Overview
This GAMSAT Section 2 practice session focuses on reflective essay prompts based on quotes about friendship, wisdom, technology, and history, offering students material for theme development and critical analysis.
Practice Instructions
- Prepare lined paper to handwrite your essay for an authentic test experience.
- Simulate exam conditions: 2.5 minutes of reading (no writing), then 30 minutes to write.
- Choose one or more quotes provided as the foundation of your response.
- Essays are assessed on depth of thought, logical structure, and clarity, not on your particular opinions.
Theme 1: Friendship
- Emerson: Personal growth is reflected through the evolving nature of one’s friendships.
- Aristotle: Friendship is described as a unity of souls in separate bodies.
- Edison: Deep friendships hold more value than high social status or power.
- Blake: Just as animals require homes, humans require friendship.
- Wilde: True friends are honest and upfront, even when it hurts.
Theme 2: Wisdom
- Blake: Overindulgence or excess can lead to new knowledge and wisdom.
- Lichtenberg: True wisdom begins with questioning and ends with acceptance.
- Webster: Wisdom emerges at the conclusion or endpoint.
- Santayana: Even the wisest have more to learn.
- Little: Lifelong dedication to learning can reveal one’s previous overconfidence in youth.
Theme 3: Technology
- Tudor: Technology enables control over many things, except itself.
- Fuller: Technology is often used for purposes not originally intended.
- Wright: Overreliance on technology may lead to loss of other abilities.
- Harris: The risk is not smart computers, but humans acting like machines.
- Einstein: Technology may have surpassed the development of human values.
Theme 4: History & Learning from the Past
- Bell: Focusing on past disappointments can make us miss new opportunities.
- Unknown: Some advise living in the present, ignoring both history and the future.
- Unknown: Understanding the past is critical to solve present challenges.
- Santayana: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
- Huxley: The main lesson of history is humanity’s failure to learn from it.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Essay Task B — A reflective essay based on personal interpretation of provided prompts.
- Theme — Central topic around which the essay is developed (e.g., friendship, wisdom).
- Logical Organisation — Structuring an essay clearly and cohesively.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Choose a quote/theme and write a 30-minute essay following the instructions.
- Practice essay planning within a 2.5-minute reading time.
- Review your written work for clarity, organisation, and depth of analysis.