GAMSAT Study Material
In todays post I'm going to write about Gamsat study material. What's the best material, what should you use to study and help your Gamsat preparation for section 1, section 2 and section 3.
Let's approach this in a logical fashion and take it in order of the sections.
So first of all for section 1 - reasoning in the humanities and social sciences.
The main problem with section 1 is the broad range of topics which questions can be set on. You can encounter questions related to fiction texts from practically any period of history and also non-fiction related to practically any field, science, history, philosophy etc.
Then there are also questions based on cartoons, quotes, sayings, poems the list seems to go on forever.
But that's not all you'll also be expected to interpret a range of tables, diagrams and graphical information.
The idea of all this is to test if you're actually a well rounded, educated person capable of communicating with and interacting with patients from a broad range of backgrounds.
Most medical diagnosis is made in the "history taking" i.e. actually talking to the patient.
Now if you aren't a well rounded personality who's actually picked up a book from time to time then you've got a problem.
Even if you're starting your Gamsat prep a year beforehand it's going to be hard to pick up that kind of education in just 12 months. Even if you read two books a month that still only equates to 24 books.
Not a lot to cover all the fields mentioned above. So I think we can discount this as a strategy, it's not time efficient and will take you way too long.
Instead, I recommend that you begin reading a quality daily newspaper. But make sure you read it cover to cover and not just the articles that interest you. In good quality papers you should find articles covering current affairs, economics, the arts, architecture, economics and many more in convenient bite sized chunks.
If you come across ideas or words you don't understand in the articles then just look them up on the internet. This is a good way to become proficient in multiple domains of knowledge simultaneously.
For a more detailed look at study material specifically for section 1 take a look at my other article - Gamsat Section 1
Gamsat Essays
OK let's move on to section 2 - the essay writing section.
The important thing here is to not get complacent. Even if you are a humanities graduate and you've written plenty of essays in your life they won't be the kind of essays you have to write in Gamsat.
First of all you've only got 30 minutes from start to finish. Secondly there's no clear subject. You're only given a set of quotes and from those you have to extract some kind of general them or issue to write about.
So my advice for section 2 is to obtain from source, or develop yourself, a clear, repeatable method to extract your theme and then give you your essay structure and supporting ideas in the time available.
The day of the test won't be the time to have a good long think about this.
To practice writing your essays apart from the example quotes given in the official ACER practice materials which have enough quotes to write eight essays you can use an online quote generator to generate sets of quotes of your own around specific themes.
I discuss the best ones and give other ideas for writing the essays in this article here - Gamsat section 2
The Science
Perhaps the section which is the biggest worry for most people is section 3 - reasoning in the biological and physical sciences.
Just as with section 1 there is a wide variety of domains of knowledge, biology, physics, chemistry and organic chemistry.
However be of good cheer because there isn't a possibly unlimited range of knowledge to acquire as in section 1. No, for section 3 you only need knowledge in these subjects up to first year university level. Or as I always say, a good A level standard (year 12) is sufficient and is the level to which most people who take the test study.
This level of knowledge is easily achievable in a year. In fact it can be done in 6 months with a well planned out program of study.
The materials I recommend are standard A level text books as these tend to be high quality, are to the right level and are inexpensive.
There are also a lot of online resources you can use which I discuss in more detail in another article - Gamsat Section 3
Of course there's also a lot of other stuff which is useful to know, such as which topics come up frequently, the maths and equations you need to know, test strategies etc all of which I talk about in detail in my course Griffiths GAMSAT Review but which I can't go into here due to space limitations.
For question practice again the best resource is the official ACER Gamsat practice questions as they best represent the test. However they do have the disadvantage of not having any worked solutions.
They are therefore ideal for testing your knowledge but not so good for helping you actually learn it. The number of questions is also limited.
For this reason most people try and get more practice questions in the from one of the many Gamsat prep companies which are out there. I have more practice questions in Griffiths GAMSAT Review for example if you are interested.
Other Ideas
Sharing ideas and forming study groups with other students can also be a big help. There's also lots of videos on Youtube with other peoples experiences of sitting Gamsat and their tips about how to pass.
I have a very large and active Gamsat Facebook group which you can join by clicking here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/gamsatstudy
I also have a Gamsat related Youtube channel which you can visit here - Gamsat Review Youtube
OK that's it for today, be sure to check out the other articles I've linked to here as there's a LOT of information and resources there to help you on your way.
Further Resources
For more help with GAMSAT check out Griffiths Gamsat Review Home Study System which takes you step by step through all three sections with advanced strategies for each.
