Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test
MDCAT: format, sections and qualifying marks
MDCAT decides half your MBBS merit under the PMDC formula, which makes its structure worth knowing precisely. Biology alone is 45% of the paper — a fact that should shape how you split your preparation time.
Looking for this year's dates?
We deliberately don't publish test dates or registration deadlines — they change every cycle, and a stale date on a page like this does real damage. Check PMDC directly. Everything below is structural and holds across cycles.
At a glance
- Conducted by
- PMDC
- Questions
- 180 MCQs
- Duration
- 3 hours (180 minutes)
- Total marks
- 180
- Mode
- Paper-based (OMR)
- Negative marking
- None — a wrong answer costs nothing, so never leave a blank
What's in the paper
Section weights decide where your preparation time is worth spending.
Eligibility
- •FSc Pre-Medical or an equivalent qualification with IBCC equivalence.
- •Registration runs through PMDC for the national test.
Qualifying marks
Reported qualifying thresholds are 55% for medical colleges and 45% for dental. Qualifying is not the same as competitive — public MBBS merit has recently closed around 90–92% aggregate.
Worth knowing
PMDC has confirmed the finalised MDCAT 2025 curriculum carries over, so material prepared against that syllabus remains current.
Format details checked on against MDCAT format as reported by Maqsad and Premeth. These are secondary sources — confirm against PMDC before you rely on them.