What Is A Good BMSAT Score? BMSAT Results Guide

Performing well in the BMSAT is essential to stay competitive in the Oxford Biomedical Sciences application process. In this guide, we’ll break down how the test is scored, the score you’ll need to achieve and review results from previous years.

Last Updated: 30th October 2024

Author: Matthew Amalfitano-Stroud

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What Is A Good BMSAT Score? BMSAT Results Guide

In 2024, Oxford released the Biomedical Science Admissions Test (BMSAT) for Biomedical Science applicants. This test was put in place to help admissions tutors assess the strength of each applicant through the scores they receive.

In this guide, we’ll learn about how the test is scored, what score you should aim to achieve and how previous admissions tests can help us understand the standards for the BMSAT. Let’s get started!

How Is The BMSAT Scored?

We explore the format of the BMSAT in more depth within our BMSAT Basics Guide, but we need to briefly understand how the test works in order to understand the scoring system.

The BMSAT is a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 80 science and maths-based questions. The test is split into four subjects, each of which has 20 questions in the test:

The test has a very simple marking scheme, with each question being worth one mark. There are no additional score conversions or calculations, so your final score will be measured out of 80, as well as scores out of 20 for each subject.

There is no negative marking in the test, so you will not lose any makes for getting questions incorrect. There also isn’t a minimum required score, so all applications will be considered regardless of the BMSAT result.

When Will I Receive My BMSAT Results?

After you’ve taken the test in late October, you won’t receive your results until January, shortly after applicants receive their offer letters. If you did not get an offer, you can request feedback from the college you applied for.

The colleges themselves will get your results much sooner as they will need them during the interview shortlisting process.

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What Is A Good BMSAT Score?

Now that we understand the scoring system, let’s consider what a good BMSAT score is. Of course, we would expect a good BMSAT score to be a high one, but exactly how does your score need to be to be considered good?

This information would typically be decided through previous results, but we, unfortunately, do not have any BMSAT results to work with currently as the test has yet to be sat for the first time. However, we can look at an exam that’s similar to the BMSAT to get an idea of what most applicants achieve and what you should be aiming for.

The Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) is a former admissions test used by Oxford, Cambridge and other universities in the UK for medicine and dentistry. This exam was discontinued in 2023, but one section of the exam – Section 2 – is very similar to the format of the BMSAT.

Though the BMAT had three sections, only Section 2 is similar to the BMSAT as it was the science section of the test. Applicants had 30 minutes to answer 27 questions relating to Physics, Chemistry and Biology, all of which were multiple-choice questions.

Though not one-to-one with the format of the BMSAT, the question format and level of required knowledge are both very similar, so it acts as a decent parallel for the BMSAT. The scoring system was also different in the BMAT, as raw marks were converted into a final score based on a scale between 1.0 (lowest) and 9.0 (highest).

This means that applying BMAT results to the BMSAT is more difficult, but it’s not impossible. Below is the conversion table and overall score distribution for Section 2 of the BMAT in 2022:

BMAT Conversion Table 2022 - Section 2

Raw Mark	Converted BMAT Score
0	1.0
1	1.0
2	1.3
3	2.0
4	2.5
5	2.9
6	3.3
7	3.6
8	3.9
9	4.2
10	4.5
11	4.7
12	5.0
13	5.2
14	5.5
15	5.7
16	6.0
17	6.3
18	6.5
19	6.8
20	7.1
21	7.4
22	7.8
23	8.2
24	8.7
25	9.0
26	9.0
27	9.0

BMAT Conversion Table 2022 - Section 2

Using these two together, we can determine which scores were more and least common and then convert the scores back into raw marks to see how many marks applicants achieved.

Firstly, we can see that the modal score score in the cohort was 4.2, or 9/27 marks. This is on the lower end of the score spectrum, and the distribution curve leans lower overall, as 71% of test takers scored 5.0 or less. Only 23% of test takers got over half of the questions right in the paper (14 or more).

Although the score conversions aren’t publicly available for 2023, we can still look at the score distributions for the last year of the BMAT:

BMAT Conversion Table 2023 - Section 2

The modal score here is lower than in 2022, sitting at 3.8. This would translate to roughly 8 marks based on the 2022 score conversion, but remember that this is not accurate to these results. The overall average performance of the cohort was slightly higher, with 67% of candidates scoring 5.0 or less.

So what can we gather from all this? Let’s consider what a good, average and low BMSAT score may be based on this information:

Good BMSAT Score

In the BMAT, a good Section 2 score was generally considered to be around 6.0, with 7.0 being an exceptional score. Using the 2022 score conversion, this would equate to 16 marks for a good score or 20 marks for an exceptional score.

This means that a good applicant would achieve roughly 60% on the test and an exceptional applicant would achieve around 75%. We can easily translate these percentages into the BMSAT scoring system to see that a good BMSAT score would be around 48 marks, while an exceptional score would be 60 or more.

A score in this range will give you a very good chance of being invited to interview with your college, which will hopefully lead to you getting into Oxford!

Average BMSAT Score

In the BMAT, an average score would be between 4.0 and 5.5, or 9 -16 marks. This means an average applicant would be achieving between 33% and 50% of the available marks. In the BMSAT, this would equate to a score of 26 – 40. This sounds very low, but given the performance of the BMAT test takers, most applicants will be scoring in this range.

With that being said, due to how competitive Oxford is, you would ideally be aiming for a score higher than this to help you stand out, especially considering Oxford only interviewed around 25% of applicants in 2023 (according to the course page).

Low BMSAT Score

If an average BMSAT score is 26 or more, then a low score would naturally be 25 or less. Remember that this score is below average, so most applicants will not score in this range. However, this is dependant on you putting in the time and effort to effectively prepare for the test.

Although not impossible, applicants scoring in this range are far less likely to be interviewed at the university.

That’s all we can say about BMSAT scoring for now, but be sure to check back on this guide once the first round of BMSAT results have been released, as this will give us much more reliable information to analyse. We hope this guide has been helpful to you in your BMSAT preparation and gives you a better idea of what score to aim for in the test.

At the end of the day, the goal is to get as high a score as possible, which means preparation for the BMSAT is essential. BMAT past papers are a good source of useful practice questions, but if you want to give yourself the best chance of getting an amazing score, check out UniAdmissions’ BMSAT Preparation Programme, which combines private sessions with an expert tutor, live intensive courses and extensive preparation materials into one package, ensuring you have everything you need to excel in the test. Discover the programme today or book a free consultation to speak with our team. Good luck with your test!

Access "The Big Book Of Oxbridge Applications" For FREE

The BMSAT is just one part of your Oxford Biomedical Science application. Discover everything you need to know about the whole process in The Big Book Of Oxbridge Applications, available for free here! Through over 350 pages, you will find:

Fill in your details below to claim your digital copy today!

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