GAMSAT 2014?

DanKnev

Sat GAMSAT in Dublin on 22nd March and can definitely say its the toughest Section III I've come across to date. I'd gone through official ACER material and prep course material, and neither was close to the standard on that exam. I've a B.A and PhD in Biochemistry, yet still found the biology questions particularly challenging. Complexity of graphs was very off putting and emphasis on osmosis/genetics was detrimental for anyone not strong in those areas. I feel that Section III will really separate out who's 'passed' GAMSAT or not.

letsdothis

Guys don't forget you are being marked against each other so you have no idea how you did in this. I guessed my result after to be somewhere between 40 and 60! Also, you don't know what questions were trial questions or not so you might have done better than you expected.

DanKnev

Good point. ACER use Item Response Theory to mark Section I and III, so it's intrinsically linked with how questions are perceived by the exam population (i.e. easy versus hard question). Questions where the majority answered correctly are weighted less than those where the minority got correct. Apparently IRT can also account for the 'guess-ability' of a question, in which case it's weighted in a similar manner to a so called easy question. Irrespective of how the entire exam population scored on the exam, the results will be fit to a sigmoidal distribution in a percentile versus score plot.

Abcd1986

Hi Guys,

I left a post previously about wishing you luck. Well done on getting through it, it is one of the worst exams you will ever do in your life! I see a lot of you are overwhelmed by how tough a paper it was. Easy from the other side to say, but try not to worry. Every single one of the ones I came out of I felt the same every time. I almost believed it was designed to make you question your intelligence!! If everyone found it tough, that's a good thing. Points tend to drop on the years that it is quite tough. You will surprise yourself though, you will have gotten more right than you think! If you're really worried and can afford it do apply for the UK gamsat. I did one in the UK and the rest here and did really notice a difference between the two. I found the UK paper somewhat clearer. Take a break now though and again well done one finishing it, I hope you each celebrated after it and are proud of making it through!

Cosle

I agree with what the poster before me said, I came out of the gamsat 3 years ago feeling like I had done terrible and had zero chance of making any course, ended up getting my first choice! It's an extremely difficult test, harder then any I've done since and it's very difficult to predict how you did. No-one I know can out thinking they had done anything but awful in the exam.

pharmacrunch

What date does one have until to change their mind on the CAO does anyone know off the top of their head? I mean to rearrange their order of choice ?

strangeweather

pharmacrunch wrote: »

What date does one have until to change their mind on the CAO does anyone know off the top of their head? I mean to rearrange their order of choice ?

As long as you have all four courses on your application you can rearrange until some time in July as far as I recall!

MathsMedMixed

DanKnev wrote: »

Sat GAMSAT in Dublin on 22nd March and can definitely say its the toughest Section III I've come across to date. I'd gone through official ACER material and prep course material, and neither was close to the standard on that exam. I've a B.A and PhD in Biochemistry, yet still found the biology questions particularly challenging. Complexity of graphs was very off putting and emphasis on osmosis/genetics was detrimental for anyone not strong in those areas. I feel that Section III will really separate out who's 'passed' GAMSAT or not.

I do not agree with the last statement here. Section III was always going to be difficult; one can do badly in it but still have an adequate score on account of the other two sections.

eeefchief

So technically you don't need a minimum of 50 in each section ?

Confused1987

eeefchief wrote: »

So technically you don't need a minimum of 50 in each section ?

Thats only in the UK that you need to have a minimum score for each section, Irish colleges only look at your overall score!

HopefulGEM

Just under four months until offers come out! Whoop!:)

Johnnybriggs

Word of advise - Make sure you have a Plan B if results don't work out as expected. For every 100 applicants, 20 people get a place in Ireland. Look into other options regarding education/work, even if it's only for a year. You could end up traveling around on daddy's credit card for a year 'finding yourself' in south-east Asia before you know it..

DroghedaTutor

Johhnyb - out of curiousity, where are you getting the figures of 20 out of 100?

DroghedaTutor

meant to add - I understand it's a ratio of number of places : number of gamsat sitters - but if you could explain where the figures of 20 out of 100 comes from, I would appreciate it.

Johnnybriggs

I was at an RCSI open day in 2013 and during the talks they reported that stat. I'd presume its holding similar for this years entrants.

DroghedaTutor

oh right. i read different figures (more favourable) elsewhere. if i can find, i'll post them.

DroghedaTutor

looking at the gamsat percentile curve (available online and given with results) - a score of 61 is in top 20% but a score of 55 is in the top 50% (e.g. what need for UL), so depends really on which uni is your number one choice.

pc11

Confused1987 wrote: »

Yeah first time sitting it for me so I can't comment on previous papers, but definitely a completely different league to the sample papers!

I did the purple paper a couple of weeks ago and got 65 or so out of 110 in science and thought that level would see me through but evidently not!

This is something I want to do so even if this time doesn't go according to plan I will definitely try it twice more if required! It was a crap day on Saturday but sure we all could have the points we need for all we know!

GAMSAT scores are not percentages, so 65 out of 110 doesn't mean very much.

That said, I would guess that's not a bad score relative to everyone, but it depends on which questions you got, how everyone else did and so on.

How you feel on the day is irrelevant really. I was ill sitting GAMSAT and wouldn't have been surprised if I had gotten under 50 but I got 67! Hang in there.

pc11

One more thing: everyone should plan to sit the UK GAMSAT in September. If you're serious about this, it's a no-brainer.
Of course if you get 60+ in Dublin then don't bother, but everyone else should.

Even if you haven't sat it before, do the UK one as a practice for Dublin next March, and with any luck you won't need Dublin. I strongly feel that the practice is invaluable especially as the pressure is off you to a large extent. This certainly helped me. I planned to sit it twice and was fortunate that it worked out the first time. A huge number of Irish go over, Bristol is particularly convenient.

Cymini Sectores

pc11 wrote: »

but it depends on which questions you got, how everyone else did and so on

In other words the marking scheme is not straightforward at least for ss 1 & 3. One should just wait for result day and accept it. I am waiting.

HopefulGEM

All this waiting is actually killing me! Hopefully a 60 will get me into ucd?!?

letsdothis

pc11 wrote: »

GAMSAT scores are not percentages, so 65 out of 110 doesn't mean very much.

I agree and as an example, I scored the following percentages on the official ACER papers for Section 3 - Blue 36, Red 54, Green 52 - and I ended up with 62 on the day. Although TBF the Blue was taken early in my studies when I was a science neophyte!

letsdothis

HopefulGEM wrote: »

All this waiting is actually killing me! Hopefully a 60 will get me into ucd?!?

You should really be at the stage of having it at the back of your mind - at least til May!!

HopefulGEM

Haha there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about it! Worries are that there is a huge points increase and I don't get ucd... Also the loan is freaking me out!!

Cymini Sectores

Thought the results were out when I saw GAMSAT Ireland on opening my mail this morning, the panic that followed! Apparently it's just to alert us to ensure we've provided the correct CAO number in our GAMSAT account. Well, result day is still far away, circa 19th May between the hours of midnight and 7 am. Just guessing here.

pharmacrunch

HopefulGEM wrote: »

Also the loan is freaking me out!!

This is also my biggest worry at the moment - I just hope if I take the plunge I wont regret it in years to come when I am swimming in debt. Ive read too many horror story posts on boards

Confused1987

Ah if this is what you want to do you definitely have to ignore the horror stories and as you said 'just take the plunge'.

I know for myself that if I was to not give it a try, or to turn it down due to the loan I would just be back on this forum 3-4 years down the line, giving it another go!!

HopefulGEM

What are people's preferences?:) I'm ucd, rcsi, ucc, ul

Confused1987

I'm the exact same! Would really like to get into UCD although if it doesn't happen I would definitely be happy taking UCC, was in cork last week and had a quick look at the school and campus and I can defo confirm they are aesthetically pleasing if nothing else!

letsdothis

UCD, RCSI, UL and UCC. Although if you looked at CAO it would say differently!