Please also see my earlier posts "Free GAMSAT resources online - and how to use them" and "More free GAMSAT study resources"
For those looking for free GAMSAT information, there's a new tutoring group offering free resources called Fraser's Gamsat Journey.
They offer an online video masterclass, a topics list, a study planner, spreadsheets for tracking your improvement over time, a Section 2 quote generator, a Section 2 style guide, a Section 3 Chemistry checklist, Section 3 Physics Checklist, and two physics formula cheat sheets (one, two), and a Section 3 Biology checklist.
Again, I don't recommend any particular test preparation company. I didn't use any tutoring company and still had excellent scores, although I had studied many of these topics at University level. Many of the medical students I know sat the GAMSAT and got in without paying for tuition. I would suggest the PagingDr forums and Graduate Medicine Informant as the best sites for unbiased information that isn't trying to sell anything.
It's been many years now since I took the GAMSAT, but I still get the occasional email from others who have found this website helpful. I hope it saves you further searching helps direct your GAMSAT studies.
GAMSAT UK
Wanted to sit GAMSAT twice a year?
There is an opportunity to do so by taking the UK GAMSAT, which happens in September. This allows you two opportunities in a year to take the test. While the UK GAMSAT is intended for entrants to UK universities, it is accepted by most Australian universities - but it's a good idea to confirm this directly with your university of choice.
The UK GAMSAT is the same test and material as the GAMSAT in March. It;s not available in all test centres in Australia, so you'll likely need to travel to sit the test. However, a warning: if you are not prepared for the GAMSAT, then resitting it is unlikely to improve your score, and you will waste you money and effort. The September timing means that you do not have enough time to apply in Australia for the following calendar year, although your GAMSAT score is usually valid for two years - you can check this on ACER's Currency of Results page.
More free GAMSAT study resources
I note that a lot of the free resources I linked previously are out of date, so here are some updates:
Des O'Neill appears to have retired from the GAMSAT preparation business as of 2015, according to his website.
ACER, according to their '16 Info Booklet, now provides a Sample Questions e-book with registration for the GAMSAT. They also have a Practice Test and Practice Test 2 available for sale, which are full-length tests, as well as Practice Questions. Sample Questions and Practice Questions include worked answers. ACER is also offering computer-based scoring for the Written Communication section. These can be purchased after registering with ACER here. ACER also offer brief preparation tips.
PrepGenie.com.au offer a 'free' GAMSAT mock test for $1 here.
e-gamsat is offering a free GAMSAT practice test with suggested timings, as well as further hints and tips.
MedPrep International used to have a practice exam which is still available on the Internet Archive here. I think they're now operating as Medired, and have an online practice test available here.
The amazingly helpful PagingDr forum has collated a practice test available here.
Gold Standard Gamsat at Gamsat-Prep.com offer a free practice test after account creation here. Gold Standard GAMSAT also have 100+ videos on Youtube, including worked solutions to questions in the ACER booklets.
Youtube has a variety of channels with GAMSAT and interview tips, like The Medical Method, Second Degree Medicine, PrepGenie, and Gold Standard on Section 2 tips.
gamsat.co.uk, which now appears to be abandoned, had a GAMSAT practice test which is still available via the Internet Archive here.
I hope these free resources are helpful in your study. I recommend using practice tests to identify problems with test timing and identifying knowledge gaps.
Reading for Section II - Atul Gawande
A good place to start your Section I reading is with Atul Gawande. He has written 3 books, including Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. Many of his articles are available online, for example at the New Yorker and Slate. Of special interest may be his article "The Cost Conundrum" which was used as an example in the US healthcare debate, as it illustrates a small town where the profit motive has taken over medicine.
Interview format - Group interview
This interview format allows observers to see how you interact with peers in a way that might not be seen in other interview formats.
Usually the group interview format follows a structure similar to that used by Practice Based Learning (PBL) classes, in giving a group a very large, complex problem to resolve and then guiding their dicussions.
DO:
- Listen and don't discount other's views; don't be the only person talking
- Leader? Follower? Medical schools are full of type A personalities and while it's OK to step up if no one else is, don't feel you have to yell over everyone else in the room.
- Make a plan - as you would in a real PBL - for later action. Assign parts of the follow up reaserch and action to different people in your group.
- Make use of the whiteboard to plan or brainstorm.
- Brainstorm some crazy 'zebra' ideas as well as other more workable ideas.
- Consider the full picture. Are there cultural or religious implications? Financial? Social? Ethical? Environmental? How are these going to affect the problem?
- Don't feel you need to provide a full solution to the problem now; rather, you've found out a lot about the problem, are going to research further and you've got a few ideas that might help that you're looking further into.
- Keep an eye on the time for your interview, ensure you've got enough time to brainstorm, discuss, assign tasks.
In my group interview, the doctor guiding the discussion was a doctor I'd visited previously who performed a rather personal medical test on me. Talk about embarassing!
More seriously, while most of the group from my interview got on well (many even stayed after the interview to chat for hours) one person had strong religious views that conflicted with the problem we were solving (for example, if the PBL was regarding options for an unwanted child, including abortion, and this person was a pro-lifer). This person stated their strong beliefs and then would not become involved in any discussion that involved abortion, instead withdrawing for the rest of the interview. While other group members tried to involve them by asking questions and assigning tasks that did not involve the abortion side of the task, it felt very forced. This is the only person in my group who I would have picked as failing the interview.
Usually the group interview format follows a structure similar to that used by Practice Based Learning (PBL) classes, in giving a group a very large, complex problem to resolve and then guiding their dicussions.
DO:
- Listen and don't discount other's views; don't be the only person talking
- Leader? Follower? Medical schools are full of type A personalities and while it's OK to step up if no one else is, don't feel you have to yell over everyone else in the room.
- Make a plan - as you would in a real PBL - for later action. Assign parts of the follow up reaserch and action to different people in your group.
- Make use of the whiteboard to plan or brainstorm.
- Brainstorm some crazy 'zebra' ideas as well as other more workable ideas.
- Consider the full picture. Are there cultural or religious implications? Financial? Social? Ethical? Environmental? How are these going to affect the problem?
- Don't feel you need to provide a full solution to the problem now; rather, you've found out a lot about the problem, are going to research further and you've got a few ideas that might help that you're looking further into.
- Keep an eye on the time for your interview, ensure you've got enough time to brainstorm, discuss, assign tasks.
In my group interview, the doctor guiding the discussion was a doctor I'd visited previously who performed a rather personal medical test on me. Talk about embarassing!
More seriously, while most of the group from my interview got on well (many even stayed after the interview to chat for hours) one person had strong religious views that conflicted with the problem we were solving (for example, if the PBL was regarding options for an unwanted child, including abortion, and this person was a pro-lifer). This person stated their strong beliefs and then would not become involved in any discussion that involved abortion, instead withdrawing for the rest of the interview. While other group members tried to involve them by asking questions and assigning tasks that did not involve the abortion side of the task, it felt very forced. This is the only person in my group who I would have picked as failing the interview.
What is life? Reading for the humanities Section 1 and essay section 2
Three interesting recent articles provide food for thought on how we deal with life and death in a medical setting.
First, ABC journalist Lyndal Curtis talks about the loss of her stillborn daughter Madeline and how she considers Madeline to be as much a daughter of hers as if she had lived. Several readers share their loss of a child in the comments, and it's heartbreaking to hear of parents whose loss is ignored just because their child's death occurred before birth.
Clare Skinner writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Do Not Resuscitate orders and asks us all to consider our own wishes in this situation.
She emphasises the difference between the medical practice of the emergency room - of doing no harm, of required consults with a distraught and uninformed family, of keeping the patient alive at great cost - and better palliative practice of providing comfort and support in death.
Finally, neurologist Dr Grumpy posts about his experience with a husband unable to accept the death of his wife, a situation where a Do Not Resuscitate order could save resources and human suffering. Commenter Celeste quotes a Bloomberg article:
First, ABC journalist Lyndal Curtis talks about the loss of her stillborn daughter Madeline and how she considers Madeline to be as much a daughter of hers as if she had lived. Several readers share their loss of a child in the comments, and it's heartbreaking to hear of parents whose loss is ignored just because their child's death occurred before birth.
Clare Skinner writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Do Not Resuscitate orders and asks us all to consider our own wishes in this situation.
Medical ethics rest on four basic principles: beneficence (do good), non-maleficence (do no harm), autonomy (respect your patient as a rational individual) and justice (be fair). In the modern era, with information-savvy and potentially litigious patients expecting more from a resource-strapped and politicised health system, the latter two are frequently the source of conflict.
She emphasises the difference between the medical practice of the emergency room - of doing no harm, of required consults with a distraught and uninformed family, of keeping the patient alive at great cost - and better palliative practice of providing comfort and support in death.
Finally, neurologist Dr Grumpy posts about his experience with a husband unable to accept the death of his wife, a situation where a Do Not Resuscitate order could save resources and human suffering. Commenter Celeste quotes a Bloomberg article:
"Looking back, memories of my zeal to treat are tinged with sadness. Since I didn’t believe my husband was going to die, I never let us have the chance to say goodbye."
I believe our society misses out on that experience: the opportunity to say good-bye and the wisdom that comes from listening to people who are dying.
Interview Format - Multiple Mini Interviews
This interview format allows several small interviews to determine different aspects of your behaviour.
Mini-interview types include:
Giving and following directions - At the ANU, this interview step involved talking someone, unseen, through folding an origami frog from printed instructions. Then, you had to follow instructions.
Empathy - In this scenario, you are presented with a situation which requires you to demonstrate empathy. One example would be being confronted with an elderly man who has just been robbed and is feeling upset. The actors in this scenario are often very good. You will need to show an understanding of their problem.
One refreshing response I heard to this situation was to turn it into a group-hug session.
Rural - This station asked questions about what problems you think are facing rural health, what problems doctors face in working in a rural environment, and whether you have special skills or would be interested in working in such an environment.
Motivation - Why do you want to become a doctor? What are your reasons for becoming a doctor? Where do you get your ideas of what medicine entails? What would make you a great doctor?
Weaknesses - What are your weaknesses? How do you handle them? Do you get stressed? What do you to handle stress?
Problem-solving - What would you do if you were (stuck in the bush with three random objects/finding a small metal object in a haystack/dealing with a prison riot). Look at many different factors - eg with the bush situation, you are considering survival and rescue, but you can also be creative
Ethics - This aims to determine your response to an ethical situation. in this scenario, I was shown a short video where a student had not completed a paper and was offered the opportunity to cheat by using another student's work. However, she did not complete the work because she was involved in charity commitments at the time. The discussion ranged over good reasons to miss school work, whether the charity could have managed without her contribution, and how cheating on the essay would impede her learning. Alternative scenarios: How would you deal with an elderly woman who is the victim of wife-bashing who does not want the situation escalated?
Section I Practice Question - Sokal vs Social Text
This practice question is taken from the Australian Law Schools Entrance Test (ASLET), also administered by ACER. Their information PDF for test-takers contains a selection of useful GAMSAT-style questions, one of which I have reproduced here. You will notice the extremely long passages used for these questions; however, you do get to answer a heap of questions from them!
Questions 22 –29
In 1996, a leading academic journal of cultural studies, Social Text , published an article by a physicist named Alan Sokal. The article attacked the sciences for their ‘authoritarianism and elitism’ and argued, amongst other things, that physical concepts (ssuch as gravity) were essentially ‘social constructs ’. Subsequently, Sokal revealed in a rival journal that the article had been a hoax. In the following two passages Sokal and the editors of Social Text justify their actions.
Passage 1: Alan Sokal
Why did I do it? While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious. What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical relevance. At its best, a journal like Social Text raises important questions that no scientist should ignore – questions, for example,about how corporate and government funding influence scientific work. Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little to further the discussion of these matters. Social Text’s acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory – meaning postmodernist literary theory – carried to its logical extreme.No wonder they didn ’t bother to consult a physicist. If all is discourse and ‘text’, then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just another branch of Cultural Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and ‘language games ’, then internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors and puns substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this well-established genre.
Passage 2: The editors of Social Text
Obviously,we now regret having published Sokal ’s article, and apologize to our readers, and to those in the science studies or cultural studies communities who might feel their work has been disparaged as a result of this affair. From the first, we considered Sokal’s unsolicited article to be a little hokey. It is not every day we receive a dense philosophical tract from a professional physicist. Not knowing the author or his work, we engaged in some speculation about his intentions, and concluded that this article was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field. His adventures in Postmodern Land were not really our cup of tea. Sokal ’s article would have been regarded as somewhat outdated if it had come from a humanist or social scientist. As the work of a natural scientist it was unusual, and, we thought, plausibly symptomatic of how someone like Sokal might approach the field of postmodern epistemology, i.e. awkwardly but assertively trying to capture the ‘feel ’ of the professional language of this field, while relying upon an armada of footnotes to ease his sense of vulnerability. In other words, we read it more as an act of good faith of the sort that might be worth encouraging than as a set of arguments with which we agreed. On those grounds, the editors considered it of interest to readers as a ‘document’ of that time-honoured tradition in which modern physicists have discovered harmonic resonances with their own reasoning in the field of philosophy and metaphysics.What is the likely result of Sokal’s behaviour for non-scientific journals? Less well-known authors who submit unsolicited articles to journals like ours may now come under needless suspicion, and the openness of intellectual inquiry that Social Text has played its role in fostering will be curtailed.
22. Sokal’s method may be described as satirical because it involved
a) insincere imitation.
b) humour and innuendo.
c) unfair and deceptive means.
d) unfavourable analysis and criticism.
23. The term ‘epistemic’ refers to our knowledge of things rather than to the nature of the things themselves.
Accordingly, the phrase ‘epistemic relativism’, as used in Passage 1, most likely refers to
the idea that
a) knowledge is objective and eternal.
b) all knowledge is subjective and equally valid.
c) all knowledge is approximate and provisional.
d) knowledge is determined and controlled by political interests.
24. For Sokal, the logical extreme of postmodernist literary theory involves the notion that
a) reality defies language.
b) language distorts reality.
c) language has no meaning.
d) language constitutes reality.
25. The editors attribute their decision to publish Sokal’s article to
a) their intent to embarrass the author.
b) an inexplicable lapse in their judgement.
c) their professional openness and impartiality.
d) their desire to avoid criticism for not publishing it.
26. The editors’ justification of their decision to publish Sokal’s article reveals that they were unduly influenced by
a) the author’s reputation.
b) the presumed motivation of the author.
c) their elitist and guarded approach to their discipline.
d) their own tastes and preferences in scholarly writing.
27. The phrase ‘needless suspicion’ may be judged unintentionally ironic because
a) such a claim is easily made in hindsight.
b) the editors are unlikely to be sincere in making the claim.
c) the editors were, if anything, too suspicious of Sokal’s article.
d) such suspicion would appear to be normally warranted and necessary.
28. The justification offered by the editors for publishing Sokal’s article is best described as
a) assured and persuasive.
b)condescending and contradictory.
c) arrogant but fundamentally sound.
d) unnecessarily humble and apologetic.
29. Which of the following is the most significant conclusion that can plausibly be drawn from the ‘Sokal Affair ’ in the
light of the two passages?
a) It shows that scientists do not fully comprehend postmodern literary theory.
b) It suggests that the editors of Social Text did not really understand Sokal’s article.
c) It shows that the editors of Social Text have little understanding of scientific principles.
d) It raises doubts about the quality of thought characteristic of postmodern literary theory.
Questions 22 –29
In 1996, a leading academic journal of cultural studies, Social Text , published an article by a physicist named Alan Sokal. The article attacked the sciences for their ‘authoritarianism and elitism’ and argued, amongst other things, that physical concepts (ssuch as gravity) were essentially ‘social constructs ’. Subsequently, Sokal revealed in a rival journal that the article had been a hoax. In the following two passages Sokal and the editors of Social Text justify their actions.
Passage 1: Alan Sokal
Why did I do it? While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious. What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical relevance. At its best, a journal like Social Text raises important questions that no scientist should ignore – questions, for example,about how corporate and government funding influence scientific work. Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little to further the discussion of these matters. Social Text’s acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory – meaning postmodernist literary theory – carried to its logical extreme.No wonder they didn ’t bother to consult a physicist. If all is discourse and ‘text’, then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just another branch of Cultural Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and ‘language games ’, then internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors and puns substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this well-established genre.
Passage 2: The editors of Social Text
Obviously,we now regret having published Sokal ’s article, and apologize to our readers, and to those in the science studies or cultural studies communities who might feel their work has been disparaged as a result of this affair. From the first, we considered Sokal’s unsolicited article to be a little hokey. It is not every day we receive a dense philosophical tract from a professional physicist. Not knowing the author or his work, we engaged in some speculation about his intentions, and concluded that this article was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field. His adventures in Postmodern Land were not really our cup of tea. Sokal ’s article would have been regarded as somewhat outdated if it had come from a humanist or social scientist. As the work of a natural scientist it was unusual, and, we thought, plausibly symptomatic of how someone like Sokal might approach the field of postmodern epistemology, i.e. awkwardly but assertively trying to capture the ‘feel ’ of the professional language of this field, while relying upon an armada of footnotes to ease his sense of vulnerability. In other words, we read it more as an act of good faith of the sort that might be worth encouraging than as a set of arguments with which we agreed. On those grounds, the editors considered it of interest to readers as a ‘document’ of that time-honoured tradition in which modern physicists have discovered harmonic resonances with their own reasoning in the field of philosophy and metaphysics.What is the likely result of Sokal’s behaviour for non-scientific journals? Less well-known authors who submit unsolicited articles to journals like ours may now come under needless suspicion, and the openness of intellectual inquiry that Social Text has played its role in fostering will be curtailed.
22. Sokal’s method may be described as satirical because it involved
a) insincere imitation.
b) humour and innuendo.
c) unfair and deceptive means.
d) unfavourable analysis and criticism.
23. The term ‘epistemic’ refers to our knowledge of things rather than to the nature of the things themselves.
Accordingly, the phrase ‘epistemic relativism’, as used in Passage 1, most likely refers to
the idea that
a) knowledge is objective and eternal.
b) all knowledge is subjective and equally valid.
c) all knowledge is approximate and provisional.
d) knowledge is determined and controlled by political interests.
24. For Sokal, the logical extreme of postmodernist literary theory involves the notion that
a) reality defies language.
b) language distorts reality.
c) language has no meaning.
d) language constitutes reality.
25. The editors attribute their decision to publish Sokal’s article to
a) their intent to embarrass the author.
b) an inexplicable lapse in their judgement.
c) their professional openness and impartiality.
d) their desire to avoid criticism for not publishing it.
26. The editors’ justification of their decision to publish Sokal’s article reveals that they were unduly influenced by
a) the author’s reputation.
b) the presumed motivation of the author.
c) their elitist and guarded approach to their discipline.
d) their own tastes and preferences in scholarly writing.
27. The phrase ‘needless suspicion’ may be judged unintentionally ironic because
a) such a claim is easily made in hindsight.
b) the editors are unlikely to be sincere in making the claim.
c) the editors were, if anything, too suspicious of Sokal’s article.
d) such suspicion would appear to be normally warranted and necessary.
28. The justification offered by the editors for publishing Sokal’s article is best described as
a) assured and persuasive.
b)condescending and contradictory.
c) arrogant but fundamentally sound.
d) unnecessarily humble and apologetic.
29. Which of the following is the most significant conclusion that can plausibly be drawn from the ‘Sokal Affair ’ in the
light of the two passages?
a) It shows that scientists do not fully comprehend postmodern literary theory.
b) It suggests that the editors of Social Text did not really understand Sokal’s article.
c) It shows that the editors of Social Text have little understanding of scientific principles.
d) It raises doubts about the quality of thought characteristic of postmodern literary theory.
Section III Syllabus - Physics Part 1
Section III is the largest component of your marks, but can also be a daunting task to study. ACER lists the standard level of knowledge as approximately first-year university biology and chemistry, and good year 12 or first year uni physics. I think that even the chemistry and biology could be considered the equivalent of a solid year 12 program like the International Baccalaureate. I'll write a series of articles breaking down the most important concepts in Section III, with links to relevant resources, and link the lot once I'm done.
Don't forget that the Physics questions make up perhaps a quarter of section III of the GAMSAT, and in terms of your score it may not be worth your time to study physics in-depth if you can get better return elsewhere.
- Make sure that you are comfortable with natural laws - gravity, entropy, conservation of momentum and Newton's laws.
- Make sure that your maths skills are up to par and that you can read complex graphs and rearrange equations.
- Memorisation of equations is useful but not required; the only two I have found useful to memorise are f=ma and v=ir. Both are simple, easy to remember and easy to use, but can be applied to many GAMSAT questions.
Units and Scientific Notation
Know the standard units used for weight, distance, time and more. The units on each side of an equation will be the same, just as the number of atoms in a chemical equation will be the same. Also know the common prefixes for these units.
Many GAMSAT questions will use scientific notation for very large or very small quantities.
Quantities can be either scalars or vectors. Scalar quantities just have an amount, such as mass or speed or time; vector quantities also include a direction, such as displacement, velocity, and force. Vector quantities, such as forces, can still be added if they have different directions using trigonometry. The scalar quantity can be used as the length of the line representing the vector and the direction as the angle of the line. When adding two vectors, draw them as two lines of a triangle; the third line will be the resultant vector, or what you would get if you combined the two forces or displacements.
All objects have mass - mass being the amount of matter present in the object while weight is a measure of how much a gravitational force affects that matter. So an astronaut will always have mass, but her weight will vary depending on the astronaut's location: normal on Earth, light on the Moon, and negligible (weightless) in space.
A mass of one kilogram will accelerate at one meter a second when acted upon with a force of one newton. This is about a tenth of the force caused by Earth's gravitational pull, which varies by as much as .5% depending on location, and correspondingly higher acceleration of 9.8ms-2.
As an aside: What weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? They weigh the same, however they have different densities. When placed in water, the upwards force on the material is proportional to the volume of water displaced, so the lower density of feathers mean they will float while lead will sink. On the other hand, a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of lead, because precious metals like gold are still measured on the troy weight system.
Newton's laws of motion describe how objects move. The first law is the law of inertia, and states that an object with no forces acting upon it will remain either still or moving in a straight line at a constant speed.
The second law describes f=ma; that the force on an object is proportional to both it's mass and it's acceleration - pushing a small car is a lot easier than pushing a truck at the same acceleration. The third law is often paraphrased as "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This can be seen in low-friction systems such as on ice rinks, where exacting a force by pushing the wall will cause a reactive force pushing you out into the centre of the rink.
All objects have inertia or momentum - momentum is equal to mass times velocity. Momentum is conserved eg in collisions between billard balls or in executive toys.
An impulse is the change in a force over time. Because the change can be the same, a long, slow push can cause as much impulse as a short, hard push - so the change in momentum is proportional to both force and time. Modelling and Newton's laws contains some good information on modelling
The f=ma equations can also be used to calculate projectile motion, such as the physics standards of bullets or cannons fired into the air (don't forget they come down with the same force they went up with, and shooting bullets into the air leads to deaths every year)
The equation f=ma leads to a range of motion equations that can be used in more detail, however these can be derived.
Displacement, speed, velocity and acceleration can all be graphed over time - like cost and inflation, these are derivatives, and care should be taken with constants and signs.
Don't forget that the Physics questions make up perhaps a quarter of section III of the GAMSAT, and in terms of your score it may not be worth your time to study physics in-depth if you can get better return elsewhere.
- Make sure that you are comfortable with natural laws - gravity, entropy, conservation of momentum and Newton's laws.
- Make sure that your maths skills are up to par and that you can read complex graphs and rearrange equations.
- Memorisation of equations is useful but not required; the only two I have found useful to memorise are f=ma and v=ir. Both are simple, easy to remember and easy to use, but can be applied to many GAMSAT questions.
Units and Scientific Notation
Know the standard units used for weight, distance, time and more. The units on each side of an equation will be the same, just as the number of atoms in a chemical equation will be the same. Also know the common prefixes for these units.
Many GAMSAT questions will use scientific notation for very large or very small quantities.
Quantities can be either scalars or vectors. Scalar quantities just have an amount, such as mass or speed or time; vector quantities also include a direction, such as displacement, velocity, and force. Vector quantities, such as forces, can still be added if they have different directions using trigonometry. The scalar quantity can be used as the length of the line representing the vector and the direction as the angle of the line. When adding two vectors, draw them as two lines of a triangle; the third line will be the resultant vector, or what you would get if you combined the two forces or displacements.
All objects have mass - mass being the amount of matter present in the object while weight is a measure of how much a gravitational force affects that matter. So an astronaut will always have mass, but her weight will vary depending on the astronaut's location: normal on Earth, light on the Moon, and negligible (weightless) in space.
A mass of one kilogram will accelerate at one meter a second when acted upon with a force of one newton. This is about a tenth of the force caused by Earth's gravitational pull, which varies by as much as .5% depending on location, and correspondingly higher acceleration of 9.8ms-2.
As an aside: What weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? They weigh the same, however they have different densities. When placed in water, the upwards force on the material is proportional to the volume of water displaced, so the lower density of feathers mean they will float while lead will sink. On the other hand, a pound of gold weighs less than a pound of lead, because precious metals like gold are still measured on the troy weight system.
Newton's laws of motion describe how objects move. The first law is the law of inertia, and states that an object with no forces acting upon it will remain either still or moving in a straight line at a constant speed.
The second law describes f=ma; that the force on an object is proportional to both it's mass and it's acceleration - pushing a small car is a lot easier than pushing a truck at the same acceleration. The third law is often paraphrased as "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This can be seen in low-friction systems such as on ice rinks, where exacting a force by pushing the wall will cause a reactive force pushing you out into the centre of the rink.
All objects have inertia or momentum - momentum is equal to mass times velocity. Momentum is conserved eg in collisions between billard balls or in executive toys.
An impulse is the change in a force over time. Because the change can be the same, a long, slow push can cause as much impulse as a short, hard push - so the change in momentum is proportional to both force and time. Modelling and Newton's laws contains some good information on modelling
The f=ma equations can also be used to calculate projectile motion, such as the physics standards of bullets or cannons fired into the air (don't forget they come down with the same force they went up with, and shooting bullets into the air leads to deaths every year)
The equation f=ma leads to a range of motion equations that can be used in more detail, however these can be derived.
Displacement, speed, velocity and acceleration can all be graphed over time - like cost and inflation, these are derivatives, and care should be taken with constants and signs.
Best study methods for organic chemistry and anatomy
Those of you brushing up on the GAMSAT may be interested in a recent Ask Metafilter question on the best ways to study these complex subjects.
An organic chemistry teacher made an interesting point against memorising reaction patterns with flashcards:
Other useful tricks include
- Setting up a random revolving background image or wallpaper on your PC
- Breaking medical terminology into it's (Latin or Greek) word-roots to determine the meaning of the word, which will then more easily prompt your memory and understanding
- Using spaced repetition to vary how often you revisit material. One variation of this is the Leitner system where material is sorted based on the number of errors made in recall; other software implementations use a logarithmic drop-off in how frequently memorised material is presented.
An organic chemistry teacher made an interesting point against memorising reaction patterns with flashcards:
Organic chemistry is all about patterns. The question you see on an exam will look, at first glance, absolutely nothing like the example that you've studied, which is why the flash carders rarely do well. The trick to doing well is to learn the types of reactions, why they happen, and then seeing which of those apply to molecule/conditions in question. In most cases, a large molecule can be reduced down to a single functional group that's doing a very simple reaction, and the rest of it that's just along for the ride. Once you do that, there are usually a very narrow set of possibilities for a given problem.
Other useful tricks include
- Setting up a random revolving background image or wallpaper on your PC
- Breaking medical terminology into it's (Latin or Greek) word-roots to determine the meaning of the word, which will then more easily prompt your memory and understanding
- Using spaced repetition to vary how often you revisit material. One variation of this is the Leitner system where material is sorted based on the number of errors made in recall; other software implementations use a logarithmic drop-off in how frequently memorised material is presented.
Last minute GAMSAT 1 month study plan days 21-30
Days 1-10
Days 11-20
Days 21-30
Days 11-20
Days 21-30
- Day 21: Read up on multiple choice question formats and how these are used. In the GAMSAT, there is only one correct answer for each question, and incorrect questions are not penalised. While few know the inner workings of ACER, test questions have been notes on some papers - the questions that you get may not be the same questions that your fellow students get, and it's unlikely that these marks are used to calculate your score, but rather server to gather other information and 'test' the question for inclusion in next year's GAMSAT. In addition, harder questions may also be weighted more highly.
When answering multiple-choice questions, feel free to mark on the sheet any answers that you do not feel are correct. This can make it easier if you need to come back to the question. Other strategies can include choosing the middle answer from a range of numbers, an answer whose negative is also listed, options that are not absolute or that contain qualifiers, or the answer that looks best to you. See the NSW Board of Studies for online multiple-choice questions from various HSC subjects.
Interestingly, a study has recently shown that you are more than three times as likely to correct a wrong answer for a right one as a right answer for a wrong one.
- Day 22: Look up IUPAC naming. Create a model of a molecule from a name only:
- 3-ethyl-4-methylhexane
2-bromo-2-chloro-1,1,1,-trifluoroethane
4-oxobutanoic acid
2-methylbutane
Or try the molecule in the linked article: 18-bromo-12-butyl-11-chloro-4,8-diethyl-5-hydroxy-15-methoxytricos-6,13-dien-19-yne-3,9-dione
Then apply a reaction as per Day 5. What two molecules would come together through Fisher esterification to create your random molecule? What mechanism would you use to add a methyl group to the fourth carbon? What's your molecule's new name?
- Day 23: Take a full length practice test.
- Day 24: Recap on test.
- Day 25: Look over any weak points on the test. More specifically, reassure yourself about any weak points you feel you have - remind yourself how small a contribution each small subject makes to the overall GAMSAT. Diss those who spent all their time studying optics, and reassure yourself that poetry majors will not get paid well anyway.
- Day 26: Understand the principle of conservation: everything on both sides of an equation or equilibrium must balance, including atoms, electrons, and energy. This can be used as with Hess's law to calculate the change in energy from a reaction. If a reaction produces energy, then like a ball rolling downhill it will tend to go ahead; the Gibbs free energy change can be calculated to see in which direction an equibrium will move.
- Day 27: Read Ambrose Bierce's Devils's Dictionary. Explain to your cat or significant other why, exactly, each entry is funny. Consider the following extract; then because you can, model the socially important opioids. Then, consider the ethical implications of providing such drugs to drug-seeking patients. Would you give a placebo to such patients, if requested by their specialist doctor as in this case?.
OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
- Day 28: Ohm's law: v=ir. One of two very simple physics equations that you should have memorised. V is the potential difference in volts; I is the current in amperes or amps and R is the resistance in ohms.
- Day 29: How will you deal with graphs and diagrams, and long slabs of text to ensure they don't waste your valuable test time? Simple. Skim first, then read the questions, then check back into the text to find your answers. You don't have to comprehend completely on first reading, if you are skilled at picking up the meaning of each sentence quickly. Look into speed reading and skimming to improve your comprehension and speed. Don't try for large improvements, but skimming up to 1000 words/minute is achievable. More than this and you may be being sold a dodgy product.
- Day 30: Rest day - see our article on what to do the day before the GAMSAT. Undertake pre-exam ritual such as purchasing The Exam Pen, snacks and chocolate for the day.
Last minute GAMSAT 1 month study plan days 11-20
Days 1-10
Days 11-20
Days 21-30
Days 11-20
Days 21-30
- Day 11: Look up the human heart and how it works. What’s the pressure in different areas of the heart? What would the pressure look like graphed over time in the aorta? In the left ventricle? If you were graphing the sound of the heart over the space of one heartbeat, at what point would you hear the biscupid valve close? The tricuspid? What would happen if blood was noisily flowing past a blockage in the aorta, or in the pulmonary artery? Which point in your graph is systole? Diastole? Which vessels carry oxygenated blood? Nutrient-rich blood?
- Day 12: Optics. Firstly, the important thing to remember with mirrors is that the angle of incidence should be equal to the incidence of refraction. This and some simple geometry should be sufficient to solve the mirrored table tennis table problem – can you solve these in less than a minute?
- A table tennis table with a mirrored surface is set up in a room with a single window. The table tennis table has an opaque net 10cm high. The sun shines through the window, off the surface of the table, and projects a light patch onto the opposite wall. What is the height of the shadow caused by the net? If the table is moved 1m closer to the window, how does the image on the opposite wall change?
- Day 13: Section 1 comprehension. Poetry and cartoon comprehension. Read through some cartoons like xkcd. What’s funny about each cartoon? What’s implied, but not stated? Find some somewhat obscure poetry. What’s the poem about? How does the poem use rhythm, rhyme and choice of words to get across the poet’s message? Look at poetry analysis– the Wikipedia article has several examples that talk you through the process of analysing poetry for meaning and intent. Be able to use literary terms to describe what you are reading.
- Day 14: Take second half-length practice test, again to time. Try practicing moving through the questions you know fastest and making sure you don’t run out of time.
- Day 15: Recap on test. Homeostasis and hormones, feedback loops. Drawing hormone interaction diagrams to simply understanding.
- Day 16: Membranes exist in many forms. They form a barrier between two areas. If the membrane is semi-permeable, or has small holes, then solutes - molecules dissolved in a solvent like water - can pass through it. If a solute such as salt is introduced to one side of a membrane, then it will slowly move through the membrane until the concentration on both sides is equal in a process calleddiffusion. Water will similarly move to equalise concentration - this is called osmosis.
Examine the lipid membrane. Understand polar and non-polar molecules. How does soap work to break up fat? How does the lipid membrane separate the interior of the cell from the exterior?Ion channels and pumps are proteins that form channels to cross over the lipid bilayer. What parts of the proteins are polar? What parts are non-polar? What molecules require energy to pump across the membrane?
- Day 17: Fun day!
- Day 18: Read a book on being a doctor, with personal experiences. Look up a series of medical school interview questions and take some time to think and answer each one. Then think about how you would use this material in your reflective essay. It may be on a topic such as intelligence or the importance of family or social networks.
- Day 19: Meiosis and mitosis. Get out the spoons and forks from your kitchen, chuck them on the table, and poof! they're chromosomes. Practice running through the different cell divisions. How many offspring cells at there at each point? When do chromosomes mix up and cross over? At what point is the DNA collated into chromosomes, and at what point is it spread out? If you had a graph of the DNA concentrations within cells, can you pick the different phases?
- Day 20: F=MA is one of two equations you will need to memorise for physics. Force in newtons equals mass in kilograms times acceleration in metres per second per second. This may seem a little confusing but distance is measured in metres, speed is measured as change in distance per second, thus metres/second, and acceleration is change is speed per second - thus meters/second/second. You can rearrange this equation as needed.
For example, if a 60kg sprinter leaves the blocks at an acceleration of 5m/s/s, what force would the sprinter need to push back on a block of a 30 degree angle from the ground? In this case you would need to break work out the unknown force on the 30 degree block into a vertical and a horizontal component using trigonometry. The horizontal component is known - the 5m/s/s.
Last minute GAMSAT 1 month study plan day 1-10
Stuck for time? Needing to get some GAMSAT study in stat before the exam looms? Here are 30 days of small actions to help you max out your marks.
Days 1-10
Days 11-20
Days 21-30
- Day 1: Check that you are registered for the GAMSAT. Line up or order any necessary study materials such as textbooks, organic chemistry model kits, practice questions. Check forums for old copies of prep materials for sale, check out your university's second-hand bookshop, look at free online resources. Create a study area and set aside a quiet study time for each day. Print out five copies of your admissions ticket and tuck them into your wallet, handbag and jeans pockets so you will not forget it on the day.
- Day 2: Take one of the half-length ACER practice tests. Ensure you take it in a quiet place and to the correct time (don't forget, only give yourself half as long!). Do not use any materials. Get a feel for the length and size of the test, any mental fatigue, how you pace yourself. Take note of which questions you got stuck on the length (still stuck halfway through reading question) and which questions you got stuck on the content (read, but did not understand, and could not work out an answer). The first you'll be improving by using your scanning and speed-reading skills to pull out relevant sections. The second indicate areas you will need to study.
- Day 3: Mark your practice test. Panic, and then remember that it's very hard to align raw test scores to final GAMSAT scores after test questions had been removed, scores adjusted and scaled, etc; especially going on only half a test. Sign up to a GAMSAT forum to compare scores with others taking the test. For your essay, request feedback from suitably-qualified friends or colleagues, bribe college teachers for feedback with food, post essays on forums, or pay for an essay marking service.
- Day 4: Sign up for a word of the day email. Change daily reading habits to include high-brow newspapers and magazine, especially opinions - check comments section of abc.net.au news and opinions, The Australian. Set up email or RSS feeds to have this material delivered directly to you so you cannot ignore it. Visit your local library to check out books on being a doctor, biological ethics, and literature for Section I practice, or search the Web and Project Gutenberg.
- Day 5: Pull out the model kit – or make some playdough and toothpicks – or a whiteboard and marker. It's organic chemistry time! Pick a molecule such as caffeine. Draw it. Create the model. What are it’s functional groups? Does it contain rings, double bonds, triple bonds? Now recreate it backwards, and then in mirror image. Is it chiral? Check your organic chemistry textbook and find a reaction that could occur to your molecule. Look at the sample in your textbook, then at your model. Which carbon chain in your model is R? Which is R’? What happens to the molecule during the reaction? Recreate your model after the reaction. What if R and R’ were connected as a ring? Repeat with different molecules and reactions.
- Day 6: Read up on the essays for Section II. Know about the two essay formats; the argumentative and the reflective. The essay is a lot less easy to define than study of science materials but it's also easier to pick up good marks with some simple changes.
- Day 7: Look into speed reading and skimming. Practice on some of your texts for section III. Can you skim a complex text or diagram, and then when checking the question know where to turn back to? This will speed up your answers to questions. Skimming is mostly a matter of slowly building up the spaces between where your eyes rest on the page - creating greater saccades - and letting your peripheral vision pick up the rest.
- Day 8: Make up some genetic traits like left- or right-eyed flounder fish or green- or purple-eyed aliens. Which one is recessive? Which is dominant? Make up a Punnett square to show what happens if two creatures with different genotypes breed. What's the probability you'll get a green-eyed alien? What's the possibility, if it bred with itself, that it's offspring would also be green-eyed? Would it be pure-bred (also known as homozygous, ie you'd never get purple-eyed offspring)? What if your alien did not have only two of every gene, but three? What would the offspring ratios look like then? Mendel's original experiments on peas are interesting and great simple examples - although modern statistics say he might have fudged his numbers! Finally, can you work out the percentages for each offspring type in an overall population using only the allele percentages? (Hint: Hardy-Weinberg)
- Day 9: Read a book on philosophy, logic, or science ethics. What makes a strong argument? Think back on some points argued in the book that you read. Were these strong arguments? Look into a list of logical fallacies. Have you used some of these in your arguments?
- Day 10: Look at the comments on a news website on a recent, controversial issue - perhaps something medically related such as euthanasia or abortion. Can you spot the logical fallacies in their arguments? How does the quality of arguments vary between 'tabloid' websites such as news.com.au and other websites such as abc.net.au? Write a short practice argumentative essay on the topic, checking your logic and your facts.
Review of the Guru Method for GAMSAT preparation
The GURU method is a study program available online at Gurumethod.com.au. The content available for free includes a free PDF and a ten-day email course, also available at gamsatpreparation.org. The paid content consists of practice questions for section I and III, and although the 2010 course has not been released, it should include a section on essay-writing for section II.
The free PDF focuses on one specific method of studying for the GAMSAT. Michael Tan argues that the GAMSAT was designed to get a new sort of medical school candidate: rather than attracting fresh out of high school swotters and nerds, the GAMSAT was designed to prefer a more rounded, older postgraduate student. The test is therefore less based on swotting and studying material and more about ranking understanding and comprehension between students with widely different backgrounds.
Michael Tan argues that this is why ACER includes so many complicated diagrams and long test passages in the questions. Even if you've studied and are an expert on the material, if you cannot quickly understand and excerpt information and separate what you need from the dross then you cannot complete the questions quickly enough to score well on the GAMSAT. Many GAMSAT candidates will complain about how rushed they felt! It's always a wonderful bit of schadenfreude to put down your pencil with five minutes on the clock, and having looked over your answers, and take a break while everyone else is still frantically flicking through their test books.
The time permitted for each question is very small - 80 seconds for Section I, 92 seconds for Section III, and 30 minutes to plan and write a complex essay for Section II. This may not seem like much, but it’s doable. I aim for 1 minute per question in sections I and III for a first run-through in which I pick up 80% of my answers – that’s a lot easier to keep track of than 92 seconds!. I leave the hardest questions for later, and this gives me additional time on those harder questions.
The Gamsat Guru method seems focused on running though all practice questions at GAMSAT speed to acclimatise you to answering the questions within the short timeframe. It does not have a focus on science study. Perhaps you could call it more of a course on how to take the GAMSAT than a course on science and humanities topics, like the Des O’Neill courses. I haven’t seen or heard any information on their essay test section which is due out for the 2010 GAMSAT season.
I also think that Gamsat Guru places too large an emphasis on moving through questions quickly. Without the correct knowledge behind you, you are just going to be getting the wrong answers faster. It’s also easier to answer the questions fast if you understand the material. I think that getting speed-answering of GAMSAT questions is best used as part of a study plan which also includes understanding the most common GAMSAT questions, material and concepts, towards the end of your studies and as you’re getting closer to the GAMSAT test date.
Additionally, Michael Tan recommends that you do not look at non-GAMSAT materials. While there are free GAMSAT materials available, the quality varies and there is not a large amount in terms of volume. I feel that materials such as textbook and MCAT questions can be really valuable in making sure you understand the material you will be tested on.
The Gamsat Guru is most likely to be useful to a well-rounded science student who feel that they know the material already, but could improve the speed of their test-taking – and that’s a pretty small area. I’d advise you to try a free or cheap ACER practice test, timed, before looking into this course further, and see if your speed is an issue for you.
The free PDF focuses on one specific method of studying for the GAMSAT. Michael Tan argues that the GAMSAT was designed to get a new sort of medical school candidate: rather than attracting fresh out of high school swotters and nerds, the GAMSAT was designed to prefer a more rounded, older postgraduate student. The test is therefore less based on swotting and studying material and more about ranking understanding and comprehension between students with widely different backgrounds.
Michael Tan argues that this is why ACER includes so many complicated diagrams and long test passages in the questions. Even if you've studied and are an expert on the material, if you cannot quickly understand and excerpt information and separate what you need from the dross then you cannot complete the questions quickly enough to score well on the GAMSAT. Many GAMSAT candidates will complain about how rushed they felt! It's always a wonderful bit of schadenfreude to put down your pencil with five minutes on the clock, and having looked over your answers, and take a break while everyone else is still frantically flicking through their test books.
The time permitted for each question is very small - 80 seconds for Section I, 92 seconds for Section III, and 30 minutes to plan and write a complex essay for Section II. This may not seem like much, but it’s doable. I aim for 1 minute per question in sections I and III for a first run-through in which I pick up 80% of my answers – that’s a lot easier to keep track of than 92 seconds!. I leave the hardest questions for later, and this gives me additional time on those harder questions.
The Gamsat Guru method seems focused on running though all practice questions at GAMSAT speed to acclimatise you to answering the questions within the short timeframe. It does not have a focus on science study. Perhaps you could call it more of a course on how to take the GAMSAT than a course on science and humanities topics, like the Des O’Neill courses. I haven’t seen or heard any information on their essay test section which is due out for the 2010 GAMSAT season.
I also think that Gamsat Guru places too large an emphasis on moving through questions quickly. Without the correct knowledge behind you, you are just going to be getting the wrong answers faster. It’s also easier to answer the questions fast if you understand the material. I think that getting speed-answering of GAMSAT questions is best used as part of a study plan which also includes understanding the most common GAMSAT questions, material and concepts, towards the end of your studies and as you’re getting closer to the GAMSAT test date.
Additionally, Michael Tan recommends that you do not look at non-GAMSAT materials. While there are free GAMSAT materials available, the quality varies and there is not a large amount in terms of volume. I feel that materials such as textbook and MCAT questions can be really valuable in making sure you understand the material you will be tested on.
The Gamsat Guru is most likely to be useful to a well-rounded science student who feel that they know the material already, but could improve the speed of their test-taking – and that’s a pretty small area. I’d advise you to try a free or cheap ACER practice test, timed, before looking into this course further, and see if your speed is an issue for you.
Free GAMSAT resources online - and how to use them
UPDATE 2015: Check out my new post 'More free GAMSAT study resources' which updates and expands on this list!
When studying for the GAMSAT you may be tempted by the expensive courses on offer. As I studied entirely on my own, I'm not really qualified to offer an opinion on these courses.
Consider these free alternatives:
Some companies which promote GAMSAT material will allow you to access limited amounts of that material for free.
Medprep International offers free practice questions and a short sample course.
Des O'Neill offers a free mailout with practice questions and an essay topic that I found useful in addition to the ACER practice questions.
Gradmed, based in the UK, have an hour and a half's worth of questions on their website as well.
Forums such as Paging Dr or gamsatforum.com have heaps on information on all subjects GAMSAT related and are often up to date - an excellent place to meet up with others studying for the GAMSAT at the same time.
Some attempts at collating GAMSAT material online have been attempted, such as on Wikibooks and a comprehensive MCAT textbook at MCAT Pearls (warning, Google lists this site as a malware distributor. So access it from a uni computer.).
Ask around at school for someone who's sat the GAMSAT previously - they may have suggestions or GAMSAT material they're happy to pass on.
Practice test booklets are also available at low cost from ACER - much cheaper than a full course.
Potentially less useful alternatives include the spammier course providers, mostly operating online.
From their free newsletter service I find Tomasz Forfa's service of PassGamsat.com to be unhelpful. As you can tell from their website, the emails reek of slick copywriting but seem short on content. You may find the emails helpful as a motivational tool or reminder and he does offer a free ebook. See his Ehow article for an example of the same slick copywriting.
Gamsat Guru also appear to have an email list. I'm testing it out at the moment.
I'd suggest that you use a list of GAMSAT topics to narrow down your study, then use the free material eg at MCAT Pearls to study. Test yourself with the free material first to make sure you're on the right track, but also do some practice tests with the ACER material as this comes closest to replicating the style of the GAMSAT test.
I'd advise against using non-GAMSAT style questions. They're helpful for testing your knowledge, but a huge part of doing well on the GAMSAT is not your knowledge but rather being able to pick a best selection from a multiple choice question. Stick to GAMSAT style questions and you'll get some valuable practice at this skill.
Consider these free alternatives:
Some companies which promote GAMSAT material will allow you to access limited amounts of that material for free.
Medprep International offers free practice questions and a short sample course.
Des O'Neill offers a free mailout with practice questions and an essay topic that I found useful in addition to the ACER practice questions.
Gradmed, based in the UK, have an hour and a half's worth of questions on their website as well.
Forums such as Paging Dr or gamsatforum.com have heaps on information on all subjects GAMSAT related and are often up to date - an excellent place to meet up with others studying for the GAMSAT at the same time.
Some attempts at collating GAMSAT material online have been attempted, such as on Wikibooks and a comprehensive MCAT textbook at MCAT Pearls (warning, Google lists this site as a malware distributor. So access it from a uni computer.).
Ask around at school for someone who's sat the GAMSAT previously - they may have suggestions or GAMSAT material they're happy to pass on.
Practice test booklets are also available at low cost from ACER - much cheaper than a full course.
Potentially less useful alternatives include the spammier course providers, mostly operating online.
From their free newsletter service I find Tomasz Forfa's service of PassGamsat.com to be unhelpful. As you can tell from their website, the emails reek of slick copywriting but seem short on content. You may find the emails helpful as a motivational tool or reminder and he does offer a free ebook. See his Ehow article for an example of the same slick copywriting.
Gamsat Guru also appear to have an email list. I'm testing it out at the moment.
I'd suggest that you use a list of GAMSAT topics to narrow down your study, then use the free material eg at MCAT Pearls to study. Test yourself with the free material first to make sure you're on the right track, but also do some practice tests with the ACER material as this comes closest to replicating the style of the GAMSAT test.
I'd advise against using non-GAMSAT style questions. They're helpful for testing your knowledge, but a huge part of doing well on the GAMSAT is not your knowledge but rather being able to pick a best selection from a multiple choice question. Stick to GAMSAT style questions and you'll get some valuable practice at this skill.
Guessing in Multiple Choice Tests
The GAMSAT relies heavily on multiple-choice questions. While this means the test can be marked by machine (this is why you'll use a really soft, dark graphite pencil, and completely erase all smudges), it also means that they're not testing your knowledge as they could in an in-person interview. If you've been schooled in Australia, hopefully you've had exposure to many multiple-choice tests. This will help you.
Firstly, there's no reasoning listed when you mark an answer, just a circle. It does not matter how you got that answer. This means if you guessed every single question on the GAMSAT, you'd score around 25%. If there is any question you are unsure of, you will can guess, and you'll score yourself - on average - 25% of a correct answer. Do not leave any questions unanswered. Best to leave yourself a few minutes at the end of the test to go back over all the answers you don't know, and guess them.
Often you will be able to narrow down your options even further. In the science section, is one of the answers the wrong order of magnitude? In the humanities section, is one of the answers nonsensical given the stimulus paragraph? I like to mark an option I have decided is not correct by crossing out the letter. This means that when I'm reviewing my answer, I can more quickly see why I made the choice I did.
In high-school tests, you may have heard that there's a bias for C or B answers. This is not true for the GAMSAT as it is highly randomised. I'd advise you to look at the questions and see if you can rule out some of the options in the questions instead. You can usually increase your chances this way. Whatever you do, do not leave any questions blank. It's worth filling in all remaining questions with five or ten minutes to go, then change any you need to - at least you have them down.
When guessing, watch out for strong, decisive answers (X must happen in every circumstance, all of the above are true) unless you know them to be the case. If a question has two answers that are similar, the answer may be more likely to be one of the two. An answer that differs from all the rest may be more likely to be correct. Test for answers being a multiple of numbers in the prompt, or check the magnitude of the correct answer.
Making educated guesses for questions will give you much better results than leaving the questions blank.
Firstly, there's no reasoning listed when you mark an answer, just a circle. It does not matter how you got that answer. This means if you guessed every single question on the GAMSAT, you'd score around 25%. If there is any question you are unsure of, you will can guess, and you'll score yourself - on average - 25% of a correct answer. Do not leave any questions unanswered. Best to leave yourself a few minutes at the end of the test to go back over all the answers you don't know, and guess them.
Often you will be able to narrow down your options even further. In the science section, is one of the answers the wrong order of magnitude? In the humanities section, is one of the answers nonsensical given the stimulus paragraph? I like to mark an option I have decided is not correct by crossing out the letter. This means that when I'm reviewing my answer, I can more quickly see why I made the choice I did.
In high-school tests, you may have heard that there's a bias for C or B answers. This is not true for the GAMSAT as it is highly randomised. I'd advise you to look at the questions and see if you can rule out some of the options in the questions instead. You can usually increase your chances this way. Whatever you do, do not leave any questions blank. It's worth filling in all remaining questions with five or ten minutes to go, then change any you need to - at least you have them down.
When guessing, watch out for strong, decisive answers (X must happen in every circumstance, all of the above are true) unless you know them to be the case. If a question has two answers that are similar, the answer may be more likely to be one of the two. An answer that differs from all the rest may be more likely to be correct. Test for answers being a multiple of numbers in the prompt, or check the magnitude of the correct answer.
Making educated guesses for questions will give you much better results than leaving the questions blank.
Section II general essay hints
The technicalities - 1 hour writing time, 5 minutes reading time. In this time you are to complete two essays. Each essay should be allowed 25 minutes solid writing time and around 5 minutes planning time. The number of words can vary widely - I'm guessing I generally write 500-600 words. The booklet provided is quite small with about 3 lined pages for writing and 2 blank pages for planning.
As you have limited time, you should keep your essays short and sweet. Structure is one of the points you are marked on so try to have a reasonable essay structure, with an introduction of your thesis, three paragraphs of supporting evidence, and a conclusion. There are many useful resources on essay structure which may be useful if you are not used to writing essays. Also, ensure that your essay is logical and avoid absolutes as these are much harder to logically defend (eg most doctors, not all doctors).
There used to be two types of essays used in the GAMSAT which had different emphases. One essay was used as a personal/ reflective type essay which the other was a more logical/rational argumentative essay. This has now been removed from the ACER guide and they may not be following this structure anymore.
The essay is designed to test a few things that the GAMSAT cannot. While the GANSAT tests application of logical reasoning, it does not test being able to create logical arguments. It also does not test for clear, concise writing and adequate spelling and grammar abilities. and finally, the essay is a chance for doctors to show the soft skills they may not be able to demonstrate in the GAMSAT itself.
With a interviews apparently going out of fashion, this demonstration of these soft skills may be even more important. Keep the ultimate goal of the test - your future career as a doctor - in mind as you write an essay, as many essay topics can be related back to this (the last year's topics were youth and intelligence, something most student doctors have, and so I wrote an essay on hubris).
Another suggestion for coming up with a position based on the quote material is to find a quote that induces a strong argumentative response. Often, the quotes will use opposite sides of an argument. You can also pick a topic based on the quotes' common theme. Don't feel that you need to use all the quotes or, indeed, any of the quotes - I find they are helpful to refer to once or twice but the quotes, as justification, will have been overused. It is better to provide your own individual supporting material to personalise your essay.
You can find this supporting material in a wide variety of sources. I agree that you'll need to read widely as preparation for the GAMSAT, so you can sometimes remember quotes from material you were reading, newspaper stories. Other sources I've used include song lyrics, vaguely remembered scientific articles, and personal experiences (including those of my friends). Use a variety of this supporting material - some, like the scientific evidence, is logical and indisputable, and you need not feel that you need to quote the another or source (Studies have shown ...). Some, like the personal experiences and quotes from your reading, helps develop the reader's impression of you as a person. And your interpretation of other's feelings can help show empathy. I usually use the reading time to come up with a rough thesis for each essay and recall around five different examples which support my thesis, with a good mix of sources. This is more than sufficient for such a short essay and even then I find myself shortening experiences and quote interpretations. If you find the essays seem to have that interpretive/introspective split, it may be best to weight your examples similarly.
In terms of writing the essay, it's very hard for those of us used to writing on computers to transition to writing solely on the page - we can't go back and edit seamlessly. If you feel you are writing a piece you need to edit, you can write on every second line to leave more space. If you find yourself unable to think of an introductory topic, you can leave a large space at the start of the essay and come back to it. And don't be afraid to use clearly marked footnotes and/or asterisks to mark new sections you would have inserted. When taking the IB, it was emphasised that anything you write, the examiners have to read. Make it easy for them, but don't feel you need to write the essay all in one chunk. On the other hand, you only have a limited amount of time and do not want to be handing in an essay missing a first paragraph. In your practice essays, try to keep this stream of consciousness type material flowing. You may find this section a lot easier if you've had, as in the ACT system, in-class essays and the AST to practice.
Try to keep your handwriting legible.
You can also get your essays critiqued, whether on one of the student doctor forums online or by paid tutors. Several tutoring companies offer essay-marking packages. You can get feedback from teachers, colleagues and friends as well.
As you have limited time, you should keep your essays short and sweet. Structure is one of the points you are marked on so try to have a reasonable essay structure, with an introduction of your thesis, three paragraphs of supporting evidence, and a conclusion. There are many useful resources on essay structure which may be useful if you are not used to writing essays. Also, ensure that your essay is logical and avoid absolutes as these are much harder to logically defend (eg most doctors, not all doctors).
There used to be two types of essays used in the GAMSAT which had different emphases. One essay was used as a personal/ reflective type essay which the other was a more logical/rational argumentative essay. This has now been removed from the ACER guide and they may not be following this structure anymore.
The essay is designed to test a few things that the GAMSAT cannot. While the GANSAT tests application of logical reasoning, it does not test being able to create logical arguments. It also does not test for clear, concise writing and adequate spelling and grammar abilities. and finally, the essay is a chance for doctors to show the soft skills they may not be able to demonstrate in the GAMSAT itself.
With a interviews apparently going out of fashion, this demonstration of these soft skills may be even more important. Keep the ultimate goal of the test - your future career as a doctor - in mind as you write an essay, as many essay topics can be related back to this (the last year's topics were youth and intelligence, something most student doctors have, and so I wrote an essay on hubris).
Another suggestion for coming up with a position based on the quote material is to find a quote that induces a strong argumentative response. Often, the quotes will use opposite sides of an argument. You can also pick a topic based on the quotes' common theme. Don't feel that you need to use all the quotes or, indeed, any of the quotes - I find they are helpful to refer to once or twice but the quotes, as justification, will have been overused. It is better to provide your own individual supporting material to personalise your essay.
You can find this supporting material in a wide variety of sources. I agree that you'll need to read widely as preparation for the GAMSAT, so you can sometimes remember quotes from material you were reading, newspaper stories. Other sources I've used include song lyrics, vaguely remembered scientific articles, and personal experiences (including those of my friends). Use a variety of this supporting material - some, like the scientific evidence, is logical and indisputable, and you need not feel that you need to quote the another or source (Studies have shown ...). Some, like the personal experiences and quotes from your reading, helps develop the reader's impression of you as a person. And your interpretation of other's feelings can help show empathy. I usually use the reading time to come up with a rough thesis for each essay and recall around five different examples which support my thesis, with a good mix of sources. This is more than sufficient for such a short essay and even then I find myself shortening experiences and quote interpretations. If you find the essays seem to have that interpretive/introspective split, it may be best to weight your examples similarly.
In terms of writing the essay, it's very hard for those of us used to writing on computers to transition to writing solely on the page - we can't go back and edit seamlessly. If you feel you are writing a piece you need to edit, you can write on every second line to leave more space. If you find yourself unable to think of an introductory topic, you can leave a large space at the start of the essay and come back to it. And don't be afraid to use clearly marked footnotes and/or asterisks to mark new sections you would have inserted. When taking the IB, it was emphasised that anything you write, the examiners have to read. Make it easy for them, but don't feel you need to write the essay all in one chunk. On the other hand, you only have a limited amount of time and do not want to be handing in an essay missing a first paragraph. In your practice essays, try to keep this stream of consciousness type material flowing. You may find this section a lot easier if you've had, as in the ACT system, in-class essays and the AST to practice.
Try to keep your handwriting legible.
You can also get your essays critiqued, whether on one of the student doctor forums online or by paid tutors. Several tutoring companies offer essay-marking packages. You can get feedback from teachers, colleagues and friends as well.
Practice Question - The Devil's Dictionary
One source that's appeared in at least one GAMSAT test and several practice tests is Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary. The entire dictionary makes use of satirical definitions for humour.
Question:
a) They are an invention of the devil.
b) They allow one to avoid disagreeable people.
c) They abrogate, or force, higher levels of contact between all people.
d) They allow disagreeable people to contact one.
ACER also provided a test question to the Guardian when they published an article on the use of the GAMSAT in the UK.
Question:
IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of the two conflicting opinions.
The definition suggests that being impartial is a sign of:
a) indecision
b) lack of insight
c) lack of interest
d) lack of prejudice
Answer: C
The usual meaning of 'impartial' is closest to answer D, lack of prejudice. However, the Devil's Dictionary definition undermines the very possibility of such a notion of impartiality. The unstated premise is that people are motivated by self-interest and that no one would bother to take sides on an issue unless they had something to gain by doing so. Here, the point of criticism is not that people are too blind to recognise personal advantage, but they are all too likely to recognise nothing else.
Question:
- TELEPHONE, n.
- An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
a) They are an invention of the devil.
b) They allow one to avoid disagreeable people.
c) They abrogate, or force, higher levels of contact between all people.
d) They allow disagreeable people to contact one.
ACER also provided a test question to the Guardian when they published an article on the use of the GAMSAT in the UK.
Question:
IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of the two conflicting opinions.
The definition suggests that being impartial is a sign of:
a) indecision
b) lack of insight
c) lack of interest
d) lack of prejudice
Answer: C
The usual meaning of 'impartial' is closest to answer D, lack of prejudice. However, the Devil's Dictionary definition undermines the very possibility of such a notion of impartiality. The unstated premise is that people are motivated by self-interest and that no one would bother to take sides on an issue unless they had something to gain by doing so. Here, the point of criticism is not that people are too blind to recognise personal advantage, but they are all too likely to recognise nothing else.
Practice question - Fish osmosis
Prompt
The following table contains details of the relative solutes in a variety of fish and their environments. Both sharks and bony fish live in the sea.
Questions
Which of the fish types would need to drink water in their normal environment?
A. Freshwater fish
B. Bony fish
C. Sharks
D. None of the above
In which fish is there likely to be a net solute flow into the fish?
A. Freshwater fish and bony fish
B. Bony fish only
C. Sharks only
D. Both freshwater fish and sharks
The following table contains details of the relative solutes in a variety of fish and their environments. Both sharks and bony fish live in the sea.
| Salt | Urea | Osmotic concentration | |
| Sea water | 1000 | 1000 | |
| Fresh water | 20 | 20 | |
| Sharks | 650 | 400 | 1050 |
| Bony fish | 190 | 190 | |
| Freshwater fish | 130 | 130 |
Questions
Which of the fish types would need to drink water in their normal environment?
A. Freshwater fish
B. Bony fish
C. Sharks
D. None of the above
In which fish is there likely to be a net solute flow into the fish?
A. Freshwater fish and bony fish
B. Bony fish only
C. Sharks only
D. Both freshwater fish and sharks
Practice question - Metabolic rates
Prompt
The below diagram shows changes in metabolic rates dependant on body and environment temperature for two mammals, the kangaroo rat and the harbour seal.
(diagram)
Questions
When outside temperature drops below body temperature, the kangaroo rat's metabolism increases
A. at different rates but at the same body temperatures
B. at the same rate at the same body temperatures
C. at different rates at different body temperatures
D. at the same rate at different body temperatures
When outside temperature drops below body temperature, the harbour seal's metabolism increases
A. at different rates but at the same body temperatures
B. at the same rate at the same body temperatures
C. at different rates at different body temperatures
D. at the same rate at different body temperatures
Answers
Kangaroo rat - D, harbour seal - A
The below diagram shows changes in metabolic rates dependant on body and environment temperature for two mammals, the kangaroo rat and the harbour seal.
(diagram)
Questions
When outside temperature drops below body temperature, the kangaroo rat's metabolism increases
A. at different rates but at the same body temperatures
B. at the same rate at the same body temperatures
C. at different rates at different body temperatures
D. at the same rate at different body temperatures
When outside temperature drops below body temperature, the harbour seal's metabolism increases
A. at different rates but at the same body temperatures
B. at the same rate at the same body temperatures
C. at different rates at different body temperatures
D. at the same rate at different body temperatures
Answers
Kangaroo rat - D, harbour seal - A
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