GAMSAT Preparation

Exam preparation needs 48 hours instead of 24 hours per day. I couldn’t have control on my time. I was studying all the day and night but could not complete my syllabus. Did I work hard? No. I was not good enough in allocating my time. It means that I was poor in time management. The result will be worst if you study hard day and night. I understood this from my low GAMSAT score.

There is no point working hard without the skill of thinking wise. Your smart work pays off. Exam preparation is not simply depends on “studying”. You need to concentrate on many areas when you prepare for the exam. Your efforts need to be the combination of three things. They are subject, food and timing. These three things are the ingredients of effort. If you add them in a balanced amount, you can taste a delicious food of success. This is the basic formula of good exam preparation.

The best way to get good mark is following the brain friendly study time.

I would like to help you with standardized time management tips for this standardized exam. I have researched the information in all the levels. “Timing” plays a vital role in exam preparation. Proper usage of time is mandatory for GAMSAT. GAMSAT is a vast area and you can be easily get deviated.

GAMSAT is a medical entrance exam. It gives opportunity for students from any major. It is held in Australia, UK and Ireland. It stands for Graduate Australian Medical School Admission Test. ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) conducts this once in every year. It was introduced by Australian medical schools. Later, the medical schools in UK and Ireland followed the same method to select the potential candidates for medicine.

It is designed to choose the very best candidates for medicine. This exam is the toughest exam with all daunting questions. It has divided into three sections. Questions are in the form of MCQ (multiple choice questions). It requires whole day to write the exam. So you need to practice the time management starting from your preparation. Well organized agenda is a good option for this. Your preparation will be effective if you restrict yourself with timing.

How long can you study with concentration?

It is wise to study in a way that matches your brain style. I would like to explain this scientifically.

Human brain can concentrate on a particular thing only for few hours. There is no point in crossing the boundaries fixed by your brain. Once you lose the concentration, do not force yourself to study. It is a waste of time. Your brain does not accept the information you read beyond its capacity. Better take short or long breaks to relax yourself.

You need to get good sleep if you want to pass an exam. Does your brain study while you sleeping? During your sleep, the brain processes and consolidates newly learnt matter. This is revealed in a new study in Nature. The study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

As soon as deep sleep sets in, the brain cells start working in concord. Millions of individual brain cells respond simultaneously with an electric signal. They generate the regular, low-frequency brain waves that are characteristic of deep sleep. Slow brain waves appear to consolidate and reinforce freshly learnt matter, explains Reto Huber, who conducted the study at the University of Wisconsin laboratory of Giulio Tononi in Madison, USA

The study shows that sleep is essential for your brain to store and catalog the collected data. So it is not advisable to stay awake and study for the whole night. It will not provide you any result.

Early morning is the best time to study. Your mind is fresh and active after the 8 hours of sound sleep. So it can grasp and store data effectively. You can get up by 5 o clock in the morning and study till 8 0 clock. These three hours of consistent study helps to grasp more information.

Our mind wanders often. You can keep your concentration on something that interests you for around 2 -3 hours. After this your mind starts wandering. So I will suggest you to make use of these 2 to 3 hours. You can take routine breaks every two hours of your study. It can be short term or long term break.

Some people needs 10 minutes break on every 50 minutes of study. It depends on the level of the student. I will not recommend this. It will make you to lose concentration. It will not help you to refresh your mind. It will take more time to bring the lost concentration back.

The effective study time per day is 9 hours (excluding your break time). Student can spend around 12 hours of study by taking break on every two hours. It can be split into 9 hours of study and 3 hours of breaks.

The study hour per week is 63. You can allocate the syllabus within 63 hours of study time per week.

You have to start your preparations early if you follow this timing. GAMSAT has many subjects to cover in section 1 and 3. Section 2 also requires frequent practice. It is wise to start your preparation early for GAMSAT.

How can you study while working?

Study while working is a great challenge. Students need to adapt different strategies to study while they work. Many candidates work for the full time because of various reasons.

It will be a great deal to cope up with work and exam preparation simultaneously. I would like to help you how you can do both of them successfully.

Multi Tasking:

Human brain is capable of doing multi task. It functions more than the processor of a computer. It has ability to learn, adapt and react. It is a scientifically proven truth.

When we faced with multi task, a region called the anterior prefrontal cortex (APC) was involved in multitasking. Researchers weren’t sure how the APC was involved in this activity. So it is evident that human brain can do multi tasking.

It is clearly proven that we can involve in two tasks simultaneously. When we faced with two tasks, a part of the brain known as the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MFC) divides into half. Half of the part focuses on one activity and the other half takes care of the second activity. This logical partial allows a person to get hold of two tasks without affecting any task. It is really wonderful. Isn’t it?

Researcher Etienne Koechlin of the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris says, “What really the results show is that we can readily divide tasking. We can cook, and at the same time talk on the phone, and switch back and forth between these two activities.”

GAMSAT is an advantage for people who work for full time. It involves in analyzing and logical reasoning. Only the basic subject knowledge is required. There are many students go through GAMSAT with no preparation. The questions are simple if you are strong enough in reasoning and problem solving.

The below ideas shall help you to jiggle both study and work:

1. Plan before you apply for GAMSAT. You need to start your preparation early. A well organized time table shall help you.

2. It is good to be more conscious about your time.

3. You can listen to the recorded information while traveling or during the leisure time. Your friends may help you in this regard. They can record their voice while they study and prepare an audio. This audio shall help you to grasp information easily.

4. Sometimes you may feel exhaust of doing both. It is important to take care of your health. Your eating habits need to cope up with your study pattern. Protein rich food shall help you.

5. As I mentioned, prefer morning hours to study. If you study long hours during the night, it will spoil your next day of work. Early morning is the best time to study.

6. Try to spend at least two hours per day. You may spend long hours in preparation during the weekend.

7. Preparing the question paper shall help you a lot. Collect sample question papers and previous year question papers. You need to work out them during the week end. Questions are repeated every year in GAMSAT. So it’s worth practicing with previous year question papers.

You can score well if your preparation is brain friendly. It has to go according to your capability. Human brain functions more than a computer. Brain’s storage capacity is low when compared to a computer. I will recommend you to have a gradual study pattern. Better do not rush your ways. It is easy to get good marks if you start much early. It helps you to spend more time on revision.

In GAMSAT, revision plays a vital role. Your revision need to go with practicing the question papers. It enhances your time management during the exam.

Hope this would have helped you with the critical path of time management. Time flies on restless pinions during the exam preparation. My first GAMSAT score taught me a great lesson about “timing”. It has inspired me to write this article. Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.