When students choose the career they want to study in their final year, they usually want to find something that is both interesting and well-paid. The problem is that these two concepts do not always go hand in hand.
One case where they do go hand in hand is medicine. On the one hand, it is a field closely related to people. By obtaining a medical degree, you will meet new patients every day and find solutions to their problems, which makes your work not only inspiring but also very rewarding.
Moreover, medicine is one of the highest-paid professions in Australia. Unfortunately, getting sick is a part of life, and people will always want doctors and be willing to pay them.
So if you decide to study it in your final year, you're sure to face many challenges, but you won't regret it.
However, not all students realise the advantages of studying medicine in their final year, so they may decide to start a course in a different field. Even so, there is still a chance that they will go into medicine later in life.
In addition to undergraduate medical programmes, universities and medical schools also offer graduate programmes, in which students can enrol after obtaining their first degree. The only problem is that they will have to take GAMSAT (Graduate Medical School Admissions Test).
GAMSAT is a demanding test that requires not only good scientific knowledge but also general analytical and conversational skills. However, if you understand how the test works, your chances of passing it will be much better.
That is why Superprof has decided to compile some useful information for you about GAMSAT. You can find it right below and there's more on our blog.
What is the essence of GAMSAT?
Being a doctor is a profession that involves a lot of responsibility. To cope with it, doctors need not only a solid knowledge of the human body, but also strong analytical and social skills.
GAMSAT applicants are usually people who have already studied for three or four years at university and have acquired various skills, but they may or may not meet the requirements of the medical profession. The Medical School Admission Test was created precisely to test this.
Thus, GAMSAT tests not only knowledge of scientific disciplines, but also general thinking and communication, which means that even if you have studied biology or chemistry, your good understanding of science will not necessarily ensure you a high GAMSAT score.
At the same time, students with a non-science background, such as in humanities or social sciences, can also try their luck and even score well on the exam.
Given this feature of GAMSAT, students should not take the exam lightly. It is best to start preparing for the exam several months in advance and try to learn as much as possible about the requirements.
One of the most important features of GAMSAT is, of course, its three sections, and we will go through them in more detail below.
The three sections of the GAMSAT
Probably the most important information you need to know to prepare for the test is what type of questions it will consist of. So let's look at the sections of GAMSAT one by one and the types of assignments they include.
At first glance, the first part of the medical exam may seem the easiest. It is designed to assess candidates' general reasoning skills and consists of stimulus materials, such as texts and graphs, with multiple-choice questions on their content.
The tasks in this part of the exam may focus on general academic and social problems and the answers should be based on the general knowledge and logical thinking of the candidates, so many students do not pay much attention to it when preparing.
However, you should be careful with the first part of GAMSAT because, as we will see below, it makes up the bulk of your score, and the general assignments may catch you by surprise if you haven't had to deal with them for a long time.
The second part of GAMSAT is the most special because, unlike the first and third parts, it does not consist of multiple-choice questions.
The purpose of this section is to test the communication skills of medical students and includes two written tasks.
The student will have to demonstrate their ability to express their ideas in a clear and well-structured way, and the quality of the ideas themselves will also determine the mark.
Finally, the third section of GAMSAT consists of multiple-choice questions on scientific topics. Forty per cent of the assignments in this section relate to chemistry, 40% to biology and 20% to physics.
They cover topics studied in the last year of school and the first year of university. This part can be particularly difficult for non-science students, so they need to devote sufficient time to it.
Requirements for GAMSAT registration
GAMSAT is an exam designed for a specific category of students, and not everyone can register for it. Therefore, you should make sure that you meet the requirements before you start the registration process.
One of the main conditions for taking GAMSAT is that students plan to enrol in one of the medical schools offering graduate courses in the same year or the following year.
This may seem logical, as this is when you have to take the entrance exam, but it is still an important detail to bear in mind.
Among other things, this means that you can take GAMSAT in your penultimate year at a university where it is taken as preparation or because you want to take it earlier. Of course, final-year undergraduate students can also take the exam.
Another important rule of GAMSAT is that, although there are two exams per year (in March or September), you can only take the exam once a year.
Finally, to take GAMSAT, you must be a genuine potential candidate enrolled in a course where this test is required. If ACER, the organisation administering the GAMSAT, has any doubts about this, your registration may be cancelled.
However, remember that GAMSAT is not a free test, so it is not clear who would want to waste their time and money registering for it, unless they really need to.
So if you were planning to take GAMSAT simply as a test, unfortunately, you probably won't be allowed to.
Find out more about GAMSAT registration in our article.
What explains the structure of GAMSAT?
As we have already said, GAMSAT is an exam designed to test the skills of applicants, which they will later use in their medical practice, if they are chosen. At the same time, it does not contain questions about health and illnesses as such. Isn't that too contradictory?
Not really. GAMSAT and UCAT are exams that do not require prior medical studies, and this is partly due to medicine itself.
Of course, when you graduate from medical school, you won't have to write essays on the health of your patients, but you will still need to speak clearly to them and understand what they say.
So medicine is not just about theoretical medical knowledge, but also about general personal skills, and GAMSAT and UCAT were created precisely to assess these.
If you have a high GAMSAT score, that's a valid reason to rejoice, because it means that you have the necessary skills to learn medicine and put your scientific knowledge into practice.
So don't see GAMSAT as a useless test, but as an opportunity for self-assessment.
You can learn about the difficulty of GAMSAT from our blog.
How many times can I take GAMSAT?
An important rule of GAMSAT is that a student can only take the exam once a year, so you cannot have a second chance by registering for the September exam if you failed in March.
On the other hand, there is no limit to the number of times you can pass the medical examination in your lifetime. In addition, GAMSAT results are valid for 4 years in Australia and 2 years in the UK and Ireland.
This means that, although you can't try your luck twice in the same year, you can take GAMSAT early, whether you are a final-year student or a second-year student.
In this way, students who already know they want to apply to medical school can start preparing for the exam early in their studies and save valuable time.
Of course, taking GAMSAT is not cheap, so it is better to do it the first time around even from a financial point of view, but it is still an excellent idea to have a backup plan.
In fact, the likelihood of passing the exam on the second attempt is even higher, as once students have taken it once, they have a better understanding of how it goes and extra time to prepare for it.
You will be able to focus on a particular part of the exam, such as the essay or science tasks. You'll be sure to get a really competitive result the following year and eventually get into the medical school of your dreams.
For more information about sitting GAMSAT several times, read our article.
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