Stressed Out

2010No · Rookie Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 4

Hi everyone,

I am really stressed out for the exam, I was overseas and never had the chance to study much and just came back two days ago. I tried to do the practice questions and seem to find it a bit difficult. I can manage section three questions but have difficulties with the rest. I am now so stressed out and don't know where to begin from or what to do since there is not much time left.

Any advice will be appreciated,

Thank you.

ashtool · Regular Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Sydney CBD

section I & II are more demanding than many people plan for.

a poorly argued, unworldly essay is quite obvious from the outset.

for section I, I would try to cover ALL the questions in the gamsat booklet, and get a feel for how they work. There’s no set module of study for this section, as it is purposely designed to weed out the poor comprehenders.

for section II, I would write at least 3 practice essays under time constraints. first, put a little score out of 10 next to each option, in terms of how convincingly you could formulate an essay. then draw a map, starting in the centre with your main idea, and put satellite ideas around it. then start writing, sticking as closely to your map as possible.

all the best.

sandyfool · Regular Joined: 21 Oct 2009 Posts: 21

All you can do is relax and stay calm. A healthy mind and body goes a very long way.

eternal.abyss · Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:17 am Post subject:

I'm in the same boat as you, except I procrastinated myself to this point whereas you at least got to travel overseas:(. I do agree with the above two replies though. A clear head can really help to answer questions objectively, with the limited information provided; you don't want to panic yourself into doing poorly on the test day.

With these last two weeks in hand, I think it'd be best to first spend time writing essays for section II. m/c questions at least give us something to work with, but the essays are entirely up to us. Like ashtool said, a badly written essay will be obvious and will drastically lower section II's score. So if you spend just an hour every alternate day working on section II, you'll have written 10-12 practice essays by the time of the test. Given the short time frame, that's a lot of preparation!

As for section I, I think the only thing we can do is go through practice tests and try to understand why the correct answers are correct. Many times they seem debatable, so approaching the questions from a different perspective might help. After that, we can only be optimistic and hope for the best! Good luck~