GAMSAT FAQs
The Graduate Medical School Admissions Test
The best way to study for the GAMSAT is to get started early, and make a preparation schedule. This should outline where you’re at, where you intend to get to based on your GPA and preferred medical school, and an indicative timeline of how long to apportion to each section. The best preparation for the GAMSAT is one that is strategic, paced, and which has an intent. You should know the scores you need to get in each section to get the score you need to get into the medical school you want given your GPA.
The very first thing you should do is to do is understand where you’re currently at, so you can figure out where you need to get to. I would advise you do an ACER practice paper (I recommend ACER PINK – it’s the easiest of the papers) to get an indicative score.
Note: your RAW score as a percentage does not translate to your GAMSAT score, but to give you an idea, I got 58/75 in Section I and 77/110 for Section III for the ACER PINK practice paper and that translated to 69 in Section I and 84 in Section III. That said, my first Section 3 took me a week as I had to learn it all given I didn’t have much of a science background. Don’t worry too much about the timing to begin with. This score is obviously a very rough indication. This is a great article from Fraser’s GAMSAT on how scores are calculated (scroll half way down). For Section II consider hiring a tutor or posting an essay in the 90+ facebook group for an indicative mark.
Next, calculate your GPA. This is GEMSAS’ document on it. It’s a little complex – they also offer to calculate it for you for $40. You’ll now have a GPA out of 7.
If you turn your GPA into a percentage (divide it by 7, and multiply by 100) and then add your GAMSAT score to it, you will have a rough score to base the likelihood of getting an medical interview. Around 164 is a good score. (So for example, my GPA is 6.5 or so = 92.8% + my GAMSAT 82 = 174, should be fine). To see what the rough averages are for each University you can look up the table near the bottom of this article from Gradready.
Also be aware that each university has different requirements. If you are poorer at Section III than I and II, you might want to consider the University of Queensland, UoM or Notre Dame who evenly weight all sections (versus all others who double weight Section III). With this strategy in mind, pick the University you would like to go for based on the highest likelihood of you getting in, and what is convenient to you. Find their average cut off, minus your GPA, and that will give you the GAMSAT score you need to get. Have a look at your practice paper results and then start to look at a strategy for what combination of SI, II, and III marks get you to the score you need. If you need a big jump, consider investing more into SII as it is the section with the highest return on investment and the easiest section to improve from your baseline performance. This gives you a buffer on the other two sections.
The best way to ace the GAMSAT is to get started early, and make a preparation schedule. This should outline where you’re at, where you intend to get to based on your GPA and preferred medical school, and an indicative timeline of how long to apportion to each section. The best preparation for the GAMSAT is one that is strategic, paced, and which has an intent. You should know the scores you need to get in each section to get the score you need to get into the medical school you want given your GPA.
The very first thing you should do is to do is understand where you’re currently at, so you can figure out where you need to get to. I would advise you do an ACER practice paper (I recommend ACER PINK – it’s the easiest of the papers) to get an indicative score.
Note: your RAW score as a percentage does not translate to your GAMSAT score, but to give you an idea, I got 58/75 in Section I and 77/110 for Section III for the ACER PINK practice paper and that translated to 69 in Section I and 84 in Section III. That said, my first Section 3 took me a week as I had to learn it all given I didn’t have much of a science background. Don’t worry too much about the timing to begin with. This score is obviously a very rough indication. This is a great article from Fraser’s GAMSAT on how scores are calculated (scroll half way down). For Section II consider hiring a tutor or posting an essay in the 90+ facebook group for an indicative mark.
Next, calculate your GPA. This is GEMSAS’ document on it. It’s a little complex – they also offer to calculate it for you for $40. You’ll now have a GPA out of 7.
If you turn your GPA into a percentage (divide it by 7, and multiply by 100) and then add your GAMSAT score to it, you will have a rough score to base the likelihood of getting an medical interview. Around 164 is a good score. (So for example, my GPA is 6.5 or so = 92.8% + my GAMSAT 82 = 174, should be fine). To see what the rough averages are for each University you can look up the table near the bottom of this article from Gradready.
Also be aware that each university has different requirements. If you are poorer at Section III than I and II, you might want to consider the University of Queensland, UoM or Notre Dame who evenly weight all sections (versus all others who double weight Section III). With this strategy in mind, pick the University you would like to go for based on the highest likelihood of you getting in, and what is convenient to you. Find their average cut off, minus your GPA, and that will give you the GAMSAT score you need to get. Have a look at your practice paper results and then start to look at a strategy for what combination of SI, II, and III marks get you to the score you need. If you need a big jump, consider investing more into SII as it is the section with the highest return on investment and the easiest section to improve from your baseline performance. This gives you a buffer on the other two sections.
The best way to prepare for the GAMSAT is to get started early, and make a preparation schedule. This should outline where you’re at, where you intend to get to based on your GPA and preferred medical school, and an indicative timeline of how long to apportion to each section. The best preparation for the GAMSAT is one that is strategic, paced, and which has an intent. You should know the scores you need to get in each section to get the score you need to get into the medical school you want given your GPA.
The very first thing you should do is to do is understand where you’re currently at, so you can figure out where you need to get to. I would advise you do an ACER practice paper (I recommend ACER PINK – it’s the easiest of the papers) to get an indicative score.
Note: your RAW score as a percentage does not translate to your GAMSAT score, but to give you an idea, I got 58/75 in Section I and 77/110 for Section III for the ACER PINK practice paper and that translated to 69 in Section I and 84 in Section III. That said, my first Section 3 took me a week as I had to learn it all given I didn’t have much of a science background. Don’t worry too much about the timing to begin with. This score is obviously a very rough indication. This is a great article from Fraser’s GAMSAT on how scores are calculated (scroll half way down). For Section II consider hiring a tutor or posting an essay in the 90+ facebook group for an indicative mark.
Next, calculate your GPA. This is GEMSAS’ document on it. It’s a little complex – they also offer to calculate it for you for $40. You’ll now have a GPA out of 7.
If you turn your GPA into a percentage (divide it by 7, and multiply by 100) and then add your GAMSAT score to it, you will have a rough score to base the likelihood of getting an medical interview. Around 164 is a good score. (So for example, my GPA is 6.5 or so = 92.8% + my GAMSAT 82 = 174, should be fine). To see what the rough averages are for each University you can look up the table near the bottom of this article from Gradready.
Also be aware that each university has different requirements. If you are poorer at Section III than I and II, you might want to consider the University of Queensland, UoM or Notre Dame who evenly weight all sections (versus all others who double weight Section III). With this strategy in mind, pick the University you would like to go for based on the highest likelihood of you getting in, and what is convenient to you. Find their average cut off, minus your GPA, and that will give you the GAMSAT score you need to get. Have a look at your practice paper results and then start to look at a strategy for what combination of SI, II, and III marks get you to the score you need. If you need a big jump, consider investing more into SII as it is the section with the highest return on investment and the easiest section to improve from your baseline performance. This gives you a buffer on the other two sections.
Is the GAMSAT hard? Not necessarily. Hard is a relative term. It’s fair to say it’s challenging, though. There were parts of the GAMSAT that weren’t difficult at all, but I was challenged immensely by the test as a whole. Every part of you, from your humanities, writing, critical reasoning, logic, psychometrics, empathy, humanity, ability to relax, organisational and preparation skills etc is tested. That said, with proper preparation and the right resources and support, success is very possible.
Above 65 is considered a “good” GAMSAT score. Above 70 is generally very good. And above 75 is phenomenal. That said, a good GAMSAT score is simply one that gets you a medical interview based on your GPA. Assuming a GPA of above 6.5, a score above 72 is enough to get into most medical schools. If your GPA is 6.8, you should be competitive above 70. Of course, your mileage may vary.
GAMSAT results are released between May 10-18 for the March sitting, and between November 8-16 for the September sitting.
The Graduate Medical School Admissions Test is one of the most challenging academic exams a person can take in Australia or the UK. The four-hour test is designed to assess pre-medical students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, as well as how they organise and communicate their ideas. It’s broken into a humanities section, a written communication section, and a two-hour physical sciences (biology, physics, chemistry, organic chemistry) section.
Passing the GAMSAT requires getting a score above 50 in all three sections. This roughly corresponds to performance in the 40th percentile, so is not competitive for entry into medical school. Entry into medical school depends on your GPA, but usually requires a GAMSAT score higher than 67 overall.
There is no limit to the amount of times you can sit. The average person sits 2.8 times, some more than 10 before success.
ACER do not release the exact numbers, but extrapolations from medical school entrances indicate somewhere between 10-15,000 at present and climbing.
GAMSAT is held twice each year, once in March, once in September.
The GAMSAT 2022 dates have not yet been released but it is usually held approximately between the 17-30th of March and 3-16th of September.
GAMSAT results are valid for two years.
GAMSAT results last for two years.
The GAMSAT score you need depends on your GPA. Generally above 67-70 is sufficient. If you turn your GPA into a percentage (divide it by 7, and multiply by 100) and then add your GAMSAT score to it, you will have a rough score to base the likelihood of getting an medical interview. Around 164 is a good score. (So for example, my GPA is 6.5 or so = 92.8% + my GAMSAT 82 = 174, should be fine). To see what the rough averages are for each University you can look up the table near the bottom of this article from Gradready.
(see above)
Start your preparation early. You can ignore biology entirely (the biology questions you can figure out on the spot mostly) – except for punnet sqaures and mitosis/miosis. They are the only two biology topics you need (they come up every exam so know them). Work through ACER practice papers and research the topics you don’t understand on khan academy.
(see above)
I found starting this way given I didn’t have a science background, however, led to patchy understanding of some of the topics and when I was faced with a problem that varied from the first time i’d seen it, I struggled. It became necessary then to work in a progressive fashion through all topics by researching on Khan academy, working with tutors, and moving through the ACE GAMSAT bibles (which go into too much details in my personal opinion – but it was nice knowing everything that they could possibly ask, if overwhelming). This article has a simplified breakdown of the most commonly tested topics.
GAMSAT scores are based off a technique known as IRT or (Item Response Theory).
One of the most instructive resources is this study on pubmed GAMSAT: A 10-year Retrospective Overview. Dr Scott Fraser of Fraser’s GAMSAT is also somewhat of an authority on this one. He is a personal friend and it seems incumbent on me to defer to him on this one and direct you to Fraser’s article on the topic (scroll down to the heading ‘What is Item Response Theory?’
By way of a succinct, broadly correct and easy to understand answer: your score is not the percentage of correct answers, but a complex calculation based off of which particular questions you got right from a set. Each set of questions usually starts with the easiest questions first and the last question is the most complex. The later questions in the set test higher order reasoning and will be worth more. ACER know if you have the first answers wrong and your logic was not sufficient for you to have gotten the last one correct, so even if you guessed it right, they won’t award you the point. Now that exams are online it is highly likely that the time you spend on each question will also be a factor in whether you are awarded a point or not (e.g if you rocket through the last questions answering randomly for each one). Furthermore, there are unusual complications within it, such as the instance of a person I know who submitted only one of the two Section II essays and scored 80 for Section II. To a degree we will never know exactly how they work, but suffice to say it is a highly correlated reflection of the quality of your thinking.
The GAMSAT is made up of 4.45 hours of testing time, including 19 minutes of reading time, with a 30 minute break in between Sections II and III.
Since the new online format kicked in, I have heard anecdotally from others (and it was the case in my exam) that the reading time for Section II was able to be used for writing.
Good GAMSAT essays challenge the premises in the prompt rather than approach it from a binary agree/disagree paradigm, and include references to examples from history, psychology, current affairs, philosophy. They show a variety of positive psychometric qualities such as empathy, sensitivity, humanity, logic, critical reasoning, objectivity, neutrality, warmth, compassion, fallibilism, and situatedness. FInally they are clear, concise, and cogent.
The GAMSAT is broken up into three sections. Section I contains 47 multi-choice questions testing reasoning in humanities and social science. Section II requires you to write two essays in response to two sets of five prompts relating to a variety of interpersonal and intrapersonal issues. And Section III contains 75 multi-choice questions testing reasoning in the physical sciences (biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and mathematics).
If you’ve sat the GAMSAT before and have a science background 3 months is long enough to study for the GAMSAT. If it’s your first time, or you are not from a science background, or you are wanting to score very highly in Section II you should study for 6 months.
One of the best ways to improve in Section I is to practice distilling the stems into no more than 7 key points in your own words as you read through. It also helps to write them down in shorthand or do visual cues with arrows etc connecting the ideas and showing how they relate – even in the exam. Oftentimes five lines can be summarised in a couple of words, aiding recall, orientation, and speed.
Assuming your score on Section I is above 50, the best way to prepare for Section I is not to. Section I is the lowest yield section per unit time invested, and it takes the greatest effort to improve this section. The same energy invested in Section II (and to a lesser degree Section III) would yield far higher results. That said, I recommend doing at least a couple ACER practice papers so you are familiar with the structure beforehand.
If you have sat the GAMSAT before and not scored highly enough (but got over 50 in each section), the best way to improve your score is by focussing on Section II as it has the highest potential for uplift and gives the greatest return per unit time invested.
Doing well in the GAMSAT boils down to having a strategy for how to achieve the overall mark you need to get into med school, by giving effort to the sections most likely to give you the best return based on your skill and ability. After that, it takes a lot of preparation, and a cool head on the day
The best way to study for the GAMSAT is to begin early – 6 months before the exam if you don’t have a science background or if it is your first time sitting the test; 3 or 4 months otherwise. You should do plenty of ACER practice papers, noting down the questions you got wrong; and then research WHY you got those questions wrong. Lastly submitting essays to tutors who know what ACER are looking for in an ideal response, and adjusting in between each essay. 40 essays/adjustments is a good amount to refine most errors.
Overachieving massively in one section, doing well in another, and just okay in a third is a good strategy to getting a high GAMSAT score. It is possible to have huge results in Section II and III, but you almost never see huge Section I results. To get a very good score, you will often need to smash at least one section. I recommend to do minimal Section I study as it seldom improves much anyway, and to try and demolish either Section II or III, and do well in the other section.
There is no limit. As a broad indicator, though, if you write less than 400 words you may struggle to convey some of the deeper aspects of your thinking required to score well. If write more than 800-1000 words you may obfuscate your ideas with extraneous detail. Around 600-800 is a good amount, with most writing 600.
The best way to prepare for Section II is to identify a person who has an accurate idea of what ACER are looking for in an ideal response to mark your writing, and do as many essay as possible. After each essay being marked, apply the feedback and adjust. The more iterations of this process you go through, so long as the person marking knows what ACER want, and you do not repeat the error, the more quickly you will narrow in on an ideal response. I recommend to do this process around 40 times over 6 months.
I’m a single dad of a 2 year old, too. My GAMSAT prep started after moving to the other side of town from a high paying job I had been in for 5 years as I was headhunted by a competitor. I signed a lease for a very expensive apartment and then COVID hit and I got fired from this new job, and couldn’t travel to get to the other one. My car payments were $1500/fortnight alone and I went on centrelink and lived off savings. I had also just gone through a messy breakup. So during my preparation, I had a two year old and would eat food from melbourne uni’s food recycling program, while processing a break up. I’ve also had ADHD flare up, as well as (randomly) PTSD from extensive childhood sexual trauma during my prep. There was every reason under the son why I shouldn’t have been successful. But I only needed one reason why I was going to be: showing my son that what others do to you doesn’t need to be a determinant in what you do for others.
More practically speaking, during the times I had him I would listen to podcasts in the background (he started repeating the “this is another ABC podcast” but at the start of them haha) and make notes of ideas on notes on my phone. As the GAMSAT neared I relied more and more heavily on family to share the load. But I don’t want it to seem like you have to study that much to get my mark. It took that much effort to learn what I know about Section II because I wanted to get above 90 and nobody had. So to do it, I have to learn EVERYTHING that everyone knew and then organize it in a way that made sense and respected the best bits. My Section II preparation would have been halved or less if I had access to my materials and teaching from the get go. If I knew what I was learning would work and was right, and saw it in its final form it would have been so much easier.
Part of what GAMSAT tests is your ability to stay cool under pressure. These are things that will be needed as a doctor. So rather than think about what you can’t do, try and focus on what you can do. If you can find 30 minutes to write an essay per week and submit it here, you will make SUBSTANTIAL progress.
Chronological, clock time is a concept. It does not exist in absolute terms, only in the mind. In absolute terms there is only one moment – this moment. And so there is only ever one thing to do: what this moment requires. If you do that, moment by moment, a moment will come where you’re in your GAMSAT and you know what to do.
There are no dumb questions.
Short answer: no, your percentage of correct answers is not your GAMSAT score.
GAMSAT works of IRT (item response theory). In your whole GAMSAT approx 25% of questions wont even be marked – they are being tested for fairness across gender, location etc for the next sitting. Of those marked, within the set points are awarded unevenly. Usually the first few questions are easiest and build up in difficulty. If you guessed a correct answer for the last (highest value) question in a set, but they know based in your thinking and answers earlier in the set that it’s not possible you would have arrived at that answer, it won’t be awarded. Also now with computer sittings, it’s highly likely they will record response times such as how many seconds spent on a question.
You can find more about IRT here: https://www.frasersgamsat.com.au/gamsat-scores/ (ctrl+F “item response theory”)
and in this pubmed study on the GAMSAT: https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-015-0316-3
It doesn’t depend how many you got right, it depends which combination.
An (extremily) rough way of estimating the score is to add 5 to it. So if you got 62% right, you could say 67 – but when you understand the nuance of it, you realise that’s impossibly inaccurate. Despite how crude it is, and how impossible it is to be a feasible way of estimating it, it nevertheless tends to return approximate ideas of what you would have scored.
For those new to SIII, preparing usually takes you longer than you think. I had never done chemistry before (even in highschool), and while I was strong at physics and maths in school, it had been 10 years since I last did it. I was initially VERY overwhelmed at the amount of work there was to do. What I didn’t know, was that you don’t need to know all the sciences. In fact, ‘technically’ you don’t need to know any. ACER is moving towards questions with less background knowledge these days, and where all the info you need is in the stems. You will notice if you do the old Des o’neal questions (or even the ACER practice papers) that a lot more scientific knowledge is required. Don’t let that stress you too much, it’s more reasoning based of late. It took me months and months of slaving to realize: It’s a problem-solving puzzle written in the language of the sciences. That said, familiarity with the background will help you move faster, and it is a time pressure test.
I started off by doing the ACER practice exams and I would mark them. Every question I’d get wrong I’d study the background theory until I understood why I had got it wrong. Gold standard do good Youtube videos for the worked solutions, and Khan Academy to go deeper. I then noted all the questions I had gotten wrong (to come back to in the weeks before the exam). The first exam took me more than a week from memory to complete. After I had done a few I was starting to wrap my head around the topics a bit more but I was still quite overwhelmed. I was also aware that there would be holes in my knowledge because I was reverse engineering my knowledge, rather than learning it sequentially. It was a catch-22, I knew that passive learning is nearly a waste of time so going through ‘classes’ wasn’t going to be an effective approach. The best way to learn something is to do it.. but then sometimes I’d get a question I had studied but it had a small variation and i’d get it wrong because I didn’t understand the knowledge comprehensively.
I then began moving progressively through the AceGAMSAT bibles .. they take you through all the topics, and making cheat sheets (I’ll screenshot some pictures below). They go into a fair bit more detail than is necessary, in my view, but it was a useful way of having all the topics in front of me. You can ignore biology entirely (the biology questions you can figure out on the spot mostly) – except for punnet squares and mitosis/meiosis. They are the only two topics you need (they come up every exam so know them). With organic chem, if you don’t know then you can basically skip the substitution/elimination reactions – it takes ages to work out and there’s seldom any questions on it.
Frasers have some free webinars prior to the GAMSAT with strategy. They have actually a really unique S3 strategy where it almost doesn’t matter what the question actually asks, you can often work it out through their methodology, or at least rule out two options to double your odds – I highly recommend you keep an eye out for them.
I have noticed a marked pattern from the older to the newer ACER practice papers, and indeed in the exam itself, a move away from background knowledge for the science section. For those using the Des books – these require way more background knowledge than would be required today. The Section II guide is good, although I don’t think there’s an essay inside that would score over 82. Their Section I guide is the most relevant of the three, and of high quality. If you are doing Frasers practice papers, I personally find their questions harder than ACER’s. In fact, just about any prep company’s papers, in my experience, are harder than ACER’s. Not to say don’t use them, do as much as you can. But the ACER practice papers have a distinct flavour. The importance of calibrating yourself to these papers in terms of question style, content, and your assessment of your performance, cannot be overstated.
I also logged all my wrong answers to return to in the weeks before my exam. I would do this probably around three weeks out. Don’t do it too close because you might stress yourself out if you still find them challenging.
And then on the day I got lucky. To be honest I was surprised to score so well for S3, it was better than I had done in my practices; but then I did poorer on S1 than I had in my practices, so it evened out.
That said, the biggest lesson after all my science preparation and practice was that it isn’t a test of the sciences: it’s a problem-solving puzzle written in the language of the sciences.
Sometimes what you know can be an impediment to the internal reasoning of the question, in fact. If you haven’t done as much preparation as you would have liked, a background appreciation for some science first principles and a very clear head is genuinely all you need to score well. If you want to score VERY well, there is going to be some background knowledge that is needed for some questions. Either way, know that there 1000% WILL BE things that you don’t know on the day. ACER will put in some random reaction you’ve never seen or some phd level chem stuff, or give you a scenario in which you apply something you do know in a way you never have before to test your first principles or reasoning. When you get questions like this it helps to know that you don’t know to understand everything to get it right. You are not expected to be a chemistry phd. They put this in to throw you. Just remember constantly “this is not a science test, this is a problem-solving puzzle in the language of the sciences” and look for the reasoning behind it. Look for the puzzle.
The questions which tend to come up the most for which background knowledge is often directly needed are listed below by subject:
Biology:
Punnet squares (both the 4×4 squares and the 8×8 squares) – comes up in nearly every paper. Mitosis and meiosis comes up quite a lot, so just knowing the phases is quite useful. You’ll almost always get questions about heart rate, or blood flow, or air pressure etc but genuinely I recommend not to study these. Your trying to use equations etc to figure things out will not help. Almost all biology questions aside from the topics mentioned above are purely reasoning-based. It is the most intuitive and puzzle-like of the three sections. It can help to know how to read graphs, and to make a practice of always checking the units on the x and y axis of these graphs to be sure.
Physics:
The implications of Newton’s laws are almost always tested, which presents itself in being able to work on free-body diagrams, springs, balancing torques, projectile motion equations, balancing vectors, and the suvat equations. The below links don’t cover all I mentioned but are good for free body diagrams
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-osuniversityphysics/chapter/5-7-drawing-free-body-diagrams/?fbclid=IwAR0PtXBHW0L6H4HdumJAKcuwp-gXv_ISyy03FzWU6RVTpSm07Vp8wcv73FI
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-2/Drawing-Free-Body-Diagrams?fbclid=IwAR3lMh-QkQkW1jzrClmR8dFM_hPs61QkihvA-1SqYB46kJxF_STYxOHYTHE
Maths
You absolutely need to know scientific notation, index and log laws and be able to work with them at speed. No way around it, just google log rules question sets and scientific notation question sets. Manipulating fractions is essential, so knowing that (a/b)/c = a/(b*c) and that a/(b/c) = (a*c)/b intuitively. Also, converting units needs to be able to be done quickly.
Chemistry & Organic Chemistry
I’m yet to see a paper without acids and bases or pka and pkb stuff in it. It can be unpacked with a working understanding of basic chemistry, and the equations are provided, but it’s still good to know. Also basic moles and molar mass problems would be wise to do.
Understanding the various ways of depicting compounds (e.g the structural formula, skeletal structures, condensed.) Having done past questions should imply some degree of familiarity with this. Also the naming of compounds and common functional groups (alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, cabroxlyic acid). I personally hired a chemistry and organic chemistry tutor, but I can’t recommend the Gold Standard worked solutions on YouTube enough. They were life savers for me, and better than Khan Academy in most cases. He just enjoyed doing the problems so much I still sometimes hear his laugh in my head haha.
I would steer you away from any memorisation. Whatever you memorise is going to come up in a different format on the day anyway.
Hey mate, there’s a few things within this question.
Firstly, I recommend apportioning your time to where you will get the best return for that investment. The 100th percentile for Section I is usually 70-75, you almost never see scores higher than that. The 100th percentile for Section 2 is usually 85-89. And the 100th percentile for Section 3 is almost always 100. Also many unis double weight section 3.
Layered onto this is the propensity for each section to lift in score relative to your baseline ability.
It is extremely difficult to improve Section I
It is relatively easy to improve Section II
It is is moderately difficult to improve Section III, but necessary.
If you wish to go to such a uni then based on the above it makes sense to apportion most of your time to Section III.
If you are going to a uni that evenly weights (e.g UND, Unimelb), then it makes sense to apportion more time to Section II.
Either way unless your score is below 50 I wouldn’t spend much time on Section I.
Plan your months out. If you dont have a science background Section III will take longer than you think.
If you aim to write 40 essays, with feedback and adjustment that should be enough for a very good score. Spend most of your time working through the ACER papers for Section III and understanding why you got certain questions wrong.
Start early. You don’t want to burn out, and it’s best if the week before you sit you do nothing at all to refresh your mind and get mental clarity, versus burning out from stress and anxiety.
Hope that answers your question.
Firstly thank you for your courage in posting. I know many people feel the same and therefore many people will benefit from this discussion.
My first comment is that you didn’t lose your ability to write an essay. That’s not possible haha. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are stressed. And tired. And using your energy in excessive mental thought.
I would get acupuncture, or make a practice of long morning walks to get your energy back down into your body. I highly recommend acupuncture – I used it a lot in the lead up to my exam.
Secondly, your bar of what is an acceptable idea is WAY too high. You don’t need to write a 70+ (or try to to get 70+). You’ll get what you get and so long as it is a reflection of your ability that’s a great effort and I’ll be proud of you. What I don’t want for you, however, is to go into the exam stressed, and have the result not be a reflection of your ability because of your narratives about the exam and your ability. That would be a shame. Here’s a secret from me to you: it doesn’t actually matter what your ideas about the prompts are. Don’t tell the others they’ll lose their mind. It matters who you are. Pick any idea you like. “Apples are better than bananas.” I could get a 90+ with that contention. This isn’t a test of ‘who can write PHD standard writing on any given topic in 30 minutes’ that would be insane. They put you in that position to make you freak out and to create a situation where they get to see who you are and how you really think. They just want to look up your skirt, to put it crassly. Who you are can shine through in any idea. They want people that will be good doctors, which is someone who articulates themselves frankly and warmly, and logically. They specifically say “you will not be judged on your opinions.” Here’s a really effective way to come up with an idea for a response.. get ready. Imagine you’re at the pub, or your fav restaurant with your best friend. And imagine your friend says one of the prompts and casually says “what do you reckon?” and then sips their drink. And then take whatever your response is. See when you try to be fancy your eyes go up and you go “umm” and you think of things but none of them sound fancy like the stuff you see in the group so you discard perfectly valid opinions and think you’re not good enough, and that’s what the freeze is.
Just pick any idea. Literally anything. “Democracy is a joke” – no problem. “Socialism sucks” – go with it. “Jealously doesn’t help” – sure. If you can have humane, logical thoughts about that then it’s not an issue. See, my experience of people is they have an opinion on everything. And generally if I ask why and they’re not trying to be fancy and are just trying to have a conversation with me their ideas are based on experiences and a couple of logical reasons. Well that’s all your write about. If it doesn’t look how you think it should then discard how you think it should, and look at how it looks. And if you have time to work at improving that then do it. If you don’t and you’re worried about finishing or starting then don’t care how it looks. Just say what you genuinely think and feel in an honest and candid way.
Don’t worry about fancy words or language. Most people sound like wankers when they use it bc half the time people don’t use the words in the way they should anyway. Myself included, although I feel I have an above-average grasp of words – I still have to be cautious that they aren’t making things more confusing. Most people try to say simple things in complex words and they sound like fools. The art is finding simple ways to say complex things.
Listen, you need rest. Walks, long baths, and ideally some acupuncture and a fresh perspective. I didn’t write an essay or do any gamsat for nearly 2 weeks before my sitting. Like you I burnt out and needed rest. And everyday I worried I wasn’t studying enough, but I knew that you don’t re-engage until rested. So I rested. And it worked out ok.
DM me ill send you a copy of One Month to Go for after you’ve settled down – it’ll help you manage your mindset.
For now, bring your energy back into your body. No stimulants. Log off. Get rid of socials. And ignore everybody else. You’re either meant to be a doctor or you’re not. If you are there’s nothing you could do to fuck it on the day up even if you tried. If you’re not it would have made you miserable anyway and there’s somewhere else that needs you more. I think you are. So rest. And see how things look after you’ve settled heart
The aim is to show a variety of psychometric skills to the marker. Among them are critical reasoning, and the ability to communicate clearly and effectively.
Poetry by its very nature is connotative. The marker is left to try and figure out how you think and who you are, without being directly told. This is problematic for a number of reasons, including
– You are making the marker do extra work
– You are introducing a lack of clarity by connotations instead of detonating
– Due to the form and style of poetry it will be a challenge to show the full spectrum of psychometric features, so even if it shows some better it can make you less 3 dimensional.
– Most people don’t write truly moving poetry. The vast majority of poetry I have ever read, even among the greats, I haven’t liked. It’s a matter of taste. And as a function of that, there is a high likelihood that under pressure you might not hit the marker’s taste on the head. Or if you do, you’re unlikely to get 3 markers in a row. If the marker doesn’t personally like it, it might not score well. So it’s perhaps more pragmatic to take their personal taste out of the equation
