Ep 26: GAMSAT Essays – What You’re Not Told, But Absolutely

Mare Forfa (00:00)
Can you hear me okay still? Okay.

Urvi (00:01)
Yeah.

Mare Forfa (00:03)
We’re not told what the topics will be. You’re not given a marking criteria and you don’t get any feedback from the exam. So no wonder GAMSAT essays kind of feel like you’re shooting darts in the dark. But today in this episode, we’re going to line things up a little bit.

So welcome back to the Nurses Doing GAMSAT podcast. This is where we give you practical, empowering guidance to help you kind of flip and get the advantage — and just get into medical school.

So in today’s podcast, the topic we’re going to be covering is Section Two — a full overview of Section Two, the essay section. We’re going to talk about what the test actually wants from you, why most students kind of go wrong, and the first simple steps you can take to start improving today.

If you’re new to Section Two, or if you feel like you’ve kind of hit a wall with your writing — or maybe you haven’t got that much experience writing, or you haven’t written in ages — this is the episode for you.

Joining me today is Urvi, our lead Section Two tutor here at Thank Flip GAMSAT. She’s one of the team members who runs our essay classes. She’s now in her fourth year at the University of Melbourne Medical School and has helped hundreds of students turn their writing around.

It should also be noted — she got in the 70s in the essay section, which is pretty awesome, I would say. So Urvi, it is so wonderful to have you here. Welcome.

Urvi (01:37)
Thanks so much, Mare, for such a flattering introduction. I’m super excited to talk about Section Two, because this is hands down the section I remember very strongly and very vividly, and I know exactly what it felt like to do essays when I started. So happy to be here.

Mare Forfa (01:56)
We’re going to be putting links to everything we talk about in our show notes. It will be at thankflipgamsat.com/episode26.

We also have our free Section Two deep dive and essay resources. They’ll all be in the show notes but are also available on our website.

If you have any questions or want us to dig deeper on stuff, please drop a comment. We want to create content that people want to hear.

If you’ve got feedback — or should I say, if you’ve got positive feedback — I want to hear it!

So do you want to just like deep dive, Urvi, and jump into the basics of Section Two?

Urvi (02:40)
Yeah! So Section Two, for those of you who might not know, essentially covers two essays in a period of one hour. So, not a lot of time to smash out two essays on topics that you don’t know.

The way the tasks are divided up is: you have a Task A topic — Task A is usually on social or political themes. So things like politics, bureaucracy, nationalism.

Then there’s a Task B essay that’s on slightly more personal or philosophical themes — things like love, family, and courage.

Mare Forfa (03:21)
Can I butt in very quickly? The way I like to think about Task A and Task B is — Task A is usually more argumentative, right? And Task B is more that kind of reflective piece.

Like, if you get love as Task B, most people are not going to argue for or against love — though you could try. But it’s way easier to do something more reflective, more philosophical, more personal, like you were saying.

Urvi (03:53)
Yeah, totally. And I’ll also talk about the interesting thing that I did — which was to almost have an argumentative tone in my Task B essay as well.

So for students who are more methodical, who hate creative writing and like to structure — and I was a lot more science-minded, and there’s lots of bootcampers, lots of you listening who might be similar — you just want a bit of a formula and then add things in. There are definitely ways to do that.

Urvi (04:39)
But essentially, once you’ve read the quotes — you have four quotes for each of those tasks — what you do is come up with or find the overall theme of the quotes. If one or two of the quotes sort of stick out to you, you can choose those and just get started with your writing.

Essentially, you don’t need any specific knowledge. You just need to be able to reason, explore your ideas, and communicate really well to the person that’s reading your essays.

Mare Forfa (05:09)
I love that. The way I think about the essays — rightly or wrongly — is that they should be in the GAMSAT.

Most people look at the essay section and go, “Well, when I’m in the emergency department and I’m pumping someone’s chest trying to save their life, no one’s going to ask me to write an essay about it.” And that’s true — logically, it doesn’t make sense.

But if you look at some of the skills you use when you are in the emergency department and you are saving someone’s life — let’s say it’s a Code Blue — what are the types of skills you need?

You need someone who can think outside the square, right? You don’t want every doctor thinking the same way, because that’s actually poor for patient outcomes.

So if you’re a free-thinking doctor who has great ideas, fantastic. But then you’ve got to be able to bloody articulate them. In a life-or-death situation, there’s no faffing around — you’ve got to be able to say what those outside-the-box ideas are.

And often, in that communication, you need to create a persuasive argument about why to change the course of that patient’s treatment.

Like, if you really step back and think about the skills that you’re using in the essay section, it kind of makes sense, right?

Urvi (06:43)
Yeah, absolutely. I say this to students as well — not just for Section Two, but for Section One and Section Three as well.

If you think about the skills involved — the way you think, the way you learn to think — that’s what you need as a doctor.

You need to know how to think. And as you said, that outside-the-box part is where you don’t have all the information necessarily. Just like in the GAMSAT — you don’t have the content, you don’t know what’s going to show up.

You should be confident enough with the skillset to be able to apply it to any situation that’s thrown at you.

And that’s why — despite the GAMSAT being a not-very-loved exam — it’s important. Looking back, I’d say it hands down gave me so many skills along the way.

Mare Forfa (07:34)
Yeah, it’s so good to hear that from someone who’s further down the track. Because I think so many people feel like, “This is so hard. Why do they do this? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Which I also get — I totally understand that.

But when you’re on the other side and you’re in medical school, and you’re seeing how these skills actually help you — they help you be a better doctor — then it kind of makes sense.

The other thing I feel like I see all the time is people who don’t get in say things like, “Well, I’m not meant to be a doctor. I didn’t get in on the first go, or the second, or even the third.”

And I think — no! The skill of persistence and determination — you’re going to be such a better doctor because of that.

And yes, it’s crap now. It’s not great now. But when you’re a doctor, I want a doctor who’s got perseverance. I don’t want a doctor who’s just going to go, “Well, that wasn’t easy, so…”

Urvi (08:36)
Exactly. It is what it is. And I promise — and I say this to all the students — it is worth it.

It might not feel like that in the moment, but the skills you’re picking up — even just general study skills, time management — all of that really contributes to being a doctor.

Mare Forfa (09:04)
You don’t become less busy when you’re in med school.

I remember — and this was donkey’s years ago — but I remember going with Tom very early when we’d just started, maybe 17 or 18 years ago. We went to one of the medical schools and they said, “It’s 40 contact hours a week and 40 homework hours a week.”

And I remember just going, “Jeez, that’s a lot!”

Urvi (09:33)
Quite the opposite.

Mare Forfa (09:34)
But the reality is that most people in medical school manage to go to med school and have a part-time job — and sometimes, if they’re lucky, see their friends and family.

Not even as much as you’d want. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have Christmas Day with your family, you know?

Mare Forfa (10:03)
I feel like with Section Two, there are so many things that make it almost feel impossible for people, right? Like, it feels like you have no clue what the topic will be. They don’t give you a marking rubric. There’s no feedback.

You get your exam result and they don’t tell you why you got that score. And then everything’s just got this kind of subjective, disorientating feeling.

Urvi (10:11)
Yeah, and honestly, I would say the section that troubled me the most — and the section I ended up loving the most — was actually Section Two.

I remember writing my first ever essay — I don’t even know if it was under timed conditions. I wrote my first two essays, and I was here and my parents were obviously back home in Uganda, and I gave my dad a call.

I was like, “Dad, I think Section Three might be okay, but if I get a 50 in Section Two, I’d be the happiest person, because all I want to do is just pass this. I cannot imagine writing essays. That is just not me.”

I didn’t do a lot of humanities or literature. I wasn’t into that. Now, I think I’m getting into it a lot more — thanks to the GAMSAT, which is a plus.

But it was the section that felt really hard. Because unlike Sections One and Three, you don’t have four options you can guess.

Even if you guessed your way through, you might still pass the other two sections. But Section Two is literally a blank piece of paper. It’s just what you can put onto it that determines your score.

So there’s a lot more responsibility, a lot more pressure. And as you said, you don’t know anything about the topics, or the marking rubric, or who’s marking it.

It feels like you are — as you said — shooting darts in the dark.

But there is good news. And as someone who’s experienced both the mess and the light at the end of the tunnel, I very much agree there’s a lot that can be improved with Section Two.

Yes, you’ll never know the topics — but what we do is teach you methods to actually build the skill set so you can apply it to any topic that’s thrown at you.

That’s what I ended up doing. And we’ll talk a bit more about how I went through that process, but essentially we reverse-engineer the marking criteria to give students the important bits for their essay — what really matters, what makes a good essay.

With structure, feedback, and lots and lots of practice, you can definitely improve.

And it’s not a talent. I was never talented at writing. It’s a skill you build, learn, and develop over months and weeks — and it’s absolutely possible.

If I did it, I promise you, you can do it too.

Mare Forfa (13:27)
Yeah. I feel like so many people think, “You either got it or you don’t got it” with the GAMSAT — and I know that didn’t grammatically make sense, but you know what I mean.

And it’s really not about that.

When you understand that a skill is just like riding a bike or learning how to swim — when you understand skill acquisition — you don’t have to be talented.

It’s not about that.

The other thing you mentioned that was really interesting is structure. Most people have done some kind of essay structure before, so they understand that essays have structure.

But what most people don’t understand is that structure is not what you’re marked on — it’s what enables creativity.

Because if you have a structure, it allows you to spend your time not thinking about how to write the essay, but what you’re going to say within those constraints.

And those constraints — within a structure — mean that what you do is actually good quality.

So the structure doesn’t make or break you.

This is where people go, “Oh, but I heard someone did a poem and got 70 or 80 in the GAMSAT.” And I’m like, great — that’s fine.

But it’s really hard to practise writing a poem that hits the marking criteria, especially when you don’t know what the theme is.

If you can learn any skill acquisition technique and use one structure that works across the board — man, it makes things easier.

There’s no guessing game that day. I love that.

Urvi (14:59)
Yeah, for sure.

That’s particularly helpful for the more formulaic people like myself — people who like to have a formula for everything.

If you have a formula — a certain structure, a certain way of writing your essay — and you love it and it resonates with you, the next thing to do is practise, practise, practise.

Solidify that structure, solidify that style of writing, so that when anything gets thrown at you on GAMSAT day, you’re not randomly trying a poem you’ve never written before.

You’re sticking to the structure — and it works, because you’ve practised it.

And on the other side, for the people who are more creative and have a stronger background in literature and writing — it’s easier for them to experiment and succeed with that experimentation.

But what we don’t realise is that they’ve got years of experience doing this. And even if it seems experimental, they’ve still got a structure and methods to fall back on.

So I guess the summary of all of this is: have something you stick to. Have a solid way of writing an essay.

Mare Forfa (16:24)
Yeah, I remember one of my students — heaps of my students, actually — call me after the exam, and we have a good yak about what happened.

I won’t mention her name, but she said, “I got a word I didn’t understand as my theme.” And I was like, “What, meritocracy?” And she goes, “Yeah!”

And I said, “God, how’d you go?” And she goes, “It’s cool — I just used the technique for what to write about when I don’t know the theme. So I actually feel really good.”

And I was like, “That’s a skill, right?”

If you’re prepared for the good topics and you’re prepared for the not-so-good topics — and obviously those are different skills — then you’re in a great place.

Like, how you choose what to write about when it’s something like love, and you’ve got 5,000 things you could say about it, is going to be way different to how you write about something like meritocracy, where you’re like, “What the hell does that mean?”

Just to close that loop for people at home — if you don’t know what meritocracy is (because I had to think about it) — it means, like, almost like a democracy, but not everyone gets an equal vote.

You get more votes based on your merit.

So, for example, the genius Elon Musk — because he’s done so much “good” (in air quotes) — would get more votes than someone who hasn’t contributed as much.

Not saying Elon is good or bad — just an example.

Urvi (17:52)
Yeah, yeah — for sure.

So, essentially based on everything we’ve talked about, there are key things that make a good essay.

The first and most important thing — and this will be the starting point of every essay — is your idea.

So, idea generation and knowing exactly what your essay will be about is, as you can imagine — surprise, surprise — the most important thing.

It’s super important to learn how to brainstorm ideas, come up with strong ideas — and do it quickly, because you don’t have a lot of time.

Another thing I hear students say is, “Is my idea too cliché?” or “How do I make it unique?”

That’s where depth comes in.

You could have two people with the exact same argument — let’s say “love is good” — and they could explore it in completely different ways.

One might take a philosophical perspective. Another might take a cultural perspective on the same theme.

And even if your overall idea sounds a bit cliché, the depth with which you explore it is what makes it unique and nuanced.

In essays, I see students get stuck at that first point — they can’t come up with an idea because they’re trying so hard to find something super unique and out-of-the-box.

That takes ages.

So what I tell my students to do is: start with the basics.

Let’s say, “Money is bad.” Then ask yourself — where is that idea coming from? Where is your worldview coming from?

As you keep questioning yourself and digging deeper, you develop an idea that resonates with you — with the way you look at things.

And that will inevitably be different from someone else’s.

So that’s a myth I wanted to bust: depth is what takes you away from writing something that’s cliché.

Another key part is structure.

You might have beautiful ideas — and we see this all the time — but if they’re fragmented, it disrupts the flow of the essay.

If you think about reading any article, book, or anything — at its core, there’s a structure.

That structure is the skeleton of your essay.

If a bone is missing, the whole thing crumbles.

So having a solid structure that supports your ideas and allows you to explore them with depth is very, very important.

Mare Forfa (20:42)
Can I add to that?

I spoke to a student yesterday — not a bootcamp member — who had sat the exam once before and needed help (hello if you’re listening!).

She got a 54 in her first sitting in the essay section. She was so insistent that the first essay she wrote was really good — it had structure, it had clear ideas, it had depth.

But the second essay — she got really gung-ho and just dove straight in with no structure.

And as you’d expect, she kind of just rambled on.

She said the second essay didn’t have a point because she realised halfway through that her point was changing, but it was too late to go back and change the start.

So she thinks she got a 54 from one good essay.

But I think if she’d started with that structure you’re talking about — with a clear framework — then she would’ve known the end of the essay before she even started.

Which means it would have been consistent. She could have really developed a good idea and chosen a good one to begin with.

Because it sounded like the idea she started with, she didn’t even agree with!

Which is quite interesting. I’m sure that happens.

Urvi (21:49)
It happens a lot. It happened to me and it happens to so many students I speak to.

And at the core of it is the absence of a strong plan — or even a weak plan.

I would say, it’s even more important than anything else: have a plan.

Because as you said — if you don’t know what you’re writing about, you’re just going to ramble.

All these ideas flood in — or maybe they don’t.

And not only does it create a weak essay, but in the moment, the student knows they’re spiralling.

They know they’re rambling.

That induces stress — and then it’s a vicious cycle of: “I don’t know what I’m writing, but I have to keep writing because I don’t have enough time, but now I’m stressed, and now I still don’t know what I’m writing.”

Before, I hated planning. I thought, “This is just a waste of time.”

Why spend five minutes planning an essay when I could just get into it? Every minute is so precious.

But the biggest thing that changed my essays was knowing what I was writing — and not deviating from that plan.

Even if the most beautiful idea popped into my head halfway through, I’d push it away.

Because I knew it would disrupt the overall flow.

So, for those of you who hate planning — or don’t plan consistently — think about it like this:

Those 5–7 minutes of planning? That’s actually the active work. That’s where your brain should be working hard.

And then the writing part? That’s just putting sentences together.

You’re not thinking too much actively anymore — all of that is already done.

Urvi (23:55)
So that’s really important — one of the most important parts of an essay.

And then obviously, there’s the sentence-building part — expression, grammar, vocabulary. That’s important too, but that comes with practice and time.

I used to be obsessed with having the fanciest words, and I’d end up with this word salad in my essay.

And I was like, “I don’t even know where I’m going with these words. I’m not able to convey my idea consistently.”

So what helped me was switching my mindset to: “How would I write this if I were writing to a friend?” Or “How would I say this if I were talking to a friend about this topic?”

Simple language — but something that’s understandable.

Once you start there, you’re able to fully convey your argument or your point.

And then, over time, you can refine things — instead of saying this word, maybe I’ll replace it with a fancier word. Or I’ll use a better sentence structure to enhance it.

But all of that comes after. The idea and the depth come first.

Mare Forfa (25:05)
See, this makes me think about some of the myths I’ve heard about GAMSAT essays.

One of the first myths — and I hear it all the time — is: “You need to sound super academic.”

And you really just don’t.

Clear beats complicated every single time.

I remember years ago, I had a student — his name was Dongju. Loved him to bits. Great guy. Will make a brilliant doctor.

He sat the GAMSAT by himself and just couldn’t get over the writing section.

Dongju was a Chinese national student — an international student here in Australia. English was clearly his second language.

He could speak English, but not to the same level as someone who had grown up with English as a first language.

Just like if I went to China — I’m never going to speak Mandarin as well as he does. Doesn’t matter how long I live there.

But he was trying to compete with native English speakers by trying to sound really fancy and convoluted and posh — because he thought that’s what the markers wanted.

Now, when we switched him from that complicated language — which wasn’t his natural structure — to short, sharp, clear language, everything changed.

That next sitting, which was his first time doing Section Two with us, he got a 62.

He was almost in tears. He said, “I never thought this was possible.”

And honestly — 62 is an okay score. It’s not groundbreaking.

But it was above 50 — and that’s all he needed.

Urvi (26:49)
It is. Especially from a 50 average beforehand to a 62. That’s incredible.

Mare Forfa (26:58)
Right? He was getting in the 90s for Section Three. So when we helped him with Section One and Section Two to get above 50, his overall score was 75.

He got straight into UQ.

And it wasn’t luck.

So sometimes, it’s not about being super academic. It’s not about sounding like what you imagine a doctor should sound like.

All of my nurses, physios, ambos — you all know that doctors don’t always sound super academic.

Love them — but let’s be honest, sometimes we sound more like sailors than scholars.

I just want everyone to know that the idea that “sounding academic gets you more marks” is a myth.

Clear beats complicated. Every time.

Urvi (27:50)
Yeah. And on the topic of myths — the other one I hear a lot, which I can personally debunk, because I never followed it — is: “You should always argue both sides.”

I never argued both sides in my essays — not in practice and not in the actual GAMSAT.

It comes down to the structure you use.

What worked for me — and what I was comfortable with — was picking an idea and just going all in.

Often my idea would be a critical one — a critique of something.

Even with a topic like love, I might argue that capitalism has dismantled the meaning of love.

Then I’d explore why I think that, what the impacts are — do a deep dive into that idea.

I didn’t need to argue the opposite side because I had so much I could talk about in support of my view.

But that said, there’s a fine line.

You don’t want to go so hard that your perspective becomes too extreme or rigid. That shows linear thinking.

So even though I was writing from one perspective, the language I used — the way I framed it — was always balanced.

I’d acknowledge that there’s another side, that the issue is complex, but say, “Here’s what I’ll focus on.”

That tells the reader, “I’m not just saying love is evil.”

It shows that I know there’s a grey area.

And that’s what you need as a doctor too. No human being is black or white. Everyone is a weird shade of grey.

So being able to think like that — and write like that — is a really good skill to have.

Mare Forfa (30:17)
Girl, this is so you. Because I’d be like, “Love sucks. It’s the devil.”

Urvi (30:24)
The world is doomed.

Mare Forfa (30:29)
It’s all doomed! The world’s going to explode!

But I love that nuance — that texture. That’s you, and that’s part of the GAMSAT too.

You’re developing this skill where things aren’t black or white — they’re grey. I love that.

Mare Forfa (30:58)
And you know, this brings me to another thing that I hear all the time — another myth — which is: “You can’t prepare.”

Like, you either have it or you don’t. And that’s just false.

Even you were saying — you hated it to begin with. You were like, “If I get a 50, I’ll be praying to God saying, ‘Yay!’”

This section is trainable. You just need the right approach.

So many students have come to us in the forties, saying, “There’s no way, I don’t like it, I don’t want to do it, I haven’t done writing for ages.”

And it wasn’t luck. They didn’t get into med because they were lucky.

They just developed the skill.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to get over that hurdle of what we say to ourselves, like, “I can’t do this.”

How many times have I heard people say, “I just can’t do it”?

And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s break it down.”

You’re looking at the whole staircase — let’s just take the next step.

Then we’ll take the step after that.

In the bootcamp, we get our students writing a minimum of 24 essays.

I want them to write each one twice — so really, it should be 48 essays.

And when you write your first one, you’re going to think, “48 of these? Jesus, that’s going to be hard.”

But if you don’t look at the whole 48 and you just go, “You know what, I’m just going to write two at a time. I’m going to spend half an hour and do it. I’m going to implement these one or two skills that I’ve just learned.”

You don’t need to be whiz-bang at essays right from the start.

You just need to take the first step.

Now, with all of that said, I want to rapid-fire some questions to you.

These are like one-sentence or two-sentence answers — because I get these questions all the time.

So! Should students be memorising full essays?

Urvi (33:00)
Absolutely not. Biggest trap.

ACER will see through it. Low-scoring essay. Don’t do it.

Mare Forfa (33:03)
Is it okay to waffle just to fill in a few more words, so it’s a bit longer?

Urvi (33:09)
Quality over quantity.

Better to write less and make it strong.

Readers can definitely see through waffle — don’t do it.

Mare Forfa (33:19)
Love hearing that.

Should people always write persuasive-style essays?

Urvi (33:28)
No, not always.

I didn’t write any persuasive-style essays and I turned out okay.

So you don’t necessarily have to — it depends on your structure and framework.

Mare Forfa (33:39)
Yeah. And it depends on the prompt, right?

There’s going to be some that suit it and some that don’t. Love that.

So tell me, Urvi — what are some things that our listeners can do now to really get started?

Urvi (33:49)
The first and most important thing about writing a good essay is: find your passion.

You’re going to hate writing essays until you find something you actually care about and want to write about.

Because if you don’t want to write about it, you’re not going to write your essays.

For a lot of students, I know things like feminism or education policy are topics they’re really interested in — and they write about everything from that lens.

So find whatever that is for you.

Second most important thing: plan your essays.

Don’t write anything until you know what you’re writing, and how you’re going to write it.

Third: find what works for you.

That could be a particular structure, a way of exploring your idea, certain examples, or language.

For example, I picked out a few pieces of vocabulary — a few words I could use in every single essay — and I kept using them over and over.

So, find your go-to words, your go-to examples.

And then — practice, practice, practice.

All this stuff can sound great — you can research and listen to podcasts — but the hardest thing is actually sitting down and writing the essay.

And students love to avoid that because it’s so confronting.

Mare Forfa (35:15)
Oh, Urvi — how many times have I spoken to students — not our bootcampers, but other people — who say, “I sat the GAMSAT in March,” and I go, “Okay, how did you go?”

“Oh, I got in the forties or fifties.”

And I ask, “How many essays did you write?”

And they say, “None. I just thought about ideas.”

And I’m like — that’s not practice!

Urvi (35:40)
It’s not. It’s not. It’s not.

Writing an essay is so much harder when you have to put pen to paper and actually articulate your thoughts.

You might have everything in your head — and then nothing comes out when it’s time to write.

So definitely — practice.

You will not improve without writing full essays. Period.

Then — reflection.

You can write essays, but if you don’t reflect on them, you miss out on half the learning.

Urvi (36:10)
When you write your essays, think about those internal points of discomfort — did you struggle with writing an idea? Did you struggle to find examples?

And you will know. You’ll feel that discomfort. I felt that a lot of the time when I was writing essays.

What I tell students is: just make a note of those discomfort points.

What did you really struggle with when writing this essay?

That gives you a very clear picture of what to improve.

Then also reread your essays.

Think about how you could improve your structure, what new vocabulary you could add, how you could develop your idea further.

And if you’re getting feedback — whether it’s from a tutor or just someone reading your essay — there’s still so much you can take from that and implement in your next one.

So it’s an active cycle.

It’s not just writing heaps of essays.

And it’s not just reading and researching.

It’s everything all at once.

Mare Forfa (37:07)
I love that.

To me, the biggest thing with reflecting on essays and feedback — because obviously we give our students feedback — is what they do with that feedback.

I remember — I don’t know if you remember him — he’s from the UK, his name was Joseph, but we used to call him Joey.

His first essays took him days to write.

Like, a couple of days per essay.

And we got them and we were like, “We love you, but a few days per essay is a long bloody time when you’re meant to write it in an hour.”

But what he did phenomenally — and we now say this to all of our students — is this: once you get the feedback, rewrite those essays again.

Not because we’re going to mark them again — it makes no difference to us.

It makes a difference to you.

When students rewrite their essays using the feedback we’ve given them, they start to implement the skills that were missing the first time.

So they’re not just getting better by writing more — they’re getting better by correcting their mistakes and actually applying new skills.

The second version of the essay ends up being way better — and they’ve done it in a safe space.

They already know the topic, they already have a rough structure, so they’re not doing that part from scratch.

It’s just about executing the skill they’re trying to build.

So when Joey went on to write essays 3 and 4, he had already implemented what he learned in essays 1 and 2 — because he rewrote them.

Every essay he wrote after that got better and better.

He wrote all 24 of our essays — twice. That’s 48 essays.

God bless his soul.

He was so shy and quiet. His mum emailed us in November (it was a September sitting) and said, “Joey got in the 100th percentile.”

And I was like, “What?”

We had worked on timing for him too — started that in week 8 or 10 — but he really committed to improvement.

And he didn’t just practise — he practised getting better.

That’s why he nailed it.

And now he should be a doctor.

Urvi (39:32)
That’s incredible.

Mare Forfa (39:34)
I mean — that’s going to be you next year. I’m so excited for you.

I can’t believe it!

This has nothing to do with essays, but — do you feel ready to be in hospital as an intern?

Urvi (39:37)
As a baby doctor? I don’t think you ever feel ready.

It’s one of those things where I could have eight more years of med school and still not feel ready.

But I think I’m ready for just a new chapter.

I’ve been in uni for almost seven years now, and I think life needs to move on a little bit.

Yeah — I’m excited.

Mare Forfa (39:50)
I get that.

It is so exciting.

I’m excited for you — I remember when Tom went through that phase.

You’re right — no one feels ready. It’s like having a baby — you’re never ready. You just have to do it and hope for the best.

And you hope for a really good first rotation. That helps so much.

Tom’s first rotation was orthopaedic surgery and it was intense.

It was 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and just full-on.

Urvi (40:14)
Oof — fingers crossed I don’t get something that hectic right off the bat.

Hopefully something with a little more chill to ease into it.

Mare Forfa (40:47)
Yeah — it’s good and bad. Trial by fire. You either sink or swim.

And he really swam. It was a steep learning curve, but it was a great change-up.

I don’t think I’d want ED as my first rotation — that would be a little scary.

But someone’s going to get it.

And sorry if that’s you!

So just to wrap up here, a couple more words on Section Two…

Urvi (41:16)
I want everyone to know — it doesn’t have to feel like a mystery.

You just need the right map.

Mare Forfa (41:21)
Yes — we are going to be breaking down each part of the GAMSAT in future episodes.

So make sure you hit subscribe — don’t miss a thing.

And if this episode helped you, please leave a comment or message us.

We’d love to hear what you’re struggling with and what you want us to cover next.

And let’s all pray for Urvi to get something really exciting — but not too intense — for her internship!

Thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it.

As always, you’re awesome and we just love having you as part of the team.

Guys — enjoy the rest of your day.

Over and out.

Urvi (41:45)
Thank you! Always a pleasure.

Aww, thank you.