The TARA Guide

Apr 15
3 min read

Updated: Apr 28

The TARA (Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions) has replaced the TSA as the Oxford PPE admissions test. It is also required for Oxford applicants to Economics and Management; Experimental Psychology; History and Economics; History and Politics; Human Sciences; Philosophy and Linguistics; Psychology and Linguistics; and Psychology and Philosophy. Furthermore, UCL requires it for Computer Science; Computer Science and

Mathematics; Mechanical Engineering; Robotics and Artificial Intelligence; and Economics.

If you're applying to Oxford, you will have to sit the TARA in the first sitting, which in 2026 runs 12th-16th October, before interview invitations go out in November.

It is much like the TSA in that it has contains critical thinking and problem solving questions, now separated into distinct modules, as well as a writing task, where candidates choose from a number of prompts. As such, there are three modules in total. The TARA is slightly shorter than the TSA, with each module lasting forty minutes, and the first two containing twenty-two questions.

Your TARA score is one of the most important aspects of your application, and it has tremendous bearing on whether or not you're invited to interview. It is deliberately very challenging, with students receving a wide range of scores, allowing tutors to compare easily different students' reasoning capabilities. While it is designed to measure your natural aptitude, you can improve your score through consistent practice and tuition, and with the large number of practice resources available, you would be foolish not to do so.

Despite the TARA being a new paper, with only a specimen and sample exam available, its similarity to the TSA means all TSA past papers are also useful resources, and so you have available papers going back to 2008.

Our recommendation is to work through practice papers independently, and then meet with a tutor to discuss the questions that you got wrong. You can see our TARA tuition services here.

Below are all of the TARA and TSA practice resources available.