In Queensland, the traditional pre-med degree is biomedical science. In my opinion, this is a tradition without any real logical foundation. This is the case for a couple of reasons.
First, a biomedical science degree does not adequately prepare you for GAMSAT - it prepares you for medical school (and even this it does poorly - see later). These are two different things. Most people miss this. A biomedical science degree does not give you adequate opportunity to develop your writing skills for Section II and emphasises rote learning which does not develop your decision making ability in a pressured scenario based environment like Section I. Further, the course structure only covers basic first year organic chemistry which is insufficient to do well on Section III.
Second, though a biomedical science degree covers anatomy, physiology and pharmacology, other, more reputable courses such as pharmacy perform the same task while actually providing an opportunity for proper employment at the completion of the degree. The level of clinical knowledge of pharmacy students is also far superior to that of biomedical science students who know enough to 'sound' competent but not enough to be useful in a clinical setting. Admittedly, it is difficult to find work as a pharmacist but if your end goal is to become a doctor, the knowledge you gain as a pharmacy student will far exceed anything you will ever gain as a biomedical science student. In my view, it is definitely worth the hard slog.
So what should you do if you are a biomedical science student? I would structure my course so that I could complete organic chemistry to 2nd year university standard. I would then also use my electives to complete a few arts subjects so that I could develop my writing ability. Another alternative would be to enrol in a dual program such as commerce/science so that you have a good fall back option should the medical school path not work out. This has the added benefit of widening your field of knowledge, providing scope for employment both prior to and during medical school and exposing you to non-rote learning based assessment methods and essay writing which will only serve to assist you in Section I and Section II.
If you can't structure your course appropriately (maybe you are too far into your program etc), look to other opportunities to develop your writing skills. Do a writing course or enrol in a second degree and cherry pick the subjects you want (you don't have to finish the whole degree). Join the debating club!
Entry to medical schools is getting more competitive and the cost of being a student for so long is becoming prohibitively expensive. Do your best to read between the lines of the university course guides and make your selections based on practical considerations.
It's a sad indictment upon our university system that the liberalisation of education (you can get a piece of paper for just about anything these days) has meant that there a number of meaningless degrees out there. Most of these degrees do not prepare you for what they indicate they will and do not lead to useful employment opportunities. We are definitely in the age of the educated unemployed. Look for the underlying value - "what is the practical outcome of all of this" is what you should be saying to yourself. Don't get me wrong, I've got a BSc, I learnt things, but there are better options out there! :)
Best of luck with the study!
Saf.
If you are interested in Section II and Section III of the GAMSAT, this blog is for you.
Showing posts with label GAMSAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GAMSAT. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Thursday, November 17, 2011
GAMSAT is a game
Though I promised that the next post I would write would be on whether to write a discursive or argumentative essay, something interesting has come up which I believe is worthy of sharing.
I received an email from a course participant from early this year and she told me that she received a score of 100 on the science section. This is a phenomenal achievement and worthy of hearty congratulations. That said, it also points to a crucial thing about GAMSAT - it's just a game!
For a long time, I have had a suspicion that having 2nd year university chemistry under your hat was the key to the science section. All of my friends at university who did well on the science section had completed up to the end of 2nd year organic chemistry. The course participant that received a 100 also was a chemistry major who had completed all of the 2nd year chemistry subjects.
Obviously, she is very bright and talented. However, I have met too many people who have done well on the section (70+) who have had the same academic background for it to be a coincidence.
All of these people reported the same thing - being able to look at the options, hardly read the question and select the correct answer. GAMSAT is clearly a game. In fact, I made the comment to a friend today that I find it fascinating that the market of students interested in getting into med (and it is a market that communicates aggressively) has not cottoned on to this method of preparation earlier. It is by no means commonplace knowledge in the marketplace that 2nd year organic chemistry is the key.
So what does this mean for a training provider like myself? Should we start teaching 2nd year organic chemistry? To be honest, I'm not sure - the key is whether it can be taught in a limited period of time and whether it is feasible to construct useful and innovative pedagogical materials.
I am confident in our offering for Section II in that I believe our course can teach those who are average to score well by virtue of a process in a relatively short period of time. It will be interesting to see whether a pedagogical process can be worked out for the science section. Frankly, I'm not that confident, (there is probably no substitute for 2 years of university level study in the subject) but stay tuned! A revolution may be near!
I received an email from a course participant from early this year and she told me that she received a score of 100 on the science section. This is a phenomenal achievement and worthy of hearty congratulations. That said, it also points to a crucial thing about GAMSAT - it's just a game!
For a long time, I have had a suspicion that having 2nd year university chemistry under your hat was the key to the science section. All of my friends at university who did well on the science section had completed up to the end of 2nd year organic chemistry. The course participant that received a 100 also was a chemistry major who had completed all of the 2nd year chemistry subjects.
Obviously, she is very bright and talented. However, I have met too many people who have done well on the section (70+) who have had the same academic background for it to be a coincidence.
All of these people reported the same thing - being able to look at the options, hardly read the question and select the correct answer. GAMSAT is clearly a game. In fact, I made the comment to a friend today that I find it fascinating that the market of students interested in getting into med (and it is a market that communicates aggressively) has not cottoned on to this method of preparation earlier. It is by no means commonplace knowledge in the marketplace that 2nd year organic chemistry is the key.
So what does this mean for a training provider like myself? Should we start teaching 2nd year organic chemistry? To be honest, I'm not sure - the key is whether it can be taught in a limited period of time and whether it is feasible to construct useful and innovative pedagogical materials.
I am confident in our offering for Section II in that I believe our course can teach those who are average to score well by virtue of a process in a relatively short period of time. It will be interesting to see whether a pedagogical process can be worked out for the science section. Frankly, I'm not that confident, (there is probably no substitute for 2 years of university level study in the subject) but stay tuned! A revolution may be near!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Why the 'model essays' in the marketplace are too long
Most students upon reviewing the 'model essays' by a popular GAMSAT training provider react by saying that the essays seem to be too long. That is because they are. Let me explain.
When I sat GAMSAT, I wrote 3 paragraphs: an introduction, first body paragraph and a second body paragraph for my first essay, and an introduction, first body paragraph and 3/4 of a second body paragraph for my second essay. I did not finish either of my essays. At most I would have written 500 words per essay. I achieved a score of 76.
So why are the 'model essays' too long? Well my gut feeling is as follows. I'm reasonably certain that the model essays are selected from the numerous practice essays that are submitted to the provider. These essays are often written by students who do not write their essay under exam conditions. That is, they take extra time, use a computer etc, all of which enhance the length of the essay. The provider then makes the mistake of upholding their essay as an example of what students should try to achieve.
So what is the moral of the story here? There is an inherent limitation as to how much you can write in Section II. Don't get distracted by so called 'model essays'. The key is to focus on quality not quantity.
The topic of the next post will be "What type of essay should I write - discursive or argumentative?"
Best of luck with the study!
When I sat GAMSAT, I wrote 3 paragraphs: an introduction, first body paragraph and a second body paragraph for my first essay, and an introduction, first body paragraph and 3/4 of a second body paragraph for my second essay. I did not finish either of my essays. At most I would have written 500 words per essay. I achieved a score of 76.
So why are the 'model essays' too long? Well my gut feeling is as follows. I'm reasonably certain that the model essays are selected from the numerous practice essays that are submitted to the provider. These essays are often written by students who do not write their essay under exam conditions. That is, they take extra time, use a computer etc, all of which enhance the length of the essay. The provider then makes the mistake of upholding their essay as an example of what students should try to achieve.
So what is the moral of the story here? There is an inherent limitation as to how much you can write in Section II. Don't get distracted by so called 'model essays'. The key is to focus on quality not quantity.
The topic of the next post will be "What type of essay should I write - discursive or argumentative?"
Best of luck with the study!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Uncertainty, Our point of difference & The value of a systematic approach
Whenever I speak to candidates about Section II, the most common complaint relates to uncertainty. Writing two essays in 1 hour on two sets of unseen stimuli is capable of stunning even accomplished students into a numb anxiety, where time marches on with increasing speed but the speed of your thought proportionally slows in keeping with some sort of sick, self-destructive, "I'm never going to make it to medical school" type relationship.
On analysis, there are a number of factual reasons why the above scenario is commonplace (more on this later) but there is a single conceptual reason why this occurs - let me explain. Most candidates, inspired by the current popular training materials, believe that repeatedly writing essays in response to stimuli is the best method of bettering their score. This belief is understandable because a lot of human endeavour, take for example running, posits the prospect of improvement on practicing and repeating the action in which improvement is sought. If I want to run faster, I should do more running. If I want to become a better piano player, I should play more piano. And so on, it goes.
So why, you ask, is this approach not appropriate for Section II? Well, the answer, in a nutshell, is that Section II is not a writing task, but a response task. The very first step in writing, is to have an idea about what one wishes to write about. Unless you can generate an idea of what to write about in response to the stimulus and have a process by which to perform that action, there is little point in having good sentence structure and a mastery of active and passive voices. The section tests your ability to respond - your ability to write is merely the vehicle upon which the former hitches a ride to the ACER office so you can receive your mark. Put another way, the inability to identify this conceptual pressure point is why I have seen A+ students in high school English and avid readers receive a mid 50's score for this section of the test - much to their own bemusement .
Enter GAMSAT Strategies and our systematic approach to developing your ability to respond to stimuli. At the top of this piece, I mentioned that the chief complaint about Section II revolved around uncertainty as to the stimuli on the day. Well, uncertainty as to stimuli does not imply uncertainty as to response. By teaching candidates how to use repeatable processes to generate an idea about what to write in response to stimuli, the candidate can take control over a section that was previously uncontrollable.
The value of a repeatable process has its origin in risk management. A critical tenant of managing out risk is the use of procedure (e.g. checklists) to mitigate uncertainty. Cue the airline pilot and accompanying clipboard saying "check" prior to your 747 departing on its transatlantic journey. In the instance of Section II, the risk is that you won't know what to write in response to the stimulus. However, if you have a procedure to follow that assists you to generate a response, the risk is removed. All that is left at this point, is to execute and write the essay.
Our procedures cover general knowledge preparation and theme identification, idea generation, alternative idea selection (if you need to decide which idea to pick in responding to the stimulus), essay planning, essay execution and sentence structure. Our course aims to reduce Section II to a repeatable process which by its own virtue delivers you a response to the stimulus.
I will write future posts on each of these areas as they are each worthy of further exploration. But for the meantime, I believe it would be worthwhile to engage in some deep thought on the true nature of Section II and whether your preparation aligns with intent of the test. After all, working hard is hard enough without working hard in the wrong way.
On analysis, there are a number of factual reasons why the above scenario is commonplace (more on this later) but there is a single conceptual reason why this occurs - let me explain. Most candidates, inspired by the current popular training materials, believe that repeatedly writing essays in response to stimuli is the best method of bettering their score. This belief is understandable because a lot of human endeavour, take for example running, posits the prospect of improvement on practicing and repeating the action in which improvement is sought. If I want to run faster, I should do more running. If I want to become a better piano player, I should play more piano. And so on, it goes.
So why, you ask, is this approach not appropriate for Section II? Well, the answer, in a nutshell, is that Section II is not a writing task, but a response task. The very first step in writing, is to have an idea about what one wishes to write about. Unless you can generate an idea of what to write about in response to the stimulus and have a process by which to perform that action, there is little point in having good sentence structure and a mastery of active and passive voices. The section tests your ability to respond - your ability to write is merely the vehicle upon which the former hitches a ride to the ACER office so you can receive your mark. Put another way, the inability to identify this conceptual pressure point is why I have seen A+ students in high school English and avid readers receive a mid 50's score for this section of the test - much to their own bemusement .
Enter GAMSAT Strategies and our systematic approach to developing your ability to respond to stimuli. At the top of this piece, I mentioned that the chief complaint about Section II revolved around uncertainty as to the stimuli on the day. Well, uncertainty as to stimuli does not imply uncertainty as to response. By teaching candidates how to use repeatable processes to generate an idea about what to write in response to stimuli, the candidate can take control over a section that was previously uncontrollable.
The value of a repeatable process has its origin in risk management. A critical tenant of managing out risk is the use of procedure (e.g. checklists) to mitigate uncertainty. Cue the airline pilot and accompanying clipboard saying "check" prior to your 747 departing on its transatlantic journey. In the instance of Section II, the risk is that you won't know what to write in response to the stimulus. However, if you have a procedure to follow that assists you to generate a response, the risk is removed. All that is left at this point, is to execute and write the essay.
Our procedures cover general knowledge preparation and theme identification, idea generation, alternative idea selection (if you need to decide which idea to pick in responding to the stimulus), essay planning, essay execution and sentence structure. Our course aims to reduce Section II to a repeatable process which by its own virtue delivers you a response to the stimulus.
I will write future posts on each of these areas as they are each worthy of further exploration. But for the meantime, I believe it would be worthwhile to engage in some deep thought on the true nature of Section II and whether your preparation aligns with intent of the test. After all, working hard is hard enough without working hard in the wrong way.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Welcome!
This blog is the love child of two experiences. First, it was created out of frustration with the current offering of training materials for Section II of the GAMSAT. When I sat the test, I attained a score of 76 on Section II, and of all of the training materials I have reviewed, candidates I have tutored or people I have spoken to since, nobody or no training material has been able to identify a systematic approach to this section. Indeed, many of them are downright deceptive. This brings me to my second experience. About half-way through my science degree, I realised that entrepreneurship was something that fascinated me. I was and still am attracted to the egalitarian nature of it - at the heart of being an entrepreneur is the ability to have an idea, and anyone can have an idea! Therefore, I've decided that I should answer the call and do something regarding Section II of the GAMSAT. I've decided to do three things: 1) write my own guide on the section based on my personal experience of sitting the test; 2) run a 2 day training course on 26 and 27 November with follow up testing (more details to follow) and 3) engage in private tutoring. This blog will serve as a medium by which I can communicate to anyone interested in Section II of the test. If you are going to sit GAMSAT, my hope is that this blog will assist you to formulate a strategy that will work for you on the day.
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