Gamsat 2013

supraspinaswim

Ye I've got one exam left on wednesday, couldnt care less about it, give me the GAMSAT results !

nomoreexams

Checked with CAO, they confirmed Monday so in other words, around 2am Sunday night/Monday morning. It's just so cruel!

Hypnos

WoolahUrma wrote: »

I emailed yesterday morning as well. It'll be next week. No specified day. I reckon it's cause peeps are finishing exams so cao told them to hold off!

Hahah I wish that were the reason But I don't think that they'd be that sympathetic to some of us. Most are finished their exams. Still few going on though.

nomoreexams

I reckon cao asked them to hold off because they want to use their flexitime to go home early today and can't have been bothered taking all the frantic phone calls from applicants on a Friday!

Hypnos

Meh, Ill wait till Monday. The last couple days wait is the worst!

WoolahUrma

nomoreexams wrote: »

I reckon cao asked them to hold off because they want to use their flexitime to go home early today and can't have been bothered taking all the frantic phone calls from applicants on a Friday!

Public servants arranging their jobs around their weekend? Don't be so cynical!!

It must be the college exams!

nomoreexams

Yeah sure "college exams".

Just don't make the mistake I made by scrolling through Ozzie forums, their results are ridiculously high!!!!

Hypnos

nomoreexams wrote: »

Yeah sure "college exams".

Just don't make the mistake I made by scrolling through Ozzie forums, their results are ridiculously high!!!!

It's not the same scale though. You see the uni's look for scores there in their 60's but they are scaled differently compared to here. In Aussie 65-67 is in the 90th percentile and I saw a few people there with scores greater than 72. In Ireland 66 is the 99th percentile so there seems to be a slight different scaling. The highest score I witnessed or heard of in Ireland was 68. But on the ozzie test that just seems to be a much more common score. They can't be just that much better than UK and IE applicants. There has to be something else at play. If they are scaled the same way then UK and IE applicants are woefully worse when it comes to the skills required to do well on the gamsat which doesn't look too good.

Jimoslimos

Hypnos wrote: »

Enantiomers are not only relevant to chemistry but important in medicine too. It may seem trivial and useless to you now, but when administering drugs it becomes very relevant. Different enantiomers can have drastically different effects in the body.

Thalidomide cures morning sickness with one enantiomer only and the other causes deformities in unborn children. (R) and (S) salbutamol have different effects on the lungs (one causes bronchospasms) and other bronchodilation used to treat asthma. Methorphan can be either a cough suppressant or an opioid analgesic depending on it's stereochemistry.

Feel the need to correct a small mistake here. Yes, you are correct that enantiomers are of great importance in medicine and should be understood.

However thalidomide is a little bit more complex than (S)- bad, (R)- good. Firstly that effect was only observed in a single animal model (mice) but both optical isomers were shown to teratogenic in rabbits and other animals. Secondly even administrating a pure sample of one of the enantiomers will result in a process known as racemization under physiological conditions. Meaning both (R) and (S) optical isomers will be present.

Hypnos

Jimoslimos wrote: »

However thalidomide is a little bit more complex than (S)- bad, (R)- good. Firstly that effect was only observed in a single animal model (mice) but both optical isomers were shown to teratogenic in rabbits and other animals. Secondly even administrating a pure sample of one of the enantiomers will result in a process known as racemization under physiological conditions. Meaning both (R) and (S) optical isomers will be present.

No need to make a point complicated to get the message across. In every module I did regarding drug discovery and development that was mentioned as a case study to get the point across.

I'm more than aware that it can racemize. It's not that uncommon when delocalised amide functionality is present in a drug, with resonance stabilised structures. Although the exact mechanism isn't known as far as I'm aware, racemization occurs in thalidomide and carbohydrate drugs but it wasn't the point I was trying to get across. Nitrogen species are known to racemize under elevated temperatures and low pH. Since it was an oral drug the fact that it has to pass the stomach acids could be reason enough for racemization.

Simply trying to explain the importance of enantiomers. If you want to talk chemistry I'd be more than happy to

WoolahUrma

When are the first offers offered and when is the last round offered?

nomoreexams

Hypnos wrote: »

It's not the same scale though. You see the uni's look for scores there in their 60's but they are scaled differently compared to here. In Aussie 65-67 is in the 90th percentile and I saw a few people there with scores greater than 72. In Ireland 66 is the 99th percentile so there seems to be a slight different scaling. The highest score I witnessed or heard of in Ireland was 68. But on the ozzie test that just seems to be a much more common score. They can't be just that much better than UK and IE applicants. There has to be something else at play. If they are scaled the same way then UK and IE applicants are woefully worse when it comes to the skills required to do well on the gamsat which doesn't look too good.

Yeah, it's true, it just so looks so daunting when they're disappointed at getting 60 when I'd be happy out with 60!
Fingers & toes crossed between now and Monday!

DoctorDre

This wait is killing me!!

chips365

I think the just hold off the irish results to reduce the amount of traffic on the ACER site, so it won't crash.

Reality_Check1

ah the memories reading this thread! Just finished my 2nd year GEM exams today so start my clinical rotations on Monday - fun times.

2 years ago I was where most of you are now i.e. waiting for GAMSAT results and in 2 years time hopefully I'll be a qualified doc. Jesus the time flies

letsdothis

Hypnos wrote: »

It's not the same scale though. You see the uni's look for scores there in their 60's but they are scaled differently compared to here. In Aussie 65-67 is in the 90th percentile and I saw a few people there with scores greater than 72. In Ireland 66 is the 99th percentile so there seems to be a slight different scaling. The highest score I witnessed or heard of in Ireland was 68. But on the ozzie test that just seems to be a much more common score. They can't be just that much better than UK and IE applicants. There has to be something else at play. If they are scaled the same way then UK and IE applicants are woefully worse when it comes to the skills required to do well on the gamsat which doesn't look too good.

This does seem to explain the higher Aussie scores in once sense but why then would Aussie applicants ever choose to do the UK GAMSAT to apply to med school in Australia? Surely the different scaling you are suggesting would work against them by sitting UK GAMSAT.

DoctorDre

letsdothis wrote: »

This does seem to explain the higher Aussie scores in once sense but why then would Aussie applicants ever choose to do the UK GAMSAT to apply to med school in Australia? Surely the different scaling you are suggesting would work against them by sitting UK GAMSAT.

It's making me seriously consider sitting the Australian GAMSAT if this is true

letsdothis

DoctorDre wrote: »

It's making me seriously consider sitting the Australian GAMSAT if this is true

Agreed! I'll start saving my flight money for Australia in march rather than England in September if this proves true!

Hypnos

letsdothis wrote: »

This does seem to explain the higher Aussie scores in once sense but why then would Aussie applicants ever choose to do the UK GAMSAT to apply to med school in Australia? Surely the different scaling you are suggesting would work against them by sitting UK GAMSAT.

Here is an example for ya. This is taken from an aussie forum post. Apparently it's from some website!

56-58 50th average 61-63 75th usually good* 73 or higher 98th very high
Having sat the gamsat in 2012 in Ireland, I got a score of 58 which by the curve was the 80th percentile on the dot. So it's scaled differently. I don't know how they take that into account but there has to be something else at play here. Sure why would anyone in the UK go to Australia for the march exam instead of Ireland or England? Did anyone else notice the hidden international fee if you try to apply to a test center in Australia? They tag on another 100 quid on top of the regular gamsat fee!

You can also go on the forums and see people say "Oh I got a GAMSAT score of 66 and I'm considering taking it again" or "I'm worried my score of 67 isn't good enough to get a place in med school." This would make sense if the scores are related to the little chart above but take the 2012 curve for the Irish gamsat and a score of 66 was the 99th percentile so I don't know how they take it into account but I can't imagine it being very difficult.

Let's say for some reason you decide to sit it in Australia or australian candidates try to sit it in UK sept.
Let's pretend I'm an Aussie candidate sitting it in UK.

They can easily take your percentile mark in comparison to the other UK candidates that year. Say you scored in the 75 percentile. Now in the UK curve that might give you a score of 57-59 (rough estimate). But they can just take the percentile mark and apply it to the Australian curve to get a different number out which in the case of the chart above would score you at a 62. Now I can't be certain but there has to be something else at play here. They also base the curve on the scores the med schools ask for.... So don't know, I just don't believe that the best and smartest Irish/UK candidates are only on par with the average Aus candidates. Kinda doesn't make sense.

nerrad01

letsdothis wrote: »

This does seem to explain the higher Aussie scores in once sense but why then would Aussie applicants ever choose to do the UK GAMSAT to apply to med school in Australia? Surely the different scaling you are suggesting would work against them by sitting UK GAMSAT.

i dont think this is right, the ozzies regulary sit the UK gamsat at centres all over oz, and all tests are set and administered by ACER so i cant see them having such a difference between scales, from reading on the ozzie boards sitting the gamsat 5 odd times is not as crazily out of the ordinary as over here and its been there for around 10 years more than its out over here so they seem to have gamsat prep down to a science over there

but im just guessing!

Hypnos

Im guessing too. The huge difference in the averages between the candidates just doesn't make sense to me.

The biggest thing that bugs me about it is that people with scores of 66 repeat it down there. Why repeat a 99 percentile score though??

letsdothis

Hypnos wrote: »

Im guessing too. The huge difference in the averages between the candidates just doesn't make sense to me.

The biggest thing that bugs me about it is that people with scores of 66 repeat it down there. Why repeat a 99 percentile score though??

Lookig at this link http://gamsatau.acer.edu.au/results/2011_Cut_off_scores.pdf you need very high scores for some universities...one requires 66, for instance. Another suggests that those selected for interview had an average GAMSAT score of 64.2. Still, repeating a 66 seems like it would be unnecessary in most cases.

House_QC

Hi,

I sat the GAMSAT Australia in March 2013. I'd also been wondering about the higher average scores awarded to Australian candidates. In my opinion, this is simply a reflection of the higher level of preparation that the top 25% of Australian candidates do compared to those in the UK and Ireland. I met quite a few candidates on the day and it seemed that the vast majority of them were still in university doing science related degrees. I think they had a lot of time to prepare for the GAMSAT and as someone else mentioned before, many do the GAMSAT multiple times as a matter of course.

So, are Australian candidates smarter than UK and Irish candidates? No. Are they more prepared? Proportionately speaking, yes. Is the GAMSAT Australia easier than the UK and Irish GAMSAT exams? No. It was a ridiculously tough exam!

As for me, I have a non-science background and studied for one month full-time before taking the exam for the first (and I hope last) time. Other than read a couple of classic English literature novels, I did not prepare for sections 1 and 2 because these are meant to be my stronger areas. I studied chemistry and biology using UK A-level text books and also read Griffiths' GAMSAT Review which was helpful in terms of exam methodology.

My score:
Section 1: 66
Section 2: 79
Section 3: 51
Overall: 62

62 puts me in the 75th percentile in Australia. It should put me in a higher percentile in both Ireland and the UK. So I really hope I have done enough to secure a place in Ireland - UCD is my first choice, followed by RCSI, UCC and Limerick. I'm not sure PBL would suit me so I'd rather not go to Limerick. Don't know much about Cork either but it's a lot cheaper I imagine than living in Dublin. So I'd definitely consider it if I'm offered a place.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that in Australia, some medical schools place more weight on the GAMSAT than others which take GPA and interviews into account. So some have a very high cut-off score, e.g. 65 or 66. Others, have a much lower cut-off score, e.g. 50. Candidates who are applying to a medical school with a cut-off score of 65 will naturally adjust their GAMSAT preparation accordingly to ensure they make that cut-off. Generally, if you aim for a higher score, you will achieve a higher score.

The same principle applies to candidates in the UK, where some medical schools required a minimum of 55 for two sections (some require all sections to have minimum of 55). Again, this is a reflection of their admissions policy, i.e. do they allow 2:2 graduates in? If so, more weight is placed on the GAMSAT with a concomitant higher cut-off score required.

Have the Irish GAMSAT results been released yet?

House_QC

Paging Dr seems to be the go-to forum for GAMSAT etc in Australia:
http://www.pagingdr.net/forum/index.php

There's lots of useful information on there for candidates in the UK and Ireland as well, including study tips and guidelines.

House_QC

I didn't study Physics by the way. If you have the chance, I would recommend doing so. The Physics questions seemed very short and relatively easy to answer if you know the fundamentals. I didn't but still made a stab at some of them.

Anyway, good luck with the rest of you.

Hypnos

Well the results should be out tonight around 2 am right?? Or early morning?

beardedmaster

doug365 wrote: »

Just an update. I emailed GAMSAT Ireland to enquire wether the results are out this week or next week. Their response was 'in line with the CAO instructions we will be releasing results next week'.

So I guess we can enjoy our weekend.

A week is a long time. We've no way of knowing if that meant Monday or not.

snizzledan

Hypnos wrote: »

Well the results should be out tonight around 2 am right?? Or early morning?

Well I will be staying up all night regardless. .

demure

snizzledan wrote: »

Well I will be staying up all night regardless. .

Yes, same!

All night, till I last

DoctorDre

Good luck to everyone