The GAMSAT exam is very challenging, especially for students who come from a non science background. The GAMSAT exam may sometimes even feel impossible to conquer, but that is not the case at all. Even if you come from a non science background, you can still succeed at the exam.
To help make it easier for you, we’ll provide a quick rundown of the three sections of the GAMSAT exam and what to expect from them.
The first section is Humanities & Social Sciences. You’ll be expected to complete seventy-five questions in one hundred minutes.
The second section is Written Communication. You will be asked to complete two essays in sixty minutes.
The third section is the one that’s usually the most challenging for students from a non science background. This section deals with biological and physical sciences, and is comprised of one hundred and ten questions which will need to be completed in one hundred and seventy minutes.
Section 3 is divided into 20% physics, 40% biology and 40% chemistry. For physics and biology, you should have background knowledge equal to high-school level to be able to do well here. For chemistry, the assumed knowledge is on par with that of a first-year university student’s.
The next question is, how is the score calculated? It’s calculated using this formula: Section 1 + Section 2 + (2* Section 3)4
Don’t despair yet even if you don’t have a high-school level background knowledge in biology and physics as well as university-level chemistry knowledge. At the end of the day, the GAMSAT is an exam that’s meant to test your problem-solving ability. It just so frequently happens that we’ve seen many students who come from a non science background perform better than students who come from a science background at the GAMSAT exam. Your ability to think out of the box will surely come in handy here.
Now, when creating a study plan, you should divide your time according to the division in Section 3. Namely, you should dedicate 40% of your time to chemistry, 40% of your time to biology and 20% of your time to physics. You may need to learn starting from the basic principles, but it is what it is. If you believe that medicine is your true calling, don’t let the GAMSAT exam deter you. This exam is not insurmountable. It would be such a waste if your contribution to the field of medicine were to never come to fruition because of this one exam.
For more information, check out our full article here: https://gradready.com.au/posts/gamsat-preparation-courses/the-non-science-backgrounder-s-guide-to-the-gamsat
