Guide to GAMSAT

Venue - RHS horticultural hall in London

These are some of the things I would have liked to know about GAMSAT before sitting it.

You get summoned to turn up at 8:00am, and are told that it’s important that all candidates attend at this time. The first thing on the itinerary was “candidates must be sat down for the first exam” at 9:15am. The GAMSAT review said that the gap was for you to register, which takes about one minute, and then just waiting around time. I thought this was likely, but bearing in mind the importance of this exam, I decided to email GAMSAT UK and check. The reply said:

“Candidates are strongly advised to report at 8a.m. as it takes about an hour to get all candidates settled in before the exam starts at 9a.m.”

So I did turn up at 8:00am and sure enough, the time was mostly spent waiting around and queuing. It was a hell of a shock seeing the queue outside… I wasn’t aware the scale of it all; the queue stretched halfway along the street. It was like the queue for a concert. Also sure enough, there was no real point turning up so early. Most of the time was spent loitering around outside, with the invigilators asking for people with surnames "A to D", "A to K", "A to F" (yes it did go backwards several times) to come forwards. If I have to do it again, I'll turn up around 8:30 to 8:45, which is roughly when I managed to get in anyway.

When I finally got in (surname beginning with T), the invigilators examined my passport and entry ticket, gave me an exam slip, and sent me to check my bag. The cloakroom didn't have lockers, and was unstaffed and unattended, so wasn't secure and was a complete crush to get to and from. It was chaos.

When we sat down for exams at 9:15, we ended up waiting around until 9:30, which was the real start time. The hall was huge, having about 800 desks. I was slightly surprised to see quite a few empty places for people who had booked and not turned up. With the price of the exams, even if you don't feel ready, it's got to be worth going just for the practice.

The invigilators did a good job of explaining everything and trying to ensure everything went smoothly. Although the instructions for the day that were sent out to the candidates spelt out explicitly that "No food was allowed in the exam hall, including sweets unless there was proof of medical need" (presumably for diabetics), the invigilators said that they wanted all the sweets unwrapped before the exam started so the rustling didn't disturb anyone. Desks had to be clear of everything except stationery (pencils, erasers, sharpeners for first and third exams, pens for second, rulers and non-programmable calculators for third and foreign dictionaries if required for first and second), identity documents and exam tickets. They did occasionally announce the amount of time remaining, but they didn't warn when the time was low (eg 5 or 10 minutes to go). They had clocks on most pillars, but as they were held on by masking tape, one smashed spectacularly during the first exam, after which they were sat on chairs.

Another thing not mentioned in the practice material, but I found out in web forums before the day: you get reading time. During this time, you're not allowed to write anything, but you can scan the paper to check you have got a complete exam and to start reading. For sections 1 and 3, you get 10 minutes, for section 2 you get 5 minutes for both essays.

Section 1:
For me, Section 1 was far harder than anything I did in terms of practice questions. With the practice material I never ran out of time, whereas on the day, I ended up having to guess heavily, especially on the poetry.

Between section 1 and section 2 there was a 20 minute break to use the toilets, go to your bag to get a snack etc. The chaos with the cloakroom in the morning was nothing compared to that of the toilets. There was a huge cascade of people rushing to the toilet, so the queue was long. It soon became clear that the ladies were faring even worse, as they started joining the queue for the gents. The take up for urinal use seemed to drop after this happened, and despite this, it took a long time for it all to subside. I think we fell behind schedule after this.

Section 2:
The essay questions were given in a two separate booklets; one for each essay. The question booklet had a few blank pages for essay plans and rough work,

• Reading time - 10 minutes for sections 1 and 3, 5 minutes for section 2
• No rough paper. Working is done in the question book

Lunchtime: huge queue for food, queue for loos is fine. Lunch was a prepacked sandwich (cheese or chicken), packet of crisps, Mars bar and a bottle of water. The inside is packed, the nearby streets are covered by a sprawl of people, so all the doorsteps were covered with stressed looking youths (and not-so-youths) chatting or cramming for the final exam.

Big queues for the loo again towards end of lunch... go early!

Section 3:
The three hour marathon. Exhausting. Not much to be added here, except do remember to bring a calculator (I had to lend one to a guy in front... I thought as I was paranoid and brought three, I could share the love around).

Between the caffeine and energy drinks, and 3 hours of sitting still I had to use the loo partway through. Although you have someone following you there, you don't lose much time.

The invigilators were great and did their utmost to help. The organisation could have been better, and ACER lie to you (trust the forums, NewMediaMedicine info was much more accurate than the ACER info).

The results were published midnight 14/15 November. You use your candidate number and email address to retrieve it from a web site. I got an overall mark of 80, which should be enough for an interview (touch wood).

Any questions??

AcidCat