I will start off by saying I have never read Pareto's work, nor for that matter have I read Hamlet. That is first and foremost because applying The Pareto Principle is vital to the study of medicine (and thus justifies not bothering to read it.....I'll explain the paradox).
In it's simplest form, Pareto's Priciple states that 80% of output is derived from 20% of input; in otherwords, 20% of your hard work will accomplish 80% of your desired outcomes. This principle is discussed in just about every popular work on achievement and self-help in modern times. It's also the reason that I've never bothered to read the rest of Paretto's work as yet; 80% of the benefit derived from this principle can be derived just from the words above (considerably less than 20% of the thesis). Reading any more than this will have exponentially diminishing returns and increasing effort expenditure in my goal of the practice of medicine.
If you've read this far and are wondering from whence I acquired my stash, allow me to elaborate further. Pay attention to your work place and job: put yourself in your bosses shoes and ask 'What makes this business profitable/effective?'. Next ask yourself, 'What do I do that contributes to that profit/effectiveness'. If you think hard about it, it's likely that only 2 hours of your work day ACTUALLY accomplishes anything that's truly useful for the business. Now turn your mind to your undergraduate studies and the last exam you studied for. Think about how much you've studied that was 1-) Not applicable to what you now practice and 2-) Never assessed in any exam. Now think about how much time you wasted fretting over it......sigh. (I got an HD for my paper on embodiment....it has yet to help me in the practice of nursing or medicine)
One of the reasons that I seemed to do relatively well in my medical school exams was the recognition of this principle. When faced with Harrisons, Guyton, Boron, Rang and Dales and Robbins (enough books to break the sturdiest spine!) for the upcoming cardiology exam, I knew fully well that the male reproductive system would play a small role in my preparation, ergot I ommited it. I then continued this principle of hacking and culling study material until I distilled only what was LIKELY to be in the exam. I then studied this material extensively. When it comes to exams, it's far better to know intimately the 10% of the text book that is examinable rather than to know poorly all of the text book where 90% of it will not be examined.
That is not to say for a second that I don't condone reading extensively and exhaustively! After all, medical school will train you to learn for the rest of your life. But consider this:
-The purpose of medical school is to educate, the goal is to become educated (AKA read hard).
-The purpose of exams is to to detroy one's soul, the goal is to pass them first time (AKA read smart).
The GAMSAT is no different. 20% of what your efforts will be responsible for 80% of your achievement on exam day. So when you're compiling exhaustive lists of reading material and gruelling study regimes that last 6 months and cannot reasonably be followed, I implore you to work smarter, not harder. Don't destroy your soul over the GAMSAT, your super-human efforts will be poor consolation if you don't get the score you were after. Rather, look at your study program, then look at the ACER question set: work out what 20% of your program is going to improve your performance (for me it was a select few chapters of text book and problem solving activities combined with perfecting EXCELLENT exam technique). Once you've identified that 20%, do MORE of it. This won't ever achieve 100% efficieny, but it will get you closer than you were before. In the GAMSAT, this WILL improve your (score even if that only brings your score from a 30 to a 40).
Remeber the GAMSAT exists primarily as a discriminant tool. Your goal is to get INTO medical school. The GAMSAT's goal is to keep 80% of you out. Hence all of your preparation needs to be directed towards studying the EXAM and not to studying SCIENCE in general.
So good luck to y'all! Feel free to check out our book Reasoning for the GAMSAT here. It's available for purchase as an eBook for $9.95 AUD. Also, feel free to email me about any GAMSAT topics you'd like me to cover on this blog or future eBooks and I'll be more than happy to help out!
Bye folks!
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