Improve Your Score

It is likely that your general preparation for GAMSAT has already taken place. You presumably have completed two, three, or four years of an undergraduate university degree. You likely have taken first and second year science classes as well as classes from the humanities and social sciences. Above all you probably have become skilled at reading a wide range of textual materials. It is likely that your coursework and extracurricular reading have served to expand your working vocabulary, increase your familiarity with the types of texts and arguments typical of a number of disciplines and develop your reading pace to a reasonable level. At this point, you must adopt a more active, organised and disciplined GAMSAT revision strategy.

The information necessary to answer the questions on this section will be presented in the accompanying stimulus material: passages, poems, and displays. Over the long term, your performance on this section will be enhanced by participation in a variety of classes in the humanities and social sciences during your undergraduate degree. You need not specialise in any of these areas, but through your reading and coursework you should become familiar with the types of critical thinking and reasoning skills employed in these disciplines.

If you have experienced problems on this section of GAMSAT, they may reflect your level of proficiency in reading the passages, answering the questions, working within the prescribed time limit, or some combination of these elements. If you had difficulty reading the prose passages, the most common skills evaluation vehicle on this section of GAMSAT, you may need to learn about argument as a form of written discourse. Knowing the purpose, content and structure of argument can help you process the texts and answer the questions.

You might also wish to analyse essays and editorials found in newspapers, magazines, and/or scholarly journals. MedPrep particularly recommends The Economist and New Yorker  magazines. Read to develop a broad, solid knowledge base that can enhance your working vocabulary and equip you to understand a variety of topics. Reading is a process based on skill and, like most other activities, the skills attendant to it improve with practice. Trouble interpreting poetry can be similarly remedied. English literature textbooks often feature period poetry accompanied by narrative analysis of important elements.

If you did not finish Section 1 of GAMSAT in the prescribed time or you did not score as well as you would like, you may want to try a different procedure for taking the test. There is no one best way for all examinees to follow. If you want to change your approach, you might experiment with different options to discover the approach that works best for you. A few of the options that are available to you are described below:

• Read the stimulus material and then answer the questions. Consult the stimulus material as you feel the need. 
• Skim the stimulus material to find out what it is about and then study it. Read and answer the questions. Consult the stimulus material as you feel the need. 
• Skim the stimulus material to find out what it is about. Read the questions to get a sense of what you are going to be asked. Study the stimulus material. Read and answer the questions. Consult the stimulus material as you feel the need. 
• Read the questions to get a sense of what you are going to be asked. Read the stimulus material. Read and answer the questions. Consult the stimulus material as you feel the need.

In the long term, the best preparation for this section is class work in composition and creative writing, both of which will acquaint you with the components of a well written, properly organised essay. You may also benefit from humanities and social science classes that have strong reading and writing requirements.

In this exam section, you are expected to compose two short, reasoned discussions based on your choice of two of ten quotations or statements of opinion, philosophy or policy provided. These ten prompts are divided into two sets of five by a shared theme. The open–ended instructions for the Written Communication Section intend that you explain or interpret the meaning of a statement or quotation. Explanations typically are developed through the use of one or more of the following:

• description - detail and images that convey the sense of the statement being explained;
• narration - incidents or steps in a process that clarify the statement;
• example - illustrations of the statement that make it clearer or prove it;
• division - analysis of the components of the statement;
• classification - assigning the statement or what it represents to a group or category as a way of understanding it;
• definition - establishing the essential meaning of the statement’s key terms.

The first set of five statements or quotations involves philosophical and cultural issues and requires analytical and argumentative writing while the second set of five statements or quotations involves personal and social issues and calls for a writing style that is more reflective and discursive. If you are preparing for GAMSAT over the longer term, it is notable that basic written composition classes include discussions of these major forms of discourse. Handbooks used in composition courses may be of considerable value in preparing for this portion of GAMSAT. Texts on rhetoric, advanced expository writing, creative writing, argument or logic may be useful.

Once you understand the basic requirements of each type of essay, you should practice writing essays of each type. You should find statements of opinion, philosophy, or policy to stimulate your writing. You can readily find examples in handbooks, dictionaries, and compendiums of quotations indexed by theme.

In the beginning you should write your practice essays without imposing a time limit. After you become comfortable and proficient, you should practice within the 30 minute time limit you will be given on exam day. In addition, there will be a reading period of five minutes for thinking about and planning what you will write.

Since there is no easy way to judge the quality of your own essays, you should ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Does your essay have a direction which is established early and clearly arrived at when concluded?
• Is your essay coherent as a whole? That is, are the parts linked?
• Does the paper have a consistent point of view?
• Are generalisations supported?
• Have the standard rules of grammar, syntax, and punctuation been observed?
• Do the sentences and paragraphs sound typical of a high school writer or do they reflect the vocabulary and complexity of thinking expected of a collegiate writer?

The science section of GAMSAT will assess your abilities to use prior knowledge in the basic physical and biological sciences and to demonstrate your science problem–solving and data interpretation skills. It is important that your preparation include both review of content and development of facility with the problem–solving skills needed to answer the questions.

The scientific competencies you will be expected to demonstrate are derived from basic principles and concepts in year 12/13 biology, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics.  Since GAMSAT questions do not assess simple memorisation of facts, your preparation should include practicing the following problem–solving skills needed to answer the questions:

• Recall of Information: Some questions may ask you directly to use basic information in the physical and biological sciences. For other questions, recall of science concepts and principles may be stimulated by cues in the passages, tables or graphs. In those instances, your recall of information may be dependent on other skills such as understanding of the passage or interpretation of data. While a good understanding of basic science is needed, mastery of the facts is not sufficient for answering all of the questions. 
• Comprehension of Text: Since all questions are linked to some form of stimulus material, you need not be concerned if you see topics in the passages that you have not studied. Rely on your comprehension and reasoning to understand unfamiliar material. 
• Interpretation of Data: You need facility with interpreting graphs, tables, diagrams and figures in order to answer some questions. Practice interpreting data in these formats. Although there is not a separate section for assessment of quantitative skills, you may be required to apply maths concepts in interpreting data and solving problems. The maths skills are those conventionally used in introductory science courses and do not include advanced mathematics such as calculus and linear algebra, etc. 
• Application of Concepts: You will need to know how and when to apply concepts that you learned and recall from your basic physics, chemistry, biology and maths courses as well as those presented in stimulus material to answer some of the questions. 
• Evaluation: You will be required to evaluate methods, evidence and conclusions and to assess the consistency of information and validity of arguments presented in the stimulus material.

Because the depth of knowledge you will be expected to demonstrate is limited, it is usually not advantageous to enrol in advanced science classes for the purpose of improving your performance on GAMSAT. Well–designed introductory classes in biology, chemistry and physics with laboratory sessions which feature a variety of experiences should provide opportunity for you to develop these skills. You may want to consider science and nonscience bridging courses which foster the development of needed problem–solving skills. Other activities such as reading and analysing science journals or working in a laboratory where you can be involved in research planning or analysis might serve as supplemental activities for further skill enhancement.

Remember, if you need further assistance, evidence indicates that MedPrep’s Professional GAMSAT Preparation Course will help boost your score.