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They say that great writers are often inspired individuals who impart their novel ideas in a coherent manner. However, not all of us can effortlessly run off great writing, particularly under time pressure. When it comes to the GAMSAT exam, you have to attune your writing skills to deliver high quality essays for GAMSAT Section 2. Writer’s block is the enemy in this scenario, as it reduces the amount of time that you have to generate your well articulated responses.
In this article, we aim to help you overcome the writer’s block to be able to express your thoughts with clarity within the allocated time.
The Graduate Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT) is largely challenging because of the integration of broad intellectual themes that demands an out-of-the-box thinking style. Since going online, the new GAMSAT exam will be a 5.25 hour marathon with 21 minutes of reading time to get to grips with a range of question-types.
What is so different about GAMSAT questions, you might ask? Well for starters, the question-types range from multiple-choice questions to essay styles and stem-oriented question sets, making GAMSAT a medical entrance exam like no other. Each student attempts the GAMSAT in a chronological order: Section 1, Section 2, followed by a 30-minute break before diving into Section 3 science questions. GAMSAT Section 1 has 62 questions that are intricately built on a combination of written passages, cartoons, poetry, prose and other literary materials, which needs to be attempted under 100 minutes. Once you tackle the humanities stimuli, demanding higher-order deductive skills, it is only natural that Section 2 feels like an impossible mountain as you are drained of good creative ideas.
Broadly speaking, in GAMSAT Section 2, you are given a series of themed quotes, Task A and Task B. These quotes need to be broken down into smaller chunks of plausible explanations to deliver a high quality essay for the examiners to assess your vocabulary and communication skills. If you are confused as to what are the general and specific themes that could pop up during the GAMSAT, you should definitely check out our Section 2 quote generator. A creative tool that is solely meant to challenge you on a broad spectrum of themes in order to make your GAMSAT ready. Besides, the quote generator is a great way to broaden your scope of thinking when provided with a tricky theme during the exam.
Most students, in our experience, doubt their writing skills and feel pressured to generate unique ideas under the 65 minute time-limit. The root cause for writer’s block is the feeling of anxiety which often leads to a slowdown in your creative potential.
The second downward spiral about the writer’s block is the lack of confidence that begins to ensue. It could be the case that you have set high expectations for yourself and witness the GAMSAT as a make or break exam for your future in medicine. Having such heavy thoughts in your head could make your writing more rigid. Moreover, the lack of confidence could arise from the fact that your thoughts are exposed to an external audience, in this case, the GAMSAT examiners who judge your writing style and character.
Writer’s block should not be as grave as you think and it is certainly something that can be prevented and overcome.
Becoming proactive in your writing. Procrastination in writing can make you lousy and can be a major hindrance to generate good ideas. Following an unorthodox method of active writing, where you write as the idea comes to you, will give you some pen to paper. Once you have some momentum, you can then ensure that your writing argument is coherent.
In saying so, being active in your writing is solely meant to help you formulate ideas quicker. This is because GAMSAT Section 2 consists of two quotes that are built on overarching themes, where Task A focuses on socio-cultural concepts while Task B gives importance to humanity, emotions, and lived social interactions.
The GAMSAT essay markers are looking for students who are quick in their thinking and are able to display the right values through their essays. After all, the GAMSAT is a hurdle to select future doctors. Therefore, when you are given a Section 2 quote, critically analyse the quote to develop a dominant hypothesis that you would like to elaborate on. Once you have a fair idea of what your essay will revolve around, note down two or three major pointers that can coherently convey the polarity in your arguments. Remember to always support your statements with suitable examples to add credibility to your perspectives.
Bear in mind that the active writing style is prescribed for those who struggle to work under stressful conditions and may succumb to procrastination. Therefore, it is not the only writing strategy recommended to all the students. If you have a writing format that has enabled you to generate novel ideas with ease, ensure that you are decisive in your writing or the essay could seem vague to the GAMSAT essay examiners.
Writing is all about your ability to express your lived experiences that are personal to you. Especially for the GAMSAT Section 2 Task B essays, your communication skills and knowledge are closely assessed to gauge the extent of your personal touch compared to your peers. So it is crucial that you display a sound thought process which sheds light on your core values to be a successful applicant in the medical profession.
When we talk about the ‘personal touch’ we imply that you believe in your innate writing ability to genuinely work through some basic ideas without letting self-doubt absorb your capabilities in what you’ll now understand is classical writer’s block.
Furthermore, when you look at a specific Section 2 quote, you are bound to have an intuition that you personally relate to, or may have some prior knowledge through external references. It is very important to acknowledge the first thought that comes to mind in order to have an innate natural argument for your essay.
Although intuitions are not necessarily the primary drivers of your essay, we believe that road mapping one idea can potentially pave the way to a plethora of logical solutions for your essay. On this basis, you are more comfortable in expanding on these ideas, as they are personal to you and also give the examiner an essence of your originality, which is crucial for a future doctor.
In order to be a good writer, you need to first be able to write anything. Deliberately make an effort to start writing about the most baseless concepts and slowly transition to writing about your views on religion or politics. Once you cultivate this habit of writing on any topic, you will begin to become comfortable in your writing space and can critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the pieces you write.
Since the future GAMSATs are meant to be conducted in an online setting, it is important that your typing speed is fast-paced to be efficient on GAMSAT exam day. For starters, set realistic goals for yourself such as typing a 500 word essay on any emotion or choose to expand on a trending political story that interests you under a racing clock.
Once you begin writing in your spare time, you normalise the idea of writing and become more of a story-teller who understands the expectations of a particular topic. Additionally, writing consistently can make you confident and will strengthen your vocabulary, especially when you are connecting two ideas, or have to be creative to sell your essay to the examiners.
Our GAMSAT Section 2 quote generator is specially designed to help you overcome writer’s block. Our themes are broad in nature, similar to the standards of the ACER platform. A good first step in your Section 2 preparation is to try and attempt the quotes first prior to clicking to reveal the theme. On this basis, your interpretation skills will gradually improve and this in turn will improve your essay writing style and the ability to proofread under a limited timeframe.
Writing a good-quality essay isn't easy, and self-critiquing your essay is a bigger challenge. At times like this, Fraser's tutors can come in handy as their skills and expertise can provide pointers on assembling your ideas in an essay and checking for grammatical errors, so you don't compromise on the quality of your essay. We also recommend a platform like Studycrumb.com, which provides students with lots of practical essay writing tips and free tools to help them express their ideas coherently.
If you don’t always have access to a Fraser’s tutor, we also recommend that you take help from your friends and family to review your work each time after writing a piece. This way you receive honest feedback and can gain insight into the perspective of the reader to be able to create better essays in the future.
