First attempt I scored a 52, which put me well below the cutoff for every Australian medical school I was targeting. I took 8 months, working part-time, to prepare properly and retook it with a 68, which got me into two programs. The difference was almost entirely Section III — I went from a 48 to a 65 by treating it like an actual science degree review rather than just practice problems.
For Section III I spent the first 3 months on pure content review — biology, chemistry, physics, and organic chemistry from first-principles textbooks, not condensed guides. I did about 2.5 hours per day, six days a week. The GAMSAT isn't testing memorization; it's testing your ability to reason through novel problems using underlying concepts, and if those concepts aren't solid you can't reason your way through anything.
Section I improved once I started treating it like a critical reasoning exam rather than a comprehension test. I stopped highlighting passages and started identifying argument structures. Went from a 55 to a 62 using that approach over about 6 weeks of focused work.
Section II is the one people neglect most. I wrote one essay per week for five months, got feedback from a tutor four times, and that alone pushed my score from a 54 to a 60. The markers want a clear thesis and controlled evidence — they're not impressed by vocabulary.
Going from a 52 to a 68 in one sitting is genuinely impressive. That's not just study hours — that's a complete rethink of how you're approaching each section. Congrats on getting in.
Section II feedback from an actual tutor changed my scores dramatically. I was getting 54s consistently until someone told me my essays were descriptive rather than argumentative. One structural fix and I jumped to 61.
The argument structure approach for Section I is something I've been telling people for two years and almost no one listens. It feels counterintuitive but once you stop trying to remember every detail of a passage it actually gets faster.
The first-principles approach for Section III is the right call. I made the mistake of using condensed notes and could answer practice questions but completely fell apart on the novel experimental ones. Cost me at least 12 points.