TARA Past Papers: What Exists, and the TSA Questions That Match Each Type

There are no TARA past papers. UAT-UK first offered the TARA (Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions) in October 2025 and, as of 23 October 2026, has not published any TARA paper. What it does publish, free, is the TARA Content Specification and Question Guide, specimen tests with explained answers and practice tests in the Pearson test player, and, as its “past papers” for the TARA, old papers from two earlier tests: Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) Section 1 (2008 to 2023) and BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) Section 1 (2003 to 2023), with answer keys. UAT-UK says the TARA’s Critical Thinking and Problem Solving components “share a common history” with those tests. Below we map every question of the 2023 TSA paper to the TARA question type it practises, and give one free question from our TARA practice test. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not affiliated with UAT-UK, Pearson, the University of Oxford or UCL. Every rule and figure about the TARA and the old papers here is quoted or summarised from UAT-UK’s and Pearson’s pages, read on 23 October 2026; our own methods, questions and examples are labelled as ours.

Counted from UAT-UK’s TARA Preparation Materials page and TARA Question Guide, 23 October 2026.

Two warnings. First, a pack sold as “TARA past papers” cannot be a set of real TARA papers, because UAT-UK has released none; it may contain old TSA or BMAT material, someone’s own questions or improperly shared test content, but it is not a set of TARA past papers. Second, UAT-UK’s Prepare page says the sharing of test content, during or after the admissions cycle, is “strictly prohibited”, and that candidates “may inadvertently disadvantage their own application(s)” by engaging in it. In our reading, questions recalled from a live TARA sitting and posted online fall under that rule. Use UAT-UK’s own material first.

UAT-UK’s TARA Preparation Materials page says the Critical Thinking and Problem Solving components of the TARA “share a common history” with BMAT Section 1 and the TSA, and that “on that basis” candidates wanting more preparation material may find the BMAT papers useful; the TSA papers are listed alongside them on the same page. It does not say the questions are the same, or that the TARA is a renamed TSA. The papers were written for different tests, so it pays to know what carries over and what does not.

The BMAT Section 1 papers need more care. The 2023 paper is headed “Thinking Skills” and has 32 questions in 60 minutes; the 2019 paper is headed “Aptitude and Skills” and has 35 questions in 60 minutes; and the instructions on the 2003 paper allow for answers written in words or numbers (“If questions ask you to write in words or numbers…”) as well as choices between options. In our view the 2003 paper is the least like the TARA’s multiple-choice modules, which use five options throughout, because its instructions allow written answers. Our suggestion: use the TSA papers first, and the recent BMAT papers after them.

We went through all 50 questions of the 2023 TSA Section 1 Question Paper on UAT-UK’s TARA Preparation Materials page and sorted each into the TARA question type it practises. The Critical Thinking types follow the wording of each question (“Which one of the following is an underlying assumption…”, “…most closely parallels the reasoning…”), so that half is close to mechanical. The Problem Solving kinds are our reading: UAT-UK’s Question Guide says most questions fall into one kind but some fit more than one, so treat those rows as a guide, not a label UAT-UK has given. The question numbers below refer to that paper; its answer key is on the same Preparation Materials page.

Two things stand out. The paper is split evenly, 25 Critical Thinking and 25 Problem Solving, and every one of the seven Critical Thinking types appears at least three times, so the 2023 paper alone gives you three or four questions of each type. And “Assessing the impact of additional evidence” comes in two directions: questions 5 and 45 ask what most weakens the argument, and 21 and 33 what most strengthens it. The TARA Question Guide describes the same type as asking what “might strengthen or weaken” an argument.

For the reasoning behind each answer, the 2020 TSA Section 1 Explained Answers are the only explained answers among the old papers on UAT-UK’s TARA Preparation Materials page; for the other years you get the answer key alone. UAT-UK’s specimen tests on Pearson’s page come with an explained answer for each question, and they are written for the TARA itself, so do them before the old papers.

This one is a Problem Solving question of the Relevant selection kind, the kind where the question gives you more information than you need. In the 2023 TSA paper, by our reading, questions 7, 13 and 31 are of the same kind.

Once you have used the material on UAT-UK’s and Pearson’s pages, a fresh set of unseen questions in the TARA format helps you find your weaker question types, though UAT-UK notes that performance on a practice test will not necessarily be indicative of performance under exam conditions. Our TARA practice test has a full Critical Thinking module and a full Problem Solving module, 22 original questions each, with a 40-minute clock in our full-screen test player, an explanation for every answer and your score by question type, plus a Writing Task practice prompt. It reports a count of correct answers, not a 1.0–9.0 score: the UAT-UK pages we read give no conversion from correct answers to its scale. Start with the three free questions, including the one above. Our TARA exam page has the format and dates in brief.