Everyone’s GAMSAT prep journey is different. Some candidates are mature-age students with jobs and families; some are traditional students with substantial family support. Some candidates have a strong science background; some may not have touched a science textbook since high school. Of course, different candidates will have different requirements in terms of their
GAMSAT preparation. However, there are a few key elements which are essential regardless of background, which we’ll explore in today’s blog post.
In a nutshell, these elements are:
- A clear plan
- Consistency
- Active practice
A clear plan will provide you with direction in which to target your study; even the very process of planning is helpful for helping you to identify potential roadblocks along the way. Consistency is also important as GAMSAT is a test of skills that can’t be crammed in overnight; rather, these skills require regular active practice via practising essay writing and tackling practice GAMSAT questions. We’ll now go into these elements in a bit more detail, and how you can incorporate these elements into your own GAMSAT prep, regardless of your background.
#1: Have a Clear GAMSAT Prep Plan
When you start studying for the GAMSAT, it’s important to start formulating a plan of how you’re going to do so. If you can put a plan in place, it will make your study sessions much easier, as you won’t have to think about when or what to study—you’ve already decided that! If you’re not sure where to start with preparing a study plan, you can download our
GAMSAT Study Syllabus for free.
There are several factors that you should consider when you are formulating your GAMSAT study plan. The first factor is
time. Obviously, the more time, the better—to an extent. If you start studying too early, you may find it difficult to sustain interest. The exact amount of time that you’ll need to spend studying for the GAMSAT will vary from person to person, but 3-6 months is probably realistic, depending on how much time you have available for studying each day. You should also consider if there are likely to be upcoming events that will force you to take a break in your studies (e.g. family holidays, studying for university exams); if so, you may need to start your studying slightly earlier to accommodate for this.
Another factor is the
content. Make sure that you have familiarised yourself with what is tested on each section of the GAMSAT and ensure that your study plan addresses each section, regardless of your background. Even if you have a science background, you should still make sure that
GAMSAT Section 3 preparation is part of your planning, as GAMSAT science questions tend to be a very different format to university exam questions. That being said, you can adjust your plan somewhat according to your strengths and weaknesses, so while someone with a science background should still include some Section III content in their planning, they may not need to include as much as someone with no science background at all. Check out our other blog article for tips on
Preparing for the GAMSAT Exam with a Non-Science Background.
Make sure that you are studying from all three sections in the weeks leading up to the exam; the risk of studying in blocks (e.g. Section 1 for two months, Section 2 for two months, Section 3 for two months) is that by the time the exam rolls around, the skills that you initially practised may be getting rusty.
Finally, think about
where to study, and when the best time of day is to study. Hopefully, you should have gotten a good idea of your study preferences from your undergraduate study. Finding a good study place and time can be pretty tricky for some candidates, such as mature age students with children. Remember: if you can sort out a good study space now, it’ll help you immensely once you get into med school!
#2: Be Consistent in Your GAMSAT Study
Studying is like looking after a plant that needs watering. Pouring lots of water on the plant all at once is not helpful, and in fact may kill the plant. On the other hand, pouring a little water onto the plant regularly will help it to grow and flourish. Developing the skills that you’ll need to succeed in GAMSAT works in much the same way: practising a little on a regular basis will help you much more than cramming everything in to one weekend.
A lot of this harks back to planning. If you’ve planned to start your GAMSAT prep a while in advance and carved out a certain amount of time each day in which to study, it’ll be easier to be consistent. It’s also important to be realistic—no point in trying to promise yourself that you’ll study for hours each day if you’ll barely have the time to do so (don’t forget that surprise commitments sometimes pop up!). Setting unrealistic goals, and failing to meet them, can be demoralising, so try not to fall down that trap.
It can also be helpful to have a study buddy or study group to keep you motivated to study. Forums such as PagingDr and social media groups dedicated to GAMSAT study can be helpful in finding study groups. While study groups aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, others can find them incredibly useful for staying on track.
#3: Active GAMSAT Practice
If you’re going to do something consistently, it’s important to make sure that that “something” is helpful for achieving your goals. Active studying, which in this case means active practice of GAMSAT-style questions, is one of the most effective methods for GAMSAT study. Doing practice questions will help you get used to GAMSAT-style questions and will allow you to practice your skills in a more realistic setting. As you approach the exam date, you’ll also want your active practice to mimic exam-style conditions. Think full-length practice exams. Don’t forget to check out GradReady’s library of
Free GAMSAT Practice Questions and Materials.
It can be really daunting to think about practice questions, particularly if you don’t have a lot of background knowledge. One common question is when practice questions should be introduced. While this may vary from person to person, I would advocate erring on the side of starting earlier rather than later—perhaps even at the start of your study period. Even if you get lots of questions wrong at first, at least you are finding where the gaps in your knowledge are, and you’re becoming accustomed to the question style. You may wish to consider starting with, say, 10% practice questions and 90% content, and then changing up the ratio as you progress, so that in the week before the exam you are doing more like 95% practice questions and 5% content. (These numbers are just to give you an idea. The actual division of practice questions and content might differ depending on you and how you study.)
Conclusion
Everyone studies differently, but regardless of how you study, you can benefit by having a clear study plan, being consistent in your studying, and including lots of practice questions in your GAMSAT study. These three elements are key to effective studying for GAMSAT and are broad enough to be applied to practically any situation.
I hope that this blog post helped you in making your GAMSAT prep more effective! Good luck in your studies, and remember that we at GradReady are here to help with any GAMSAT study queries that you may have. Don’t forget to sign up for our
GAMSAT Free Trial, which will give you access to 50 MCQs from our Intelligent MCQ Bank, our week-by-week study guide for each section, and a wealth of our GAMSAT resources.
