15 GAMSAT Practice Tests: Papers for Exam Success

When using the GAMSAT practice tests in this book and online (and ACER’s eBooks), try your best to follow the actual exam day schedule. This helps to train your body and mind for this rigorous experience. Try to wake up at a similar time that you might expect, given the likely time for transportation, and try to eat similar foods that you may have for breakfast and lunch.

Try to spend the next 1-2 days carefully assessing the worked solutions of all questions where you made errors, as well as questions where you may have had some doubts. Take very brief notes and study from those notes frequently. As previously mentioned, you can consult the free Gold Standard GAMSAT Study Schedule online for more details.

Be very careful about assuming that you needed specific or obscure knowledge to answer a GAMSAT question. Rarely yes, but more likely the information was given in the passage or question stem and then was missed or misinterpreted. Many students assume the worse regarding most questions, thinking “if only I studied more content, I’d get it right” rather than the true theme of the GAMSAT: “if only I worked more on my reasoning skills, ...”. You will improve your reasoning skills when you take the time to study the worked solutions, take brief notes on the lines of reasoning, and revise those notes often.

Yes, practice exams are very important for your GAMSAT preparation!

The solution to improve one’s GAMSAT score is problem-based learning. Although this may be uncomfortable at first, much research has shown why it is most effective and, understandably, it has long been championed by ACER, as well as Gold Standard GAMSAT (all of our materials and PBL GAMSAT Courses; note that Gold Standard is not affiliated with ACER in any way).

Uplift your weaknesses and consolidate your strengths!

What are your main weaknesses? Poetry? Philosophy-based passages? Graph analysis? Equation manipulation with or without dimensional analysis? Scan through the pages of this book, and the online practice tests, to identify the units that you wish to attack in order to improve. In other words, you modify full-length mock exams to become your buffet of practice questions!

Similarly, identify your strengths and scan for units for which you have a high degree of confidence. Attack those questions to ensure that there are no GAMSAT-style traps or ‘distractors’ that could have doomed your real exam experience. At a minimum, experience multiple mock exams online to increase your familiarity with simulations of the real-exam, digital interface.

Note that online full-length exams HEAPS-11 to 15 are heavily based on our most recent publication of the GAMSAT Masters Series. If you have already studied from the Masters Series then these exams can be used as revision or, if there is a lack of time, used at a minimum in lieu of the first 10 HEAPS exams. If you have not studied from the Masters Series, and time is limited, focus your efforts between exams in this book and those from HEAPS-11 TO 15.

Yes! You are permitted scratch paper for the real exam so you should get accustomed to its use during your practice runs. As of the time of printing, students have the option to use two A4 sheets of scratch paper for Section 1 and 2 combined, and two new sheets of A4 scratch paper for Section 3, or, students may use an erasable whiteboard with a marker. The whiteboard must be no bigger than 30 cm x 25 cm in size. Of course, please consult ACER’s GAMSAT Guide for the latest information regarding scratch paper.

Digital watches, alarms and active mobile phones are forbidden for the real exam but you can keep time by bringing an analogue watch. Some test centres have a big projector screen at the front with the time on it with how much time is left. Some test invigilators will write timestamps on an easily visible whiteboard and subsequently cross them out. Some test centres will announce when 30 minutes would be remaining. Caution: You are personally responsible for keeping track of the correct timing during each section of the exam.

It’s complicated. The simple answer is that sitting practice exams followed by careful post-exam study can hone your GAMSAT skills and understanding over time. The only score that counts is your actual, GAMSAT score from ACER.

Now the complex answer: As previously mentioned, your real GAMSAT score is generated with the assistance of Item Response Theory. ACER has produced GAMSAT practice materials for over 20 years and, as of the date of this book’s publication, has never provided a scale to convert raw scores for the multiple-choice sections into scaled scores. The likelihood is that their statisticians believe that it would not be reliable enough.

Some students want to compare percentages or raw scores or estimated scaled scores from one practice test to another: It’s a natural desire but mathematically dubious.

The scale for the Gold Standard GAMSAT tests are based on a cohort of hundreds of students, but this is far smaller than the more than 10 000 students who sit the GAMSAT every year and thus the GS tests have statistical sampling errors.

Again, the real purpose of practice is not to overly fixate on practice test scores, or comparisons between different examiners, but rather to follow your progress with reasoning and application through timed, full-length testing.

You can only compare a Gold Standard exam with a Gold Standard exam, an ACER practice test with an ACER practice test, a real GAMSAT exam with a real GAMSAT exam. Everything aside from the real exam has been created to optimize your real exam score but nothing is a perfect imitation of the scale used for a real exam.

Naturally, the list of forbidden items is longer than what is listed above. Access to food (including lollies/sweets and nuts), medication or other medical equipment (e.g. support cushion) during the test will only be permitted due to a medical condition and can only be allowed if you have been granted special testing accommodations.

ESL students may bring a printed bilingual dictionary into the test for use in Section 1 and Section 2 only. Consult ACER’s website for details (gamsat.acer.org).

Beginning in 2022, for the first time ever, ACER began permitting students to bring a small, erasable whiteboard and marker to the test centre. The intention is to provide an option to replace the A4 sheets of paper which the test centre routinely provides to students. Should you use a whiteboard, then after Section 2 and after Section 3, respectively, you will be instructed to wipe the whiteboard clean. You must also permit inspection of the whiteboard by the supervisor before leaving the test room.