How I Plan GAMSAT Essays to score 75 & 80 in Section 2 | NEW SERIES | Read & Respond
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Hey everyone!
This is a new video series for Section 2 where I narrate and explain my planning process and idea generation to random themes and quotes in real time.
The Write With Me series that i started last sitting was helpful but didn't look into the process that I follow to generate ideas and I know this is something a lot of people have trouble with.
Keep i mind that S2 is very much open to interpretation and I'm not a fan of rigid rules and structures so although this process works for me, take ideas only from this video. This is not an instruction that everyone should replicate this to achieve a particular score. Do what works for you.
There is also no individual plan, process or structure that will determine a specific score but I know that if I put my scores in the title, you'll probably click on the video haha The lesson is, experiment with different styles and go with what is most replicable for you
Let me know your thoughts and comment how you would approach this particular quote.
I'll have more of these to come in the coming weeks :)
If you sat the March 2022 GAMSAT, I'd love to grab your feedback on how you found this channel in helping you prepare. You can fill out the google form here:
forms.gle/PrF8...
As always, I write these questions myself so they are protected under copyright and are not to be reproduced without expressed permission. Secondly, this means that these are not official preparation materials so use them as preparation but ultimately, purchasing and practicing with the official ACER GAMSAT material is the best way to prepare for GAMSAT.
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Hey, I'm Jesse, I'm a professional private tutor and founder of Simplified Study Tutoring. Since 2011, I've been helping students take a simpler approach to their studies and educating people in anything from science and maths to English and economics. In March 2021 I sat the GAMSAT and achieved an 84 including a 100 in Section 3. Hopefully, that's credentials enough to give this video a good watchin'.
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Hi Jesse, I think this video was very useful and would like to see more essay planning videos :). It helps brainstorm contentions etc. to hear other people's thought processes :).
Exactly what I'm aiming to achieve so I'll keep them coming! :)
Hi Jesse, thanks for the content, your calm clear manner is extremely helpful.
I find it hinteresting that the natural way you structure your essays is what I gravitated towards myself. I find my ides come the more I write so your method is perfect for me. I think editing quickly in such a short time span might prove difficult but fingers crossed!
Hi Jesse,
Your free styling of your essay plan and the way you think and like to express yourself is very similar to how my brain operates. This video was so helpful as I no longer try and restrict myself into the classic way of writing essays. It takes away from my flow and ideas. How long were your GAMSAT essays during the examination in general ?
Great to hear! I can't quite remember but I might've commented this in reply to someone else already. I never really paid much attention to word count because I don't think it's a good measure of the quality of someone's writing. In the exams I would usually write lengthier ones because I had more to say (around 800-1000) but most of my practice essays were shorter. You can see those on my notion page (linked in description)
Amazing! And this may help my fear of this section. I am going to sit the test this september and section 2 is terrifies me a lot because my thought are over the place. I tired all the essay structure thing but none worked for me. I will love you to show us how you can put together all the ideas into different paragraphs. Thank you and I appreciate all your work.
Yeah I think organising your thoughts int he written form is something that you can get better at with practice. It means writing frequently, but not necessarily trying to perfect the one essay. You want to almost stamp out the errors in writing patterns as you go until a 'bad' essay is still better than one of your previous 'good' ones.
I'll see how I go with getting full essays put together from these as my weeks are usually pretty packed. I thought about narrating the writing process but truthfully, I'm terrible at speaking while constructing an essay so it wouldn't end up being a reflection of the ideas haha
@@jesseosbourne thank you so much
Great to see you are creating more S2 vidoes! especially giving the insights of an 80 scorer. Also, what did you write in March if you can remember? With the prompts in this video I would have said that movies represent how we would like life to be and part of that would be things coming to a predictable end. But we have to realise that some things cannot be controlled. From there I would have gone into some philosophy like Stoicism and the works of Kant and Nietzsche.
I had a similar thought process - but more so using media to form a structure for life or vicariously step out of our current life for risk and fantasy, whereby in life said risks aren't feasible. The safety of the big screen. Virtue ethics and positive nihilism playing into it.
@@suckthesetestis there are heaps of ways someone could approach this. I like your idea of the safety of the big screen.
@@nathanhumphreys7206 it's a nice prompt! Can easily lead into talking about Daoism etc. Creative freedom in section II is probably the most exciting part of GAMSAT 😅
Hey Nathan, interesting take! Wouldn't have thought about predictability at all but there'd be a lot of interesting discussion down that path for sure!
For March (without giving away prompts or anything), I wrote in a neutral position but defending the practicalities of capitalism but still criticising the ethics of some of its ideals and opportunities for exploitation. I then argued practically that many of the critics to capitalism make complaints about its problems but we are yet too see a more sufficient model. It was a little risky because I wasn't sure if the scorers were going to interpret the realism of the argument as a hyper conservative view. I criticised communist ideals as an organising principle are prone to exploitation of the people.
I then wrote a really abstracted piece about the diversity of communication and its context dependence. Argued that formalities in email structure feign sincerity out of tradition, talked about the importance of passionate communication in the classroom and then the complexity of communication and non-verbal expression in relationships.
Hi Jesse, These is an amazing video and was extremely helpful in planning the essay. Thank you so much, really appreciate. But I was wondering how you might have started your research coz there are wide range on themes that can be included in gamsat. I am basically struggling from where to start researching.
Hi Gunja, There is a wide range of topics that are possible but no set list to be specifically preparing for. Section 2 is much more a test of your ability to think and communicate ideas with little preparation rather than a test of your knowledge on a topic, so your best method of preparation is to write on random topics as I do in these videos and the Write With Me series.
I would suggest using either the Write With Me prompts here or other online quote generators to randomise the themes and attempt essays first. You'll learn more about what areas you feel less comfortable expanding on or forming ideas and you can research them that way (TH-cam, Podcasts, Opinion pieces etc).
Overall, I'd say starting by researching topics is probably the least valuable study task for Section 2 as it's very unlikely you'll get those themes on the day and ultimately doesn't develop your writing skills. I would use it to plug gaps in your awareness or depth of understanding of issues based on feedback to essays
Best of luck!
Appreciate all the hard work put into making these videos..Do you recommend writing the essay plan on a piece of paper and then expand the ideas by typing on computer?
I think that process is really up to you and whatever works best for you but there's no perfect method for everyone. Personally, I scribble ideas on paper and then type the essay from there because I can change my plan easily and connect ideas visually a lot more easily on paper but that's just me. Play around with different methods and see what works for you
Good evening jesse,
Here's Harjaap. I am currently studying bachelor of nursing, in my second year, I am having huge desire to study for dental school to become dentist but still confused when is the right time to commence my studies for gamsat?. Shall I finish my degree and then commence, do I need to find good company for my preparation?. How much GPA is effective for dental school?
Hey Jesse, thanks for the video, is a great work through. Just wondering what your strategy for time management is in S2? And how you went about improving speed with quantity, I saw in another comment you said you wrote approx. 800-1000 words per task?
Hey Zoe, I actually normally write about 400-600 words in my practice essays. If you check out my sample essays and write with me essays on my resources page, that'll give an indication of my usual lengths that I go for. In my most recent sitting in 2022 I found that I had a lot of ideas circulating for both tasks and it was really just a scramble to get everything down and so I was able to get a lot more out for each. I wouldn't say that length is actually a factor to pay much attention to though. In fact a nice 500 word essay that concisely puts forward a clear argument is a better demonstration of language control.
Regardless though, in practice I aimed for consistency in being able to smash out two essays in 65 minutes repeatedly and to a decent standard. As boring and plain as it was, it was just regular writing. My 'Write With Me' series actually covers all of my S2 practice for March 2022, so I was doing mostly 2 essays a week for a few months in the lead up. Sometimes I got topics that threw me a bit and I struggled to get them done, but generally just trying to break down the barrier of perfectionism in writing was most helpful. I micromanage this by acknowledging when I'm getting caught up on a sentence and opting for a very simplistic version of the sentence so that I can move on and edit later if I have time. Sometimes I find I'm trying to think of the right word/a better word so I just write a word that I can think of (even if I don't think it fits properly) so that I can move on and come back later. A finished essay gives you a better chance of demonstrating your communication skills than half of one.
Don't be too hard on yourself if timing is an issue either. I'm not sure which of the Write With Me's it was, but there were a few where my brain just didn't work or the topic just stumped me and I didn't get much done. I tried to reflect a little at the end to demonstrate how I would review my writing and a lot of the time I would just be telling myself "hmm that was hard and probably wasn't my best work but ah well, I can't expect to get it every time" and I'd move on. Yes you could sift through the essay and meticulously identify little things that killed time but I always find it more useful to just be comfortable with not expecting perfection every time so that I can stay calm under pressure the next time.
Hope this helps!
Hi Jesse,
thank you so much for your help, both your videos on section 2 and 3 are invaluable! I was hoping to ask about the 500 word limit- is it a true limit? Does the test have a word count? Basically, how do you know if you've written enough or whether you need to stop writing? Thanks again, Ola
Hey Ola, great to hear you're finding them useful! There's actually no word limit or expectation of length in the essays for Section 2. 500 is a common word count but length of essays does not necessarily impact or determine the scores. To use my own examples, in March 2021, I wrote about 800-1000 words for Task A and probably 250-300 for Task B and this achieved a 75. This March (2022) I wrote about 800-1000 for Task A and 800-1000 for Task B and achieved 80. Others have said that they write 400ish words each.
I think that the length of a good essay depends on your own writing style and I doubt that ACER are counting words to determine their scoring.
In terms of when to stop, ideally this is when you feel you've presented and explained everything you need to make your point. There's no point repeating ideas for the sake of length. Given we only have 65 minutes for 2 essays, 400-600 words is an achievable range so I think find the sweet spot that works for you and achieve consistency with a length that you're comfortable with and can write well with.
Good luck!
Thank you!
Hi Jesse! Thanks a lot for your work!! I am wondering how do you plan on the computer in the actual GAMSAT as there are only ~30 min per task. I am in my first year of uni and I haven’t sat the gamsat so I am not sure how the interface actually is. I am assuming you would plan where you actually write the essay, but the plan just turns into an essay so you don’t have to rewrite the essay as the plan is basically it (just in dot point form)?
Hey Parteek! You can plan on the screen and then delete the plan before submitting or you can scribble your plan on the paper. I usually scribble on paper because I'm able to draw and connect ideas visually. I find this is more efficient for me.
The interface is basically just an extendable textbox that has no spellcheck or grammar check on it. It extends as you type but I find writing on the bottom line of the box distracting and I get neck strain from look down so I usually hit ENTER a bunch of times to extend the box and then keep my cursor in the middle of the screen.
How I can take personal tutoring from you
Sorry I don't offer tutoring for GAMSAT
Hi jesse, Thanks for all you do for us. but you look tired. We all know rest period is not in your books but it is important. All the best.
I appreciate the concern, but I'm getting plenty of rest. It might not appear that way, but I take plenty of downtime for myself through the week but just keep some parts of my life private from YT :)