It is a fact that medicine is a very difficult field of study. Medical students need to know a lot about the human body, psychology and science while being good at communication, so they usually have a lot of theoretical courses and practice at the same time.
Of course, not all of them manage to get through those challenges and numerous students give up before getting a university diploma.
Yet, there are even more students who don't even have an opportunity to try themselves at medicine because the very entry to a medical school or university is a complex business.
If you want to take up an undergraduate degree in medicine right after school, you will first need to pass the UCAT exam and meet many other requirements.
Those who'd like to enrol in a graduate-entry program will have to cope with GAMSAT.
Both of them are general tests that check students' general intellectual skills and that makes it difficult to prepare for them.
In this article, we will try to find out how difficult GAMSAT exactly is, so you can assess your current skills and start your revision on time.
What kind of test is GAMSAT?
GAMSAT is an exam required for entry to graduate-level programs and as such, it is only taken by people who have already studied at university.
Logically, after completing a bachelor's degree, they should have experience sitting exams and know how to organize their revision.
However, the GAMSAT test is not like regular university exams. First, it doesn't focus on any particular subject but is rather meant to test students' general abilities.
Second, it includes particular kinds of assignments, including essays, which university students may not be used to and don't have a lot of practice with.
While, before a regular university exam, you can try and guess what the questions will be about since it is generally based on the content of the course, GAMSAT questions can be completely unpredictable and require not just a high level of skills but also versatility.
That said, there are still ways to prepare for GAMSAT even if you don't know the approximate questions the test might include.
One important thing for GAMSAT in particular is to know the structure of the test so that when the time comes to sit the exam, you will not be overwhelmed by the material.
For example, once students realise that GAMSAT includes an essay assignment, they can assess their writing skills and look for ways to improve them.
Of course, they will not know what topics they will get on the day of the test but, at least, they will have come to grips with the essay format and have the necessary tools to achieve a higher score.
They can identify their strong and weak points and eventually decide how much time to allot to each part of the test for productive work.
With the right preparation, a student can do really well in GAMSAT and apply for entry to a medical school or university with their score.
If you need more information about GAMSAT, have a look at our article.
The three parts of GAMSAT
GAMSAT is a test consisting of three separately timed sections. We have already mentioned that one of them is about essay writing, so what about the other two and how much time will you have to do the questions?
The first part of GAMSAT is probably the simplest one but it can also be the most confusing for certain applicants.
The reason for that is that it is meant to test the student's general analytical and logical thinking abilities, which often have nothing to do with what they have studied or will study later.
It includes written or visual stimuli material that the applicants will have to analyse in order to answer multiple-choice questions.
If you compare multiple-choice questions with essays from the second part, you might think that it is, indeed, much easier. Nevertheless, you should also keep in mind that multiple-choice questions can also be misleading and confusing, so it is better to dedicate enough time to prepare for them well.
On our blog, you can read about GAMSAT scores in detail.
All in all, in this section of the exam, you will have 62 questions and 100 minutes to answer them.
As for the third part of the GAMSAT exam, which comes after the essay, it is often considered the most difficult one and it is especially so for students with no scientific background.
It's because this section is about your scientific knowledge and will require a good understanding of chemistry, biology and physics.
Of course, you don't need a bachelor's degree in each of them but even high-school-level questions can sometimes be tricky. What's more, that part counts twice as much as the first or the second one for the final score.
So, even if it is made up of multiple-choice questions, you shouldn't take it lightly and allot enough time to practice training questions.
There are 75 tasks in the third section of GAMSAT and you will be given 150 minutes to deal with them.
Why is GAMSAT structured that way?
As we have said GAMSAT is an exam that is meant to test applicants' abilities that they will use in their medical practice later on if they are selected. At the same time, it doesn't contain questions about medicine itself. Isn't that a bit contradictory?
In fact, no. GAMSAT and UCAT are exams that don't require any previous medical studies and it has partly to do with medicine itself.
Of course, when you graduate from medicine, you won't have to write essays about your patient's health but you will still need to speak clearly to them and also understand what they are saying.
So, medicine is not just about theoretical medical knowledge but also general personal skills and GAMSAT and UCAT were created precisely to assess them.
If you have a good GAMSAT score, it is a good reason for joy because it means that you do have the necessary abilities to study medicine and put your science skills into practice. Thus, don't see GAMSAT as a useless ordeal but rather as an opportunity for self-evaluation.
And if you don't know how to register for GAMSAT, have a look at our article on the topic.
Where to read about GAMSAT?
In this article, we have tried to gather the most relevant information on GAMSAT but if you have an additional question about the exam, there is a simple way to get the answer.
All information about GAMSAT is available online and you can easily access it on the ACER website.
For instance, it is even recommended that you read the GAMSAT information booklet provided by ACER before you sign up for the exam so that you would know its rules and requirements.
Aside from that, ACER also provides preparation materials for students, which can be of great help to get a higher score.
You can see what kinds of questions are included in the first and third sections of GAMSAT, check if you have enough knowledge of science and even test how good you are at writing essays.
For essays, ACER has developed a special online app, which can assess your texts. That can be an invaluable tool for your revision as it'll give you a clue about what aspects of essay writing you should focus on to push your score up.
If on top of that, you take a few GAMSAT classes with a personal tutor in your town or online, you'll be completely ready for the exam.
Tutors who specialise in GAMSAT preparation know very well how it works and what abilities the applicants need. They can help you organise your revision more effectively, correct your occasional mistakes and comment on your essays.
With the information, you'll find online and a good GAMSAT tutor, you'll have all the necessary elements and can study without stress.
In our article, you can find more tips about when to pass GAMSAT and how many times you can do it.
Is GAMSAT more difficult than UCAT?
GAMSAT and UCAT are the exams that prospective medical students have to pass to apply for graduate and undergraduate studies, respectively. But which one of them is easier to get through? It is obviously UCAT.
Given that it is taken just after school, UCAT has lower requirements for the applicants and does not include essay writing or a science section.
That said, you should also keep in mind that UCAT is taken by younger people with less experience than GAMSAT, so it can still be a difficult exam for them.
So, whether you decide to study medicine right after school or upon completing a bachelor's degree, you'll have to pass a challenging test anyway. Both GAMSAT and UCAT require serious revision and lessons with tutors can be very helpful for securing a better score.
An easy way to get in touch with such tutors is by using Superprof. On our website, there are lots of qualified GAMSAT and UCAT tutors who'll be ready to assist you at any time.
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