Write your essay: Starting clearly
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Once you have identified the theme, chosen which comments to discuss, brainstormed ideas and organised your response, it’s time to write your essay. For each task, you should spend 17 to 18 minutes writing your essay.
You can always vary the timing based on your personal writing speed. By Test Day, you should have written enough practice essays to know how long it takes you to turn a well-organised plan into a clear and coherent essay.
It’s essential to write your essay in several paragraphs, breaking up your ideas with a new point in each paragraph so that the essay is logical and well-structured.
The four-paragraph structure we recommend (introduction, two body paragraphs, conclusion) works well for most essays.
However, you could adapt this if your particular response calls for it. For example, if you want to write one paragraph for each of three comments, you would simply plan three body paragraphs instead of two.
Remember, you need to complete two tasks for Section II. Make sure you pace yourself carefully to allow enough time to repeat your writing process for the second task.
You’ll assess, plan, write and review Task A and then do it all again for Task B. The test won’t tell you when to move on to the second task — you’re in control of the timing.
The purpose of your introductory paragraph is to set the stage for your reader and give a clear indication of what is to come.
First, identify the core theme by directly stating what it is. Do not worry if this seems ‘simple’ or ‘obvious’. Many themes will be quite clear with practice, and this step is a key component of a good GAMSAT essay.
Next, briefly define the core concepts within the theme. You identified these when you assessed the task. Being clear about what these concepts are and what the relationship between them is will frame the rest of your essay and make your argument convincing and coherent.
After identifying and defining the theme and its core concepts, you should indicate the two sides to it. You might refer briefly to both the pros and cons of the core theme, for example.
You do not need to spend much time comparing these in your introductory paragraph, but it’s good to gesture briefly to both of the sides that you will discuss in your essay. This will reflect the organisation of your overall essay and helps prepare your reader for the balanced argument that follows.
Walkthrough
Writing introductions
Let’s familiarise ourselves with the key features of an introduction.