CEU Cardenal Herrera EPAM 2027: Complete Preparation Guide

Eight official areas across 35 items, the largest single block on any paper in this batch.

• Water, salts and biocatalysts: water polarity and hydrogen bonding, cohesion and adhesion, solvent properties and specific heat, mineral salts and physiological ions, diffusion and osmosis, osmotic pressure, hypotonic, isotonic and hypertonic solutions, acids, bases, buffers and the pH scale, enzyme action including the active site, specificity, activation energy, cofactors, coenzymes, prosthetic groups, denaturation and the effect of pH and temperature
• Biomolecules: monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides, aldoses and ketoses, epimers, glycosidic bonds, starch, glycogen and cellulose; triglycerides, phospholipids, steroids and cholesterol, saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, amphipathic molecules; amino acids, ampholyte behaviour, peptide bonds and the four levels of protein structure; nucleotides, bases, the sugar-phosphate backbone and base pairing; recognising functional groups in a drawn structure
• Evolution and cell theory: the origin of life, evolution through mutation, selection, adaptation and common ancestry, the endosymbiotic theory and the evidence supporting it, the claims of cell theory, and cell types including prokaryotic against eukaryotic and animal against plant
• Cell structure and envelopes: nucleus and nucleolus, ribosomes, rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes, peroxisomes, mitochondria, chloroplasts, vacuoles and cytoskeleton, protein synthesis from transcription to translation, the cell wall and the fluid mosaic plasma membrane, and transport by simple and facilitated diffusion, osmosis, active transport, endocytosis and exocytosis
• Metabolism: anabolism and catabolism, exergonic and endergonic reactions and the sign of the free energy change, ATP as energy currency and the coupling of reactions, chemoautotrophs, chemoheterotrophs, photoautotrophs and photoheterotrophs, glycolysis, fermentation, the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation at overview level, photosynthesis at overview level, and glycogen synthesis and breakdown
• Mendelian and sex-linked genetics: genotype and phenotype, allele, locus, homozygous and heterozygous, dominant and recessive inheritance, autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive patterns, carriers and hidden recessive disorders, Punnett squares and one- and two-step probability, sex chromosomes and X-linked recessive conditions, pedigree interpretation and the karyotype
• Molecular genetics and cell division: DNA packaging through histones, nucleosomes, chromatin and chromosomes, euchromatin and heterochromatin, semi-conservative replication, transcription and translation with codons and anticodons, mutation types, the cell cycle through G1, S, G2 and M, the stages of mitosis and cytokinesis, meiosis I and II with crossing over and independent assortment, and haploid against diploid and somatic against germ cells
• Microbiology: the structure and composition of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses, the bacterial cell wall, nucleoid, plasmids, capsule, flagella, fimbriae and spores, Gram-positive and Gram-negative walls and peptidoglycan, fungal and protozoan features, viral capsid, genetic material and obligate intracellular parasitism, and the scope of antibiotics

Nine areas across 15 items. The official list gives eleven bullets; two pairs are merged here as CEU UCH itself groups them: atomic structure with the periodic table, and chemical kinetics with the bullet printed as "Chemical balance", which is the list's rendering of chemical equilibrium. The acid-base bullet is printed in Spanish on the official list as "Ácido-Base".

• Chemical formulas and nomenclature: inorganic and organic formulas, ionic compounds, oxides, hydroxides, salts, acids and bases, charge balancing and recognition of common ions, hydrocarbons and the alcohol, ether, aldehyde, ketone, carboxylic acid, ester and amine functional groups, and basic IUPAC naming of simple alkanes, alkenes and alkynes
• Solutions and concentration: molarity, molality, normality and percentage concentration, dilution by C1V1 = C2V2, solubility, polarity and miscibility, electrolytes, and colligative properties at concept level
• Stoichiometry: the mole and Avogadro's number, molar mass and formula mass, balancing equations and reading coefficients as mole ratios, limiting reagent, theoretical and percent yield, and gas stoichiometry where ideal-gas data are supplied
• Atomic structure and the periodic table: protons, neutrons and electrons, atomic and mass number, isotopes and average atomic mass, electron configuration, orbitals and quantum numbers, valence electrons and noble-gas stability, groups and periods, and the trends in atomic radius, ionization energy, electron affinity and electronegativity
• Chemical bonding: ionic, covalent and metallic bonding, polar and non-polar bonds and molecular polarity, intermolecular forces including hydrogen bonding, dipole-dipole and London dispersion, VSEPR geometry and sp, sp2 and sp3 hybridization, and the link from bonding to solubility and miscibility
• Kinetics and equilibrium: reaction rate and the effect of concentration, temperature, surface area and catalysts, activation energy and catalyst function, dynamic equilibrium as equal forward and reverse rates, the equilibrium constant and reaction quotient at basic level, Le Chatelier's principle, and how endothermic and exothermic equilibria shift with temperature
• Acids and bases: Arrhenius and Brønsted-Lowry acids and bases, conjugate acid-base pairs, amphoteric substances and water in particular, pH and pOH, strong against weak acids and bases, neutralization and buffers
• Redox reactions: oxidation numbers and assigning oxidation states, oxidation and reduction as loss and gain of electrons, identifying the oxidizing and the reducing agent, balancing simple redox reactions, and electrochemical-cell vocabulary at overview level
• Organic reactions: addition, substitution, elimination, oxidation, reduction and esterification, naming and recognizing simple alkenes and alkynes, functional-group transformations at recognition level, and the organic chemistry underlying carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids

Ten areas across 15 items: five mathematics, five physics. No per-discipline count is published; the 2025 booklet happened to run nine physics items and six mathematics items, which is one sitting's split rather than a rule. One quirk worth knowing: the official list's bullet "Prescription defined. Aplicacions." is a mistranslation of integral definida and means the definite integral and its applications, which is what items 64 and 65 of that booklet tested.

• Systems of equations and the Gauss method: linear equations and inequalities, solving by substitution, elimination and the Gauss method, writing a system in matrix form, and reading whether a system has one solution, none, or infinitely many
• Matrices and determinants: matrix addition, subtraction and multiplication, the square and small powers of a matrix, identity and inverse matrices, determinants of 2x2 and 3x3 matrices and their properties, and solving linear systems with them
• Vectors, lines and planes in space: vector components, magnitude and unit vectors, the dot product, angle between vectors and perpendicularity, cross product and normal vectors, parametric and Cartesian equations of lines and planes, and metrical problems of distance and angle in space
• Limits, derivatives and graphing: limits by substitution, factoring and simplification, continuity, the power, product, quotient and chain rules, applications of derivatives to tangents, monotonicity and maxima and minima, inverse functions, and function graphing with intercepts, asymptotes, sign and derivative information
• Integrals and probability: calculation of primitives and basic integration rules, the definite integral as area or accumulation and its applications, and probability including simple events, the complement rule, counting, and conditional probability where the problem states it
• Gravitational interaction: Newton's law of universal gravitation and its proportionality to the product of the masses and the inverse square of the distance, the attractive nature of the gravitational force, mass against weight, gravitational field strength, and simple circular-orbit reasoning
• Electromagnetic interaction: electric charge, Coulomb's law and the electric field, electric potential, current, voltage and resistance, the magnetic field and the force on a moving charge, the circular path of a charge moving perpendicular to a uniform field, the field lines around a current-carrying wire, and electromagnetic induction
• Waves and harmonic motion: simple harmonic and undulating motion, wavelength, frequency, period, amplitude and the relation between speed, frequency and wavelength, sound waves and the calculations that follow from them, and reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference at concept level
• Geometrical optics: the law of reflection, refraction and Snell's law, converging and diverging lenses, focal points and ray diagrams, and mirrors and image formation at overview level
• Modern physics: relativity and mass-energy equivalence, nuclear physics including radioactivity, fission and fusion and the origin of the energy released, quantum physics including the photoelectric effect and quantization, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for position and linear momentum

Derived, not official. CEU UCH's EPAM subject list does not name this section, so the seven areas below come from the item types the official sample booklet actually used against its supplied article. Every one of them depends on the article in front of you; none can be revised in advance.

• Definitions in the article: locating how the supplied article defines a medical or scientific term and the exact threshold or criterion it states: a percentile cut-off, a z-score, a consensus definition
• Tables and figures: reading the rows, columns, categories, causes and percentages of a table or figure, and checking its heading and units before choosing an option
• Numerical data extraction: pulling percentages, proportions, comparisons, ranges and recommended values stated in the article, without calculating more than the question asks for
• True and false statements: deciding which of four statements the article does or does not support, with attention to not, except, always and only, and to statements that are true in general but absent from this text
• Treatment and recommendations: identifying the treatment, preventive measure, measurement technique or follow-up the article recommends, and the group of patients it applies to
• Conclusions: identifying the main finding and the concluding recommendation, and distinguishing the conclusion from a definition, a result or a risk factor stated elsewhere
• Bibliography and sources: locating reference details in the article's reference list, matching a claim to the source cited for it, and reading publication years including the oldest and most recent

EPAM is the Medicine Entrance Examination Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera writes and grades itself for its Degree in Medicine in Valencia, Castellón and Elche: 75 four-option multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes, split Biology 35, Chemistry 15, Physics and Mathematics 15, and comprehension of a supplied research article 10.

No. There is no shared national format for Spain's private medical schools: each writes, sits and grades its own paper with its own question count, timing and subject mix. That includes the other CEU institutions: CEU San Pablo in Madrid and CEU Fernando III in Seville belong to the same network but run genuinely different papers, and a result from one is not transferable to another.

They are two delivery variants of the same paper. EPAM is sat in person at Alfara del Patriarca (Valencia) or Castellón by applicants whose pre-university studies were in Spain or in the Spanish system; EPOAM is sat online by applicants who studied outside it. Both run 120 minutes; the regulation gives a 13:00 start, while CEU UCH's EPAM page gives 10:00 for the in-person sitting. If you sit both sessions in a cycle the higher score counts, but a candidate who does not obtain a place after EPOAM cannot then sit EPAM.

One mark per correct answer, nothing for a wrong answer, nothing for a blank, out of a maximum of 75. The official regulation puts it plainly: students are not penalised for incorrect answers other than by not receiving the mark. So yes, guessing strictly helps. A blind four-option guess is worth (1/4 × 1) = +0.25 marks in expectation, rising to +0.33 if you eliminate one option and +0.50 if you eliminate two. Leaving a question blank is worth exactly zero and is never the better choice.

No. This is a checked absence rather than a missing figure: the full 26-page official regulation was read end to end, and CEU UCH's criterios-valoracion, examen and puntos-adicionales pages were each fetched directly, and none of the four sets any floor on the test. What does exist is a prerequisite before the test (a 7/10 average in the first year of Bachillerato, or 9/10 for vocational-training entrants) and a rank-based outcome afterwards: offered place, waiting list, or insufficient score relative to that cycle's applicants.

40% of your admission mark. The other 60% is your first-year Bachillerato average. On the bilingual English-Spanish group the split is 60% academic record, 35% test and 5% English level. In practical terms one raw EPAM mark is about 0.53 percentage points of your final admission score, so a ten-mark improvement moves your admission mark by roughly 5.3 points, significant in a rank-ordered field, but not the same number as the 13.3 percentage points of test accuracy it represents.

Spanish by default: CEU UCH's regulation offers candidates who are not Spanish speakers the option of sitting it in English, and the sample booklet on its Spanish admissions page is in Spanish. The degree itself runs as Spanish-taught groups in Castellón and Elche and a bilingual English-Spanish group in Valencia; on the bilingual group the admission formula replaces the flat 40% test weight with 35% test plus a 5% English-level component.

The last ten items of the paper, answered against a full research article supplied with the exam. The 2025 sitting used Díez López et al., "Small for gestational age: concept, diagnosis and neonatal characterization, follow-up and recommendations", Anales de Pediatría 101 (2024) 124-131. CEU UCH publishes no syllabus for it, so there is nothing to memorise: the questions ask you to locate a stated definition or threshold, read a table, extract a figure, judge true-and-false statements, identify a recommendation, find the conclusion, or use the reference list.

CEU UCH's Medicine page lists 70 places in Castellón and 50 in Elche for the Spanish-taught group, and 50 for the bilingual group in Valencia, 170 in all, but no acceptance rate or historical cutoffs. What is published is the selection mechanism: rank on the weighted 60/40 formula, with three outcomes (offered place, waiting list, insufficient score).

Within the EU, yes: automatically, as a standard Spanish medical degree. Practising in Spain as a specialist additionally requires the MIR (Médico Interno Residente), Spain's national exam for entry into residency training, which sits alongside rather than instead of that recognition. Outside the EU recognition isn't automatic as a rule, but the UK is an exception. Under the Medical Act 1983 (section 21B, as in force on 12 October 2026), a Spanish medical degree is a 'relevant European qualification', so a graduate who applies to the GMC with one, whatever their nationality, is not asked to show the knowledge and skills other international graduates prove through PLAB/UKMLA; evidence of English is still required, and the rule is UK policy that can change. US-bound graduates need ECFMG certification via USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK, the same requirement every international medical graduate faces.

Yes. The IvyTest simulator runs EPAM-format practice (75 questions, four options, the real +1/0/0 scoring and the 120-minute limit) in timed, tutor and review modes, with per-block reporting rather than a single percentage, and a free diagnostic available without payment.

CEU UCH publishes no past papers, but it does publish one official sample test as a free PDF: the examination booklet of 22 February 2025, linked from its EPAM page, with all 75 questions in the real order and the research article the last ten are about. It carries no answer key. Beside it is a two-page PDF of syllabus recommendations, and CEU UCH has the same booklet in English.

The 2027/28 dates are not published yet. As of 7 October 2026, CEU UCH's admissions page says the process for candidates from the Spanish system is expected to start in November 2026. In the 2026/27 cycle the test ran on 31 January and 25 April 2026, with documents due by 26 January and 20 April, and decisions on 11 February and 7 May.

75 multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes: Biology 35, Chemistry 15, Physics and Mathematics 15, and 10 on a published scientific article handed out with the paper. CEU UCH's own syllabus recommendations, drawn from the second year of Bachillerato, list eight Biology areas, eleven Chemistry topics, fifteen Mathematics topics (from matrices to the definite integral and probability) and five Physics areas. Every topic is in the syllabus section above.

CEU UCH publishes none, for any group or year. Places go by rank on the admission score (60% first-year Bachillerato average and 40% test, or 60%, 35% test and 5% English level on the bilingual group, plus up to 2 additional points), and each candidate learns on the applicant intranet whether they have a place, are on the waiting list or did not score enough. A cutoff quoted elsewhere is not CEU UCH's figure.

For 2026/27 the first year costs €18,850 in Castellón, €20,500 in Elche and €22,350 on the bilingual group in Valencia, per CEU UCH's fee schedules. Each total is a €2,000 place reservation, an enrolment payment, a €750 file-opening fee and tuition in nine monthly payments (€230, €250 and €265 per credit). The test costs €75, and new students not resident in Spain pay a €600 Hospitality Pack. CEU Merit Program scholarships take 75% or 100% off the yearly price.

From Bachillerato, a 7/10 average in the first year, with at least two of Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Mathematics II in the second; from higher vocational training, a 9/10 average in a health-related cycle; from a related degree, a 7/10 average. You also need B1 English for the bilingual group or B1 Spanish for the Spanish groups unless it is your native language, and everyone sits the test. Candidates from Spanish Bachillerato must also pass the PAU: Spanish law requires it to enter any university (Ley Orgánica 2/2006, Article 38.1), and Elche's norms state it for every candidate, while the main regulation repeats it only for international applicants, who pass the PAU or hold a credencial. The PAU grade does not count towards the admission score.

On all three campuses. The Spanish-taught group runs in Castellón (70 places) and, since 2026/27, in Elche, Alicante (50 places); the bilingual English-Spanish group runs at Alfara del Patriarca, Valencia (50 places). One form covers Castellón and Valencia, and your first choice sets where you sit the EPAM. Elche's first intake was filled from that cycle's EPAM candidates, and admitted candidates from the provinces of Alicante and Murcia were offered the move first.

Six years and 360 ECTS in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Year 1 covers Anatomy, Biology, Physiology, Psychology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, alongside two humanities courses; clinical subjects start in year 3; year 6 is 54 ECTS of supervised clinical placements and a 6-ECTS final project. MIR preparation with the AMIR academy runs from year 3, when a free university diploma in clinical and diagnostic medicine is also offered.

Not as a public list. CEU UCH's admission rules say every candidate is told the decision on the new-student intranet (intranet de nuevo estudiante), and may also get it by email or SMS: a place, a place on the waiting list, or a score too low for either. In 2026/27 the decisions came on 11 February (first sitting) and 7 May 2026 (second). An admitted candidate has 7 calendar days to make the first payment that confirms the place, or loses it. Waiting-list moves are reported on the intranet, by email or by phone, and a candidate offered a place who cannot be reached or does not answer within 48 hours loses it to the next on the list. The 2027/28 dates are not published yet.