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Gamsat 2013
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JordanKelly1 wrote: »Hi! Studying biochemistry aswell and sounds like your paper went the same as me. Section 3 was dodgey enough ..way too much O chemistry!
I didn't actually do any extra study for section 3 though, I didn't even get a chance to do a practice paper lol. My thesis took over my life in the past 12 weeks
So it really wont surprise me if I do terribly in it. 0 -
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I'm a nurse but also have a background in Arts and Psychology. Section 1 to me was ok but as you said its hard to call. The essays i managed to write something but never in a million years would have been prepared for task b. For the science I have the knowledge but what let me down is not doing the practice papers and actually taking the time to work through the questions so when i opened section 3 i wasted time reading the entire passage instead of just been able to skim through it for the relevant information. How many times have you sat the exam and do you mind if i ask you what score you got? A 71 in section 2 is very good so im guessing you must have done pretty ok on your last sitting!
Goes like this:
Attempt 1: (When I was a 3rd Year) - March 2012
S1: 52 S2: 58 S3: 61 Overall: 58
Attempt 2: (Just started 4th year) - Sept 2012
S1: 49 S2: 71 S3: 54 Overall: 57
Everything would have been fine had the S3 in Sept not been so God Damn difficult. I was also pretty tired, sick and I had a bad headache over those couple days so my second attempt really let me down. There was also so much more Physics/Bio/Phys Chem in the September exam and that wasn't too great. My strongest field is O. Chem so there was too little of it to save me in the exam and I was majorly stuck for time on the second attempt because I just couldn't think because my cold was making my sleepy and tired. Ended up falling behind by around 21 questions and just had to randomly pick an answer. A shame but hopefully this time everything went better....
Really hoping I got the 60 I'm looking for this time around. I'm sure I didn't get over 70 on S2 this time but I'm cautiously confident that I got more than 54 on S3
S1 is just impossible for me to predict. 0 -
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Ah it varies from year to year. They never really tell you or notify you. They just say 6-8weeks. I promise you it won't be 6 weeks anyway. You just get an email that magical morning and your heart goes from 60-180 and your blood pressure varies ehm last year 2012 they were released around May 21st. Could have been the 24th. They said Mid-May and it ended up being a week later. 0
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Goes like this:
Attempt 1: (When I was a 3rd Year) - March 2012
S1: 52 S2: 58 S3: 61 Overall: 58
Attempt 2: (Just started 4th year) - Sept 2012
S1: 49 S2: 71 S3: 54 Overall: 57
Everything would have been fine had the S3 in Sept not been so God Damn difficult. I was also pretty tired, sick and I had a bad headache over those couple days so my second attempt really let me down. There was also so much more Physics/Bio/Phys Chem in the September exam and that wasn't too great. My strongest field is O. Chem so there was too little of it to save me in the exam and I was majorly stuck for time on the second attempt because I just couldn't think because my cold was making my sleepy and tired. Ended up falling behind by around 21 questions and just had to randomly pick an answer. A shame but hopefully this time everything went better....
Really hoping I got the 60 I'm looking for this time around. I'm sure I didn't get over 70 on S2 this time but I'm cautiously confident that I got more than 54 on S3 S1 is just impossible for me to predict.
Mate they are great scores, you have UL under your belt from your first attempt! And UL accepted on 52 last year, my mate got 52 and got an offer. cant remember on which round but basically a few people had to turn down the offers because they simply cannot get the money to fund the course and I think that problem is going to be reflected again in the entry points this year... either that of the positions for international students is going to increase!0 -
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Mate they are great scores, you have UL under your belt from your first attempt! And UL accepted on 52 last year, my mate got 52 and got an offer. cant remember on which round but basically a few people had to turn down the offers because they simply cannot get the money to fund the course and I think that problem is going to be reflected again in the entry points this year... either that of the positions for international students is going to increase!
Maybe, but unfortunately I don't have the means or the finances to go to Cork or UL. It has to be Dublin unfortunately Had I the money for Cork or UL I wouldn't have even sat it again after the first time. The points are down because the 100K loan doesn't exist anymore. So that means a lot of people can't do it. The loan barely covers the fees now 0 -
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I am still getting over the difficulty of Section III this year.
Like some of you, I am a Psych grad too, and I have to say I found this year's SI a little easier than September's. This, however, maybe due to the good night sleep I managed to get this time, relative to not getting a wink of it the time before!
I would not say my essays will be better than September's; I managed to get a decent 75 then, not sure can I top this with somewhat limited views I offered on governments. Just don't have any
Boredom, on the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed!
SIII. I would rather repress the experience. I found it horrifically complex. In contrast to September, there was not too much biology to it, or things you could simply 'figure out'; it was loaded with Org Chem and, surprisingly, there were a lot of questions on spectroscopy. It would be fair to say a quarter of my answers were based on pure guess work.
Fingers crossed we did better than we think all!0 -
WoolahUrma wrote: »Thanks again Hypnos, I assume that it'll be a few days before I stop trying to figure out the various permutations of how I might have done. The wait is going to be worse then the exam itself. Back to what chip was saying there, I studied pretty hard for the last couple of months and I got the sense that the effort put in might not correlate well to my result. I know its as much an iq test as anything else but in the practice tests I saw an improvement in my performance. in the actual test the questions my timing went off and the questions seemed more difficult. Did you all notice this? You'll have to take my word for it when I say that I didn't suffer from any anxiety during the test.
Yeh I'm guilt of thinking about how I got on too. I'd have to disagree about the IQ test. I don't think it's an IQ test at all. If you did the HPAT by any chance, the last part of the HPAT (the patterns etc); that was an IQ test, no one had an inherent advantage. GAMSAT has a good proportion to do with how well you can express yourself (S2), understand social science (S1). To make it worse they give you time stress to see how you cope under stressful conditions and how well you problem solve and process information under the pressure of time. If you know the answer without even having to look for it in the information test, then it's hardly an IQ test since you have that knowledge. I think it's partially testing your knowledge and how quick can you think on your feet. ACER says the standard of the science section is University level so it's not really and IQ test if you can learn some topics in the sciences. I do agree that it's not really a test you can just study for, but practice is the best thing you can do for it. Besides IQ's don't change if you study topics in the sciences whereas GAMSAT scores do. And playing chess and solving rubik's cubes won't help with your GAMSAT score but I'm sure it will boost your IQ 0 -
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WoolahUrma wrote: »I guess I was trying to say that learning by rote is not very useful for the test and topics revised tend to be twisted around in new and interesting ways to test your ability to problem solve.
Yeh that's pretty much it 0 -
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Maybe, but unfortunately I don't have the means or the finances to go to Cork or UL. It has to be Dublin unfortunately Had I the money for Cork or UL I wouldn't have even sat it again after the first time. The points are down because the 100K loan doesn't exist anymore. So that means a lot of people can't do it. The loan barely covers the fees now
Ah thats sucks, Dublin for you so! You probably have secured a place anyway so thats something! I really don't know how people are funding the course themselves. It really is overly expensive. Thing is I have worked with the students from UL on the wards when they come out on clinical placement and I have to say that the majority of them find it a nightmare to get the money and the fee's are higher for them. One girl was a 3rd year and she didnt know if she could finance her final year. It's a lot of pressure and they tell me its next to impossible to work part time.0 -
My problem is only in S1 really. I just have no idea how I do in it. It seems so random. I think that S2 is the easiest. It's 1 hour and I don't have problems when it comes to writing essays. I actually find S3 more difficult regardless of the background in chem. S3 is the places where I look for high marks though. I did a couple of weeks practice in Physics there before the exam and it helped a reasonable amount since I managed to get some of the answers out for Physics. Some people are naturally talented and are able to deal with S3 without a background but I couldn't imagine doing well in it myself without a chemistry background. It also helps time wise. Anyways its a long wait now and hope everyone gets what they want in the end 0
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My problem is only in S1 really. I just have no idea how I do in it. It seems so random. I think that S2 is the easiest. It's 1 hour and I don't have problems when it comes to writing essays. I actually find S3 more difficult regardless of the background in chem. S3 is the places where I look for high marks though. I did a couple of weeks practice in Physics there before the exam and it helped a reasonable amount since I managed to get some of the answers out for Physics. Some people are naturally talented and are able to deal with S3 without a background but I couldn't imagine doing well in it myself without a chemistry background. It also helps time wise. Anyways its a long wait now and hope everyone gets what they want in the end
I have the same problem in s3. In practice tests I would feel like I would have had the answers nailed only to find that I had missed out on something that should have been plain to see.
If you have a lot of experience in reading dense material then s1 is easier. I would imagine that if you have a background in English lit or law that that would be the best prep but as anything that I have read has said, it's very difficult to practice for s1, outside of timing concerns. More so then s3 it often seems to be the best answer rather than the right one which can be very frustrating during the exam.0 -
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