1) Read The Questions First – Sometimes

Sometimes it’s appropriate to read the questions first, other times it’s not.

Short Poems, Songs and Units that don’t require very little reading: Questions first.

Poems and songs can often be interpreted in many ways and will always require multiple readings. The material is ambiguous, but the questions are not. Therefore allow the questions to guide your interpretation. Read one question, then look for the answer. Read another question, look for the answer. Each question frames your interpretation of the ambiguous material and informs the meaning you will attribute to it.

In the case of units that require interpretation of charts or diagrams, most of the reading is in the questions anyway. Posters too. You might spend a minute reading the text of a poster, only to discover that there’s only one question – and it asks about the image!

There is a subset of questions on GAMSAT Section 1 which specifically tests vocabulary.

These questions are structured in relation to the passages in such a way that it is very difficult to infer an unambiguous meaning of the key words without having a prior understanding of them.

Some forms these questions might take include: