Practising your essay writing skill is one of the most crucial things you can do to prepare for Section 2 when you’re sitting the GAMSAT. You should start your essay writing practice as soon as possible and stick to a routine.
Unfortunately, randomly writing essays won’t really help much with preparing for GAMSAT Section 2. You need to have a clear plan of action to maximise your preparation.
First things first, you need to ask someone to read your essay and give feedback, be it a tutor, a family member, or a friend. Secondly, you will also need to read what you’ve written out loud to yourself. It will help you discern if what you’ve written sounds good or not.
Next, when you’re just starting out, don’t try to finish an essay within a limited time frame. Put a time limit for yourself when you’re already quite familiar with the process and just need to be able to write faster. Next, make sure you practice writing various types of essays rather than just focusing on one.
When practising, make sure that you read the quote and strive to understand the theme as well as the related ideas. Next, prepare an idea bank and make use of it. Next, get an idea of what you would like to write and create a structure around it, planning the main idea that you want to convey in each paragraph. Then, make sure that for every idea you convey, you provide some evidence that supports the idea right afterwards.
Now, you may be wondering if there’s an essay length or structure that you need to follow for Section 2 of the GAMSAT exam. ACER doesn’t provide any specific rules regarding that, but the one thing you must keep in mind is that you should focus more on the quality of the essay rather than the word count. The structure and organisation of your ideas are especially important. Most of the time, you’ll want to follow this standard structure: introduction, 3x paragraphs for the body, and finally, the conclusion.
Finally, it’s important to understand that there are 2 different types of essays that you’ll need to work on. These essays are usually better known as Task A and Task B. For each task, you will be provided with some quotes that revolve around a specific theme.
Commonly, Task A themes will focus on: comedy, materialistic possessions, criminal acts, tech, science, war, and freedom.
Commonly, Task A themes will focus on: knowledge, individualism, life difficulties, growing old, living while one is young, feelings, physical beauty, and friendship.
For more information, and to read some example essays for Task A and Task B, as well as feedback from our expert tutors, check out our full article here: https://gradready.com.au/gamsat-example-essay
