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Just wanted to mention my experience of the Gradmed courses as I found them really helpful and so it seemed appropriate to balance up the weight of opinion so far. Can I just say I have NO vested interest in or links to Gradmed and just found out about them via an intenet search on GAMSAT a few months before the exam.
I have not studied science for over 25 years(!) so I joined the intensives for the science subjects only. I thought the lecturers were excellent, the course notes very good and the advice on how to prioritise really helpful. I could never have organised my studying without it. It probably was a bit too close to the exam but I had done some basic studying a few weeks before and then did two weeks revision full-on after the courses.
It was expensive and unfortunately not affordable for everyone but I thought it was a good investment if it got me an interview, which it did. I only have 'o' level physics and some crummy 'A' level results but I managed 70 on the GAMSAT last year (67/79/66). I can't quite believe I even passed the science paper - I was the person who actually laughed out loud a couple of times in the London exam at the absurdity of it all if anyone was there!
I also found the Griffiths e-book really helpful overall. I didn't follow all the advice in the end but tried a lot of the suggestions on the practice papers and discarded those that didn't work for me. It helped me really focus on the timing and because of its advice I completed every question (even if the last few were complete guesses).
Maybe if you are already confident in the basic sciences then the Gradmed-type courses aren't necessary, and I can't comment on the courses for verbal reasoning and essay writing or whatever they were called (its all a bit of a blur), but I found the science ones worthwhile given my background.
Good luck to all of you taking the exam this year.
Sarah
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