this
chapter like a story, build your understanding to the point where you could
have a genuine conversation about each of the topics with your family and
friends.

The final chapter explicitly stated is Anatomy and physiology of animals and
humans. For this chapter we’re looking at:

1. The animal tissues.

2. Anatomy and physiology of systems in humans and their

interactions.

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.

Overall biology as a subject requires you to break it down into chapters

and approach them as individual tasks. Make sure you spend a lot of time
on this subject, as you’ll be grateful for it when you’re confident in the
exam hall, instead of worrying about all the work you should have done. A
good score in this section is anything above the potential 50% of correct
answered questions - around 13.5 points. You’re trying to get to a score of
about 40-50 points in total to feel comfortable that you will be accepted to
a university of your choice. Of course things can change year to year, but
ballpark this is the score you’ll need to really feel like you’re comfortable
with your probability of getting into an Italian medical school after you sit
the IMAT exam.

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.

The composition of matter chapter has the following topics:

States of matter heterogeneous and homogeneous systems

Compounds and elements

Ideal Gas Laws

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.

The atomic structure chapter will cover the following topics:

Elementary particles

Atomic number and mass number, isotopes

Electronic structure of atoms of different elements

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.

Atomic mass and number problems, as well as that involving electronic

structure of atoms will require you to look at patterns, spot any
differences or similarities that the question asks and so some mental
maths skills here wouldn’t go amiss.

The periodic table of the elements includes the following topics:

Groups and periods

Transition elements.

Periodic properties of elements: atomic radius, ionization potential,

electron affinity, metallic character.

The relationships between electronic structure, position in the

periodic table, and element properties.

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.

The chemical bond chapter looks at:

Ionic, covalent and metallic bonds.

Binding energy.

Polarity of bonds.

Electronegativity. Intermolecular 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.

Fundamentals of inorganic chemistry will include:

Nomenclature and main properties of inorganic compounds: oxides,

hydroxides, acids, salts.

Chemical reactions and stoichiometry

Atomic and molecular mass, Avogadro's number, mole concept and

its application, elementary stoichiometric calculations, balancing
simple reactions, different types of chemical reactions.

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.

The solutions chapter involves the following topics:

Solvent properties of water, solubility, the main ways of expressing

the concentration of solutions.

Equilibria in aqueous solution.

Chemical kinetics and catalysis.

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:

Oxidation number, the concept of oxidizing and reducing.

Balancing of simple reactions

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.

Acids and bases involves the following topics:

The concept of acid and base.

Acidity, neutrality and basicity of aqueous solutions.

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.