Week 1 of Fraser's GAMSAT Comprehensive Course

In traditional blog fashion, I've decided to share my weekly experience at Fraser's GAMSAT Comprehensive course. It may help you decide whether you'd like to take the course and eventually I will accumulate it into a review. Due to the global pandemic, the course I sat had to be slightly modified. This is also a good way for me to reflect on the concepts I learned over the week. 

As soon as you buy the course you get access to the student portal, where all your resources are. Here's what the pages look like at the end of week 1:

The second page contains essay prompts, Fraser's GAMSAT atlas (free), section 2 atlas and section 3: physics atlas. First impressions, their content is really professional, they've got a clean design theme that flows through all their content.

Usually classes run Saturday (for S1 & 2) and Sunday (S3) but due to the restrictions they had to compromise to just webinars through zoom. They also repeat these classes on weekdays as well so you have the flexibility to attend either.

Monday was my first webinar about S1, these webinars aren't as formal as you would expect but depending on the tutor they can be really enjoyable. Started off by explain what S1 was, the mentality to approach S1, how to prepare and the theory. The theory in the first webinar was about arguments, tone and annotation strategy. We were also assigned post class work that included videos covering the main point, attitude and purpose, an annotation activity, tone and argument theory readings and its associated GAMSAT style quizzes. 

Tuesday was the S2 webinar where discussions about S2, Fraser's approach and concepts of theme, ideas and argument were explained. These were rushed to fit into the 2hr 30min time limit, unfortunately. Both S1 and S2 webinars were given in more of a discussion format between the tutors presenting the class. There was some interaction between the tutors and the students through the chat.

Wednesday was biology webinar, they assigned optional pre-class work which covered cells and cell types, cellular transport and communication, cellular physiology, central dogma and biomolecules, cellular metabolism and nervous, cardiovascular, excretory, and respiratory systems. All totaling to 2hrs worth of videos. During the webinar, we covered pathway principles and human systems then applied those systems principles and with non-human pathways. Then covered genetics, epidemiology, bio-statistics, graphical and data analysis. Post class included some more videos on immune, endocrine and muscular skeletal muscle systems and 2 quizzes covering the webinar.

These videos are similar to khan academy videos, except the information it contains is extremely dense. I already had the background information on these so I didn't need to learn them but they were explained concepts that are taught over weeks in university in 20 minutes. The information was so dense that you'd have to write down every second sentence to keep up and understand the next. Because of this, the words they chose had to be precise (almost like a textbook) and it seems they didn't have strict script because some their analogies an weren't the most precise. They also had to make some generalization, which can cause some misinformation such as this example I found. He said during the refractive period another signal cannot be sent which isn't entirely true. There are two parts, during one a signal can be sent but requires a stronger stimulus and in the other, another signal cannot be sent. Now, hes not entirely wrong but he could of worded it different to make it more accurate, again this is not common but you can definitely tell who's new and who's experienced.

Thursday was chemistry, where a lot of concepts were covered and in only 2.5hrs. They like to insist the bridging course is fast but if the tutor has to try and speak faster to keep up then its rushed. The concepts were, molecules and shapes, families of molecules, main function groups, naming an IUPAC, gas, liquid and solid behaviors, colligative properties of phases, first principles, equilibrium expression, Le Chateleir's principle and Ksp. It's pre-class work contained videos of atomic structure, periodic table and electron configuration. Post class work only contained a quiz of 8 questions.

Friday was physics and was the only faculty that didn't feel fast, in fact it was a really nice pace. We covered some maths, energy, forces, torque, 1D, 2D motion and collisions. Post class contained a few videos on linear motion, kinetic energy, work and torque, and a quiz covering these concepts.

During the week, we also had two prompts to write two essays from to practice for S2. They will be marked and we can discuss them with a tutor next week.

The amount of information you absorb through these classes is dependent on the tutor you have, if they have to speak faster and skip over points just to stay on time, you will inevitably miss concepts and you'll have to spend more time learning over the gaps.

My Takeaways:

S1

• Arguments
• There are 3 key points (make sure to identify each in an argumentative piece)
• Central argument
• Sub argument
• Evidence
• Formal Logic
• Inductive
• Specific case to general principle
• Deductive
• General principle to specific case
• Abductive
• Inference to best conclusion
• Informal Logic
• Doesn't follow the form of the argument
• Can have fallacies
• Slippery slope
• Asserting that a single/small action will lead to a chain of events that will result in a more significant, negative outcome
• Category error
• Placing something in a category to which it doesn’t belong, thereby attributing of it properties it cannot have
• Masked man fallacy
• One object has a certain property, and another object does not, thus those things can’t be the same
• Existential fallacy
• Confusion between hypothetical and realities
• Main Point
• Most important part of the passage
• Arguments can be embedded within other arguments, and often the conclusion of one argument serves as the premise for another. 
• The central point of a paragraph can be stated either explicitly or implicitly
• Then deduce how it logically fits into the argument-structure to lead validly from premises to conclusion.
• Balance between looking too broadly and too narrowly
• Tone
• Tone can be identified from its components
• Dictation or tonal indicators
• Imagery
• Specific words that the author uses
• Authors viewpoint
• Syntax
• The way that the author structures their sentences and the words within
• Cartoons can also have tone
• Setting
• What/what the characters are
• e.g. anthropomorphism
• What the characters look like
• Caption/speech
• Attitude
• How the author has conveyed their meaning to you
• Tonal indicators help to make clear the attitude of the author and the general tone of the passage
• Work on annotation
• Purpose/motive/justification
•  The intent of the passage can be found from its passages
• Descriptive passage
• Author’s attitude here is neutral and merely observational
• Explanatory passage
• Author may go from specific cases to generalizations, or from generalization to specific cases
• To justify a point
• Evaluative passage
• The author may take a side or put forward a third way
• The intent of a passage will give a good insight into exactly what the purpose of the author is

S3

• Assessing pathways
• Isolate the system of interest
• Look for reversibility, divergence and convergence
• Look for multiple inhibitory steps 
• Even number of negative steps result in positive output 
• Odd number of negative steps results in negative output
• What goes in and what goes out? 
• Is there a feedback loop? 
• Does it come full circle?
• Always look upstream and downstream
• Chemistry and physics questions are a lot more theory dependent