Reasoning is The Core of GAMSAT

GAMSAT Section 3 is often the most challenging part of the exam, testing your reasoning skills across physics, biology, chemistry, and more. In this post, we'll break down the most effective, evidence-based strategies to improve your score, based on my experience having scored 77 on my first attempt.

Understanding ACER Material and Avoiding Common Mistakes

Why ACER Practice Materials Are Crucial

Unlike traditional study methods that reward rote memorization, the GAMSAT evaluates how well you can reason and solve problems. If you can consistently understand what ACER questions are assessing and why the right answers are correct, you're already aligning your preparation with the actual exam’s intent.

These questions are crafted to test deeper analytical thinking and your ability to synthesize complex information. Being fluent in this style of thinking gives you an edge not just in accuracy but also in time efficiency. Treat ACER material as your most valuable resource — it's your closest simulation of the actual exam.

Misconceptions About Question Patterns

Something I see a lot is that the practice materials are not representative of the actual exam. This is something I strongly disagree with and was not my experience.

Where I think this comes from is the expectation that questions will repeat and by doing enough of the practice material, we will see the exact same question. This is how we've been conditioned to learn. If you study the past exam papers for a subject in uni, you are likely to see that exact same question with the numbers or some other small aspect changed. This is not the case in the GAMSAT. However, this doesn't mean we can't study the material to find common skills that will be examined. For example, maybe we need to calculate something after interpreting a graph, and we also need to calculate something having interpreted what the numbers must be from a passage of text. These questions will appear very different, but at their core they are testing the same thing. If you study the materials looking for these common skills and patterns, I think you will find the practice material does set you up really well for the real thing.

The Problem With Most Prep Company Materials

Many students spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on prep company materials, only to find their scores stagnate. The issue? These resources often overemphasise niche scientific content instead of honing critical thinking and reasoning skills.

This leads students down a path of cramming irrelevant details, leaving them ill-prepared for ACER’s abstract, multi-step reasoning problems. Feedback from many past test-takers consistently echoes the same issue — the prep companies do not develop the reasoning and critical thinking skills they need. Focusing too much on content-heavy review creates a false sense of readiness that doesn't translate into actual performance on exam day.

The Trap of Over-Theorizing

It’s tempting to dive into hours of Khan Academy or textbook study when you hit a difficult topic. However, this leads to passive learning. Real improvement comes when you attempt real GAMSAT problems first and only study the relevant theory when needed. This ensures your learning is practical and directly tied to how it fits into questions and how you need to apply this concept.

Instead of broadly studying content on some topic list, you need to identify how information fits into the context of a question and target your weaknesses precisely — this is what creates score growth. Keep theory study brief, purposeful, and always anchored to how it is going to help you for a specific problem.

Practical Study and Exam Strategies That Work

Diagnose Before You Study

Extending on that last point, before reaching for textbooks or videos, try solving GAMSAT-style problems cold. This approach helps you identify exactly what skill or concept you’re missing, making your study time significantly more productive. It also mimics exam conditions, sharpening your problem-solving resilience. When you hit a wall, take note of what specifically tripped you up — was it a lack of understanding, a reasoning error, or simple calculation mistake? Using this diagnostic method ensures your theory review is always focused and efficient.

Build a Question Tracker and Categorise Skills

Create a detailed spreadsheet to track incorrect answers and uncover patterns. Go beyond just recording right or wrong. Add a "Reasoning Skill" column to define what the question tested — e.g., Graph Interpretation, Unit Awareness, Logical Deduction. Document soft skills as well, like time pressure or rushing.

Most importantly, reflect on the "why" — why did you get it wrong and what would you do differently next time? Over time, this log becomes a goldmine of personalized insights, helping you study smarter and measure progress. I have a template on my community page, which you can join here

Redo Your Mistakes

Re-attempting problems you’ve gotten wrong is crucial, but only if done properly. If you've done a good job with your question tracker, you will hopefully have identified very specific reasons why you got something wrong and ways to avoid this happening again in the future. Maybe you've learnt a new concept, maybe you've learnt better ways to do your calculations such as learning index laws through one of my videos on the topic and this is your chance to see if you have actually learnt what you need to solve the problem.

Don’t rely on memory or answer recognition. Instead, wait a few days and tackle the question again from scratch. Try to articulate your thought process and work through it as if it’s completely new. This reinforces actual skill development, rather than just recall. Mark your second attempt in your error log — green for correct, yellow if still unsure — and use this feedback loop to track real improvement.

Practice Simple Skills Regularly

Even the most complex GAMSAT questions often rely on basic math and science skills. These need to be automatic. Use flashcards or quick drills for things like index laws, exponent manipulation, logarithmic conversions, or chirality recognition. These small skills often cause preventable errors under pressure. Practicing them regularly ensures they become second nature, freeing up mental bandwidth for the real challenge: reasoning and interpretation. If you make careless errors here, you miss out on points you already earned by understanding the question.

Conclusion

Overall, the most important thing in my opinion is seeing the ACER material as a learning resource. Something I like saying to my students is pretend you are a detective trying to psychoanalyse whoever wrote these questions like they are a serial killer giving you clues. It's certainly a bit morbid, butif you figure out what things are being included and why, it sets you up really well for the exam.