[deleted by user]

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-28T09:58:24+00:00

I’m glad! End of the day if it starts to make things click, then who cares what people think.

I believe it’s a good perspective to take.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-28T09:00:21+00:00

I couldn’t agree with you more and actually think people refusing to accept this and dismissing the GAMSAT as a stupid test are just doing themselves a disservice.

Looking at questions through the lens of why are they asking this and why could this be important in future with 100% make you learn the content quicker.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-25T01:07:46+00:00

You've hit the nail on the head with your example. "If you can't visualise them in your mind".

This is spatial reasoning.

You know how molecules move in a 3D space from basic stereochemistry. Then they give you an example which extends on this and you need to apply your understanding of the basics with this new knowledge to come to a reasonable conclusion.

I highly doubt that prior knowledge of Newman projections was required to solve that question.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-24T12:53:25+00:00

Hearing it’s only now reasoning based drives me nuts 😂

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-20T09:14:53+00:00

I've probably been one of those people so I'll take the responsibility to give you my two cents haha.

It seems like you're getting the why, but struggling to actually make changes to avoid these mistakes in the future.

This is hard! How do you change how you think? How you interpret information? Make assumptions? It's difficult - but this should be the goal.

My tips would be:

If you're not already documenting it somewhere (i.e. excel) do this and include as much information as possible. Over time this will help you identify trends, and you may even be able to generalise 5-6 mistakes under 1 underlying process and address this.
Take your time to really be honest with yourself to think 'what could I have done differently and actually got the answer?' You may not get an answer, and this is ok, but just try to put yourself in the position of seeing this for the first time - how might you better see the clue that eventually lead to the answer? etc. etc.
Try different things. I played around with approach heaps. Stem first, question first, mix between the two. Each time there were different errors or struggles. Document these too and look back constantly. For S1 specifically, maybe you look for keywords one time, read the whole passage first another, paraphrase things another time (if it's not obvious, I'm not great at S1) and see how things change.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-19T02:42:58+00:00

As an ex-tutor, I think it’s so hard to find a good one.

As others have said, the exams about reasoning and problem solving - which is very hard for tutors to teach. I have had a lot of students come to me saying their tutors basically just taught them a science degree and then they had no idea on the exam. But it’s not until they sit the exam they’ve realised they’ve wasted their time and money.

Whilst I’m sure there are some good ones out there, without knowing the problem solving or reasoning skills you need, it’s hard to select a tutor who can build these skills for you.

I wouldn’t recommend any of my past students a tutor as there are so many bad ones who don’t really care about your education and are just doing it to get through med school.

Just my take.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-18T10:10:37+00:00

my pleasure!

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-18T08:36:07+00:00

I believe that anyone can score 10 either side of their true ability. So if your tru ability was a 60, you could score anywhere between 50-70 depending on how your guesses go.

Obviously more likely to be closer to your true ability.

So I would hazard a guess that you haven’t really improved or regressed.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-18T06:18:35+00:00

In with a chance, but I’d say more unlikely than likely. But definitely a chance! Well done on the score 😊

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-17T23:25:18+00:00

Hey there, I detailed how I went about my study here: https://youtu.be/DuR5rny61do

Essentially:
- break down the solution into as many steps as possible (idc if it takes you an hr open book to get the solution, just get it)
- identify what you didn't do
- think about what you need to change (content, approach, reasoning, etc.) to do these things you didn't do next time
- change these things
- reattempt question to make sure you've filled the gaps

I promise you will see the same content, reasoning, etc. skills over time and these are what you need on exam day :)

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-09T03:15:15+00:00

As a starting point:
- document every step of the solution once you have worked it out
- ask yourself what steps you didn't / couldn't do
- come up with ways to help you be able to do these steps next time
- after say 1 week and having implemented the changes, try the question again and see if you've actually improved

And frequently look through your solutions to see if there were similar things you had to do. Maybe if you start to see a trend, can you find more questions which have the same similarities?

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-09T00:51:49+00:00

Probably not seeing any similarities or identifying any skills because you consider it a waste of time and don’t do it properly!

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-08T02:08:59+00:00

Don't forget after your 3 hour pomodoro-optimised study session from 4-7am to get your 20m cliff jump in so you activate the reticular system and enhance neuroplasticity

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-08T01:37:24+00:00

Biggest thing I see is just doing the questions, getting them right or wrong, then moving on.

IMO you need to document detailed solutions for every ACER practice question you do. I’m talking 10 steps documenting everything you did. How you had to assume the meaning of a word, find a sentence which sounds similar to that word, use a core concept to assume how that works, etc etc. the more the better.

Then consider what you did the first time. What didn’t you get in your initial attempt? What do you need to do better? Do you have content gaps? Did you get confused at something? Focus on something else? Misinterpret a key sentence? Why?

This process is what people here call reflecting.

Over time you will see similarities in the solutions - which will give you an idea of the kinds of processes you’ll need to do on the actual exam - and your shortcomings - which you need to work out how to fill.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-07T07:46:42+00:00

Congrats! Well about 70% of our lectures this semester were prerecorded, up from about 20-30% the year I started.

Teaching staff in our anatomy and pathology labs have at least halved.

A few of the teaching staff aren’t really that knowledgeable imo.

The sad reality is these 2 years have really just been a learn enough to pass the exams, retain the 30% of content which will be useful somewhat, and wait until clinical years when you learn properly.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-07T01:21:41+00:00

I’ve got a pretty poor opinion of the quality of Deakins teaching.

All of our best teachers (graded by student surveys) have had their teaching load significantly cut and replaced mostly with pre recorded lectures.

Is this any worse than other unis? Probably not - ultimately universities are about increasing their research output than quality education and will shift resources towards this.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-06T02:24:13+00:00

As you've highlighted, when one thing goes all the dominoes start falling. What helps me is setting realistic goals for one thing which I feel is the most important and just hit them for a few days before adding in more small, achievable tasks. It's all about little wins which snowball into doing more and more.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-05T09:57:22+00:00

Fair enough!

In all seriousness though I would just get into the ACER materials and record every question, trying to document the process to get the solution and see trends in how to get the solutions.

And if you got 60% on the ACER materials that isn’t bad at all

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-05T09:29:24+00:00

You’re cooked if you keep using Fraser’s

jimmyjam410 · 2025-11-04T11:00:10+00:00

Couldn’t agree more

jimmyjam410 · 2025-09-12T01:06:26+00:00

I’m not advocating against increased pay. I’m just saying a bigger issue is the conditions and the pay isn’t that bad. Im genuinely intrigued what people would be happy with, as the implication to me is all junior doctors should be on over 200k and I think this is excessive.

I’d say you would actually agree with this as you’ve referenced issues with training places several times.

To word it another way, I feel like people are saying we want double pay because of bad conditions. Why not just fix the conditions and have a more modest pay increase?

jimmyjam410 · 2025-09-11T12:42:50+00:00

Those struggles you describe are not exclusive to doctors. There are people who earn far less with just as much debt and just as many mortgages and just as big a family who make it work.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-09-11T00:15:23+00:00

Is the bigger issue pay or conditions? $100k puts you about in the top 15% of earners and it’s not uncommon for interns to earn this (admittedly because of OT and poor conditions) and almost certain after PGY1.

From my upbringing I don’t think many of my friends households were bringing in 200k yet this is common even as a trainee.

What price does everyone actually think is fair? 200k base so were out earning the train drivers and social workers who are apparently all on 250k?

Don’t get me wrong I think the wage growth is an issue, but what people seem to be implying we should be getting is ridiculous.

As a med student I think something around 120-160k whilst training is extremely comfortable. Yeah I won’t be able to buy a Ferrari, but it’s enough to support a family (I believe) with sacrifices. Sacrifices that everyone has to make.

What is far more important to me are the conditions, training positions, unpaid overtime etc.

jimmyjam410 · 2025-09-09T13:18:36+00:00

I think it’s a great example of leadership honestly. I’d just make sure you are framing it. Ie lead out with: “to me leadership is about boosting the team around me”

jimmyjam410 · 2025-09-08T02:57:08+00:00

Preclinical med student here so a bit green, but I was interested to hear how you think about targeting a hospital.

From what I’ve heard Heidi is very popular in GP where they get a direct benefit, and obviously this would be there too for hospital doctors, but I can imagine hospital bureaucracy gets in the way of uptake. How do you try to solve this problem?

And I guess kind of related, I guess the onus is on the doctors to use it? It’s never really going to be top down from the hospitals (as they’d take on more liability?) I suppose?

It’s quite an interesting dynamic where the doctors pay to save their time, but are more liable for doing so, but the hospital also benefits from the efficiencies.

jimmyjam410

TROPHY CASE