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GAMSAT Advice Requests

KaiAlive

Lurker
I am about to finish my undergrad. course and I am motivated and inspired to take the GAMSAT course next year with a friend, but I need some assistance from anyone already studying for the GAMSAT or has undergone the GAMSAT.
I understand that it is more so a test of empathy and reasoning, so I would like to know the best materials I can get to help me study and/or the best reasoning method to tackle the questions.
What questions/notes should I be making? And also (for the science bit), what should I specifically study?
Please help me.
 

Mana

there are no stupid questions, only people
Administrator
I'd give www.pagingdr.net a look - they have a lot more information on how to prepare for the GAMSAT. As far as I know (and I actually did the damn test) there is no test of "empathy" anywhere in the examination - the humanities part (section 1) seems very much logic based and the written part is argumentative/reflective rather than testing any real empathy.

You will need a baseline understanding of some basic sciences and humanities. That's about it, but I'm sure you'll get some more detail from our friends at Paging Dr.
 

chinaski

Regular Member
but I'm sure you'll get some more detail from our friends at Paging Dr.

...After doing some research around the forum first, please. Please note: 101 questions like "what should I study?" are answered by reading the threads already there.
 
Hi everyone, new here and was hoping to get some information about the upcoming GAMSAT exam in September :)

I registered to sit the exam about a month ago in an attempt to finally pursue my dream of being in the healthcare field. Unfortunately, life got in the way and resulted in one of my parents becoming very ill from advanced cancer and I also ended up being in a really bad car accident that has still left me pretty shaken up.

Given all of this, I really haven't been able to study for the exam at all so far, which has left me pretty stressed. I come from a psychology background (in my final year) and have a 6.5 GPA. So to be honest, I haven't touched physics or chemistry etc. since high school (which was about four years ago).

I guess my question is, is it possible to be able to study for the GAMSAT within the span of a month or so (whilst also studying for uni course work)? Is there any advice anyone could offer in regards to how to approach my study, and if I should just try to focus on the first two parts of the exam?

Thanks so much in advance for any advice, I really do appreciate it!! :)
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
I guess my question is, is it possible to be able to study for the GAMSAT within the span of a month or so (whilst also studying for uni course work)? Is there any advice anyone could offer in regards to how to approach my study, and if I should just try to focus on the first two parts of the exam?
Welcome to MSO! :)

Having sat GAMSAT more than most I will offer a bit of advice, but you should know that there are many different approaches to GAMSAT that have resulted in success and there's certainly no one-size-fits-all approach.

First off, while your preparation has obviously not been ideal given your difficult circumstances, you should know that preparation can only get you so far, and it's not the end of the world if you haven't been able to study for months on end like some people do. The GAMSAT has undergone changes in recent years in that it now places greater emphasis on reasoning skills as opposed to background knowledge in science like it may have done in the past. I think this will certainly work in your favour, coming from a non-science background. People in your position are now actually achieving very highly in the science section because of this.

Given the small amount of time you have left, I wouldn't focus on learning background science knowledge at this point in time (nor would I necessarily recommend focusing on this for too long to someone with more preparation time anyway). You should switch your focus to doing practice exams (particularly practice essays and the science section) to work on timing. Timing is a huge struggle in the exam and I think the greatest preparation you can do now is adjusting to the time demands of GAMSAT. I would suggest doing at least 2 full timed practice exams before the exam if you can (more if possible), as well as trying to fit in an essay or two under timed conditions wherever possible, ideally at least once a day. Naturally once you have completed the practice exams you should still review every question that you got incorrect (or fluked to get correct) so that you understand where you went wrong and how to improve your approach. A really important skill for science nowadays is being able to do maths very quickly (particularly knowing log rules and knowing how to perform operations involving scientific notation), so I'd make sure you work on those skills if you can.

Preparation for S1 yields little, in my opinion, other than in improving timing. With such little time left to prepare I wouldn't waste time doing specific preparation for this section, other than in practice exams.

Hopefully that helps a little. I'm happy to answer more specific questions you have :)

Also, know that you have nothing to lose in this exam and you will have more opportunities to sit it in future if you want to! So please don't stress about this sitting in particular - just use the time you have left efficiently and go into the exam with a good mindset.
 
Sorry for the late reply, but thank you soooo much for your advice! I really really do appreciate it :')

This made me feel a lot more reassured and have a much better idea of how to approach this. I guess even having a feel of what the exam is like is very helpful.

Thanks so much again!
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
What is the best way to start studying for GAMSAT?

Have you had a look at the information collated at Paging Dr on this topic? They’re dedicated to graduate entry medicine so have much more information already collated for you to read through.
 

aeongg

Member
Hello kind people of MSO,

As a high-school leaver (one with not very good prospects for this year at least for med ahahah), I was curious as to the difficulty of GAMSAT in comparison to our final High School examinations. Sections 1 and 2 look very familiar to English (comprehension and creative writing) and roughly seem to have the same time. Additionally, Section 1 looks very similar to UCAT's VR and DM (from the papers I've seen). For Section 2 - I've seen that there is some leeway given to the marking for writing something on the-spot, but would it be marked very similarly to a creative piece in our High School exam.

Section 3 looked very similar to the Biology, Chemistry and Physics that I was taught in High School; is the difficulty and content knowledge similar as well in GAMSAT (I could answer SOME questions... emphasis on some).

In summary, if looking at the options between going for GAMSAT over UCAT, I'm curious to see how much more preparation GAMSAT would need in comparison to UCAT, given that I completed the Sciences in High School. It seems like a huge exam, but when I looked more closely at papers, it seemed doable. Could this be a false facade that is deceiving me.. ?

Thank you!! :D
 

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ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
Hello kind people of MSO,

As a high-school leaver (one with not very good prospects for this year at least for med ahahah), I was curious as to the difficulty of GAMSAT in comparison to our final High School examinations. Sections 1 and 2 look very familiar to English (comprehension and creative writing) and roughly seem to have the same time. Additionally, Section 1 looks very similar to UCAT's VR and DM (from the papers I've seen). For Section 2 - I've seen that there is some leeway given to the marking for writing something on the-spot, but would it be marked very similarly to a creative piece in our High School exam.

Section 3 looked very similar to the Biology, Chemistry and Physics that I was taught in High School; is the difficulty and content knowledge similar as well in GAMSAT (I could answer SOME questions... emphasis on some).

In summary, if looking at the options between going for GAMSAT over UCAT, I'm curious to see how much more preparation GAMSAT would need in comparison to UCAT, given that I completed the Sciences in High School. It seems like a huge exam, but when I looked more closely at papers, it seemed doable. Could this be a false facade that is deceiving me.. ?

Thank you!! :D
I guess the biggest catch with tests like these is that your performance is solely judged relative to others i.e. it doesn't matter if you found it easy, if everyone else also found it easy then your score will be unremarkable. There's no way to see how you stack up against the competition until you sit the test yourself and get a percentile. As for how much preparation you need, I haven't sat the GAMSAT myself so I'll leave that to someone else to answer.
 

Crow

Staff | Junior Doctor
Moderator
The exam is far, far more time pressured than any high school exam I ever sat (for example the closest I ever got to completing the science section was about 85/110 questions, though I am exceptionally slow) and so I think the preparation time should mostly be dedicated to confidently answering difficult application-style questions if you’ve already learned the prerequisite science knowledge, in addition to becoming good at essay writing in a very short time frame in response to unpredictable prompts.

A couple months of good, consistent preparation before your first sitting would give you a good base and then you’ll find out whether and how much more you’d need to do from there.

Some people sit the exam blind and score in the top percentile, others prepare for 6 months full time and don’t pass. It’s probably hard to tell where on the spectrum you lie until you’ve actually sat the exam.
 

Mana

there are no stupid questions, only people
Administrator
Hello kind people of MSO,

As a high-school leaver (one with not very good prospects for this year at least for med ahahah), I was curious as to the difficulty of GAMSAT in comparison to our final High School examinations. Sections 1 and 2 look very familiar to English (comprehension and creative writing) and roughly seem to have the same time. Additionally, Section 1 looks very similar to UCAT's VR and DM (from the papers I've seen). For Section 2 - I've seen that there is some leeway given to the marking for writing something on the-spot, but would it be marked very similarly to a creative piece in our High School exam.

Section 3 looked very similar to the Biology, Chemistry and Physics that I was taught in High School; is the difficulty and content knowledge similar as well in GAMSAT (I could answer SOME questions... emphasis on some).

In summary, if looking at the options between going for GAMSAT over UCAT, I'm curious to see how much more preparation GAMSAT would need in comparison to UCAT, given that I completed the Sciences in High School. It seems like a huge exam, but when I looked more closely at papers, it seemed doable. Could this be a false facade that is deceiving me.. ?

Thank you!! :D


A quick preface to say it has been many years since I sat the GAMSAT.

Also a second preface to say that my entire GAMSAT preparation consisted of a set of practice essays ~2 days prior to the exam and so my experience in terms of preparation is likely to be very different to those reading this.

That said, I believe there used to be quite an emphasis on knowing content in the sciences for the examination. I don't think that the science content is really much more advanced than that in the HSC. Rather, as with the UMAT I think there is much more in the sense of testing aptitude in problem solving, comprehension, and essay-writing. If nothing, I believe the HSC English Advanced course (which again may have changed quite significantly since I sat it) is more than sufficient in terms of being able to write an essay provided you didn't prepare for these exams by rote learning essays and then vomiting them onto the paper in the exam. If you're good at writing ad-hoc then this is plenty for the exam; the main stress for that section is time pressure. The essays are indeed creative writing - both argumentative and reflective.

Largely the skill that is tested in the GAMSAT, I think, could be described as "thinking on your feet" - the complete opposite of what is largely used in year 12 - "read and regurgitate". There are of course different methods that people use to study for year 12 and those who are intrinsically better at thinking on their feet may very well find the GAMSAT to be far easier than it has been made out to be.

I have also mentioned the possibility of the lack of competition. Don't get me wrong here - there is a LOT of competition in the GAMSAT and the odds are against you as a random candidate - but those who are sitting the GAMSAT do not include those who are already in medicine through the undergraduate pathway and those who decided to pursue a separate career instead. Despite this, it appears that the number of medical school places is more or less split 50/50 between graduate entry and undergraduate entry and so by the numbers alone your competition is less stiff.
 

chinaski

Regular Member
In summary, if looking at the options between going for GAMSAT over UCAT, I'm curious to see how much more preparation GAMSAT would need in comparison to UCAT, given that I completed the Sciences in High School. It seems like a huge exam, but when I looked more closely at papers, it seemed doable. Could this be a false facade that is deceiving me.. ?
You do realise that GAMSAT is for graduate entry medicine, yes? So it's not a matter of just comparing whether you sit UCAT or GAMSAT... you'd also need to commit to completing an entire undergraduate degree as well if you chose the latter.

I have also mentioned the possibility of the lack of competition. Don't get me wrong here - there is a LOT of competition in the GAMSAT and the odds are against you as a random candidate - but those who are sitting the GAMSAT do not include those who are already in medicine through the undergraduate pathway and those who decided to pursue a separate career instead.
That doesn't automatically make an examination lacking in competition. You're essentially suggesting that the most capable/competitive people wouldn't be sitting GAMSAT (ie that it's an exam sat by also-rans).
 

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