💡 A Guide for ESAT Preparation from a QE Boy's student

Guide for the Engineering and Science Admissions Test preparation for Cambridge and Imperial Engineering

This what I did personally, tho it may not be the best thing to do for everyone since i never rlly ‘struggled’ at all - for those who r struggling, refer to end. I recommend being honest w urself and identifying struggle early. This is probably most helpful for ppl pushing from ~21/27 to 27. I have limited SPECIFIC advice for time management/increasing speed, as i never faced this issue myself. Maybe helpful for those sitting tmua, too.

Preparation Strategy & Execution

I started by doing all engaa/nsaa (lightly in jan, seriously from week after AS done) and pat (summer - i only recommend if particularly struggling w physics OR u have a lot of time before test date) papers and then I did all esat lab qs. Non-online tests, mark immediately after doing and don’t get up before u go through every error, learn from mistakes by WRITING DOWN what u did wrong and what u will/wont do next time to avoid the error.

• Stay on top of review section on esat lab.
• Plan when u do practice, and set goals as to how many qs u r to complete by a given date. I set ‘unrealistic’ goals so if i fell short it was still calm.
• ONLY DO 27Qs AT A TIME - never start a session if yk u wont finish all 27qs in that sitting.
• Do a lot of full mocks, practice and become used to the 2 hour sittings 1-2 weeks out i did 3 full mocks a day on weekends.

This prep doesnt mean u will have no life over summer.

Managing Fatigue & Repetition

My issue was that hundreds of questions were being added while I was doing esatlab qs, so what I did was I took a 3 weeks break from all esat, as skl started, and did A LOT of tmua paper 1s which genuinely made maths qs go twice as fast. Another reason for the break was for me to forget all the esatlab qs I did were so I could redo every q as if it were the first time.

I personally fit whole sections (27qs) into a third of a page and I recommend getting into the habit of not fully working out every q to completion - looking at options before u start actually working out in m1 and physics can genuinely save 10+mins.

The Art of Guessing

I can say a lot about ‘guessing’ - in some cases it is very clear which option is correct, without reading the question: if options r 1; 2; 3; 4; -1 answer is likely to be 1, as there is only one -ve option, and its prob not that cos y wld there be 4 +ve optns then so its js the +ve version on the only -ve option, 1. Take this w a pinch of salt.

To reiterate tho what I say is not gospel and obvs approach revision as u deem best for YOU, this is what I believe worked for me.

Useful Knowledge & Obscure Formulas

Last thing mental maths skills, further maths knowledge, and obscure formulas help a lot:

• Maths: Area of regular triangles, hexagons, octagons; triangle area formulas like Heron's formula; lune of Hippocrates; radius of inscribed circle in a 3-4-5 triangle; vector formulas; Archimedes parabola secant area theorem; intersecting chord+secant theorems; AM-GM and Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities; trapezium rule and its error proportionality to h (strip width) squared; geometric means (triangles) - leg rule specifically; consecutive binomial coefficients ratio; multinomial expansion; ‘angle bisectored’ triangles properties; when in doubt, draw diagrams - ‘number of solutions’ qs; exact values of sin15, sin75; difference between roots of quadratics.
• Physics: [Insert physics formulas here]

Strugglers - …

[Work in progress]

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