GAMSAT Advice.

Howdy all, wanted to start this thread with a bit of a comprehensive guide and plan to the GAMSAT outlining what I did to do well in it. To any mods, I hope this thread is okay, I didn't really see anything quite like this to post in to

First things first, my background. I am a neuroscience student so have a grounding in the sciences and in particular biology. As for the other sections, I have always been an avid reader but that's it.

Now, my score. This was my first run at the exam. I scored a 66 in Section 1, a 72 in Section 2 and a 71 in Section 3. So even though I'm a science based student, my essay writing was actually my best section. Overall that gave me a score of 70.

Now on to the day of the exam. All I can say is this, absolute disaster. I had not been feeling great the week before, I recovered but I wound up getting about 4 hours sleep the night before the exam. The next morning I had two cups of coffee, 2 red bulls and a lucozade sport (as well as numerous apples) in the blind hope of waking myself up a bit! Going in to the exam I was tired enough that I didn't really care about the exam, that possibly aided me as I had 0 pre-exam nerves. The downside was my timings were a bit loose in Section 1 and 3.

Section 1: I didn't like this. Was a bit unexpected, some very odd questions and many that seemed to have 2 answers that were equally as valid. Really thought it was a good deal different to the sample papers in many ways however my memory is a little hazy as at this point I was still waking up. Had to go for a pee at one point thinking I had lots of time left only to find out I had 15 questions left with 10 minutes remaining.

Section 2: One of my essays I was absolutely thrilled with, it went really really well and I was very pleased. Second essay I thought I had fluffed, was not too pleased at all but it wasn't a complete disaster.

Lunch: Was tasty.

Section 3: This was obviously very long. Without the calculator I had expected easier maths questions but I was wrong, some of them were nigh on impossible to do in the given time without a calculator. Other questions (such as a few organic chemistry questions) required a level of knowledge far beyond that of a 1st year science student (I know, I did Org. Chem in 1st and 2nd year and I remember one group of questions that were certainly at least 3rd year standard). Once again, my timing was poor and I was left with 20 minutes to do about 25 questions. Overall, although there were quite a few odd ones I was probably content with this section, not pleased but not gutted by any means!

So as you can see I wasn't by any means skipping out of the exam hall, I was convinced I would have to do the exam again and to be very honest the thought of it at that time made me feel very sick and very fed up (I'm sure I'm not the only one to have experienced this!) I had pretty much 0 expectations. The real take home message from this is that you probably will do better than you think and you certainly can still manage to do very well even if the night before the exam does not go to plan!

My preparation: Okay so this is probably the area that most folks will be interested in so I will try my best to make things as clear as possible First things first, my college calender. Before Christmas it was very easy and arguably I should have done more work during this time but unfortunately since my course is organised really terribly none of us knew that the second semester would be as horrendous as it was. So after Christmas college was a terrible pain in the bum.

Now here's a break down of my study for the GAMSAT.
1) Around 20 hours a week of study. Now added on top of my college work load for the second semester this was a hell of a lot and a real burden. I split it to be somewhat half and half, 50% Section 1 & 2 and 50% Section 3. What I have to say is that practice-wise I did a lot for Section 1&2 but not nearly as much for Section 3, I just didn't have the time to sit a full 3 hours of a paper very frequently. So I would try and do a Section 3 on a Sunday but apart from that I studied 1st year science material (will be explained in more detail). For Section 1 I did probably 3-4 tests a week (see below), Section 2 was about 2 hours of essay writing a week (4 essays a week).

2) Materials that I used were pretty standard. For Section 1 there was the GAMSAT materials from ACER and Examkrackers 101 passages in Verbal reasoning. This book is not completely GAMSAT-like, it is more geared to MCAT prep but really it is very very good. Each test is about and hour and a half long and you could do 3 or 4 of them a week, it's great practice. As well as this I was reading a few good classic books which helped a bit with vocabulary and understanding stuff. For Section 2 I simply decided on different topics to write about such as politics, family, medicine etc. and would write an essay on them. I also used the ACER quotes for Section 2 to write an essay from like in the exam. What I feel is important here is a lot of practice to allow you to form ideas quickly and articulate them well. Finally for Section 3 I used Chemistry, Biology and Organic Chemistry for Dummies (including the workbooks) as well as Rapid Revision for LC Physics. I of course had more in depth textbooks but to be very honest I never used them, I think I only used one biology one once for a bit of genetics stuff. While this might seem somewhat basic I think what is crucial is not learning off a lot of info about cells, systems, formulae etc. but in general being able to understand concepts and follow instructions very clearly. If you can understand and follow the instructions the GAMSAT gives you then it really should be no problem for you! If you try and bring some previous knowledge to the situation you're going to get confused and waste time. One other thing I used was Griffith's GAMSAT review, handy for a general syllabus for Section 3 although I thought it's essay advice and Section 1 stuff was pretty useless (explained below)

3) Some advice: Right, I don't really know where to start. First of all I think that all of these prep courses are, to be frank, either not up to par or are simply trying to rip people off. One course, for a complete package of study material, wanted a couple of thousand euro (in fact might have been even higher, I believe more than 3000!). I think all of this is pointless. If you have no science background I can understand that it is daunting and scary. The best thing I can suggest in this situation is to maybe try and organise a few grinds, perhaps as a group, with a tutor who can teach you at this level. It would cost a lot less and be more beneficial I think. A lot of the material that they suggest to learn or memorise is completely redundant and useless, honestly I saw a lot of people trying to recall facts and wasting time trying to remember formulae to use instead of just getting on with the question. Furthermore, I believe some of them actively include as much scary material as possible in their syllabus lists to really make you panic and buy in to their little extortion racket. As for section 1, nobody can teach you it it only requires practising. That's it. No course will do anything to help this. As for Section 2, my approach was entirely different. Much of the advice out there is that 2-2.5 pages should be the aim, a brainstorm should be done, a line left between paragraphs etc. I disagree completely. I did none of this, wrote 3 and a half pages for each essay. The reasoning is fairly straightforward, they want you to make a coherent argument. 2 pages is very little space realistically to say everything you want. I wrote more and as such was able to address 3 or so quotations in sufficient detail. My structure was an introduction, 3 paragraphs with each one dedicated to a different quotation and a solid conclusion. A snappy title helps too. Once again, only practice will make you better at this, any super secret “tricks” from different prep courses aren't going to be of any real aid in my opinion. The real key to doing well in the GAMSAT is the ability to understand material and to articulate a response in a strict time setting. That is all you need. Believe me, I was in no condition to recall lots of formulae (if I had bothered learning them!) and it didn't matter in the slightest.

So really the GAMSAT comes down to 3 key parts: Understanding, articulating and timing. They will ask questions that are too difficult to answer in the time given, what they really want is for you to recognise this and move to other questions. Any question you are 100% unsure of pick one letter and use it as the answer for any of the ones you have no clue (for example I used the letter C as my guess letter). Seriously, it is crucial you time things correctly, I knew one girl who only managed to answer 40 questions in section 3 (even if she got every single one correct she still would have gotten a bad score.) You have your time limit for each question, once done move on. If you find yourself flying through a few questions then that is great, as long as you're sure of your answer and have checked do not second guess them just move on and use the extra time wisely.

So for everyone planning on taking the GAMSAT again or for the first time hopefully this little guide will be of some help Of course I think it is very important to be in a healthy condition, plenty of exercise etc. is really crucial I believe. The GAMSAT is much more about understanding concepts and working under time constraints than throwing up information. The entire exam, including the early enough start time, are designed to create a pressurised environment in which you may not be at your very best and may be quite tired but can still focus on the task at hand. Remember to think of it like this, it is not a test on paper of what you know or have learned but very much so a test of how you can deal with a range of different problems in an uncomfortable situation. Best of luck to everyone who is going for the GAMSAT again, remember that it really is not the end of the world no matter what happens and that a positive and happy mindset is more beneficial than anything else. Oh and as a final reminder STICK TO THE TIMINGS