Ace GAMSAT Preparation Review

Ace GAMSAT is a 3rd party GAMSAT preparation company that provides heaps of different and varied materials. They have 16 different books all marketed to help you prepare for the GAMSAT. My collection includes only 6 books related to theory and one practice test book (I heard there are updated editions of this one). This review will be based on my collection, it is not indicative of all the books but you can definitely get a good idea from just one.

Compared to every other text book I've read, these books definitely have the least amount of text per page, the large margins and 1.5 spacing make it feel like they were trying to reach a quota of pages. After becoming used to text heavy and small font text books, the white spaces and larger font made these books feel much more casual to me. On the other hand it is extremely easy to read and makes it feel less daunting to read. Each book averaged around 80 pages and with 16 different books for their complete home study course, it seems to me that they were trying to split their content up into as many books as possible (to sell more copies presumably) and it definitely feels thinly spread. They could have easy combined many of their books and it would still be normal but the content is the most important thing so lets get into that.

The bibles all follow a similar format, for their section 1 books they outline each type of question, give examples and answer solutions. Their humanities bible was quite under whelming, they briefly go over some key skills before delving into the questions. They go through the questions describing why 3 of the options were incorrect and why the correct answer was most correct, nothing special. It could be useful to people who have never seen section 1 questions before but it is definitely not worth the premium.

The section 2 books, although I don't think they sell it anymore, was probably more helpful than their section 1 books. It would go over how to develop, structure and write an essay. This can be very helpful to people with English as their second language. Most their techniques and concept are not advanced at all and all of it can be learned from the internet. If someone was to buy preparation material, the expectation would be to obtain information not readily available and unfortunately this is not it. Now, they do give you strategy to approach section 2 which can implemented and changed to fit your needs but this goes back to my point, if you know how to write essays you probably don't need it. 

Their section 3 books are quite a bit better, i'd be surprised if they poorly handled science. They utilize graphics and diagrams heavily which, personally, is very welcome. Their theory describes the basics of most the concepts you may see in the GAMSAT, which in this case is enough. As i've mentioned many times recalling subjects is not required to answer questions. Instead of example questions, some of them weren't even GAMSAT style, the books didn't have any extra questions.

Their mock exams questions for section 1 were reasonable and they have good variety. They like using big words and their questions can sometimes be confusing  but most of the time the questions are similar to ACER's. Their figures are reasonable most of the time but some questions use very odd diagrams, of these questions I can think of heaps of better diagrams to display the same information. Section 2, not much to say here, stock standard 5 quotes and a main theme connecting them per question. A few famous names in those quotes which are always welcome. Section 3 questions are unfortunately their weakest point, as I've mentioned before section 3 shouldn't require recalling information and the answer can be implied from the question. Most of their questions are either easy or require some sort of recall and all the answers for the questions are extremely similar.

I'm really struggling to find a reason to recommend these books to you. I'm not saying these books can't help you, which they definitely can. I would compare the information in these books to an experienced friend or relative that's sat the GAMSAT before. You can definitely find the same information on the internet, not to mention its marketing to sell more books makes it less appealing. You are better off spending your money else where.