GAMSAT Section 2 Preparation Tips

What's up guys, it's me Rohan. I'm a first year medical student and a GAMSAT tutor for section 1 and section 2 and today I'm going to cover how I scored 88 in section 2 in the top 0.1%. I'm going to go through some tips and some frameworks that you guys can implement to score high in section 2 as well to show you what worked for me. So when we're thinking about section 2, it's firstly really important to think about why does section 2 exist? Because if we're recruiting doctors and medical students... into medical school. Why do we need students to write an essay and why does that tell us about their capacity to become a doctor? Well, it's very simple. When it comes to being a doctor, obviously there is scientific knowledge you need to know, but there's also communication skills that are paramount to the job of being a doctor. Imagine you have to deliver super bad news to a patient. They've just been diagnosed with a life-threatening, life-ending terminal cancer that's going to end their lives within six months. Think about how important it is not just to diagnose that, but more importantly, how to actually pass on and convey that message to a patient and their family. That is the in-depth skills that come with being a doctor. And really, Section 1, Section 3 don't test that in the same capacity that Section 2 does. So Section 2, it's important to remember, it's not a test of your writing. If it was a test of your writing, medical schools would be filled with journalists. Section 2 is a test of your character and your communication. and your proficiency in conveying information in emotionally apt ways. So taking that into mind, the things you need to focus on in section two aren't necessarily including big words or large phrases and vocabulary, but really what you want to emphasize is your character and how you come across as a person in your essays. So being empathetic, being compassionate, being clear and open-minded are paramount qualities that you're being tested on in section two that are going to be really, really important for the way that Acer grades your essays. on that scale. So in that sense, I guess you can think about section two as being marked on two different scales, your proficiency in character and your proficiency in communication. So in terms of your proficiency in character, you are being examined on things like I just said, empathy, openness, compassion, humanity. But on the communication scale, the things you're being assessed on are precision, clarity and specificity. These are three really important techniques and features of your GAMSAT essays that have to form main part. Now, if we briefly talk about how then we can take that philosophy and apply it to task A and task B of the GAMSAT, we can think about really what each section is requiring you to do. So task A, ASA tells us that task A is about sociocultural phenomena and issues. And so when we're looking at sociocultural issues, we're probably going to write those in an argumentative format. And when we do those in an argumentative format, it's really important not only that we have a stance and we can argue that from a pace of clear... analysis and perspective. But more importantly, that we can look at issues from multiple perspectives, we can consider the fact that our perspective is not the only perspective. Now, what I'm saying here is not to write a sort of sitting on the fence type of essay, those essays are low scoring, if you're just going to describe four different perspectives in one issue, that's not going to score well in section two. But what will score well in section two is taking a stance taking a position, but being mindful and considerate of who you're discussing. and what you're discussing. So on the screen right now, you can see an essay that I wrote about Donald Trump. And whilst there is clear emphasis on, say, for example, the benefits and the strengths that Donald Trump's policies have brought to the US economy, there's also fair criticism about the way in which this was done. But this is balanced with also some consideration about why Donald Trump's policies in America in 2016 worked really well and resonated with a certain part of the world. part of America's population. So whilst you can see that some clear analysis coming through here about Donald Trump's presidency and the socio-economic policies that came with it, there's also a consistent approach that is comparing and analyzing these issues from different perspectives to ensure that, let's say for example, here I was being critical of Donald Trump and my marker was a Donald Trump fan, they wouldn't feel isolated or alienated whilst reading my essay. This is really important in task A's where you're dealing with sensitive socio-cultural issues and this is one of the biggest mistakes students make in section two. The other mistake that students make in section two is in task B. Now task B is a personal and social section. The biggest mistake that students make in task B is they either only focus on the social aspect of the theme or the personal aspect of the theme. But clearly ASA tells us that they want you to focus on the personal and the social aspect of whatever theme you're exploring. In that vein then it's important that you consider a structure that allows you to do so. In my workshops and my course, I teach a reflective structure that incorporates both a personal paragraph where you're reflective and delivering a personal insight, but also a social structure where you're able to analyze and argue for these issues in a task A vein on these task B issues. What that then allows you to do is look at issues from a social and personal perspective But regardless what structure you use, what's really important here to remember is that in task B, you are dealing with issues that are more sensitive and personal on a personal individual level. So you need to deal with them as such. Using things like anecdotes can work really well. Philosophy and psychology as motivations and justifications of certain behavior can also serve really, really well for these essays too. Okay, so let's say you're watching this video with a couple of weeks to go till the GAMSAT. I've gone through a rough overview of what you need to do and what you need to really consider in task A and task B. But what do you do for the last couple of weeks weeks or maybe last couple of months before you sit the GAMSAT. So the first thing to consider is how you're going to approach your study in the weeks leading up to the GAMSAT. My general suggestion is not to write more than two to three essays a week and there's a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, you really want to make sure that you don't burn yourself out right before the GAMSAT. It's really easy to write 10-15 essays a week. I've seen it with my students and they get to the GAMSAT day, they're too burnt out, they've written too many essays, their mind doesn't function and click in the way that it should. and in turn they don't write their best essays on GAMSAT day. On the other hand you've got students that don't write enough practice essays, students that write maybe one or two essays every month or every few weeks and those students fail to really put into place practices and sustainable procedures that help them in exam conditions. So what you want to do is strike a fine balance, write a couple essays a week that are timed to a topic that you don't know or that you've not seen before and write an essay to those prompts. Besides writing essays there are a few other things you can really do to help boost your section two scores. The first thing is to mark your own essays. So when you write an essay, wait a couple of days, return to it and just mark it as you would mark anyone else's essay. What you'll find by coming back to your old essays is that there are things that you've previously said or done that three days ago made sense to you, but three days later, don't click in the way that you think they should. You're always getting wiser. You're always getting more refined and smarter in your approach. And so you'll pick up on things as you go. Use this as a really important reflective. ability to pick up on certain things, improve them, and not make those same mistakes in your future essays. The other thing you can do is mark other people's essays. So if you go online, there are plenty of resources. I have a Facebook group, which you'll find a link to in the description below that you can join, and people are posting and sharing their essays in there all the time. Have a look at someone else's essay and think to yourself, what is one thing I'd like to take from this essay and incorporate into my own writing? Maybe it's the way that they write their introductions. Maybe it's the way that they analyze a certain political theme. Whatever it is, Think about what you can take from their essays and pull into your own writing. The second thing you can do from that is you can also see what are some things that aren't clicking in the other person's essays. When you read someone else's essay, you can see firsthand what works and what doesn't work. And if you can see something that's not working, make a note to yourself not to do that in your own writing. The third thing you can do to study for section two is to do some research on ideas. So you can search podcasts, YouTube videos, Netflix documentaries, you name it, read books, obviously. And... And you can really build up your knowledge bank for section two. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. You do need to have a depth knowledge of philosophy, psychology, socioeconomic issues to do really, really well in section two. That really helped me learning about philosophies. I'll throw a list of philosophies that I covered on the screen right now so you can kind of have a look at the different things that I prepared before my GAMSAT. That's what you kind of want to have is a bank of ideas and themes that you can draw on in your essays. That's really important because when you make a point, you argue something in your essay, that's all well and good but what's more important than that is actually being able to show the marker that you can back that up with evidence that you can point to from other texts or other thinkers as well that's really really important my last piece of advice for section two is just to remember that it is just a communications test there's a lot of pressure that you place on your writing ability walking into section two but it's really important to remember that at the end of the day the reason that that is there is to test your character and your character is not going to change depending on how nervous or not nervous you are on exam day so Let your ideas flow, make sure your mind is clear from any stress or anxiety. And obviously that's easier said than done, but you can practice procedures such as meditation, exercise, and things like that, that really help clear your mind on the days leading up to the exam to make sure that you're in the best mental space when you walk into that exam hall, or in the case of section two, when you're doing it from home, obviously now, you're in the best mental space to write your best essays. If you've got any more questions, do let me know down below in the comment section, I will be there answering them. As I said below, check out my link in the description for the Facebook group that I'm running that has plenty of free sessions and resources available for you guys. I've also got my website as well. And of course, don't forget to subscribe for more content, like the video, and I'll see you guys next time.

into medical school. Why do we need students to write an essay and why does that tell us about their capacity to become a doctor? Well, it's very simple.

When it comes to being a doctor, obviously there is scientific knowledge you need to know, but there's also communication skills that are paramount to the job of being a doctor. Imagine you have to deliver super bad news to a patient. They've just been diagnosed with a life-threatening, life-ending terminal cancer that's going to end their lives within six months. Think about how important it is not just to diagnose that, but more importantly, how to actually pass on and convey that message to a patient and their family.

That is the in-depth skills that come with being a doctor. And really, Section 1, Section 3 don't test that in the same capacity that Section 2 does. So Section 2, it's important to remember, it's not a test of your writing.

If it was a test of your writing, medical schools would be filled with journalists. Section 2 is a test of your character and your communication. and your proficiency in conveying information in emotionally apt ways.

So taking that into mind, the things you need to focus on in section two aren't necessarily including big words or large phrases and vocabulary, but really what you want to emphasize is your character and how you come across as a person in your essays. So being empathetic, being compassionate, being clear and open-minded are paramount qualities that you're being tested on in section two that are going to be really, really important for the way that Acer grades your essays. on that scale. So in that sense, I guess you can think about section two as being marked on two different scales, your proficiency in character and your proficiency in communication.

So in terms of your proficiency in character, you are being examined on things like I just said, empathy, openness, compassion, humanity. But on the communication scale, the things you're being assessed on are precision, clarity and specificity. These are three really important techniques and features of your GAMSAT essays that have to form main part. Now, if we briefly talk about how then we can take that philosophy and apply it to task A and task B of the GAMSAT, we can think about really what each section is requiring you to do.

So task A, ASA tells us that task A is about sociocultural phenomena and issues. And so when we're looking at sociocultural issues, we're probably going to write those in an argumentative format. And when we do those in an argumentative format, it's really important not only that we have a stance and we can argue that from a pace of clear... analysis and perspective. But more importantly, that we can look at issues from multiple perspectives, we can consider the fact that our perspective is not the only perspective.

Now, what I'm saying here is not to write a sort of sitting on the fence type of essay, those essays are low scoring, if you're just going to describe four different perspectives in one issue, that's not going to score well in section two. But what will score well in section two is taking a stance taking a position, but being mindful and considerate of who you're discussing. and what you're discussing. So on the screen right now, you can see an essay that I wrote about Donald Trump.

And whilst there is clear emphasis on, say, for example, the benefits and the strengths that Donald Trump's policies have brought to the US economy, there's also fair criticism about the way in which this was done. But this is balanced with also some consideration about why Donald Trump's policies in America in 2016 worked really well and resonated with a certain part of the world. part of America's population.

So whilst you can see that some clear analysis coming through here about Donald Trump's presidency and the socio-economic policies that came with it, there's also a consistent approach that is comparing and analyzing these issues from different perspectives to ensure that, let's say for example, here I was being critical of Donald Trump and my marker was a Donald Trump fan, they wouldn't feel isolated or alienated whilst reading my essay. This is really important in task A's where you're dealing with sensitive socio-cultural issues and this is one of the biggest mistakes students make in section two. The other mistake that students make in section two is in task B.

Now task B is a personal and social section. The biggest mistake that students make in task B is they either only focus on the social aspect of the theme or the personal aspect of the theme. But clearly ASA tells us that they want you to focus on the personal and the social aspect of whatever theme you're exploring. In that vein then it's important that you consider a structure that allows you to do so.

In my workshops and my course, I teach a reflective structure that incorporates both a personal paragraph where you're reflective and delivering a personal insight, but also a social structure where you're able to analyze and argue for these issues in a task A vein on these task B issues. What that then allows you to do is look at issues from a social and personal perspective But regardless what structure you use, what's really important here to remember is that in task B, you are dealing with issues that are more sensitive and personal on a personal individual level. So you need to deal with them as such.

Using things like anecdotes can work really well. Philosophy and psychology as motivations and justifications of certain behavior can also serve really, really well for these essays too. Okay, so let's say you're watching this video with a couple of weeks to go till the GAMSAT. I've gone through a rough overview of what you need to do and what you need to really consider in task A and task B.

But what do you do for the last couple of weeks weeks or maybe last couple of months before you sit the GAMSAT. So the first thing to consider is how you're going to approach your study in the weeks leading up to the GAMSAT. My general suggestion is not to write more than two to three essays a week and there's a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, you really want to make sure that you don't burn yourself out right before the GAMSAT. It's really easy to write 10-15 essays a week.

I've seen it with my students and they get to the GAMSAT day, they're too burnt out, they've written too many essays, their mind doesn't function and click in the way that it should. and in turn they don't write their best essays on GAMSAT day. On the other hand you've got students that don't write enough practice essays, students that write maybe one or two essays every month or every few weeks and those students fail to really put into place practices and sustainable procedures that help them in exam conditions. So what you want to do is strike a fine balance, write a couple essays a week that are timed to a topic that you don't know or that you've not seen before and write an essay to those prompts. Besides writing essays there are a few other things you can really do to help boost your section two scores.

The first thing is to mark your own essays. So when you write an essay, wait a couple of days, return to it and just mark it as you would mark anyone else's essay. What you'll find by coming back to your old essays is that there are things that you've previously said or done that three days ago made sense to you, but three days later, don't click in the way that you think they should. You're always getting wiser. You're always getting more refined and smarter in your approach.

And so you'll pick up on things as you go. Use this as a really important reflective. ability to pick up on certain things, improve them, and not make those same mistakes in your future essays. The other thing you can do is mark other people's essays. So if you go online, there are plenty of resources.

I have a Facebook group, which you'll find a link to in the description below that you can join, and people are posting and sharing their essays in there all the time. Have a look at someone else's essay and think to yourself, what is one thing I'd like to take from this essay and incorporate into my own writing? Maybe it's the way that they write their introductions.

Maybe it's the way that they analyze a certain political theme. Whatever it is, Think about what you can take from their essays and pull into your own writing. The second thing you can do from that is you can also see what are some things that aren't clicking in the other person's essays. When you read someone else's essay, you can see firsthand what works and what doesn't work.

And if you can see something that's not working, make a note to yourself not to do that in your own writing. The third thing you can do to study for section two is to do some research on ideas. So you can search podcasts, YouTube videos, Netflix documentaries, you name it, read books, obviously.

And... And you can really build up your knowledge bank for section two. I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

You do need to have a depth knowledge of philosophy, psychology, socioeconomic issues to do really, really well in section two. That really helped me learning about philosophies. I'll throw a list of philosophies that I covered on the screen right now so you can kind of have a look at the different things that I prepared before my GAMSAT. That's what you kind of want to have is a bank of ideas and themes that you can draw on in your essays.

That's really important because when you make a point, you argue something in your essay, that's all well and good but what's more important than that is actually being able to show the marker that you can back that up with evidence that you can point to from other texts or other thinkers as well that's really really important my last piece of advice for section two is just to remember that it is just a communications test there's a lot of pressure that you place on your writing ability walking into section two but it's really important to remember that at the end of the day the reason that that is there is to test your character and your character is not going to change depending on how nervous or not nervous you are on exam day so Let your ideas flow, make sure your mind is clear from any stress or anxiety. And obviously that's easier said than done, but you can practice procedures such as meditation, exercise, and things like that, that really help clear your mind on the days leading up to the exam to make sure that you're in the best mental space when you walk into that exam hall, or in the case of section two, when you're doing it from home, obviously now, you're in the best mental space to write your best essays. If you've got any more questions, do let me know down below in the comment section, I will be there answering them.

As I said below, check out my link in the description for the Facebook group that I'm running that has plenty of free sessions and resources available for you guys. I've also got my website as well. And of course, don't forget to subscribe for more content, like the video, and I'll see you guys next time.

Transcript for:GAMSAT Section 2 Preparation Tips

Transcript for:
GAMSAT Section 2 Preparation Tips