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Hi, my name's Dan and I'm the Outreach officer for the School of Geography and the Environment at the 

University of Oxford. I'm here to talk to you today about the Geography Admissions Test, which all candidates

for entry to the Geography course, undergraduate study at Oxford, will have to take from this year. Geography Admission Test, or GAT, is a new test this year. It will be taken online and the GAT is made up of three parts: a, b and c. Part A is critical thinking and is broken into two subsections. Each subsection will have a passage of text, such as an article, and you'll be asked to answer multiple choice questions on those, which will revolve around something about the author's argument, the principle of their argument, or their conclusions. Part B is problem solving, and again in two subsections. Like part A, it will give you a resource, but this time the resource will likely be a map, a chart, some data, or a graph. Part C is an essay question, so you will be given a passage of text and asked to write an essay in response to this. Across all three parts,
the principle of the test is that you are not required to learn anything specific in advance of the test. We want to see how you respond to new information that we are giving you. We care about how you respond to new information,

rather than revising anything specific. So you can't revise for the test, but you can prepare.

So my top tips for preparing for the Geography Admissions Test. Number one: go online, go on the University website, find the Geography Admissions Test webpage and familiarise yourself with the guidance for candidates and have a look at the practice resources tab. Number two, have a go at practice tests, so there will be two specimen papers in the form of PDFs. There'll also be one of those specimen papers loaded onto the online platform that you can have a go on. So the online platform is what you'll be taking the real test on and you'll be able to practice using the online platform to take one of the specimen papers.

So familiarise yourself with that too. And finally, if you're usually entitled to extra time or other arrangements please check those with your test centre, that you're registering to do the test at, as we will be able to arrange for that too. So good luck.