[update] GAMSAT is complete!

Just finished the GAMSAT today. I felt section 1 and 2 went better than last time (having a stronger feeling about section 2), but did not feel as confident about section 3 coming out of the exam. So right now it feels like maybe section 1 and 2 might have increased but section 3 decreased from last year. Of course, scaling is going to come into that too, so it's hard to go with my own feeling without knowing how hard this exam really was compared to last year. I can categorically rule out the possibility of improving my scaled section 3 mark from last year though, which is a bit of a shame.

I still guessed quite a big amount for section 1, but compared with last year I thought maybe it was a bit less. Whether that leads to a better score is another question, depending on how much of the guessed questions I got right and how hard this year's exam was compared to last year in section 1 among other things. For section 2, the writing topics were about affirmative action (task A), and money and happiness (task B). So for task A, I wrote a bit about how biomed's cutoff for 2011 was 98.45 for most applicants but 88 for low socioeconomic status and rural applicants as an antithesis but also how it's important to break the poverty cycle and how university degrees have an average return of about 12% a year according to a study by unimelb (thanks to the macroeconomics lecture). For task B, I wrote about how in East Germany happiness levels increased steadily as incomes increased since they had low income, but how such a pattern was not visible in the USA (of course I wrote much more than that for both and had more points, but I guess that's some of the stuff I used). So if I did well in section 2, it'd be a lot due to the luck of doing introductory macroeconomics. I have a feeling that I strayed away from the general theme for part B a bit though.

Anyway, I hope that after scaling I have a better score than last year. Regardless, my old score was pretty good anyway and there shouldn't be too much of a problem getting an interview at Melbourne. Just got to wait another 8 weeks to find out my GAMSAT score... and somehow not get too distracted from studying in the meantime. In the short term, there's about one week of lecture content to catch up on!

In the long term though, here's the layout (with "key" events): GAMSAT results are out in about eight weeks, then a few weeks later are the semester 1 exams. After a four week midyear break after exams, there's going to be eight weeks of semester 2 then the midsemester break. And during this midsemester break, the second week will contain the medical school interviews!
Now that much is almost certain given I can still use last year's GAMSAT results if this year didn't turn out so well. However, if all goes to plan, then I might get a provisional unbonded place at unimelb. Then the semester 2 exams... and if they're done well enough, then I'll be in. Well, that's the plan anyway. There's still quite a while to go yet.

Good luck for GAMSAT! + generic exam strategy

Good luck to everyone reading this who will be doing the GAMSAT in 2 days! The moment of truth is very close now. And for anyone who wants them, here's some generic exam tips (which I'm sure almost everyone has heard before):

• Don't spend too much time on any question. If you can't figure out the answer quickly (with respect to the time you are allowed), mark in your best guess and make a note of it in your question book. Then move on. (Note: some people prefer to identify questions they are comfortable with during reading time and do them first. This may be a good strategy, but has the cost of requiring time to flick through pages to answer the questions you want to do first)
• If you don't know the correct answer, pick anything. But it's good to eliminate answers you are sure are wrong first to increase the probability of getting a question right.
• Sometimes, finding the right answer by elimination and a bit of sense in multiple choice may be quicker than systematically going through the usual process of reaching (or calculating) the right answer.
• Pay attention to when they're asking for the "incorrect" answer instead of the "correct" one.

I guess that's the main general points there. Good luck for Saturday!

[update] GAMSAT next week o.o

Not long to go now, GAMSAT is on 26 March! From the newly released practice test 2 from ACER, and some random ones off the internet, it seems like my humanities and science knowledge (wrt the GAMSAT) have not declined (and humanities if anything may have improved slightly). I think my writing has improved a bit too; last year I did no planning for my essays and only had some vague intro-something-conclusion structure in mind, but now I have implemented a planning process and think of that "something" as a thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

That said, even though I don't think my science ability has declined, I still do not know if I will score as high as I did last year for that section. I feel I might have gotten a bit lucky with respect to the questions for S3 playing to my strengths that year. I feel this since it has often been commented by others that the real test is harder than the practice tests (at least before practice test 2 came out at the end of last year), but I actually found the section three of 2010 easier than the section 3 of any of the ACER practice tests for some reason...

Anyway, I'll just hope I get lucky again for that section, and get good essay topics. And I hope I can get a slightly better score overall this time. But if not, it'll be a bit disappointing, but not the end of the world. A bit less of a safety margin though and some ~$400 worth of investment down the drain. Why I (and my parents) thought it was worth going for it again though was because that money is hardly anything compared to the salary of a doctor for one year, so by reasoning it'd be well worth it if it just increases the probability of getting into Melbourne, hopefully with a CSP unbonded in Metro 1 (it seems like clinical placement preferences are given first to those with higher overall ranking on the applicant list), by a few percent.


That's all for now.

nucleophilic addition-elimination.

Keep left unless overtaking when walking in Australia!

Sometimes when I walk around on the footpath I wish there was a convention of which side to walk on. This would make walking much easier and free-flowing, reducing travel time and stress from navigation. And since we drive on the left in Australia, it would make sense to keep to the left while walking. I'm quite sure other countries in the world have some sort of convention going on, which makes life easier for them.

Oh and while I'm at it, it would also be nice if people kept left if they are going slowly when driving too. During light to moderate traffic when I am driving, sometimes there are people in the right lane who are driving well below the speed limit, which is a bit frustrating if you want to drive faster. It's probably only a few people in the front, but it causes everyone behind them to drive slowly too.

.97 c

You know, every time I see a shop say something is on sale for .97 c, I feel tempted to check out 2 of those items for free since 1.94 c should round down to 0 as it is less than 2.5 c. And if they don't let me, to then give the shop attendant a lesson on decimal notation. Seriously, do some people who make the signs not know the difference between .97 c and 97 c? The first value is $0.0097 and the second is $0.97.

I once saw this as a price for one of Woolworths' reusable bags by the way.


On another note, it's good that the public transport fare issue has made its way to The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/end-of-the-line-on-cheap-fares-for-melbourne-uni-pioneers-20110301-1bd9d.html