GAMSAT Preparation
Finding a Plan
It’s no mystery that the GAMSAT is a daunting exam. The overwhelming amount of content to memorise, the unexpected nature of its questions, the gruelling duration – these factors are all, more or less, a cause for concern.
To truly succeed in preparing for this examination, most will often tell us that practice questions and past papers are the best way to go; there is little doubt that this is true. Yet, very often few students will think of generating a plan in prepa ring for the GAMSAT. Without qualification, these personal plans are essential in processes of reflection and preparation, and, in my belief, help to distinguish the top echelon of test takers. So, what goes into such a plan? How can we optimise our GAMSAT preparation?
The first step is to identify areas of weakness in your critical thinking and logical reasoning. As many students are now coming to realise, GAMSAT is now almost entirely a reasoning test: it is attempting to assess critical thought rather than the sort of rote learning popularised at university. In this sense, we must begin by identifying those areas of thinking and reasoning that might not yet be robust enough to perform well in GAMSAT. Certainly, in my own preparation, I quickly came to realise that I was an incredibly poor at analysing data and drawing conclusions. Realising this, I adapted my GAMSAT preparation to focus my efforts on data-related practice questions and exams. I ended up with a 98 in Section 3.
With these weaknesses in mind, it is then necessary for us to draft up a specific plan as to how we are going to tackle our GAMSAT preparation. Really, we should try to be as specific as possible when generating these plans. Rather than merely stating that I was going to ‘do practice questions’, I attempted to be as precise as possible in my calendar, writing instead the Section or skill on which I was going to focus on in that particular session of study. The benefits here are twofold. First, we are improving the efficiency of our study; no longer are we fumbling around for the content to study for, as this is already predetermined. Second, and perhaps more importantly, we are developing for ourselves a tool by which to track our
progress over time. With a plan, we can reflect on our past efforts, and move forward with a clearer idea as to how we have prepared and practice for the exam.
As we will see, such reflection is also critical in improving our performance in the GAMSAT.
Reflection
Vital to any GAMSAT preparation is the ability to properly reflect on your mistakes and study. In truth, this is not an easy process – many students are often unwilling, even embarrassed, to confront their weaknesses in a way that is conducive to success in this exam.
So what are the benefits of reflecting on our GAMSAT preparation? And what is the best way that we can do this?
As many students are now coming to realise, GAMSAT is really not a test of content, but rather an examination of students’ reasoning skills. Now more than ever, test-takers are required to analyse novel sets of data; dimensional analysis and estimation are skills that are also tested within Section 3. Regardless of the exact skill being tested, it is hard to ignore here that such abilities of critical thought are not readily trained in the same way that content might be easily memorised. Practicing thousands of questions may, indeed, assist students in memorising new scientific content for the exam; but this approach will not yield success if students are practicing using the wrong sort of cognitive techniques. This is where reflection plays a crucial part in our study.
In reflecting on the way in which we are interpreting and approaching GAMSAT practice questions, we may ultimately come to realise that our approach is flawed; in truth, we might come to recognise that our way of approaching questions is itself problematic overall. Realising, for instance, that we are not properly considering the data in front of us (perhaps we are only skimming questions without any regard for the specific details) may inform the way in which we solve future problems. We are, importantly, preventing ourselves from practicing the sort of bad cognitive habits that so often lead to poor performance in the GAMSAT. Even for the student whose crystallised knowledge is already superb, this strategy of reflection may bring enormous advantages. They might begin to realise, for example, that they are drawing too many assumptions in their thinking about questions. I know personally
that this was a huge point of reflection for me, and one that certainly began to inform my approach to GAMSAT in the later phases of preparation.
So how do we go about such reflection? The first step is to have a plan. In tracking our preparation, we can easily move back in time and examine how we are studying. Noting down the specific practice questions we have used can further reinforce this reflection, allowing us to go back and examine the exact sorts of questions we are getting wrong (and the ones we are getting right too!). Giving your work to peers, and appreciating the way in which they might approach a given problem, is equally invaluable. Perhaps the most significant revelation I had in my preparation was that GAMSAT questions are often more simple than they appear; I reflected on the manner in which ACER could obfuscate questions in ways that make it more difficult to answer. Of course, reflection should be coupled with an abundance of practice questions to ensure that we are tracking our progress. All such strategies will no doubt help us to deeply consider our current approach to GAMSAT in a way that is conducive to more efficient and effective study.
Work smarter, not harder. Reflect.
A few weeks out
The test is a few weeks out. At this point, there’s no doubt that you’re a little nervous. That isnatural (and in truth even useful!). For most, a few weeks out is the time in which GAMSAT preparation might feel a bit stunted, even a little pointless. What more can we do at this stage? What else is there to study? As it turns out, actually quite a lot. There’s work to be done.
In this final stage of GAMSAT preparation, it is simply not sufficient to run over past practice questions again. We need, instead, to be thinking about the best ways in which to optimise our performance on the day – ways in which we can apply all the study we have done in ways that will maximise our score on the test. All too often, I see dedicated students fall at the last hurdle because they have not managed to translate their prior efforts into decent gameday performance. GAMSAT, they say, is a bit like a sport in this sense – many say it’s something of a marathon. So how can we optimise our performance? How can we optimise our study a few weeks out?
The first step is to stimulate testing conditions. Take a mock exam. Wake up early. Practice sitting for the duration of the test. In my own preparation, I sat multiple mock exams, each at a similar time to my actual test; I have no doubt this helped me to adapt to the conditions on the day. Really, a few weeks out, we need to start considering how we are going to respond to conditions on the actual day. I know for a fact that I would rush my Section 2 essays under conditions of stress, and so in the weeks leading up to GAMSAT I made a significant effort to focus on greater clarity; I reflected on my performance and made the relevant changes. Equally, I knew that the duration of Section 3 would inevitably bring about a bit of a lull in my thinking – in reflecting on mock exams, I realised that I could not adequately maintain the intensity of thought required in Section 3. At this stage of my preparation, I was vigilant
towards all aspects of my performance. I wanted to control conditions as much as possible.
In the end, I found the actual GAMSAT to be rather similar to the tests and practice questions used in my own preparation. In making a huge attempt to tailor my study towards the conditions on the day, I adapted my approach in ways that were conducive to GAMSAT success. If you’re a few weeks out from the test, make a genuine effort simulate conditions on the day. Cram content, if you must, but also realise the ultimate value in simulating the real test. It helps more than you can imagine.
