http://www.emergencyone.com.au/
Hi again
Firstly, there are plenty of people who have been following these posts and not a single one has been brave enough to put forward a differential diagnosis :)
For what it's worth, Googling the symptoms will probably give you the diagnosis (look for the keywords in the vignette). In the future, EmergencyOne will be giving away free places in its reasoning training course for the first person to email the answer to a 'What's the Diagnosis' problem on the company's contact page.
As for today; the post on reading materials was our most popular so far. So in keeping with the theme of preparation guides, I've decided to compile a suggested list of exactly what to study and how to study to minimise time wasted, minimise stress and maximise your chances of success. These will be available as ebooks here very soon.
But as a rough guide:
1 month full time is more than enough
If you have a science background, less is more (it took me a month because I hadn't studied it previously)
Aim to split your time between
-1/3 sciences (see the books in the reading list)
-1/3 humanities- this is up to you, I've outlined a few good books, but the list is endless. Aim for anything that's deep and meaningful and makes you want to contemplate your navel or the world at large (remember thinking is GOOD and Gary Larson is excellent!)
-1/3 puzzles, problem solving and GAMSAT questions
A dirty little secret is that you can combine your humanities revision with your liesure time if you promise to think while you're doing it. It's one of the last times in your life as a doctor that you'll be able to watch great movies, read great fiction and love your wife up with some poetry all in the name of 'studying'.
Here's a parting thought that will change your world if you will let it. It's called Pareto's law or Pareto's principle. It's a concept from economics that's applicable to many real life models (a bit like natural logs, Pi, the golden ratio etc etc). Put simply, in life 20% of the input is responsible for 80% of the output (or products).
This is applicable to work, home, family etc. When it comes to your GAMSAT study, 20% of your preparation will account for 80% of your realised grades on the day. Your challenge, given that you CAN'T know it all, is to try and identify the 20% of study/revision/learning/reading that will get you the most Brownie points on test day. Unfortunately there is no 'bonus credit' section where you can demonstrate just how smart you really are. In the GAMSATs, you're not trying to showcase your talent, instead you're trying to hone your talent to a pinpoint with the single mission: answer the question. It's all about jumping through hoops like a good doggy! (That last line, sad but true is often the theme for the rest of your medical career; the exams, college applications, mentor reports and so forth never stop....you'll always be jumping through hoops)
I applied Pareto's Law to my own GAMSAT revision before I'd even learnt about it. For me it took the form of skimming through the practice exam, identifying common themes, then taking a pen to the contents page of my bio/chem/org chem and physics books. I crossed out the things they were unlikely to ask questions about (ie I almost completely neglected plant biology, ecosystems, origins of life etc) and highlighted the things that they tended to ask questions about often (genetics, Newtonian physics, electronegativity etc). By the end of this process I'd cut the contents of each book by about half and suddenly found myself with half as much to read....I then dedicated the spare time to increasing my humanities and reasoning revision.
Remember that the more efficient you are in your preparation and on exam day, the better your chances will be. At the top end of the oxygen dissociation curve (aka the GAMSAT percentile chart), 5 points is the difference between a competetive score and just being one of the crowd!!
Good luck
http://www.emergencyone.com.au/
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