55 marks or 55%

[jas_m22]

Hello all,

My first post! I have just started studying for gamsat, its not so nice. I did some practice question from the gradmed website and am scoring around 50 - 60%. I don’t understand the criteria for passing, it says 55 in two sections including section two and 50 in the remaining. Now does this mean percentage or an actual mark, e.g. say 55 out of 110 (for section three)? I’m probably just being dense from all the panic but if anyone can clarify it would be much appreciated.

Jas

[Roseofjericho]

Hi - thats a really good question!

Spent a bit of time pondering it, because it never even occurred to me. But then i looked it up. In the information booklet for 2007 on the George's website i found this:

Each of the four GAMSAT scores is expressed on a scale of 0 to 100.

So in essence, its both.

[jas_m22]

Thanks for clearing that up, but it doesn’t change the fact I’m gona fail at this rate! Need to get my skates on!

[montreux]

Not meaning to depress you further but the only info I have seen on this is in the Griffiths GAMSAT Review where he says "the GAMSAT score is probably about 5 points lower than the % score". Of course I have no idea of how true that actually is but it definitely gives us something to aim for!!

Good luck!

[Roseofjericho]

Originally Posted by montreux

the only info I have seen on this is in the Griffiths GAMSAT Review where he says "the GAMSAT score is probably about 5 points lower than the % score".

Does he say why?

[Deagle]

He says it's based on information from Acer - apparently the % scores are shifted each year so they can be compared against scores from previous years, presumably to make up for slight variations in difficulty. That said the top 25% cut-off for Notts/St. George's has wandered between 59 and 64 over the last few years, so either they have a limit on how much it's shifted or they're using different criteria to measure difficulty.

[jas_m22]

Ok, now we have percentages cleared up, can we use calculators in the exam?

[montreux]

Originally Posted by jas_m22

Ok, now we have percentages cleared up, can we use calculators in the exam?

Non-programmable ones in Section 3 only. (And you can have a bilingual dictionary for Sections 1 & 2 if your mother tongue isn't English).

See http://www.gamsatuk.org/index.php?op...d=15&Itemid=34

[aspirant doc]

I think there's another reason for the score variance; in Section III there are 110 questions, but only 100 count, the other 10 are "practice" questions for the exam writers to consider for subsequent exams. So if you score 100/110, your score could range from 90 to 100, depending on whether you got the practice ones right or wrong.

But to be honest I don't think it really makes a difference - if you're going to pass, you're going to pass, and if not...well...you're not!

But there truly is plenty of time to boost your score in the next few weeks.

I wish you all loads of luck in preparing for it and with the exam. Just typing this casts me back to preparing last year, what a thought! Yuck!
Nickx

[footy]

Hi
Am I right in saying if you get 70% of questions right in a section you get a gamsat score of 70% +/- x% for standardisation?

Does this mean people who get fantastic scores like 68 actually only got about 68% right?

I originally thought they took your score out of 110 or however many questions, ranked everyone and made the top person 80. 70 was in the top 2-3 percentile etc. ie. it was a ranked system only.
Confused? Me too.