How the HUMAT is scored — and the three things that should change how you sit it.
The HUMAT is not marked like a school test. Wrong answers cost you, the three sections are not worth the same, the weighting flips between the two programmes, and you have to clear a floor in every section — not just a total. Understanding the marking is worth points on its own, because it changes which questions you answer and which you leave.
Three ways HUMAT marking differs from a school test
- 1Wrong answers are penalised; blanks are not
A correct answer earns the section’s full weight, a wrong answer loses a quarter of it, and an omission scores zero. Guessing is not free.
- 2Sections are weighted — and oppositely for each programme
A correct answer is worth more than twice as much in a programme’s heavy section as in its light one. Which section is heavy flips between Medicine and Surgery and MEDTEC.
- 3You must clear every section, not just the total
Eligibility needs both the overall threshold and a minimum in each section. You cannot bank a strong section to rescue an abandoned one.
The 2026 figures, per programme
Points per question and the section floor you must clear, for each programme. There are five options per question and 66 questions in a full paper.
| Section | Correct | Wrong | Section floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| SA | +22 | −5.5 | 88 |
| BC | +16 | −4 | 64 |
| MP | +10 | −2.5 | 40 |
| Section | Correct | Wrong | Section floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| SA | +10 | −2.5 | 40 |
| BC | +16 | −4 | 64 |
| MP | +22 | −5.5 | 88 |
Eligibility also needs a total of 192 across a 960-point maximum — and every section floor cleared.
These are the 2026 figures Vettamed scores its mocks against, mirroring the published HUMAT rules. Weights and thresholds can change year to year — confirm the current numbers in Humanitas’ evaluation documents before you rely on them.
The guessing maths, worked out
With five options and a wrong answer costing exactly a quarter of a correct one, a blind guess is break-even on average: one time in five you gain the full mark, four times in five you lose a quarter of it, and those cancel exactly to zero. Random guessing neither helps nor hurts your expected score.
That is the whole point of knowing it. Because a blind guess is worth zero on average — the same as leaving it blank — the entire value of guessing lives in elimination. Rule out even one of the five options and the odds tip in your favour; rule out two and it is clearly worth answering. The candidate who eliminates and then commits beats the one who either blindly fills every bubble or leaves too many blank.
Spend your effort where the points are
Because sections are weighted, a correct answer in your programme’s heavy section is worth more than double one in its light section. For Medicine and Surgery that heavy section is Scientific Thinking & Academic Literacy; for MEDTEC it is Mathematics & Physics.
This does not mean abandoning the light section — the per-section floor forbids that — but it does mean that, at the margin, an hour that lifts your heavy section moves your standing more than the same hour spent on your light one. Preparation that ignores the weighting spreads effort evenly and leaves points on the table.
Why the same paper gives you two different scores
The weighting is a mirror image between the two programmes: what counts most for Medicine and Surgery counts least for MEDTEC, and the reverse. The same answered paper therefore produces two different totals and two different standings, and you can clear one programme’s bar while missing the other’s.
Vettamed scores every completed mock against both programmes’ rules at once, so you see where a single paper leaves you for each — and the threshold-strategy view lets you change one answer and watch the arithmetic move, rather than guess at a rank. That is the honest version of “what score do I need”: not a prediction, but the real maths of your own paper.
See where your paper actually lands.
A free, human-reviewed readiness intake is the honest first step; from there, full mocks in Vettamed are scored against both programmes’ rules. No download, no payment to start.
A note on this guide
This guide is informational, not official advice, and Vettamed is an independent third-party preparation tool with no affiliation to Humanitas University. The figures shown are the 2026 numbers Vettamed’s scoring mirrors; Humanitas’ current evaluation documents are the authority, and weights and thresholds can change — verify them before making decisions.