In breve: Nine of the 60 IMAT questions are logical reasoning (5) and reading skills with acquired knowledge (4) — up to 13.5 points. Neither has a topic list to memorise: the official programme describes competences, so these are the sections you train rather than study.
That distinction matters, because it changes what preparation means. For the exam as a whole see the IMAT 2026 guide; the sections with an actual syllabus are biology, chemistry and physics and maths.
1. Reading skills and acquired knowledge
The programme asks for the ability to understand written texts of different kinds and with different communicative purposes, and names three abilities as specifically examinable:
- understanding abstract, uncommon or specialised vocabulary in real contexts;
- identifying phenomena of textual cohesion and coherence;
- extracting and inferring specific information from the text.
The passages are short: scientific non-fiction, classic or contemporary narrative, or current-affairs pieces from newspapers and general or specialist magazines.
2. What "acquired knowledge" covers
Starting from short texts of various kinds, the programme also examines the knowledge acquired in previous studies and general cultural knowledge, including topics of contemporary public debate. It names three targets:
- the ability to orient oneself in represented space and time — placing historical and cultural phenomena of significance;
- knowledge of the main national and international institutions;
- understanding of phenomena in the legal, economic and citizenship spheres.
This is as specific as the official programme gets, and it is worth reading twice before buying a general-knowledge compendium: the target is institutions and orientation, not trivia.
3. Logical reasoning and problems
The programme is one paragraph, and worth quoting closely: the questions test the ability to complete a line of reasoning logically, coherently with its premises. Those premises are stated in symbolic or verbal form, and concern cases or problems — including abstract ones — whose solution requires different forms of logical reasoning.
What that looks like on the paper
Deductive chains ("if all A are B and no B is C…"), negation and its traps, necessary versus sufficient conditions, and short quantitative problems that are logic in numerical clothing. The common thread is that every question is self-contained: nothing outside the premises is allowed to enter the answer.
4. What actually improves the score
- Read the question before the passage. Knowing what you are looking for turns a second reading into a search rather than a re-read.
- Answer from the text, then check the option against it. Formulating your own answer first is what stops a plausible distractor from feeling right.
- Translate logic into symbols. Written as symbols, most deductive questions collapse into one step; written as prose, they invite the wrong intuition.
- Negate carefully. "Not all" is not "none". A large share of the section's wrong answers are correct answers to a misnegated premise.
- Do questions under time. These sections have no content to revise: the only training that transfers is answering, timed, then reading why the wrong option was attractive.
5. Where these nine questions belong in your 100 minutes
Nine questions, 13.5 points, and — in our experience building simulations on this format — the group most sensitive to fatigue on the paper; the annex does not rank sections by that. Left to the last ten minutes they are answered badly; taken first they can eat the time biology needs. The compromise most candidates arrive at after a few full mocks: the reading passage early, the logic questions in the middle, and never all nine in the same block.
There is also a scoring reason not to rush them. A wrong answer costs −0.4 and a blank costs nothing, so a hurried guess on the last two questions is worth less than leaving them — and the score calculator makes that trade-off concrete.
6. FAQ
How many logic and reading questions are on the IMAT?
Nine between them: 5 on logical reasoning and problems, 4 on reading skills and acquired knowledge. Together they are worth up to 13.5 points of 90.
Can you study for the logic section?
Not in the way you study biology. The programme describes an ability — completing a line of reasoning coherently with its premises — rather than a body of knowledge. What improves is speed and method, and both come from doing questions.
What does 'acquired knowledge' mean?
General culture in the sense the programme names: orienting yourself in space and time, placing historical and cultural phenomena, knowing the main national and international institutions, and understanding legal, economic and citizenship matters.
Are the reading passages scientific?
They can be. The programme says the passages are short texts of scientific non-fiction, classic or contemporary narrative, or current-affairs pieces from newspapers and magazines.
Should I answer these questions first or last?
They are the questions most sensitive to haste, so leaving all nine to the final minutes is the common and costly mistake. Many candidates do better taking the reading passage early, while attention is fresh.
Is prior knowledge enough for the reading section?
No — and using it can cost you. The instruction is to answer on the basis of what the passage says, not on what you already know about the subject.
Fonte: MUR — Annex A to the ministerial decree setting the admission-test programmes (D.M. n. 1005 of 6 August 2026 for the IMAT); competences quoted from the archived annex. Ultima verifica: .