Ep 50: How to Know What GAMSAT Coaching Program Is Right for You

Nelson (00:02)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Nurses Doing GAMSAT podcast. My name’s Nelson. I’m part of the enrolments team here at ThankFlip GAMSAT. In that role in the enrolments team, it’s my job to basically talk to all of you, see what your problems are, see what your stresses are, and then hopefully get you on the right path.

Because of that, I speak to literally thousands of GAMSAT students all the time: first-time sitters, repeat sitters, students who are struggling with a particular section, and more than anything, people who just don’t really know where to start.

And the one thing that I continually hear coming up, just again and again, is: “How do I actually know what GAMSAT support is right for me?”

And that comes in conjunction with: “Where do I begin? What’s what I’m going to do going forth? How do I make sense of all of this?”

Right. And it’s so difficult because there are just so many different approaches to GAMSAT prep. And it really depends on what’s right for you. Each person has to pick their own thing.

So, to answer that question with you all today, I’m here with Mare, who you probably have heard from before in countless of our other episodes, the GAMSAT Queen herself, who—

Mare (01:13)
Ha ha.

Nelson (01:13)
—is director within ThankFlip GAMSAT.

And we’re just going to break down for you how students can answer that question and actually get the right thing that they need from their prep.

So, Mare, I’m going to kick things off. I’m not even going to let you introduce yourself because you speak for yourself, quite frankly.

But if someone is looking at all these different GAMSAT courses, tutors and resources available and just can’t make heads or tails of it, has no idea where to start or what they need, what should they do?

Mare (01:45)
I think the best place to really start is not with, like, “What’s the best programme I need?”, but you actually have to see what you’re struggling with.

Because in the GAMSAT, you can have so many different types of problems. You might have a lack of knowledge, or a lack of skill, or no strategy, or not enough practice, or no time to practise, or no feedback, or accountability issues, or you’re procrastinating, or fear of failure. There’s just so many things that could go wrong.

What you want to do instead of going, “What’s the best programme for me?” is—it’s like going to the doctor and going, “Fix me.”

And the doctor’s like, “Well, what have you got? A cough? A cold? What’s wrong with you? Is it your big toe?”

The way that you’re going to treat the problem is going to be way different depending on what your symptoms are and what’s going wrong.

So, the first step, before you ask the big question of, “What programme’s right for me?” or, “Do I need a tutor?” or, “I suck at Section 3,” that’s too vague.

It’s like going to the doctor and going, “I’ve got a headache.” It’s too vague. We need to get super specific and really kind of diagnose the gap of what’s truly holding you back.

Now, if you’ve listened to the podcast before, you know we have some free diagnostic tests that I’ll actually put in the show notes, so that if you want to do them, you can just literally click on them.

You do the diagnostics. It’s not fun, like, of course not, right? You’re doing GAMSAT questions for the first time, probably. But what it’s going to do is spit out an email to you directly afterwards telling you, “Okay, this is what you need to fix. Here are some of the problems that we can see from the patterns.”

And the diagnostic test isn’t long. It’s like half an hour for Section 1 and it’s 40 minutes for Section 3.

So, you can do them on separate days if you haven’t got heaps of time, but it is really the first place to start to make sure we know what the problem is before we look for the solution.

Nelson (03:59)
Yeah, I think that’s a good analogy about how you put that there. It’s like we’ve got to do an X-ray first, right? Because everyone’s trying to just jump straight into the surgeon’s room and just say, “Operate on me!”

Mare (04:08)
Right. Yeah, and it’s like, just got to settle down. Wait. You might not need it.

Nelson (04:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll see.

And the way I say to my students is just like, we’ve got to see where the break is first.

And it’s so difficult because a lot of people are just like, “Well, I just suck at this. I know I suck at that,” or, “I got a bad score maybe for a past sitter.”

But, you know, that kind of comes with its own problems. It’s like you might have sat the GAMSAT before and it just gives you this number. It’s like, “I got 52 in Section 3.”

Okay, what does that actually mean?

Right. So, we have to—

Mare (04:41)
Yeah.

Nelson (04:42)
—be really specific with that because there’s so much information ahead of us, and only part of that information is going to be actually relevant to you.

Mare (04:50)
Yeah.

Nelson (04:51)
And so there are all those types of options out there, and only some are going to be the path that you go down, right?

So, I guess the next part is, once we understand what surgery or what X-rays we’ve got, where the breaks are, it’s then kind of determining:

What are the main options students have?

Because I think a lot of people kind of assume every GAMSAT course is basically doing the same thing, but it’s not necessarily the case, right? There’s a lot of things out there.

So, Mare, what are the main options students have?

Mare (05:21)
Look, there’s so many.

The first one is free options, and I think this is kind of where most people start. It’s really good to get started with lots of free stuff to help you to understand the different approaches, and it’s often a really good way to also figure out what areas you need help with and to just find out generally about the exam.

There are some problems with some free resources because sometimes it can give that false hope that that’s enough. And for some people, it is. I’m not saying that everybody needs a paid service whatsoever.

But until you’ve done the diagnostic, then you won’t know what the gaps are to see what you need to fix.

So, the first option I say is kind of free stuff.

There’s also self-paced courses or question banks. That’s really good for people who are very independent learners, in terms of they know what they need, they can get in, they can do it, and they don’t want any additional support.

There’s no fear of failure, there’s no procrastination. In a perfect world, we’d all be those people, but most people aren’t, realistically.

There’s also tutoring, like one-on-one tutoring, which is really good if you have a particular area that can be fixed, because most one-on-one tutors specialise in one area.

It might be, “Hey, I got 90 in Section 3,” for example, and great. If you’ve got a Section 3 issue and that’s a specialist area for that particular tutor, and you have identified that that’s the only issue you have, then that’s a really good option for people.

And it’s kind of nice sometimes to get that individual attention too.

And we can talk about some of the pitfalls of that as well, because, you know, most people don’t just need one thing fixed. There’s a variety of things.

So then we need to start looking at different tutors and then different times, and then things start to kind of add up.

And then the last kind of thing—so we’ve got free, we’ve got question banks or independent study, we’ve got one-on-one tutoring, and then you’ve got comprehensive coaching.

And this kind of is where it brings together more of a strategy that’s about pulling everything together. So it’s the education side, strategy, practice, feedback, structure, support, accountability, everything.

And this is, for most people, going to be the best pathway.

However, again, we can’t determine that until we know what’s really wrong.

So let’s start with the diagnostic, see what you need, and then kind of start to see what is the best option.

Because, I mean, you know, obviously, if you’re listening to this, you know we’re part of ThankFlip. We run a comprehensive coaching programme, but it’s not right for everybody. Not everybody needs a comprehensive coaching programme.

However, if you’re struggling with more than just one thing, so we like to think about the triangle. GAMSAT study is not just a skill set, there’s also mindset and there’s work ethic.

So if within you, you understand that there’s more than just a skill-set problem, there’s maybe a mindset of fear of failure or self-sabotage or maybe self-talk kind of issue, or a work ethic issue, which is like you have trouble hitting the number of hours that you need, or your plan sucks, or you get overloaded and you get stressed out and then you drop everything for three weeks and then you come back and you feel guilty and you go on that cycle that happens, then we need to look at probably something a little bit more comprehensive.

So, I don’t actually remember what the question was. I hope that answered it.

Nelson (09:19)
There’s a lot of context around this, right? I mean, if that doesn’t just demonstrate how much there is out there, then it kind of just shows it itself, right?

But I think, like, the point—I mean, even if I just link it back to the point of this podcast, it’s not necessarily to tell you, the listener, “This is exactly what you need to do after listening to this.”

You aren’t necessarily going to know that.

But rather, you have to just think about the next step. What is my next part of the path?

So when you’re trying to, yeah, draw these triangles or understand all these different materials out there, you firstly have to understand, “Okay, well, where do I actually sit first?”

And this is a much larger thing. You know, we could go on tangents.

I mean, I’ve worked a lot in this space as well, Mare, about mindset, time management and procrastination. One of the key reasons for procrastination is just getting straight-up overwhelmed.

And how many people do we see who have just, like, “My God, there’s so much going on. I have this to do, this to do, this to do, I’m about this, I don’t know where to begin, so I’m just going to do nothing.”

And it’s like—

Mare (10:26)
Yeah.

Nelson (10:27)
—people will put that into, like, wide reading, or maybe this is part of your coping mechanism, listening to this podcast, in which case maybe that’ll kind of help you with that.

But the biggest way to solve a procrastination thing like that is just being able to jot it down into clear steps.

And that’s how we can actually know where to go through.

So it really comes down to exactly what we do need.

But then the question for a lot of students will just be, “Okay, how do I know that?”

You know, so we’ve got to make that actually practical as well.

How can a student actually figure out what their biggest gap really is?

Mare (11:07)
I mean, the first step is asking yourself, “What is the GAMSAT actually testing?”

So many people are like, they’ve heard the word “reasoning skills”, they don’t know what their reasoning skills are. You know, they’re like, “Huh, okay, I need reasoning skills.”

If that is you, pause this episode right now, go to Episode Number 3, and we talk about what reasoning skills are and how to fix it.

I think the episode’s called—I’ll link it in the show notes. It’s called something like How to Beat the Science Students at Their Own Game.

And if you’re a science student listening to this, soz. Not soz.

Nelson (11:47)
I—

Mare (11:48)
I talk about it really extensively about reasoning skills.

But I think really understanding, you know, what is Section 2 about?

Why?

Like, never in the history of planet Earth have you been, like, as a nurse in ED, someone blew—like, there’s a code blue, someone’s dying, you’ve got to resuscitate, you run in to help, and the doctor goes, “Hey, can you just, like, please interpret this symbolic poetry before you come and resuscitate—

Nelson (12:17)
Confento.

Mare (12:18)
—this patient?”

Like, that doesn’t happen.

So why do we have symbolic poetry in Section 1? You know, like, what are the skills?

So when you understand why, then you can see what the skills are that you need and then we can kind of fix it.

But then you’ve also got to go, “Okay, I understand what the GAMSAT is about, but how do I build these skills?”

And that’s not just about practising efficiently. Because practising efficiently is just like, if you haven’t built the skills before you practise, you’re just practising bad technique.

Like my daughter is doing piano lessons, and I’ve not really—I don’t know how to play piano—so she goes to a piano teacher. But she knows how to hold her fingers in the right way and do the right thing.

Otherwise, she’d just be like me, kind of single-fingering, touching the keys.

Nelson (12:59)
Yeah.

Mare (13:00)
And the technique’s not right, and I’m never going to be able to play Beethoven that way.

So you’ve got to learn the technique, then you’ve got to practise.

And then it’s about creating a plan.

Like, how do we know week by week that if you follow this plan, you’re actually going to get the result you want by the end?

Because even if you’ve identified what the problem is, if we haven’t set the right number of hours and things to do within those hours, then you’re going to be doing a lot and feeling like you’re moving, like you’re doing, but you’re not moving forward.

And that is probably the most frustrating place to be.

Even worse than doing nothing is doing a ton of work and then not progressing.

And for the people that I see that have sat the exam multiple times and studied hard, my heart goes out to you because it’s not a work ethic problem in terms of hours; it’s a planning problem in terms of what you’re filling your hours with and the quality of the work based off your problem set.

Because what works for one person may not work for the next, unfortunately.

And then it actually just brings me to something which feels like it’s got nothing to do with nothing, but actually changed my life when I really internalised this.

Nelson (14:38)
Yeah.

Mare (14:39)
It is: the quality of your questions will determine the quality of your life.

So instead of being like, “Why is this so hard? Why am I not progressing?” it’ll be like, “Okay, what do I need to do now to make sure the next three months or six months, or however many months you’re going to be studying, is going to be effective? What do I need to change today?”

And so asking yourself really good, high-quality questions helps you to then—helps your brain, because our brains are just, like, answer-finding, answer-seeking machines, right?

So when you give it a good-quality question, you will find a good-quality response.

So to me, that’s kind of where you’ve got to start.

And then we’ve got to look at, I think, the triangle again.

Just going, “Okay, we know we’ve got skill-set problems. How are we going to fix that? I know I’ve got, you know, self-sabotage and fear-of-failure issues. What am I going to do about that? And then how am I going to build my plan and make sure I stay on track with that plan?”

So when you identify all of these things, then we can start looking at what puzzle pieces do we need to actually fix it?

Will a tutor fix that? Can I find this stuff for free online? Do I need something a little bit more comprehensive? Someone’s going to be holding my hand, like one person to check my plan and make sure that I’m following up.

Like, that’s where it really kind of kicks in.

Nelson (19:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mare (19:25)
It does. They’ve got to differentiate a large pool of people, firstly. And, you know, doing that through a test scenario is the easiest way to do that.

But they also want to make sure you’ve got the skills to be able to learn things, pick them up and be independent. And there’s so many bits to it.

And the other thing is the mindset element of it, where, when it’s so important, like that student Zara, my heart goes out to her because—

Firstly, it’s a hard place to be, to keep on doing it over and over again. I hope no one has to go through that. However, the resilience that she must have to keep—

Nelson (20:00)
Yeah.

Mare (20:00)
—on bouncing back. Like, I just think, if I had cancer and I had fought it eight times, and my doctor kept on coming back, going, “We can do this. You can do it.” That’s the kind of doctor I want: a resilient doctor like that.

You know, like—

Nelson (20:17)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

We did it real—

Mare (20:20)
So it’s, yeah, right. Like, I want—I don’t want a doctor to be like, “We’ve done it eight times now.”

Well, obviously, you want someone that’s going to look at the cancer differently and provide different pathways. It’s a whole different conversation.

But the resilience element, like, you can’t train that in any other way other than falling down and getting back up again.

So, if you’re listening, Zara, good on you for getting back up again, but let’s change something. So I’m going to—

Nelson (20:46)
Yeah.

Mare (20:46)
—change at this point. And I think it’s a really, really good thing to change your understanding of the exam.

So, so, so good. It repeats it as—

Nelson (20:58)
Where it starts, right?

In order to make the start, you’ve got to understand what you’re actually tackling, right?

And then—

Mare (21:03)
Yeah.

Nelson (21:04)
—for students like that, right? Like, people can often think, if I’m a repeat sitter, it’s going to be a bit of a different approach.

So, let’s talk a bit specifically about students in that position. Sat the GAMSAT before.

Maybe a really common thing that I hear, and I’m sure you’ve heard before, Mare, is like, “I just sat it to see how I’ll go. I’m just sitting it as a trial.”

Like, so, so common.

If that’s you, like, we’ve heard it many times. You’re definitely not alone, right?

So, even people like that, you know, or compared to people who might have studied really hard or they’ve done plenty of practice, some sort of GAMSAT familiarity, but the score either isn’t where they want it to be or it hasn’t progressed.

What do you think they should be thinking about?

Mare (21:49)
We’ve got to start with the diagnostic first because—

Nelson (21:52)
Yeah.

Mare (21:53)
—and if this is you, just go to the show notes, download it and do it because it’s actually going to spit out what skills you need to build.

That is going to be your absolute first step.

And then we need to also have some sort of forgiveness on ourselves, whatever the situation is.

So, if you didn’t study, then we need to make sure that you go, “Cool, I made that mistake the first time. I’m not going to make it the second time.”

Now is the time that I need to get real.

And understand that the information that the ACER test is giving you is not very thorough. Like, a—

Nelson (22:29)
Yeah.

Mare (22:29)
—number isn’t enough. We need to know why you got that number, which is why I’m saying diagnostic first.

Forgiveness of whatever happened, even if you spent a lot of money and tried really hard and did lots of things, we then need to start to go through: what did you do week by week to get you to that score so that we can do something different?

And this is where you and I come in, Nelson, when we speak to students. We ask specifically, “Okay, so what did you do? What was in that programme? Where do you think that you did excel? What do you think went wrong?”

And we need to create a plan so that you’re not guessing along the way.

And this is kind of where a more comprehensive programme comes important. Like, it comes in important. Comes in—I don’t know, not speaking English right now.

Nelson (23:23)
It just comes in.

Mare (23:27)
You know what I’m trying to say.

This is where sometimes the scattergun approach doesn’t work because you want someone’s going to look holistically over everything and then say, “What is going to work for you?”

Now, if there’s one core little thing, then we’re going to go, “Cool, that’s all we really need to focus on.”

But if it’s a wider issue, then we need to make a plan around everything and just step it out. Like, really just step it out week by week.

Now, the longer that you have to do that, the better for most people.

But if it is last minute, fine. We just do a quick-and-dirty plan. Like, how quickly can we get through the skills that we need, whether it’s four weeks to the exam or three weeks to the exam?

There’s no reason why we can’t just pack everything into a shorter amount of time.

But if you have a longer amount of time, it’s like riding a bike. You’re going to get better if you’re practising riding a bike every day rather than practising eight hours a day for three weeks, you know?

Like, so, yeah, I hope that answers the question.

You know, we really just—the identification is what’s important.

Nelson (24:37)
Yeah, right.

And then, even if we identify it, you know, we might work on it like a little bit, right? Or maybe we try one way, for instance.

And we were talking about tutoring before. And I was speaking to a student this week, Tom, and he’s like—he sat the GAMSAT earlier this year and his scores were in the fifties, there or thereabouts.

And so we got—and he’s like, “Okay, I’m going to do the ACER questions,” which were kind of like, you know, I mean, everyone kind of does. It’s like, it’s almost like bare minimum—

Mare (25:05)
Yeah.

Nelson (25:05)
—right?

And he’s like, “I’m going to get a tutor for those sections.”

And it’s like, he knew there was something there, but, like, the Section 1 and Section 3 he was struggling with too. “I’m going to get a tutor to just kind of walk me through that.”

But all it was kind of doing was treating almost those questions as, like, symptoms, you know? Just like, “That’s what you’ve got to prepare for.”

But then you and I know the next time you sit, it’s going to be way, way different.

It’s not actually treating the skills.

So, when we’re missing that specificity in relation to the skills, it’s like, that’s where we can kind of get tunnel vision.

Right?

So, you know, we’ve spoken a lot—

Mare (25:41)
Hundred percent.

Nelson (25:42)
—about, like, getting overwhelmed, but then there’s also the part of just sticking one path and it’s actually not quite the right path.

So you’ve got to be able to diagnose appropriately. Like, it has to be done properly first.

And then, if you are working on that pathway, like, that might be you right now. And you might not even realise it.

So, the way you’ve got to make sure that you aren’t on that path is, like you mentioned, feedback and accountability a few times, right?

We’ve got to be able to track that.

How important do you think that is compared to, like, just simply having good study material?

Mare (26:17)
Look, if people just want good free study material, jump onto our YouTube page. We go through every single ACER paper.

Monica in Section 1 is an absolute gun. And Tom calls her the Mary Poppins of GAMSAT because she has this lovely, posh English accent.

And if you want Section 3 answers, totally for free, YouTube Vrunda, one of our Section 3 tutors. She got 89 in Section 3 and goes through them.

There is no lack of information out there on those ACER papers, and you can get that for free.

But the reality is, what you said, you need to understand your specific skill set because the questions that are in the ACER practice papers aren’t the actual exam.

So, if you’re treating the symptom, if you’re just looking at the ACER papers saying, “If I understand this, I’ll get in,” then this is where people get that really rude wake-up call when they sit the exam and they go, “It was nothing like the papers.”

It’s like, yeah, because it’s not about the papers. It’s about the skills that the papers have.

And when we can identify that, then we can create it.

Now, the big reason that feedback becomes so important is because, firstly, when we’re creating a plan, if this is your first, or even if you’re a repeat sitter, you don’t know that the plan’s going to work because you’ve never done a plan that’s worked before.

It’s almost like if you want to lose weight.

You know, a lot of people get some sort of health coach or a personal trainer or a nutritionist or a dietitian.

Or, let me give you an example. I’ve got gestational diabetes, I have to go on a very specific diet, but I needed someone to help me to say, “This is what the diet’s going to look like.”

And I’m like, “Cool, if I do this, is it going to work?”

And they’re like, “Yes, just stick to this plan.”

But if I were to make the plan myself, I wouldn’t actually know because I’ve never seen the plans that would work.

So the feedback becomes important for your confidence level.

Because if you don’t know the plan’s going to work and you get three weeks in, and I can tell you this now, if you start studying today, in three weeks’ time, you are not going to be as excited to study the GAMSAT as you are today, okay?

There’s this, like, excitement curve where you’re like, “Woo, I’m getting started and I’m doing things.”

But then the excitement wears off and it gets hard.

Nelson (28:45)
There’s a big study on this and it’s like willpower is what that is.

It’s like people will say, “I’m a highly motivated student,” and you are, but that translates to willpower and the initial start-in, right?

But if you’re, like, in a car race and you just go full power like that whole way just because you’ve got the rush, you’re going to run out of fuel in lap three, right?

And it doesn’t get you anywhere.

So what sustains it is, on the team radio, as you say, it’s that accountability and making sure that you’ve got that support the whole way.

Mare (29:16)
That you know that actually persisting is going to work.

Nelson (29:20)
Yeah.

Mare (29:21)
So there’s so—

I’m sure you’ve experienced this, Nelson. There’s so many people that I speak to and they’re like, “I’ve plateaued.”

And that’s because the plan that they had was never going to work because they didn’t actually have an external person reviewing it and saying, “No, you’ve got too much of this here.”

Like, so much science content that if you continue going down this organic chemistry and physics route, you will be a pro at organic chemistry and physics.

But it’s not helping you with your reasoning, which is why when you get to, you know, week three or week six or whatever your plateau ends up being, you are not getting any better at practice questions, even though you know more about physics.

So the feedback becomes important, the accountability.

Like, I just wish that we were all these diligent people, that we just did what we said we were going to do, what’s in our diary, and we just did it like a robot.

But it’s so rare that I come across robots.

Like—

Nelson (30:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mare (30:20)
—we’re humans. And life happens.

Like, you know, things just in life come up.

You know, my parents are coming and visiting from overseas and work just got really busy and I’ve got a—

Nelson (30:45)
Mm.

Mare (30:45)
—cheerleading comp because I do cheerleading, and I just hear all of these things from students all the time.

And it’s like, cool, life is not going to stop because GAMSAT is on, but how do we persist through and have a life?

Because often people are studying for three to six months and you’re not putting your life on hold for that, but still make sure that we’re turning up for all of the things that are not just urgent but also important.

So I actually spoke to the boot campers about this the other day.

There is a difference between what people see as urgent and their important life goals.

And often when something urgent comes up, then they put all of the work they’re doing towards their important stuff on hold. It’s the first thing that goes.

And it’s like, we can’t do that because there’s always going to be important shit that comes up.

We’ve got to make sure—

Nelson (31:29)
It’s such an interesting human behaviour, isn’t it?

And, like, the way I kind of describe it, very similar to that pathway, is like, you know, six months is typically what I recommend, especially for first-time sitters, to prepare for the GAMSAT.

And it’s like, you need every bit of that six months. It’s an appropriate amount of time.

It’s still a damn long time to be studying or doing anything, right?

Mare (31:52)
Yeah.

Nelson (31:53)
So you can’t expect to just—to talk about that willpower initially—you can’t expect that to sustain itself for one.

And then, as you sort of say, like, you know, this time it was your uni I’m prioritising.

It’s like, well, first of all, everyone’s either in uni or, if they’re not, they’ve got a full-time job, right?

So that’s never—time is never going to be an excuse per se, right?

Or then the next time it might be your job, or the next time it’s your family coming in, or something just happens and you just crack it, right?

And, like, that’s all—it’s valid for those things to happen, but ultimately the GAMSAT doesn’t care, right?

Mare (32:36)
No.

Nelson (32:39)
And so—

Mare (32:39)
Do you have the skills or do you not have the skills? That’s all the GAMSAT is about.

Nelson (32:43)
Yeah.

And that’s not to berate anyone feeling that way. All it is, is it’s just to kind of explain the reality of, like, “All right, these things are happening, and we can acknowledge that it’s perfectly valid, but what are we actually going to do about it?”

What is the action that corresponds to that?

And it’s as you’re kind of just describing.

And then I assume that kind of also comes into some of this assumption—I see it every day. It also then affects your mindset around the GAMSAT, which I know you run so many classes within the boot camp about mindset and that exact topic.

Mare (33:18)
Mindset isn’t just like positive thinking. I think that’s what people think it is. It’s actually about behaviours. So it’s like, is there procrastination? Is there perfectionism? Is there fear of failure? Is there avoidance? Is there comparison? Do people should all over themselves? “This should be easier.” Do you start to lose your confidence? You know, I don’t even say “should”. At some point, people lose their confidence in this when things don’t go well.

And so mindset doesn’t replace preparation, but what it does is, when you get a handle on it, you significantly enhance what’s happening. And what I find is people think accountability is all about butt-kicking. And please don’t get me wrong, my study mentors kick a lot of butts. They do that for sure.

But most of the time, it’s actually just identifying what is the mindset trigger that’s getting in the way, so that you’re not doing what is making you not do the work, and then we can eliminate that. And what I love about mindset work is that usually, when you eliminate it from one area of your life, your whole life gets better.

Nelson (34:34)
Yeah.

Mare (34:35)
I’ve got a student, her name’s Emra. Love her to bits. And after this September sitting, she actually sent me a text and she was like, “The person that I have become getting into medical school is almost more important than getting in at this stage.”

And when people understand that it’s not about the exam, it’s about you up-levelling in all areas of your life, and most people, there’s not everybody, but most people will perform better at doing that when there’s someone kind of giving that gentle, loving pressure for them to just get out of their own way and do the work.

And that’s what accountability is. It is the arse-kicking, but it is the gentle love when needed as well. It’s shining a light on what’s going wrong and making sure you’re doing the work. The one, the work. That’s it.

Nelson (35:32)
It’s enough to try to learn.

Mare (35:40)
I love it. It just, it’s so meaty, and this is where, you know, it becomes more than just about the GAMSAT. It becomes the person that you are.

Nelson (35:51)
Yeah. Yeah, there’s so much depth about it because it is just such a big milestone in your life, right? Like, this is literally what’s gonna make you a flippin’ great doctor, to quote you in the intro, right?

Mare (36:05)
Yes. It’s only like your life’s dreams, you know? Like, it’s…

Nelson (36:13)
And then, like, to go back in the student’s shoes, you know, we’ve talked so much in this episode so far about everything that’s out there and everything that needs to be considered. And I guess, to kind of answer the question that’s in the title here, it’s like all different programmes are gonna have all these different things and all these different components.

So if a student is comparing different GAMSAT programmes, what should they actually be looking for?

Mare (36:41)
Alright, let’s step it out. Does this actually give me a clear pathway? That is gonna be the first step. Do I know that if I start here, am I gonna end where I want to end up?

The second thing is, does it address the areas I actually need help with? Not what’s helped everybody else and, “My friend did this, so I’m just going to do the same thing.” But is it addressing the areas I know I need to fix, and is it plugging those specific holes? Very important.

The next step is, how much guidance is actually provided? And this is important because some people need more hand-holding, some people need less.

And so you’ve gotta look inwards and go, okay, if this is just like some online thing and I never speak to a human, is that actually enough guidance for what I know I’m gonna need? And only you can answer that. I can’t answer that for any particular person, but you’ve gotta be honest with yourself around it.

Nelson (37:41)
Yeah.

Mare (37:43)
The next thing I’d look at is how much feedback is available there. And that’s feedback on when things are going right and when things are going wrong.

So it’s not just like essay feedback, but like, do I know that things are gonna happen? What else do we need to think about? What happens if I get stuck? You know?

Nelson (38:06)
Yeah.

Mare (38:07)
Is there someone that I can talk to?

Does this programme, one thing I was doing, this is like, “The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life,” right? So, like, does this programme, whatever it is that you’re considering, whether it’s ThankFlip or someone else, like, you know, we’re gonna acknowledge there’s lots of different options, does it address preparation but also the execution?

So, like, is it not just resources but how I implement the resources? Those things are pretty important.

And thinking about your level of experience, how is it suited to what experience you have had in the past? You know, if you’ve never sat it before, is it starting from dot? If you’ve sat it multiple times, does it help you address some of the issues that might come up? Because if you’ve never sat it and you’ve sat it like multiple times, there are different issues that come up.

Nelson (39:29)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that comes back to what you were saying before about creating that personal syllabus, right? Like, because we’re saying there is no syllabus, but effectively, you have to create your own syllabus based on the skills that you need to work on.

So when you’re looking at these programmes and these tools and resources, you need to be asking yourself, does this actually help me with the list of skills that I have identified that I need to improve?

Mare (40:33)
Yeah. And I think that’s where the triangle comes in as well. So, like, it’s not just skill set, like, “I suck at physics,” but mindset and work ethic are related.

You might want to just start when you do your diagnostic. I call it the triangle video, but we’ll make sure it’s really clear in the show notes, and then you can do a little self-assessment on yourself and see what you need.

Because not everybody needs accountability, although I truly believe that most do. But you could be the anomaly. You know, there’s always someone out there who’s super diligent and does all the things.

I love people that have, like, a colour-coordinated calendar. I don’t know, there’s something that’s like…

Nelson (41:43)
You see my calendar, Mare.

Mare (41:48)
There’s an error here and there and everywhere. But that’s how, like, actually most people function.

Nelson (41:52)
Yeah.

Mare (41:53)
Like, function. And so just accepting that and not being like, “I’m gonna study for the GAMSAT and I’m gonna turn into this person that all of a sudden, you know, I’ve never been in my life.”

And just accepting who you are, but then creating an environment that enables you to do the thing that maybe is really hard.

That, to me, is the most important thing. Like, when you accept that about yourself and you just go, “Cool, how do I make it work now?” That’s where you make the right decision about who can best support you.

Nelson (42:26)
Yeah. I mean, you’ve been in this space for a long, long period of time, and you’ve seen people who’ve, you know, been working on it for, like, four weeks in their GAMSAT preparation when they join, like, Headstart or at the moment, or if it’s like for six months, which we typically recommend.

But, you know, let’s take the example of six months. You might be super motivated, you might have all these things laid out, as you’ve just said, but you know more than anyone, it’s like you’re not gonna do every single task of every single week, every single hour, all for that period of time, right?

So that is invariably gonna happen. What are you gonna do when that happens? Is a really, really big part to actually immerse yourself within. And that comes into so many, so many layers because when you make a plan, like, all of this, effectively what we’re talking about is where we’re at step zero right now.

You listening right now, you need to consider yourself step zero. Strip everything back.

We’re trying to make sure that step one is the right step one. You are on the right track. Everything you plan out, which is what we’re discussing now, is effectively to determine, all right, what is everything I need from step zero to March success?

And ideally, we can basically say everything in this plan, we know pretty much if you do all these things, you’re gonna be in a damn good position.

Mare (43:52)
Yes.

Nelson (43:52)
So it’s that. It’s just gonna be about, okay, well, how do I stay on track or, as clearly…

Nelson (44:15)
Yeah. And that’s kind of where, I guess, what we do at ThankFlip comes into it as well. Like, we’re able to help you at every step of that process, right? Whether it’s, you know, book a call with us, which we’ll have in the show notes, or you can go through the Boot Camp, or you can just go onto our website and have a look at all the different things that we have available.

But ultimately, even if you come and have a conversation with us and we identify that maybe the Boot Camp isn’t the right thing for you, that’s completely fine. We can still have that frank conversation and help you understand what your gaps are and what you might need to do next. And if that’s just self-study or free resources, that’s totally fine as well.

Mare (45:39)
I told her, “You’re the guy who got slapped in the ads,” right? Like, yeah, I’m talking to you now. Yeah, I know, crazy.

Mare (45:46)
That’s a real person.

Nelson (45:48)
Yeah. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot around it, right? And it means different things to different people.

Mare (45:55)
Yeah.

Nelson (45:58)
But I guess if you’re going through all of those things and we’re thinking about, right, where do I sit in all of that? And we’re thinking about, okay, me here or this other programme can help me here.

Like, you know, I’m an educator by trade, right? I’m so passionate about just getting it into seeing an action of sorts. And that’s really what your takeaway has to be from this episode. Just, okay, what is my next action and that step?

Mare (46:27)
Yes. And that’s gonna be a diagnostic. It’s gonna be identifying where the problems are and then figuring out how to fix it. Like, that’s really the core of everything.

You know, it’s not, “What programme do I buy?” That’s the wrong question. You’re gonna waste money on something that’s not gonna help you if you don’t know what it is that you need.

So I’m super excited. Thank you so much for your time, Nelson, and your good quality questions here. If you could leave everyone with one nugget, what would you say?

Nelson (47:02)
Look, I think it really comes to that last question, right? It’s like, not me, because people will call me up sometimes and they’ll be like, “Okay, I want to join the Boot Camp.” Or they might ask straight away, like, “How long does it go for? What’s in this?” Right?

You’re asking the wrong question. It is not, you don’t just ask what a programme gives you. You need to ask yourself, “What do I need in order to improve?”

And then after that, it’s whether the programme has a system for getting you to that point, right?

Like, if I go through this process with someone and they’re just like, “Yep, my priority is maybe I can find something that’s this amount in my budget,” or something like that, and you’re looking for the cheapest thing available and that’s your priority, go to the library and get a book, right?

Mare (47:55)
Free resources. Go on our YouTube page. You’ll see a breakdown of everything.

Nelson (48:00)
Right. And really, all the things that have to kind of go into it is just, right, what are my gaps?

So you have to diagnose that first, as you’ve said so often. It’s how can I understand what’s out there, what is my pathway, and then is this programme actually gonna address both those skills?

And the biggest thing I have to say to students is that GAMSAT prep isn’t one size fits all.

Mare (48:31)
Right.

Nelson (48:31)
It’s like it comes back to, I’ve said it a couple of times already, like, there’s no syllabus, and that’s for a reason. Everyone’s different. Everyone’s personal list is so different.

And the key is understanding where you are right now, what’s holding you back, what kind of support is going to help you bridge that gap, and what’s gonna come into it next.

Right? So what we’ll do is we’re gonna put some of the free ThankFlip resources in the show notes that we’ve described throughout this episode, so that you, the listener, can start exploring your options.

You’re gonna get on the right track to becoming a flippin’ great doctor. Mare, thanks so much for joining me.

Mare (49:12)
Thank you. Bye for now, everyone.