Section II - Who is our ideal student?

Yesterday I received an email from a student who achieved a 71 on Section II and she wanted to know whether she would gain any value from the course.

I responded by saying that if she wrote her essay off the top of her head, that is, she did not use a systematic approach, then there would be value in her attending. There is no guarantee that she would achieve the same result if the topics were to change. Much of our course tries to deal with the risk of topic changes and how to manage them and to allow for a consistent and methodical approach. 

The second part of her email asked whether the course was useful for native English speakers. To be honest this question scared the living daylights out of me as it made me fear that we are perceived as being a provider that assists people with poor English skills or ESL students. I have no idea where this perception could have come from but again it is reflective of commonplace thinking that Section II providers assist people who are bad at English.. My argument is that Section II is not about being good at English, it's about what you write about and the thought processes that you demonstrate. Your score has very little to do with the mechanics of your writing (presuming it is sufficient) and everything to do with the content. We want people who are good at English to come to our course because they have the most to gain from our strategic approach!

Don't get me wrong, we can assist students with poor English skills, but these individuals will hardly ever be able to score in the 70+ range for GAMSAT. Interestingly, the logic does not work in reverse, people who score in the 70+ range for Section II are not necessarily great at English - they are great at thinking! Being proficient at English is a necessary condition, not a determinative one.

Sometimes we can get good results. For example, last year we took someone from a 32 to a 50 which then allowed them to apply interviews as their marks on the other sections were great but without passing Section II they would have been prohibited to apply. (For those who don't know, 50 is the pass mark for all the sections and you can't apply to most medical schools unless you pass all of the sections.) That said, I am not a miracle worker and I do not like giving people a false sense of hope. I want to encourage people to overcome obstacles but at the same time it's important to be realistic about what I can do. For example, as much as I'd like to be of assistance, I can't help people with learning disabilities because I do not have the required training. 

My job as I see it is to take the student that achieves a score greater than or equal to 55 and convert it to a 70+ plus score. Of these people, some will have the intellect to grasp the macro strategies to allow them to make a big jump in score and others will gain smaller incremental increases in score as they adopt our micro strategies for improvement. For reference, a macro strategy is something that is a fundamental determinant of your end score like "how do I determine what I write my essay on" and a micro strategy is something like "how to vary your sentence length to have a punchy introduction", "the use of semicolons" or "improving your vocabulary".  The course is difficult but that is indicative of its value. If everyone could do it, there would be no value in it. 

In essence, the better your English skills, the more time we can spend on adjusting your content. It is important to divorce the mechanics of writing and the content of your writing from one another. The latter is the key to improving your score in Section II. 

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!

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!