Why Pattern Recognition Doesn’t Work.. And Other Dangerous Approaches

Today, I’m going to talk to you about why pattern recognition doesn’t work on the GAMSAT and other simplistic and dangerous approaches to the GAMSAT so tune in now.

So, this morning I was talking to somebody who wanted our help with the preparation.
He’s a really nice guy. He’d done the GAMSAT twice already and he’s got a science background. He also failed the science section both times and he also got low scores in the other sections, particularly section one and so, I was having a chat with him about his preparation asking questions like ‘What are you doing? What are you hoping to do next? What do you think will help you?’ and he brought up of the concept of ‘ Oh, I have got to get better at recognising the patterns in the GAMSAT stimulus material’ and I was like ‘What do you mean by that? What do you mean by patterns?’ ‘Oh, you know patterns in the stimulus material between the things that they’re saying and the questions and recognising the patterns for both Section one and Section three.’ Alright.

I said ‘Okay. What happens when the question comes up that doesn’t have any pattern recognition stuff in it or what happens if it’s a question that’s got nothing to do with the GAMSAT or what happens if totally different questions and stimulus material come up?’

That’s one thing.
The other thing he was saying was that ‘Oh I’ve got to get comfortable with the types of questions, I’m going to learn the types of questions. I’ve got to learn the question types.’

So it’s like generalising the types of questions that come up and putting those into a category that he can then train himself to answer which, you know to an extent that might help.

You know, if you’re kind of comfortable with some of these questions and that’s good, but if you’re going out to try and learn question types and then direct your study based on types of questions then you’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble, just like with the pattern recognition.

What if different types of questions come up?
I like to say that the only thing you can expect to come up on the GAMSAT is the unexpected. It changes every year.
Every year it’s the same story.’ Oh, the GAMSAT has changed. It’s more this. It’s more that. So many graphs. So much this’. It happens every single year because it’s always evolving and changing and like I said the only thing you can expect to come up is the unexpected, so things like trying to memorise types of questions or try to memorise patterns and work with those, you’re narrowing yourself into a bit of a corner because what if something different comes up and I can guarantee you, it will, what will you do?

There is going to be different questions and unexpected questions and on the day of the exam it’s going to be very different from when you’ve done it at home. The pressure is going to be more. The environment is going to be different. So, you’re going to feel differently on the day.

That’s one thing, but they’re also going to have different questions. So the trouble that people are having is that they assume that it’s going to be exactly like the ACER questions and the same thing I hear every year is ‘Oh, man that exam was a lot more difficult than the sample questions and I hear that all the time and I’m not surprised and the problem is that people are not getting themselves ready to manage whatever they throw at you.

So you’re, not getting yourself ready to handle whatever they throw at you. You’re not developing the skills to be able to work with whatever stimulus material they give you, whatever questions they give you and that’s the key here. That’s the missing link.

Developing those skills and pinpointing what they are.
Firstly, pinpointing what you’re missing and then be able to continue to create a tailored approach to address those problems. If you want to turn your preparation around so that you’re headed in the right direction and want to actually learn, not gimmicks, not tricks, not elimination processes cause none of that stuff works then get in touch with us. Click here: https://passgamsat.com/bootcamp/ and we’ll help steer you back on track.