5 ways to be better than everyone else in the exam hall

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So let's forego why you want to study medicine; suffice to say that if you're willing to pay $400 to sit the exam with less than a 20% chance of success then you must want it for some reason. Instead let's look at getting better value for your money....ie; if you've already paid $400, you might as well pass right?!

If you've decided that this is path for you, you need to find a way to be better than 8 out every 10 people around you in the exam hall. The reality is that it's a competition. I'm afraid I can't condone violence, incapacitation, cheating or mischief; you can only win by lifting yourself up, not by dragging the competition down.

 5 Ways to be better than everyone else:

1. What is the exam testing? This seems obvious, but I hear of so many candidates who seem to omit this fundamental idea in their preparation (there are a lot of you who are franatically trying to learn biology, physics and chemistry to a post-doc level......please stop). Read the ACER website carefully, understand what the exam is testing and then do just a handful of questions to get a feel for what this means.
2. Practice what you're supposed to: As I keeping harping on....it's a reasoning exam....not a knowledge exam. You can acquire as much knowledge as you'd like, but without developing your reasoning skills you're wasting your energy. You're not going to study architecture because it's not necessary, nor are you going to study ancient Greek. Learn uni level chem, organic chem and biology and year 12 physics, then learn to solve a problem (it's called problem based learning for a reason).
3. Have immaculate exam technique: As I've said, it's a tough competition. World records rarely get broken by wide margins....in reality, one point may be the difference between an interview and no interview. Good technique will help you juice every possible mark out of the exam.
4. If it ain't working, do something else: If you've sat the exam and your score wasn't great, it's time to change something. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Maybe you have to work harder, develop your physics, read more fiction or work on your problem solving. Just make sure you do something different. 
5. Go with the crowd or stand out? This is an interesting concept and it's entirely statistical. In the exam your chances of success are about 20%. In the interview your chances are 66.6%. In the exam you have to stand out if you want to succeed. In the interview, the goal is to be as much like everyone else as possible.

Ultimately you can and must be better than everyone else if you want to make it, just make sure you're a gracious winner. Good luck with your preparations.

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Timing is everything...as is technique

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So imagine it's GAMSAT day. You have an exam lasting just shy of 7 hours ahead of you. Here's the breakdown.

Section I: 100 + 10 minutes for 75 questions
Section II: 60 + 5 minutes for 2 essays
Lunch: 60 minutes
Section III: 170 + 10 minutes for 110 questions

The average attention span in most adults is 15-20 minutes......you need to sustain it for nearly 7 hours!! The difference between good and bad technique can very realistically be the difference between an interview and having to repeat the whole process the following year. You will have to work smarter and harder than the average bear :)

You have about 90 seconds per question for section I (including your reading time) and just under 100 seconds per question for section III.

Here's some handy hints:

1-) Use your reading time! You can't mark the answer book, but you can read the questions and answer on your scrap paper. It takes about 2 seconds per question to transcribe an answer and it gives you the ability to answer an extra 6-7 questions more in the alloted time. It's not against the rules.....use the time!!

2-) Develop a system. Good technique can be make or break.I used a system that quickly sorted questions into 3 categories:

• Questions you can answer within 90 seconds: solve them immediately
• Questions you could solve if you had more than 90 seconds: flag them on your scrap paper and come back to them after you've done a FULL lap of the paper
• Questions you can't answer: you have to guess and you won't be penalised for doing so, but save these questions for last. You have a 25% chance of getting the right answer. Once you've gotten all of the points you can get by skill, it's time to get all of the points you can by chance!!

3-) Practice!! You WILL drift off during the exam whilst contemplating your navel. Develop strategies to deal with your inherent human-ness.

• Practice sustaining your attention for prolonged periods
• Learn to identify when you're distracted and tune back in quickly
• Allow yourself a few strategic seconds to stretch and refocus; do this every 1-2 vignettes and you'll find you're more efficient overall

4-) Learn to identify the key information quickly and efficiently. Each vignette will have a key piece of information that the subsequent question will test. The exam is full of "trick" questions whereby you will give the worng answer (but think you got it right) if you missed a key word or sentence in the vignette. Learn to identify these nuggets of information and develop the habit of putting mental 'post it notes' on them so that you can refer to them quickly and easily. This is particularly true for section I where there are often long vignettes and several questions to answer. Missing the word no or not in a long stretch of prose is the difference between getting the answer exactly right and exactly wrong!!

5-) Read quickly and efficiently!! If you're a slow reader, practice. If you're a quick reader, good, just don't miss anything important.

Good luck y'all

 http://www.emergencyone.com.au/

5 tips for GAMSAT preparation

Hi again

This blog is still in its infancy, but I hope it's proving useful or at least mildly entertaining for those of you staunch or foolish enough to read it :) Before I get started, this isn't a plug for our business, though as always the link is included at the end if you'd like to dig deeper. Rather this is a genuine attempt to reach out to those of you planning to sit GAMSAT in 2012.

5 tips for GAMSAT preparation

For starters, my GAMSAT journey went something like this;

-Save $2000 and don't enrol in a course...instead, 'borrow' your flatmate's (a primary school teacher) textbooks for chemistry and biology, procure an organic chemistry text book from somewhere (I genuinely can't remember where) and track down your dusty copy of the year 12 physics and maths text books.

-Put them in a suitcase, then fill the suit case with as much unconventional material as you can.....namely I packed the Bible, Confucius' Annalects, the MENSA puzzles book, Helen Keller's autobiography, a few pieces of Robert Louis Stevenson and generally anything else I could find that seemed like a good read.

-Then take the $2000 and rent a beach shack in Kangaroo Island for a month (Dolphin Chalet in Vivonne Bay....highly recommended!)

-Then spend every morning running, every day reading and practicing and every evening fishing

It was cathartic to say the least. Here's what I learnt and what I hope to pass to you.

1-Read: read often, read hard and read widely. Read as much as you can in as many subjects as you can. No education will ever detract from your life and all of it will add depth to you as a person; afterall, medical school isnt looking for the people who memorised a few text books (they WANT to teach you science, they don't assume you already know it) they are looking for a well balanced, intelligent and diverse set of people as the next generation of doctors.

2-Less is more: If you're bored, Google the Pareto Principle. It's good. 20% of your effort will account for 80% of your success. Rememer that the assumed level of knowledge for the GAMSAT is first year uni biology, chemistry and organic chemistry and only year 12 Physics (it's not official but I think year 11 or 12 maths helps too). Don't try to master everything ever written on these subjects, you'll fail at it and make yourself less effective in the basics. 

3-To course or not to course: naturally I have a vested interest here but I'll tell it like it is. Some people find courses helpful, some don't. I did it without a course and I know a lot of other people who did too. I also know a lot of people who did do a course. To the best of my knowledge there is no good evidence to suggest that it helps or hurts, though I suspect ACER is trying to generate such data. At the end of the day, learn the way you want to learn and that helps you. (PS I did to a course for the interview section and yes it did help)

4-Don't study the night before: maybe flick over your notes in a half hearted attempt, but don't take it seriously. Anything you were going to learn you will have by now. Rather invest that time and energy in a massgae, a bath, some good fiction, some manga, whatever floats your boat. Keep it stimulating but not very serious....how many atheletes do you see warming up with a 10km run immediately before their moment of glory?!

5-Que Sera Sera: you might smash it, you might flunk it! At the end of the day you can only do your best. I aced the exam on the first go, but then I got wait listed at the first interview. I was officially rejected the day after classes began in 2006. It got me down for about 2 days, then whilst having an existential funk on a bus I took solace in the notion that if I could be 'put off' by a single failure then I probably wasn't cut out for medicine. If you dont make it on your first, second or eighth try, then THAT'S OK! You have two options, a-) swallow your pride, dust yourself and start preparing for next year (ps; the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result-try something new); b-) decide that maybe medicine isn't the be all and end all and commit yourself to another cause, without an entry exam and with the same gusto!

I hope this helps! As always, I'd love to hear other people's views, experiences, feedback and stories.

Good luck folks

http://www.emergencyone.com.au/