The End is Nigh

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Dear folks

The end is nigh....GAMSAT Australia sits in 6 days. If you haven't started preparing yet....what were you thinking.....either that or you're a genius and will be one of those annoying people that makes the whole exam look super easy....at least try to pretend it was hard :)

Word from the not so wise, go easy on yourself! Let's face it, you're not going to cram the reading list in the next 6 days. By all means, brush up and review some last minute details, but by now most of the struggling should be done! My top tips for the next 6 days:

Monday: review your notes

Tuesday: practice puzzles, sudoku, cross words, anything that limbers you up mentally (think dual N back)

Wednesday: do something fun! Watch a (good) movie or read a book; thereby preparing and relaxing at the same time-helps to ameliorate the perfectionistic guilt!

Thursday: have a crack at some more ACER questions under exam conditions.....if you don't do so well, it's all good! Use the exercise to try and patch up any last minute flaws in exam technique

Friday: eat well, do some exercise, read a good book-preferably something funny

Friday night:

1-GO TO SLEEP EARLY

2-Sleep soundly (can't change anything now....might as well sleep well!)

 

Saturday morning:

1-Get up early.....not the day to be late.....

2-Eat a nourishing and well balanced breakfast....avoid excessive carbohydrates and simple sugars (sugar dumps are a biatch!)

3-Make your way to the exam hall in a leisurely fashion, maybe walk and incorporate some light exercise in the process-I did and it felt rather surreal and nice!)

4-Walk into the exam hall like you own the joint, smash the exam with 15 minutes to spare, give the invigilator a Fonzie style 'aaaaayyyyyyyy' as you leave!

5-Proceed to pina colada

 

PS: with respect to those people who habitually try to undermine other people's confidence at the interval- win by being excellent rather than trying to make other people suck. If you're affected by this sort of thing on the day.....smile politely and say 'totally'...... then walk away saying 'aaaayyyyy' (in your head of course!)

Good luck peeps.....shall see some of you about the hospital next year!! Come visit me in ED for the exploding leg special!!

PPS: there were 600 page views last month, feel free to follow us, recommend us, like us, whatever....just want to feel like less of a Nigel when I see our 3 followers (but love all 3 of you!!)......aaaaayyyyyyy :)

D

www.emergencyone.com.au

Alas Pareto; I Did Not Know Him

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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!

www.emergencyone.com.au

The GAMSAT Lectures

www.emergencyone.com.au

Hi y'all The GAMSAT Lectures are coming this September at Flinders University. This set of 3 short courses  focusses on each of sections I, II & III. We start with a brief didactic session on what the section is testing and how to make the most out of it. This is then followed by an intensive group work session giving you the opportunity to practice answering the ACER questions under the guidance and assistance of successful GAMSAT candidates.

It's a great opportunity to
1-) Pick the brains of those who have sat and passed the exam previously
2-) To focus on improving a sectional weakness (since most people do better in 1 or 2 sections)
3-) To kick start your prep in a quick, convenient and cost effective fashion
4-) To meet some of the other candidates who will sit along side you on test day

The sessions will be held at Flinders University
from 5pm-7pm
September 6th- Section I
September 13th- Section II
September 20th- Section III

For those of you who follow us from other states (particularly Queensland and Victoria, there seems to be a LOT of you), we'd like to start bringing our training to you instead of expecting you to come to us. If you're interested in attending, get in touch with me at david dot hooper at emergencyone dot com dot au. If we book more than 10 candidates in each state, we'll bring the road show to you!

Interview Time is Looming!

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What's with all the rats, cats and corn?

The first time I interviewed for medical school, I was unsuccessful at gaining a place. According to the University's feedback, my GAMSAT score was on par with the average successful applicant, my GPA was well above that of the average successful applicant....my interview score by default was well below par! What went wrong?

There's a common misconception that the interview is there to weed out people who lack the social skills to pursue a vocation as a doctor. Admittedly, I also held this misconception prior to sitting the first time. Uunfortunately, it's not like any job interview you have or will sit again!

The truth is, there are likely only one or two people out of every cohort interviewed who's personality or behaviour is so pathological as to preclude them from being a doctor. Rather the interview, much like the GAMSAT, is designed to test a unique facet of problem solving and communication skill. What you say is often far less important that how you approach each problem. After all, in medicine there is rarely just one way of doing things and there is almost never a RIGHT answer.

In my first attempt, I was blind-sided by a problem about Matthew Flinders, a boat, some corn, some rats, a cat, a bilge pump and a leak! I did a terrible job of this problem and, with my confidence shattered, did a terrible job of the rest of the interview too. The second time round, I was far better prepared. The question about car parks, football games and days of the week was a cinch. None of the subsequent questions took my by surprise and I owned the interview like a boss. I was offered a place in the first round and the rest, as they say, was history.

As I've said before, getting into medical school isn't a FUN process and you should always try to attempt it as little as possible. If you're fortunate enough to have an interview this year, come and join us for the interview preparation course. We won't guarantee you a spot in medical school, but we will show you what to expect! You'll also get to practice in a mock-up interview with the kind of people who make up the panel on the day. The course runs on Saturday September 15th from 10am-2pm at Flinders University. We'd love to see you there!

www.emergencyone.com.au

Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

www.emergencyone.com.au

This article from The New York Times was emailed to me by one of our customers.

Incidentally, he was the highest scoring out of our cohort and one of the highest in the country. I loved the article because it basically encapsulates (and far more eloquently than I could've) what the EmergencyOne course is about.

Have a read, it's well worth it. Fluid Intelligence, it's the way of the future people :) PS; after launching our book, we've had an overwhelming 300 or so page views, 16 downloads of the preview and 0 purchases :) So after a massive man tantrum, we're having an early bird special and reducing the price to $9.95. Be brave and be the first person to download it.....how else will it get pirated on all the forums??

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

EmergencyOne Book Launch

www.emergencyone.com.au

Reasoning for the GAMSAT

It is with great pride that we'd like to announce the first publication of EmergencyOne's book; Reasoning for the GAMSAT.

This is a unique handbook about intelligence, reasoning and problem solving as it pertains to the GAMSAT. It's an easy reading guide to this challenging and often elusive exam and is complete with fully worked-through ACER questions and an in depth reading list for preparation.

You can view a free preview here and download the full book here for $29.95. We hope to have the book available as an Ebook via several online vendors shortly.

Happy reading!

BUY THE BOOK NOW

GAMSAT Lecture Series and Interview Preparation

www.emergencyone.com.au

It is with great pride that EmergencyOne would like to announce the creation of two new course series for GAMSAT preparation:

The GAMSAT Lecture Series (2 Hours, $75): Consisting of three stand alone 2 hour sessions focusing on Sections I, II & III. They will be run twice each year, each time covering something different. They are short, to the point and cost effective. The idea being to come to as many or few as you'd like in order to help develop your own strengths and weaknesses as you see them.

We noted with great interest that many candidates perform well in one or two sections but underperform in the others. Another piece of consistent feedback is that our customers also wanted more time to practice questions under the guidance of people who had sat and passed the exam.

The Lecture Series was developed with this feedback in mind. Each 2 hour session will consist of a 1 hour lecture discussing the nature of the section, recurring themes and how to answer the questions effectively and efficiently. This will be followed by a 1 hour small group work session where you will have the opportunity to practice questions under the guidance of a doctor or medical student who has passed the GAMSAT. You will also have the opportunity to meet and learn from your peers who will sit with you on test day. This is also a great opportunity to meet others to form private study groups if desired.

They GAMSAT Lecture Series will run on Friday the 6th, 13th and 20th of September 2012 and again early next year.


Blitz the Interview (3-4 Hours, $190): A novel approach to interview preparation. Being doctors and medical students, we have all been through the terror of the interview both in South Australia and other states. We have collectively passed and failed at some point or another. We know what the interview is testing, what works and what doesn't.

The medical school interview is unlike any other interview you'll ever sit and you won't know exactly what to expect until your turn comes. Candidates are ushered into secluded rooms, made to complete baffling puzzles and then made to answer unanswerable questions. There are also the occasional horror stories of the interview panel playing Good Cop Bad Cop and starting arguments between the candidates and each other. (I was made to wait in the corridor after my interview for 20 minutes....it turns out they just forgot I was there....but I genuinely thought it was all part of the act....ie; can he follow instructions?).

With this is mind, we've compiled the tales of countless medical students to give our customers are realistic glimpse of what they will face on interview day. This 3-4 hour session will be comprised of 1 hour of lectures, 1 hour of small group interview practice and 1 hour of actual formal mockup interview consisting of problem solving, ethical dilemas and a 3 person interview panel. Our goal is to give you as close a taste of what to expect on the day as possible.

The Blitz the Interview course will run on Saturday 14th of September 2012, approximately 2 weeks after offers to interview are released.

As always, we'd like to thank our customers for their unwavering support. I'd also like to give a shoutout to Josh for designing our spiffy new logo! Congrats to all of the candidates who aced this year, good luck with your interview preparations. For those of you who didn't get to where you wanted or who are sitting for the first time in 2013, good luck. I can put my hand on my heart and tell you that the blood, sweat and tears are all worth it if it's what you truly want (though I won't necessarily endorse that view at 3am!)

Cheers
David

www.emergencyone.com.au