It is vital to take the time to properly prepare for the TMUA exam, as its format and style of questions may be unfamiliar to you. This page will help you do that.

Past paper walkthroughs

As a reminder, the TMUA exam lasts 2 hours and 30 minutes in total and is divided into two papers. You have 75 minutes to complete each paper, both of which contain 20 multiple choice questions. Paper 1, Applications of Mathematical Knowledge, assesses your ability to apply your knowledge of mathematics in new situations. Paper 2, Mathematical reasoning, assesses your ability to deal with mathematical reasoning, and ideas from elementary logic.

Our Advanced Mathematics Support Programme Area Coordinator, Fiona Kitchen, has provided some solutions and ways of approaching selected questions below - you can download her notes as PDFs and compare to your own attempts. Questions have been chosen from earlier papers so that you can use papers from more recent exams as more focused preparation closer to your exam sitting. The questions are chosen, to draw out examples of techniques or knowledge that we feel will benefit you most in your preparation.

2016 Paper 1 Q2Link opens in a new window

2016 Paper 1 Q6Link opens in a new window

2016 Paper 1 Q18Link opens in a new window

2016 Paper 2 Q3Link opens in a new window

2017 Paper 1 Q18Link opens in a new window

We will continue to add similar examples - as well as video walkthroughs - to this page, so please check back regularly.

There is also a lot of useful information about TMUA from other sources, some of which we've gathered for you here. You can explore these collections of past TMUA papers to get an idea of how questions and exercises are structured. They come with worked solutions.

General content and advice

You might also find it useful to explore the following links about TMUA from University Admissions Tests UK (UAT-UK), including general guidance and some practice papers for you to attempt yourself. It is the UAT-UK website that you will need in order to register to sit the exam itself.