The medical profession is considered to be a challenging, yet highly rewarding career. When considering the value and contributions of doctors and other health workers to our day-to-day lives, it comes as no surprise that medical schools need to select individuals who can demonstrate certain core skills from a premedical stage. For this reason, intellectual tests like the UCAT and GAMSAT have done well throughout the years to select capable candidates with promising skills to excel both during and after medical school.
Keeping the GAMSAT in focus, this exam challenges people from all educational and life backgrounds. From individuals on the verge of completing a bachelor’s degree, to mature individuals in their late 40s, the assessment process is uniform to one and all. However, what truly differentiates students from one another is their own ability to identify their knowledge gaps and take into account their prior educational and real-life experiences to prepare for the GAMSAT.
Our previous articles have shed light on GAMSAT for a mature student and GAMSAT multiple-sitters. In this edition, we aim to provide logical solutions to individuals who are working a 9-5, who still want to sit and excel in the GAMSAT. Remember that GAMSAT preparation is downright burdensome whilst working a full-time job, especially since the job would consume a fair amount of your creativity and enthusiasm to learn. We hope that these top tips help you to both excel in the GAMSAT as well as maintain your performance while at work.
1. Attempt a Practice Test
Before getting into the trenches of your GAMSAT preparation, a fundamental understanding of what the GAMSAT entails and its purpose of evaluation can really make a difference in your study plan. Knowing where exactly your weaknesses are that you need to focus on is important because your allocated time for GAMSAT will be forged around your work hours.
At Fraser’s, we advocate most of our students to undertake a GAMSAT practice test, which typically mimics the perks and essence of the real GAMSAT exam. This way you are informed of the question-types you will encounter and also be cognizant of the knowledge gaps you need to strengthen.
To be fair, working full-time implies dedicating resources to satisfy the job requirements. As you have become accustomed to working life, your academic knowledge and ability to tolerate study may have waned. For this reason, we recommend that you don't get put off if your first experience attempting a practice test felt challenging. Instead, try to focus on which GAMSAT section was slowing your progress and narrow in on specific concepts that require more of your undivided attention.
Upon analysing your experience in the practice test, you can develop a GAMSAT study plan that is targeted to improve your understanding of concepts you know and information that you lack. Remember that each GAMSAT section is unique and assesses different core skills, so upon refining your knowledge, undertake another GAMSAT practice test and see how you go.
Practice Effective Time Management
The GAMSAT sections - Section 1, Section 2 and Section 3 are heavily-loaded with subjects such as prose and poetry, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, and essays. Each section demands a distinct course of action to ensure you perform optimally on the day of GAMSAT.
The GAMSAT is difficult, and needs to be taken seriously if anything else. It is obvious that the GAMSAT preparation process is a tedious one that involves months of getting to grips with an array of information. The only way to bring your A-game across your GAMSAT study and work is to practice effective time management.
To get over this hurdle, create a study plan that is inclusive of your day-to-day routine besides your stipulated period of study. Initially, it may seem fatiguing to juggle work and GAMSAT studies, however as you advance, you will be habituated to study at comfortable hours of the day (during your break time, before or after work or late-nights).
Since your study plan has a clear picture of your daily to-do-list, you can gradually add specific study goals like - re-attempting specific GAMSAT sections, revising difficult concepts using personal notes etc. You may even reach a point wherein your coffee breaks at work may come with a dose of memorising Chemistry and Physics formulas. The key here is to shape your time management skills in order to chronologically assign the relevance to each preparation stage in your study plan.
Develop Healthy Eating Habits
In our experience, it usually takes a student more than one sitting to achieve a satisfactory GAMSAT score, provided there was adequate time devoted to preparation, appropriate mental health breaks and little to no prior commitments.
GAMSAT preparation can somewhat be thought of as taking on another part-time job because it demands concentration and consistent improvisation in order to achieve a good outcome. Amongst all the exhaustion, it could be the case that some of you may compromise on eating healthily due to pressure of maintaining your work ethic alongside studying for the GAMSAT.
Regardless of your daily engagements, maintaining a healthy balanced diet can undoubtedly improve your mental and physical stamina. Something as simple as eating a protein bar before jumping into a big meeting can massively boost your energy throughout the day and help you on your GAMSAT endeavour.
Full-Time Work Is Useful for Getting into Medical School
Although this point is not the most relevant to your GAMSAT study, we wanted to highlight that full-time work carries equal importance to GAMSAT study. You can sit the GAMSAT many times but poor performance at your job could affect your ability to support yourself while you study.
Although full-time work and GAMSAT study can be tiresome; as a worker, you have the advantage of financial stability from work to pay for things such as GAMSAT registration and tuition. Besides the added income value from your job, your experiences from full-time work can significantly increase your odds of securing a medical interview offer, and give you the skills to excel on interview day.
To explain in brief, most medical schools place extra-curricular activites and work experience in high regard. Working a full-time job often means that you are exposed to brainstorming ideas within a team dynamic and regularly contributing to your team. It is these skills that will portray you in a good light to a medical school, especially if you apply to universities that evaluate you based upon life experiences. Portfolio Universities, like UNDA and UoW, or Deakin University give significant weighting to an applicant that can show work experience, in addition to GAMSAT and GPA. So your work experience will actually make your medical school application stand out!
How Can A GAMSAT Tutor Help You?
Across Australia, the Fraser’s family has made a reputation for being the best in the GAMSAT game. One of our articles is specially dedicated to depicting some of our GAMSAT tutor profiles who have helped countless students to achieve a GAMSAT score that meets a medical school’s expected threshold.
We totally understand that GAMSAT preparation can be laborious if done solo. Instead, we recommend you to try out our GAMSAT Masterclass event. It is one of our popular programs that informs all students about the essentials of the GAMSAT, breaks down each section, and provides access to our LMS. Additionally, this one-day event can give you an overview of our teaching style so that you can gain some confidence before enrolling into our more comprehensive GAMSAT courses.
Additionally, our GAMSAT tutors know the perks of working full-time and the burnout that comes with it, hence, most of our teaching can be tailored to individual needs and requirements of working GAMSAT preparation into your already busy schedule.
Where To Next?
If you are satisfied with the information in this article and are looking for additional information on the core foundation of the GAMSAT, we recommend that you visit our website to gain access to some of our freely available high quality articles and tools.
Alternatively, here are some resources to help you create an effective GAMSAT study plan:
