r/esatprep

Josh what are we doing here was that meant to be possible?

I'm applying for Biological Sciences at Imperial and am currently booked for ESAT on 12 October, but I'm considering moving it to January. I'd really appreciate opinions. I'm doing Biology, Chemistry and Maths A-level and am predicted A*A*A*. Imperial is the only choice I need ESAT for.

I'm clearly improving in my ESAT mocks (using esatlab), especially in Maths/Bio, so I therefore think another three months could make a significant difference.

Why January: I'd have much longer to improve and could focus heavily on ESAT over Christmas. My brother also argues that my November/January school mocks don't matter much for admissions because I already have predicted grades, so I should just maintain ESAT alongside A-levels until Christmas.

Why October: I've found balancing ESAT with three A-levels genuinely difficult—it feels like a fourth A-level. Doing an hour a day plus weekends earlier in September didn't really improve my scores; the past 2-3 weeks I have just been doing ESAT and bare minimum of school work and my scores have been improving. My school performance has already suffered, and postponing could mean another three months of trying to balance everything.

In conclusion:

October: lower ESAT score than I'm probably capable of, but it's over and I can focus entirely on A-levels.

January: potentially much better ESAT score, but risk affecting my A-level work by having ESAT hanging over me for another three months.

For anyone who's taken ESAT or been in a similar position, what would you do? Did anyone choose January, and was balancing it with Year 13 manageable?

ESAT preparation during Y12?

for context, I just started Y12 and I really want to get good on the ESAT next year (2027) (math 1 and 2 and physics) . apparently its helpful to start practising for it throughout Y12 so I can be a bit more prepared when the exam comes around but Im not sure how to actually prepare for it since I haven't learnt all year 1 a level content and idk how much to actually do , what resources to use whether i should just focus on getting good at a level content and general problem solving skills instead of practising for the ESAT. I am open to any advice on this and uni applications in general.

I think i'm cooked for ESAT, don't think I'm ready yet but lwk i've been mentally stressed about it, part of me wants to just get ts done and over with. but ye js looking for like minded ppl? why can't esat be like the ucat do the test and then choose your choices, it much fairer and nicer that way?

Am averaging about 6/9 across M1, M2 and P for ESAT lab. What kind of score will that be on the real thing as people say ESAT lab is harder?

In esat lab mocks you dont get a timer per question while in the practice mode you do get it. My question is how do i track my time spent per question in the actual esat as without the timer per question i am not sure how much time ive spent or even when should i skip the question(guess). Due to which i end up spending 200s on the hard questions and run out of time. So how can i prevent this and like manage properly.

Sorry before hand is its a dumb question, i am just really anxious that i would end up blundering the whole thing.
Thankss for any helpp.

I just did the 2023 engaa and it was SO HARD and i just had no time whatsoever
I kept making stupid mistakes which i would never normally make because of the stress

How does it compare to the esat? it felt much harder than all previous engaa papers.

When I checked at 13:10 I had a 4.8, 4.1 and a 4.3 but now I checked to go through the wrong answers and it says I have a 5.4, 4.4 and 5.2?

i wanted to ask that how to guess and when to guess. Firstly by when to guess i mean when should i start guessing as on average on esat mocks i can answer up to 20 questions before running out of time. So should i just do 18 qs and then in the last 4 mins just scroll through and guess the rest by process of elimination or do 20 questions and then in the last 30 seconds just guess randomly all remaining answers?

Also by how to guess, what i wanted to ask was how should i eliminate options quickly ( i know it sounds really vague) but what i heard was just see what options that are most common and then guess between them. For example in a table the most occurring options for each column would be the row i guess and a bit of stretch but for some maths questions the most similar answers.(e.g same number but different signs between them or same surd). does this actually work?

Thank you for any help. Also i am doing m1 m2 phy if that helps

has anyone bought the three mocks that are on the website? predicted, challenging and whatever those ones? does anyone know if they’re new unseen questions or just compiled from questions that are already in the question bank?

https://preview.redd.it/81bfnolb4gth1.png?width=1696&format=png&auto=webp&s=03944e7f057e8bdd761b13b28742f76444c6418d

(ESAT lab live mock)

I got good scores on the official specimen papers (20/27). I have heard they are easier than the real esat. For reference I get around 14/27 on esat lab usually. I dont want to have false hope from the specimen papers.

The NSAA itself isn’t too bad, but the adv part is obviously slightly trickier. I’d like to know first how similar the ESAT and NSAA are, and how the adv section of the NSAA differs too.

Guys need urgent help

1. I was doing NSAA/ENGAA for prep so far and was doing fine until I discovered Esatlabs yesterday and now im shitting my pants. Is the acc esat more towards esatlabs or NSAA/ENGAA cuz UAT themselves tells to use NSAA/ENGAA for practice.

2. I started my prep super late. I'm decent at math and physics, but I have a time constraint and I'm getting railed in math rn. What's the best way to use this week on EsatLabs? Should I do all the question bank questions topic/subtopic wise or what?

Would be really grateful for a quick response