Yes, but only if you read it section by section rather than as one combined score - a cold overall score is close to meaningless, while a section-by-section preview, especially for Reading, General Knowledge, and Logical Reasoning, can be a genuinely useful early signal.
Some candidates want to sit a full IMAT mock on day one, before opening a single textbook, just to see where they stand. It sounds like a reasonable instinct: get a number, know your starting point, work from there. It's worth being honest about what that number actually is before you build any plan around it.
What a cold mock can genuinely tell you
It's a real, useful preview of the exam's format, pacing, and question style, and it can surface which sections feel completely unfamiliar to you before you've spent a single hour on them. If Physics & Maths content is a total blank and General Knowledge feels comfortable, that's worth knowing early, since it shapes how you eventually divide your study time.
What it can't tell you
The overall score itself is close to meaningless. On any section that depends on recalled content, Biology, Chemistry, Physics & Maths, a zero-prep attempt is mostly educated guessing dressed up as a result. Treating that number as your "starting score" and tracking improvement against it later just measures how much content you've since memorized, which you already know is going to go up.
Where the real risk is
A low cold score can also do more harm than good if it isn't framed correctly. Seeing a number that looks nowhere near a passing score, on content you haven't even studied yet, has discouraged candidates out of proportion to what it actually means. It's not a verdict on your ability. It's a measurement of how much of the syllabus you haven't touched yet, which on day one is supposed to be almost all of it.
A more useful way to get an early baseline
If you want a real signal before you've studied, look at it section by section rather than as one combined score. Reading, General Knowledge, and Logical Reasoning draw more on skills you likely already have than on syllabus content, so a cold attempt there is a genuinely informative preview. For Biology, Chemistry, and Physics & Maths, a diagnostic pass is more useful a few weeks in, once you've covered enough to score it properly and tell content gaps apart from format unfamiliarity.
Want a realistic sense of where you'd land without burning a full mock on day one? The Lounge is a free IMAT score predictor - answer a few questions and see roughly where you'd realistically land, and which universities that score would clear.
Try the free Score PredictorA day-one mock isn't wasted time, but it's not the diagnostic tool it's often treated as either. Use it to learn the shape of the exam, not to grade yourself on content you haven't gotten to yet.
