Illegal Copies of Courses/Books/etc

**Admin** · 23-09-2005, 01:44 PM

Please remember that it is illegal to make copies and sell material without permission of the copyright holder.

Anyone found doing so and using this site to trying to sell illegal material will be banned.

**billturner84** · 19-11-2007, 08:26 PM

It's not illegal to sell on material second hand surely?

**KEWE** · 19-02-2008, 03:37 PM

Hi I'm not sure if it's illegal or not to sell on second hand copies. However, the cost of these courses is exploitative and elitist. Some of them are almost the price of a year at med school. Rant over... I'll never get in with an attitude like that will I?!

If it's not illegal does anyone have a copy of the Medprep 2007 home study that they would like to pass on?!

Thanks

**Docmeg** · 12-06-2008, 03:40 AM

I believe it isn't illegal to sell on original material but to make photocopies and sell is to breach copy right which is illegal.

**superdoc1** · 12-06-2008, 03:43 AM

Originally Posted by Docmeg

I believe it isn't illegal to sell on original material but to make photocopies and sell is to breach copy right which is illegal.

Of course not. Its only illegal to sell/distrubute copies

**Docmeg** · 13-06-2008, 01:40 AM

That's what I said

...perhaps I wasn't clear

**Frank E** · 07-02-2009, 01:27 AM

It would be nice if they put just even a couple of sample questions on their website, not even whole papers.
It would give prospective candidates a quick means of making a yay or nay decision as to whether they think that route is applicable.
I'd bet that it would in fact lead more prospective students to decide in favour of going the GAMSAT route.

Someone thinking of training to be an accountant, can go into a bookshop have a flick through and ACCA, CIMA text see the level of the test material and think yep, "I can do that", "that looks challenging but I'd manage if I keep my head stuck in" or "no way, not in a million years" .

[/2p]

**Mrock** · 25-02-2009, 09:33 PM

Does anybody else feel that the whole GAMSAT process is disappointing?

Why is it more to sit the exam in the UK (195GBP) than Australia (308AUD)? It is also far more expensive than the UK's BMAT used by Oxford UCL and Cambridge (£32.10) and the UKCAT used by KCL and Newcastle (£60). They charge an "overseas levy" (165AUD) which is completely unjustified - what possible extra cost is it to them if people take the exam in Washington or Sydney? They charge £25 in the UK for a practice test booklet. It is extortionate and they can get away with it because you have no choice.

If you want a shot at actually getting a good mark you have to spend a huge amount of money on unofficial preparation materials which are riddled with mistakes and compiled by opportunist amateurs taking advantage of a chaotic system that is just designed to make money.

The GAMSAT itself is off the mark as an aptitude test, with an emphasis on irrelevant vocabulary, semantics and tiny scientific details. The whole system is elitist and all about the money.

My advice to anyone looking to revise for it (and despite the claim that it is a "reasoning test" you really do need to prepare) is to get a list of all the minutiae that come up from someone who has already taken it and has the practice materials and then thoroughly go through it all on the internet. I have all the quasi-professional preparation material and the internet has been far, far more useful as a teaching tool. You do however, need to know what to specifically revise.

**Soul and Onward** · 02-03-2009, 05:48 AM

Originally Posted by Mrock

If you want a shot at actually getting a good mark you have to spend a huge amount of money on unofficial preparation materials which are riddled with mistakes and compiled by opportunist amateurs taking advantage of a chaotic system that is just designed to make money.

Not true at all, the only money I spent was £15 on one of the sample questions books (which I intend to sell when the 2009 exam approaches, it seems they have a rather high resale value). I picked up science texts from my local library and did no revision whatsoever for the first two sections. I found the test to be a much better indicator of ability than the UKCAT (can't speak for the BMAT) and would like to see it adopted by more universities. The cost is quite steep, but I'd be surprised if ACER made much profit from the exam fee (remember, about £30 is VAT).

**Mrock** · 02-03-2009, 10:29 PM

Regarding the need for the section III preparation materials, I'm speaking from a non-science background and have found that other students with scientific degrees that aren't "straight" chemistry or similarly focused disciplines also needed the preparation material.

I did try getting standard text books from the library and to be fair that might have worked if I had known exactly what topics to revise, but the only way I can see of really pinpointing your revision is through the GAMSAT-focused preparation materials.

I agree that the GAMSAT, whilst it needs to shed some irrelevancies, does give you a much more vigorous grilling than the UKCAT, which I too thought was a narrow indicator of ability. And at least the GAMSAT does give students some credit for hard work.

True it's hard to speculate on their profits (who knows how the company is structured and what they get paid), but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a significant cut taken somewhere. if 3000-4000 people take the exam in London that's between £495,000-660,000 with £30 VAT taken off. It's largely computer marked, with student invigilators, but sure, I wouldn't know.