Gamsat 2012

Hey! Im doing gamsats this march are u interested in starting a study group!?

Hi all,

I have taken the plunge and decided to do the GAMSAT's in March too. Would be really interested in meeting up with a few of you to even discuss what the best plan of attack is! I have no science at all.. and I mean at all!! I am also planning on doing GradMed intensive revision course. I live within 10 mins of DIT and the same of UCD, if ye were on for meeting even for a bit of support.

I have sent this to a few of my friends interested in doing it so i said i would just paste it to here.

This is Just a summary about the exam and my opinions on what you should focus on from what i have learned,

about the GAMSAT then. ya i sat them in september cause i was studying for the during the summer. the study ddint go to well for them at all, like id say i was up in the library for maybe 6 hours a day before it and i prob literally only did maybe a half hour out of those 6 for study. the rest i was just online on facebook and playing games, so i was really only doing them in september as a practice run cause i was sure i was goinng to do terrible. it turns out though i did well enough and got a 64. as ya know id say, the GAMSAT has 3 sections, first is reading, second is essays and the third is science. the only reason i got that score was cause of the science section. it was def my strongest area and it is worth twice as much as the other 2 sections. i got like a 50 in the essays, 60 in the reading and then 73 in the science so that really brought me up.

i decided i wouldnt sit it then in march cause i hoped 64 would be enough to get me in as the cut of for ucd was 60 the year before and i hoped the cut off wouldnt raise that much. turns out the cut off actually went down this year due to there being more places so that will give ya a better chance aswell.

if your willing to take a year out just to study for the gamsat id say go right ahead, but i honestly think if ya just start now and just do an hour a day until march ya would do really well even with the exams coming up. with all my dossing over the summer id say i really only did 2 full weeks of study when ya add it all up together. so if ya put your mind to it i think ya should aim to get in march. if your not going to study for it, i would def say do it anyway just so ya can have an attempt at it and get a feel for the exam. and just to know where your kinda at in relation to the 3 sections.

if your practicing for section one id say just get some obscure technical scientific journals and just start reading those as they would be difficult to understand but they would get ya used to reading complicated passages so there would be no shocks in the exam. also im sure there are websites online where ya just read extracts and then answer questions on them after. i really didnt do that much for that section, just tried to read alot. There are particular ways on maximising your time in this section, like reading the questions first and then reading the passage, so you are not wasting time going back over the passage to find the answer. There are def loads of these sort of tips online if ya just want to check for them.

for section 2, this was by far my worst section. im terrible at wirting essays and it really showed. i didnt do much practice for it at all and this is the section were with practice is the one ya can really improve your score the most. i would say try to get 3 essays done a week. chose a random quote or topic from some websites( im sure there are a few which generate random quotes or topics and ya have to write an essay on them ). and try to do them in half an hour. just keep doing that and ya will get better with time managment and better with structure and brain storming. i didnt do any of that cause i just was too lazy but since if your sitting it in march i would say to start as soon as ya can so that your workload doesnt pile up. Also I remember cash you were pretty good at English anyway so you might be able to do better in the first 2 sections

for section 3, i found that chemistry for dummies; the inorganic and organic books were extremely helpfull. they were def well worth getting and brought me up a few points on the gamsat. if ya know those 2 books you will do really well in the chemistry section of the gamsat but make sure you understand them and not just learn them off cause the gamsat questions can be abit tricky but if ya understand what is in those books ya should hve no prob. The thing I noticed is that in the science sections they give ya all the material ya would need to answer the question, so just aslong as you understood the concepts instead of learning of particular chemicals structures or names of particular compounds you should be grand. Also if ya got a leaving cert chemistry book, that wouldn’t be too bad just to look over the basics. for the physics i tried to use my sisters leaving cert book. i only got through the first few chapters and couldnt seem to learn that much of it. the physics section is only worth 20% of the science section so it isnt the most important. Hardly any physics questions came up at. Even the ones that did come up, the questions stem supplied you with everything you needed to know, so even though I hadn’t studied I was able to work it out using common sense.

in the science section aswell they give ya info and important things to know in relation to the questions they ask. so say if some einstein came in without ever had studied science he could do really well in the test without ever have studied. it just the study helps ya to understand they info that they give ya. but in that info ya should have everything to answer the question and ya wont have to remember anything. so as long as ya understand what your studying in the physics, chemistry and biology.

i did actually do a course, called des o niels. its not worth it though. the sciecne section isnt the best at all and the books for dummies are alot better and way way way cheaper. they also sent out reading extracts that ya have to answer questions on and they had the answers aswell but ya def can find a book in easons or online that can do the same and once again, it is way way way cheaper. the onlly really good thing about the course was that for the essay questions, they give ya topics and ya can submit them online to a marker how then corrects it and sends ya back info and where ya can improve. your able to get this byitself from des o niels but its still pretty expensive. but if your in college ya could find maybe a person in arts in english or an english lecture and email them and ask if they can maybe correct and essay for ya once a week just to see if your improving. just a thought though.

over all though, def do the exam in march no matter what, if just for practice anyway. if your thinking about doing it seriously start your study now and only doing an hour aday or even less but try and be consistent and ya should have no probs with work load come march. and if ya are studying for it, get books for dummies on whatever topic your struggling with. there really really handy. and the science sections is worth twice as much as the other 2 so work more on this but the essay section is the one that ya can improve in the most if ya work at it abit cause ya learn to wirte good essays fast enough.

If ya need anything else or dont understand anything, just send me a facebook message and i can answer anything ya want to know.

also, if you put in the effort you will def get the exam!