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About
by
Elliot Dolan-Evans / David Li,
13 January, 2023
Read 1373 times
Having to sit the GAMSAT® exam once is bad enough. Having to sit it twice can be very discouraging. If you’re in a position where you have to consider retaking the GAMSAT® exam, this article provides a collection of the experiences of different tutors on this topic. Hopefully their story will help rekindle your passion to become an Australian medical school student.
Resitting GAMSAT® or not is a tricky decision to make for a lot of students. Some of my friends take the exam one time and soon give up. From my personal experience, I did my first sitting in May 2020 which was when the lockdown was happening. I sat the GAMSAT® online, and since it was the only online GAMSAT®, it was a bit chaotic and different in a sense. Due to a mistake in the arrangement of the supervisor, I was left waiting for more than five hours for my section 1 and GAMSAT section 2. When the results came out, I was not happy with what I got for GAMSAT section 1 and section 2 as it is below my average level but there was nothing I could do other than take a second go.
Additionally, I did not do much preparation for the first sitting. I was not sure how to study for the GAMSAT at the start so I decided to take a shot first, see how I go and make corresponding preparation based on the first experience.
So from my perspective, this was actually an easy decision to make. Even without the bad first sitting experience, I would still retake the GAMSAT® exam. In my opinion, no matter how comprehensively you think you have prepared for your first GAMSAT®, no practice questions or GAMSAT practice test can compare to the real exam sitting experience. By sitting multiple times, you will get a better understanding of the structure of GAMSAT®. You will also be able to focus on your weak points to maximise your half year preparation period. At the end of the day, only the best result counts! So it is definitely worth a try.
The emotional, psychological, and economic strains of resitting the GAMSAT® is significant. Not only are the prospects of redoing one of the most arduous and taxing exams extremely daunting, catalysing stress, uncertainty, anxiety, depression, and the physical ramifications of such mental health afflictions, but it is also expensive. Re-sitting the exam, at around $500 a pop, is a huge financial burden. When I was a student, this was a crippling expense, and I had to work furiously the preceding summer in an unforgiving hospitality job to save such a figure (on top of paying bills and rent!). The addition of working so much further complicated my GAMSAT® study, and made the whole enterprise almost impossible to bear! For helpful tips to assist you in managing your workload and studying efficiently for the GAMSAT®, take a look at our blog post on Balancing Full-Time Work & Studying for the GAMSAT.
There are no formal restrictions from ACER as to how many times you are ‘allowed’ to retake the GAMSAT®, and it is extremely common for students to retake the exam. I would say that the vast majority of students who end up entering medical school have sat the GAMSAT® at least twice. When I faced the GAMSAT®, now over a decade ago, students more commonly flied straight through to medical school on their first attempt; however, this was in the context of much lower admission scores, fewer candidates, and the March GAMSAT® sitting was really the only option all year. Now, because these patterns have largely reversed, students are more commonly having to go through the GAMSAT® struggle multiple times – but what is important to know is that the ability to retake the GAMSAT® is often NOT a test of academic skill or intellectual rigour, but of your mental and physical health. To help you prepare for the forthcoming GAMSAT® exam, you might use this article as a resource: GAMSAT 2023: Everything You Need to Know.
Retaking the GAMSAT® is a test of resilience, patience, empathy for yourself, and self-care. I have known hundreds of academically brilliant students who have sat the GAMSAT® and not quite gotten the GAMSAT results that they wanted, and then continued to struggle on subsequent attempts – all because they did not do the simple things well; namely, following a healthy diet of fruit and vegetables with minimal soft drinks, sugar, and caffeine, regular exercise, study breaks, and enjoying hobbies. Once you forget these, in your journey to resitting the GAMSAT®, it is so easy for the spiral of despair and depression to engulf you and pull you down to depths one never can climb out of.
Don't give up if you didn't get the GAMSAT® score you were hoping for. If you believe that you might need to take the GAMSAT® exam once more and are unsure of where to start, read more about Preparing to Sit the GAMSAT...Again. Additionally, GradReady offers GAMSAT preparation courses, all of which include access to our bank of practice questions and 8 online exams to aid in your preparation. Our Online Exam System has recently been updated. The user interface now closely mimics the official ACER GAMSAT® exam, allowing you to familiarise yourself with the online delivery of the exam before the test date! Sign up for our GAMSAT Free Trial to access it for free!
