GAMSAT Ireland for UK entrants

[sehs527]

SEC 1
Not too bad. I spent alot of time practicing questions using gradmed, des oneil and other papers. Like others have said, its often quite simple to pick out two correct answers. I feel ive now become more familiar with gamsat questions, in practice I could usually spot the correct question from the phrasing and tone of the answers (and bearing in mind the tricks and red herrings they throw in... gits!).

There were alot of long passages making timing an issue. However, I found the longer ones easier to understand. Plenty of poems too, but only one diagram-based questions and two cartoons if i remember correctly. Thinking back, there was the CAM passage, the passage on different ways of constructing society (footballers), the simple passage about a Russian telling his friends about the injury he got in battle, a piece on Australian historians and writing order and something on anthropologists needing to find religion in societies.

Had to guess about 10 questions I didnt have time to do.

SEC 2
Disastrous! For some reason my timing went completely wrong, despite practice! Think I generated some good ideas for the censorship essay but organisation was a mess, and wrote the first page on the notes section!?! On the second essay i wrote about achieving goals using confidence to bring happiness. This one was awful. Managed to get it finished but ideas were poor, didnt bring in enough examples and structure was weak. I think this section will bring me down alot.

SEC 3
Ok, better than last time. Timing was an issue again. I dont actually think its possible to do well and finish all of the questions in this section, there isnt enough time to absorb all the info, interpret it and then apply it. I guessed ~20 questions but that seems to be normal... i hope!

Seemed to be plenty of biology questions which were fairly easy and not too time consuming. Definately less organic questions, but the ones that came up were moderately difficult mainly involving aromatic compounds. I was suprised to see quite a few arithmetic type questions, which in a way was quite nice. Dont remember seeing many physics questions; one on series/parallel circuits, focal lenses, heart beat current/resistance. Other ones i can remember are...

Amount of energy needed to raise 1 mL of water by 1°C and a meal of 8000 kJ. Energy is converted to heat, how much ice water with a temperature of 0°C must be drunk. I couldnt figure this one out quick enough so skipped it.

Thermoregulatory mechanisms of pigeon, emu etc in response to changes in the hypothalamic temperature. Did ok i think.

Partial hydrolysis of polypeptide chain. 4 different tripeptides and had to determine the order of the original chain...

Cardiac cycle diagram and volume/pressure of blood etc.

Near the end was, Hb saturation in larval and adult stages of an organism. Stage at which temperature is Hb saturation/affinity for O2 highest etc.

Physics question on runner at the start of a race. Didnt bother with it.

Nice easy questions at the start on activation of T-helper cells.

Structure of benzene, and the number of isomers for different forms... struggled with this one.

Fish oral cavities, and their opening and closing times. Guessed some of these.

Overall, I dont think my score will average out to be much better than last time. If section 2 had gone better id be quietly confident. I have learnt what areas i need to work on but at a huge expense. Exam+hotel+train+materials+food etc = ~£500!!!

[Nurse_to_doctor]

Hi to all who took the exam on Saturday.

Lots of waiting - first we had to get in and register, then to store our bags, again for people to sit down, then again the bags (lunch) and for people to sit down and/or go to the loo. We then had to wait for one person to come back after lunch, but they never came back for Sec III. Great to eat sandwiches on the floor! Lastly, another wait to get our bags and go home... Seems to me, most of the people I spoke to were doing what I’m doing: using GAMSAT Ireland as a mock (an expensive one, admittedly) for GAMSAT-UK in September.

I found the questions in Section I okay, but the amount of reading was considerable – quite a number of almost full pages of text, although not overly demanding reading material. I found that for a number of questions, I just did not have enough time to make sure it was (say) answer A rather than C. I just had to go with the best answer within the time available.

Task A of Section II was okay – modern communication – good v bad (or ‘threaten/sanity’ terms they used) for society was a good one for a fairly rigorous argument with relevant up-to-date examples (recent Facebook murder). However, I could not get into the ‘self-confidence makes you happy/healthy’ Task B. I realised it was going nowhere in the second paragraph, but it was too late by then. I just had to plough on!

Section III – I know I’ve got 6 months to revise, getting my head around organic chem., but where were all the orgo questions? Just a few organic questions, but lots of number crunching – I was quite tired an hour into this section and know I did rather poorly. So, I need to improve my stamina…

N2D

[ozy123]

Hi to all who took the exam on Saturday.

Lots of waiting - first we had to get in and register, then to store our bags, again for people to sit down, then again the bags (lunch) and for people to sit down and/or go to the loo. We then had to wait for one person to come back after lunch, but they never came back for Sec III. Great to eat sandwiches on the floor! Lastly, another wait to get our bags and go home... Seems to me, most of the people I spoke to were doing what I’m doing: using GAMSAT Ireland as a mock (an expensive one, admittedly) for GAMSAT-UK in September.

I found the questions in Section I okay, but the amount of reading was considerable – quite a number of almost full pages of text, although not overly demanding reading material. I found that for a number of questions, I just did not have enough time to make sure it was (say) answer A rather than C. I just had to go with the best answer within the time available.

Task A of Section II was okay – modern communication – good v bad (or ‘threaten/sanity’ terms they used) for society was a good one for a fairly rigorous argument with relevant up-to-date examples (recent Facebook murder). However, I could not get into the ‘self-confidence makes you happy/healthy’ Task B. I realised it was going nowhere in the second paragraph, but it was too late by then. I just had to plough on!

Section III – I know I’ve got 6 months to revise, getting my head around organic chem., but where were all the orgo questions? Just a few organic questions, but lots of number crunching – I was quite tired an hour into this section and know I did rather poorly. So, I need to improve my stamina…

N2D

Stamina was an issue the first time I sat it, this time I made sure before section 3 to have some coffee and take some pro plus which actually kept me going.

I find it strange that people think its normal to guess (which was my experience as well) as the exam becomes at least partially a matter of luck.

I also found the waiting really annoying especially since most of us made sure to be there exactly on time in the morning and at lunch.

Section three, it really only required basic physics/chemistry but could potentially have been anything from the core syllabus and the more you know the easier it would be.

As for cost it was around £300 total for me but its really what I want to do so I'm not really that concerned about cost.

If you guys don't make it in Sept will you try again?

[Lauren_T&O]

Yeah I'd do it again if I didn't make it. I got the impression last weekend from other people's conversations that quite a few people there were doing it for a second time, made it seem fairly normal that people do this?