Gamsat Practice Test

[orlando2007]

Has anyone done the practice test from Acer? I did it two days ago and scored 55 out of 75 on section 1 and 60 out of 110 on section 3 did section 2 but found this really hard in the time given as not used to writing by hand , also noticed not having spell check!!! a friend who did English lit marked it according to the acer pointers and gave me 50 %.
I checked on the Acer website to see how to convert my scores into a gamsat score but it dosnt really tell you how they do it other than that the scores are not percentage scores! Therefore is the practice test a bit of a waste of 5.5 hours!! I know that 55 out of 75 seems pretty good (73 % as an absolute %) and 60 out of 110 (54%)pretty bad and that 4 weeks studying organic chemistry got me nowhere near to the level required on the test but other than that not much further forward really.
Also there seems to be two ways of giving a score one when the section 111 is double weighted and one were all three are equal does anyone know which they use in the UK? as equal scores would be beneficail in my case.

[Dick Cheney]

All UK universities use the double-weighted science score, except St George's/Notts who use the highest of the 2 scores.

ACER are purported to use a complex weighting scheme whereby difficult questions get a higher mark. On top of that, they apply a weighting function to the scores so that the percentile distribution remains the same from year to year.

That said, I think the mark you get in the practice tests is a good indicator of how you'll do in the real thing.

[Platypus]

From my experience your ACER papers score (in %) is about 6-8 points higher than your eventual real GAMSAT score. I know that St George's lowered their passmark for interview from 62 to 61 last time, so I would say you should aim for at least 67-70% in the practice/sample questions. Other universities may use the GAMSAT score differently though - check their website.

As for the essays, practice, practice, practice - this is the only way for those of us who are not geniuses!

Good luck for the 21st!

[Dick Cheney]

I scored slightly higher in the GAMSAT than the test papers.

[Platypus]

Good for you Dick Cheney - you are the only one I know who managed it.

BTH where are you currently studying?

[Arch_Angel]

Anyone else having trouble forgetting things they learned earlier? I'm currently on a genetics degree, so there's quite a bit of biochem/organic chem thrown in, but when I came to learning physical chem (gas pressures and rate equations etc) I was learning from scratch. I put in a good few weeks earlier on in the summer learning A level and "GAMSAT GURU" chemistry, but appear now to have forgotten it all again. Nightmare. I'm currently using organic chem for dummies which seems really good, just a shame I wasted all that money on that GURU nonsense, should have just bought the dummies chem book.

As for these essays...... well, the less said the best. I've got like all 10 ozimed practice papers, but i'm undecided if it's actually a good thing to sit down and do lots of them for 5.5 hours at a time. Seems to me just like wasted time. Time that could be spent learning more organic chem or something.

Are the practice exams essential to sit down and do in a proper time constraint?

[Dick Cheney]

Originally Posted by Arch_Angel

Are the practice exams essential to sit down and do in a proper time constraint?

I think that doing the papers under exam conditions is a key part of preparation. The individual questions are not that hard if you have the luxury of time to solve them, but doing them under time pressure for 5 or so hours is arduous.

[joanne82]

The ozimed papers have only worried me more! The section 1 are so easy they cant possibly be at GAMSAT level and the section 3 are way too hard you need a lot of prior science knowledge - which i havent got in that much detail. I dont think these papers are a good indicator of the test. Ive only done 2 of them and am know worrying that i dont know enough science!

[Platypus]

Hi joanne82

Try gradmed - you should be able to buy a copy on ebay. Section I should be more challenging than ozimed, and possibly even the actual gamsat. Section III is about the same as gamsat. Your best bet for Section III though is the ACER papers.

Good luck!

[joanne82]

Luckily I already have the GRADMED papers which seem much better. The section 1 are much more difficult I hope they are harder than the actual exam- I find that many have two answers that are right and you have to find the most right answer (if you know what i mean?!) or they seem to ask your opinion on the piece? The section 3 seem to give much more info and i can moslt work out the answer from this info- I hope its like that in the real exam?