Mathematics Admissions Test (Oxford) — 2007–2024
The Mathematics Admissions Test was used by the University of Oxford (and Imperial, Warwick) for undergraduate maths admissions from 2007 to 2024. It is a 2.5-hour written exam testing problem-solving skills beyond A-Level. From 2026, Oxford uses the TMUA instead. All papers and solutions below are hosted on this site for direct viewing.
The most common mistake is treating the MAT as a harder A-Level paper and preparing for it by doing more A-Level questions. It is not, and that approach wastes the term.
The MAT deliberately assumes a limited syllabus — roughly the pure content of the first year of A-Level, and nothing beyond it. The difficulty is not in what you need to know but in seeing the observation that makes a problem short. Questions are built so that the mechanical route runs out of time while the insight does not. More content knowledge does not help; more time spent looking for structure does.
Oxford publishes worked solutions and, separately, examiner feedback reports for each year. The feedback is the more useful document and almost nobody reads it: it says what candidates actually did, where they went wrong in bulk, and which approaches earned credit. Attempt a paper first, mark it against the solutions, and then read the feedback for that year.
Sitting a paper untimed and scoring well tells you little. The paper is designed so that finishing everything is not the expectation — choosing which questions to commit to is part of what is being tested. Sit at least a few papers under real time before you judge your level.
Papers, worked solutions and examiner feedback are published by the University of Oxford Mathematical Institute and open on its site. This page indexes them by year.