What is GAMSAT?

The GAMSAT is a 5½  hour exam comprised of three sections. Two sections are given in the morning followed by the remaining one in the afternoon, after a lunch break. Each section is preceded by a short reading period. The precise schedule for the exam day and allotted times for each section follow:

Section	No. Questions	Time (Min)
Reading Period		10
Humanities & Social Sciences Reasoning	75	100
Break		20
Reading Period		5
Written Communication	2	60
Lunch Break		60
Reading Period		10
Biological & Physical Sciences Reasoning	110	170

The Reasoning in Humanities & Social Sciences section contains multiple-choice questions that correspond to written selections taken from the humanities and social sciences. This section will measure your ability to comprehend, reason and think critically with regard to the written word.

The Written Communication section consists of two assignments, each composed of a set of thematic quotations designed to elicit a unified, coherent, first-draft essay exploring the meaning and implications of the two quotations preferred by the examinee. This section will measure your ability to construct and express ideas in writing.

The Reasoning in Biological & Physical Sciences section contains multiple-choice questions that correspond to informational passages and graphical displays or pictorial representations of data. This section will measure your ability to solve various problems within a scientific context, to offer hypotheses, to draw reasoned conclusions and to expose relationships between given variables.

Separate scores are reported, one for each of the three sections and a total GAMSAT score. The total score is a weighted-average of the three section scores. Each section score is out of 100.

The total GAMSAT score, in general, is generated in the following way: [Section I Score + Section II Score + 2(Section III Score)]/4. Some medical schools adopt different methods of calculation to compute the total GAMSAT score.

Total and section GAMSAT scores are scaled by ACER to make them directly comparable from year to year. Scores achieved on the multiple-choice sections (I & III) of the exam are based only on the number of questions answered correctly. This means that there is no penalty for wrong answers.

The individual graduate medical schools establish their own minimum GAMSAT scores acceptable for admission. Acceptable scores typically exceed the 80th percentile.

In Australia, GAMSAT is administered in late March or early April of each year. In the UK, GAMSAT is administered in September of each year. Candidates can sit GAMSAT any number of times.

Australian registration inquiries should be directed to ACER:

http://www.acer.edu.au/unitest 

UK registration inquiries should be directed to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS):

http://www.ucas.com