GAMSAT 2010...for discussion of all things related to this exam.

cill5

moncai wrote: »

You thought so? I know it was harder to estimate numbers this year because of the scattering of exam halls compared to blackrock last year but it seemed to me there were less people around than last year.
One important looking Aussie invigilator was commenting on the number of absentee's even from the registered number...
Limerick seemed to have about 70 peeps according to a friend of mine there.

I really dont know how the attendance affects the overall percentile of results, or even if it does at all.... but imagine if they included the non attendance candidates as 0 scores! That'd be pretty sweet...

Yeah, I heard the numbers were well down in UCC and UL this year in comparison to last year! Whats that about? I heard applicants are up to for the CAO...but also there are more places available this year so I don't expect points to go up...

imported_guy

cill5 wrote: »

Yeah, I heard the numbers were well down in UCC and UL this year in comparison to last year! Whats that about? I heard applicants are up to for the CAO...but also there are more places available this year so I don't expect points to go up...

there was a queue of people wanting to do graduate medicine, and the course wasnt available "back in the day" thats why numbers were up in the past years, now there arent that many "waiting" for the course to come out, and anyone who wanted to get in either got in or gave up on it, so now i myself expect the numbers to go down, as well as the mean age of the people doing the course, im guessing most people would be fresh off the boat from college and not the 40 year olds you hear about.

moncai

I imagine that once the grad program was announced that yes there were a decent number of people who decided to go for it, but at the same time the number of graduates being churned out from universities has risen the last decade significantly and that suggests that there will be more 2.1 grads either sitting idle looking for a new direction or unhappy in their current career. i'd say the number of applicants is up because people were desperate and may have seen the GEP program as a way out of the currently stalled state of their professional life. Paying 345 quid to sit an exam and pay for CAO applications is an easy thing to do, and i'm sure there are people who paid, got a mild sense of achievement for being seen to 'advance' their prospects, and then promptly sat back and didn't bother to prepare for the exam.
It can be easy to see how come the 17th of march they decided to go on the piss and then in the hungover state of the 18/19th said, 'feck it i'm not arsed sitting that exam.'
I've done it myself plenty of times!

All i care about is how this affects the percentile rank of my score... in a way if everyone, including more unprepared people, sat it and did average or below, and i did slightly above average, my percentile rank would be pushed higher yeah? Then again preparation for gamsat is designed to be negligible by ACER so maybe there could be a more gifted person in those 'casual gamsaters' who would blow my ability away.

It's the wonder of the gamsat really. Nobody will know till mid may.
Speaking of which it's about 6 weeks to results yeah?
Anyone who is eagerly awaiting results have a plan on how they're going to occupy themselves for intervening period??


Also anyone mind sharing how far through the section 3 questions they actually confidently managed to attempt? I had to guess from 93 onwards

tallaght01

moncai wrote: »

I imagine that once the grad program was announced that yes there were a decent number of people who decided to go for it, but at the same time the number of graduates being churned out from universities has risen the last decade significantly and that suggests that there will be more 2.1 grads either sitting idle looking for a new direction or unhappy in their current career. i'd say the number of applicants is up because people were desperate and may have seen the GEP program as a way out of the currently stalled state of their professional life. Paying 345 quid to sit an exam and pay for CAO applications is an easy thing to do, and i'm sure there are people who paid, got a mild sense of achievement for being seen to 'advance' their prospects, and then promptly sat back and didn't bother to prepare for the exam.
It can be easy to see how come the 17th of march they decided to go on the piss and then in the hungover state of the 18/19th said, 'feck it i'm not arsed sitting that exam.'
I've done it myself plenty of times!

All i care about is how this affects the percentile rank of my score... in a way if everyone, including more unprepared people, sat it and did average or below, and i did slightly above average, my percentile rank would be pushed higher yeah? Then again preparation for gamsat is designed to be negligible by ACER so maybe there could be a more gifted person in those 'casual gamsaters' who would blow my ability away.

It's the wonder of the gamsat really. Nobody will know till mid may.
Speaking of which it's about 6 weeks to results yeah?
Anyone who is eagerly awaiting results have a plan on how they're going to occupy themselves for intervening period??


Also anyone mind sharing how far through the section 3 questions they actually confidently managed to attempt? I had to guess from 93 onwards

Presumably there are a certain amt of places, and certain amt of applicants, and the overall percentile wont matter.

You'll get a place if you did some work for it. Don't worry about it, would be my advice.

p_holmz

Hard not to worry or think about it though... Being in Final year (art degree) is even worse! With the GAMSAT behind me now the sight of balance sheets, business concept and anything non science related sickens me at this stage... I have always wanted to do science you see since my LC days.

Ah well... Such is life better slog through as I need at least a 2:1 otherwise the Gammy preps would have been in vain:eek:

just-joe

Random question: is there any Trinity students that just sat it/are thinkng of sitting it? Meet up for a cup of tea and a chat? Would be good to hear from people who have just done it! PM me if ya want, cheers!

Malbec

moncai wrote: »

Also anyone mind sharing how far through the section 3 questions they actually confidently managed to attempt? I had to guess from 93 onwards

I wish that was all I had to guess. Mine was more like from 70 onwards

Biologic

That was one of the longest days of my life. I ran a bit short on time too. Had to guess about 8 in S1 and around the same in S3. I couldn't understand how so many people had time to head out to the toilet. The organisation was pretty decent but it was a bit annoying to have the break knocked back to 40mins.

etymon

I think places are up this year and I don't think there is a huge increase in applicants so I can't see the points increasing... but no point playing this guessing game, trust me - I did it last year and only worried myself for no reason. You're either going to get a place or not so have a backup plan ready to go.

I got through all Qs with about 10 mins to spare on each paper... but I definitely guessed a few along the way!

One that keeps haunting me is 'defending being unfashionably emphatic, justifying being fashionably emphatic'... that was an eeny meeny miney mo one anyway!

eagle_&_bear

Biologic wrote: »

That was one of the longest days of my life. I ran a bit short on time too. Had to guess about 8 in S1 and around the same in S3. I couldn't understand how so many people had time to head out to the toilet. The organisation was pretty decent but it was a bit annoying to have the break knocked back to 40mins.

The organisation was good but it took so long to get papers handed out and collected.

I think I have about 5minutes or maybe a little less at the end of s1 and s3 but no more. Thankfully I was sitting at the top of the 2nd row on the left and I never heard anyone come in or out. But definately, the 40minute break was taking us short for sure - it was more for the invigilators as I could hear 2 of them say "lets try and get out of here before 5" so not entirely fair but ce la vie

On another note, I presume everyone got the little CAO card in the post with the text about applying for Grad Med - was it just me, or did the last paragraph on the card seem very disingenuous, to the point that when you get your results, we'll (CAO) give you an opportunity to submit better results on the next time. Maybe I'm misreading it but seemed bit wierd

cill5

eagle_&_bear wrote: »

On another note, I presume everyone got the little CAO card in the post with the text about applying for Grad Med - was it just me, or did the last paragraph on the card seem very disingenuous, to the point that when you get your results, we'll (CAO) give you an opportunity to submit better results on the next time. Maybe I'm misreading it but seemed bit wierd

Not disingenuous... Some people like myself sat the exam in September in London. I got 59 but want to make sure so I sat it again in March. If the exam doesn't go to plan for March ie i do worse than September, then the CAO will get my March results. But I can still submit my better results from September to them if this does happen...ya dig?

Hopefully it won't though....

Here's hoping!!

neurodegenerate

eagle_&_bear wrote: »

Thankfully I was sitting at the top of the 2nd row on the left and I never heard anyone come in or out.

Haha you were the guy sitting in front of me! Hello!:p how bizarre I should have said hi but I was worried I might put ppl off... I was the second in that row,right in front of that clock and right beside the cloakroom...we lucked out! Dyous remember that q in s1 about the high society women who were old with grown up kids and they'd stupid names like mrs sloan and mrs actin?! God that was awful. Thats my main memory of the day. Horrible exam didn't understand anything...essays were okay!hope you all get on well:)

bluewall

cill5 wrote: »

Not disingenuous... Some people like myself sat the exam in September in London. I got 59 but want to make sure so I sat it again in March. If the exam doesn't go to plan for March ie i do worse than September, then the CAO will get my March results. But I can still submit my better results from September to them if this does happen...ya dig?

Hopefully it won't though....

Here's hoping!!

Do we have to personally notify CAO if that happens or will ACER give them access to the two most recent/relevant scores (Sept 09 UK and March 10)??????

Malbec

neurodegenerate wrote: »

Dyous remember that q in s1 about the high society women who were old with grown up kids and they'd stupid names like mrs sloan and mrs actin?! God that was awful. Thats my main memory of the day.

Was that Mrs. Ashley and her daughter Babs who wasn't as beautiful as her mother? That's one I remember too.

I was also in row two but about 20 back. Forget the luck o' the Irish, let it be luck o' row 2

Biologic

Row 5 myself. Let's just agree on Luck o' the boards.

paraguay99

Can someone who just did the gamsat give an overview of what came up? I'm genuinely interested. section 1 was the same as usual I presume. Section 2, what were the essay choices and what did people choose? And for section 3 some people said there were a lot of graph questions in the biology sections. Graphy questions on what exactly? And how was the physics, as that is my weakest subject.

allsaintssue

Honest answer, I cannot remember any science questions...I think I mentally blocked it out in some kind of post traumatic stress mechanism! A really geeky part of me liked the physics questions, they were better than I was expecting!I had never done physics before so that was a pleasent suprise.

The essays, I was happy enough with. The first one were all quotes about censorship, mostly in favour of censorship. I chose the one about 'the supressed word being the most dangerous' and I argued that this was true.

The second essays were all about self-confidence and self-esteem. I chose a quote about needing to focus on your successes and not your failures in order to gain self esteem.

etymon

SI was (I think) harder than usual in the sense that many answers were ambiguous, it could have been one of two in a lot of choices.
SII was easy enough, essay on censorship (argumentative) and self-esteem (personal).
SIII involved a good bit of physics or 'physical chemistry' if you want to call it that. Lots of radioactivity, lenses, some sort of force/acceleration question, NMR (not sure what category that falls into), resistance/capacitance but all gave formulae except for V=IR.
Not a lot of orgo and what was there was very basic - alcohols, esterification, blah blah blah. Fatty acids.
Bio was tough in the sense that the graphs were complex and involved deduction from more than one graph. Haemo/O2 dissociation, lots of animal/metabolic rate ones, one small question that mixed enzymatic pathways and genetics which was a pity, ehhhh can't remember too much else about bio except you only really had to know how the heart worked before going in, everything was in passages as far as I can remember.

allsaintssue

:(I actually thought the organic chemistry was harder than I was expecting and I would have said that was my strongest area in science!

etymon

LOL
you can laugh when I get my results
anyone want to play 'count the questions I DEFINITELY got wrong in retrospect'?
(its really depressing)

allsaintssue

Jesus no!!I am desperately trying to forget it now...it is all going well until I have a sudden flash of a graph from the paper and the memories come flooding back:eek:

gem2010

etymon wrote: »

SI was (I think) harder than usual in the sense that many answers were ambiguous, it could have been one of two in a lot of choices.
SII was easy enough, essay on censorship (argumentative) and self-esteem (personal).
SIII involved a good bit of physics or 'physical chemistry' if you want to call it that. Lots of radioactivity, lenses, some sort of force/acceleration question, NMR (not sure what category that falls into), resistance/capacitance but all gave formulae except for V=IR.
Not a lot of orgo and what was there was very basic - alcohols, esterification, blah blah blah. Fatty acids.
Bio was tough in the sense that the graphs were complex and involved deduction from more than one graph. Haemo/O2 dissociation, lots of animal/metabolic rate ones, one small question that mixed enzymatic pathways and genetics which was a pity, ehhhh can't remember too much else about bio except you only really had to know how the heart worked before going in, everything was in passages as far as I can remember.

NMR!! I forgot about that, yeh that was the best question on the paper. Suppose falls under analytical chemistry. Lovely. All the chem questions were lovely esp the O-chems, but i'd be a bit screwed if I didn't think that, being in final year chem and all that Have to say though, I would have thought the cycloaddition reactions would have been hard for non chems with the dienes and dienophiles, we only really covered that last semester (of 4th year!) I know you could work out the sequence from the example given, even if you dont understand the mechanism, but i reckon would have been tough to visualise products without knowing what's going on!

Biology graphs were horrible. Horrible.

Anyone have an exact date for results?

Malbec

gem2010 wrote: »

Anyone have an exact date for results?

Any more jokes? You'll just have to sit tight til mid-May ish. Enjoy!

etymon

oddly enough Diels-Alder is covered in Organic Chem for Dummies which is pretty sound!

Don Keypunch

http://www.studentconsult.com/spleen/viewchapter.cfm?chapterID=1558&isbn13=9780443102448


Page 13

GAMSAT S1 Flashback

Siouxky

Don Keypunch wrote: »

http://www.studentconsult.com/spleen/viewchapter.cfm?chapterID=1558&isbn13=9780443102448


Page 13

GAMSAT S1 Flashback

*Shudder*

In fact, GAMSAT 2010.... *Shudder*

maggie82

well at least yous remember bits of the exam! that ref means nothing to me!! defo not a good sign

moncai

Re results, last year they were dated 18th may by the cao letter, which was a monday 8 weeks after the exam. allowing for the same amount of time this year would suggest monday the 17th may as results day??

Malbec

Anyone else driven demented with the wait?

etymon

YES!!! I had a dream where I got my results and got a 72! How deleriously happy I was... til I woke up and realised I had six weeks to wait for results which are undoubtedly going to be much less impressive!
Only under a month to go now?

Am going to SCREAM if I get another 'borderline' score and have to wait around til July. I just want my results and I want to know WHERE I'M GOIN! Now!

Also, the more and more I remember questions that I'm pretty sure I got wrong, the crazier I get

(Anyone remember the NEET one? something to do with skinny people and jiggly legs? That came back to me the other day watching a very skinny person on the train hopping their leg like crazy. Very annoying.)

MicraBoy

Compulsively checking the GAMSAT site to see if they have updated it with the offical date of the results are out. Even though I know from experience this is done only a few days in advance.

Still as time goes by its getting easier ( and as I have come to terms with the fact I won't beat my UK score ).

The wait between May and August will be H E L L :cool:

Malbec

I dreamt that I got 60 and woke up chuffed, probably the happiest minute of my life til I realised it was all a dream

On the good side, we're over halfway there

hurdygurdy85

I sympathise with Malbec & etymon-I had a really vivid dream the other night that I topped my marks from last year and had enough to chuck my job in (which I don't particularly enjoy)-then my alarm went off and reality hit...... and not too gently either. Cruel is not the word.

Roughly 25 days to results!! :eek:

maggie82

hey all, anyone see the thread that says results were out yesterday?! treid to go to it but keep getting invalid linnk message, most annoying. so has anyone got results yet? i'm hoping not cos then they forgot about me

locum-motion

maggie82 wrote: »

hey all, anyone see the thread that says results were out yesterday?! treid to go to it but keep getting invalid linnk message, most annoying. so has anyone got results yet? i'm hoping not cos then they forgot about me

A poster put up a thread saying the results were out 4/5/10.
He was contradicted by several other posters and asked to substantiate his claim.
He admitted he couldn't.
The thread was deleted.

gem2010

Malbec wrote: »

Anyone else driven demented with the wait?

Omg guys... the wait is killing me too! arrrghghhhggghhh %^&*(

Malbec

This Saturday (8th May) is only 7 weeks since exam.

I reckon it'll be at least 8 weeks before the results come out, this means at least the 15th. I wish they'd come sooner though.
Need to find something to occupy myself with in the meantime.
I've already spent a fair bit of time computing different results & need to stop doing that.

I know I'm saying the same thing that's been said a hundred times but this wait really is taking over my life.

p_holmz

warning! this may not necessarily work for evryone... Heck it is still not working for me!

I found one thing that could help was to apply to a masters course as a sort of back up plan and try to decieve yourself that u really care about the course and wud do it if the Gammy does not go well this year

maggie82

cool thanks for that:), was getting a bit concerned there! thought it was more of my bad luck that they had forgotten about me

eagle_&_bear

Like yourself I keep checking and all I get on the Gamsat-IE site when I log in, is ''results will be available mid-May'' so rescue remedy for the lot of us!

On a side note, I got a letter from CAO telling me I was inelligable! had an absolute heart attack: this was a Friday and had all weekend to sweat it out.

Worst weekend ever!!!

Got it sorted tho. A very helpful lad in the CAO office informed me that the colleges went down to the CAO 2 weeks ago to review all the Grad-Med files and they ''mis-read'' my degree and thought my 3 year honours degree should have been a 4 year degree so they barred me from a place.

Got it sorted but if anyone gets a letter like that, do check it out.:eek:

maggie82

oh my good god i think i'd cry!! good its all sorted now though.
hope you get the results you need

Malbec

Guys, this is not good for my health. I feel physically sick every time I think about results which is pretty much all day and at night when I wake up at random hours to check mails.

I know some people are saying don't stress it but I just can't help it.

I had a dream last night that we got mail saying results would be out on the 27th, now that would be horrific.

Fingers xd for a mail tomorrow and results on Monday. That'd be the same duration as the wait for March 2009's gammy!

sarah_anne

hey glad to see some activity on here again ........ the wait is getting to me a bit ... but i must admit im not too hopeful in getting a place but Im soooo curious to know how I did regardless. I hope your rigth about it being on monday coz its been long enough

hurdygurdy85

Just checked my old emails from GAMSAT Ireland and last year they sent out an email on Fri, May 15, 2009 at 8:00 AM to say results would be available the following Monday 18 2009, so fingers crossed we'll all get an email tomorrow bright and early tomorrow morning. And then the real waiting can begin for Monday morning at 09:00 AM!
Good luck everyone!!

Biologic

Today @ 9am. Wow this next 3 hours is gonna be a b!tch. Good luck all.

hurdygurdy85

Results out at 9am today!!! Eek, earlier than usual. Good luck everyone!

Biologic

And I've got one of my MSc finals today..... so much for getting anything done before that.

etymon

good luck all... esp. to all those like me who have been here before!!!

Biologic

When they said 9am they really meant it. I have to stop trying to login every 5 minutes, there's only so many beats my heart can skip...

eagle_&_bear

best of luck everyone!