USYD Science Tutor Fergus

GAMSAT non-science background - 75/87/65 (73 weighted; 76 unweighted) and 73/81/67 (72 weighted; 74 unweighted). Background: I have been an HSC English tutor for over four years now, and a GAMSAT tutor for almost a year. I recently graduated with first-class honours and the university medal from USYD in a Bachelor of Psychology (overall mark: 90; thesis mark: 93), a degree that largely relies upon verbal and written communication. I have also received HDs in several English and Philosophy electives, which require high levels of abstract reasoning and verbal communication. This helped me score highly in reading comprehension and essay writing sections of the GAMSAT. Despite this, success in S2 specifically, does not require tons of background knowledge in these areas - doing some research and reading can help, but learning to make use of what you already know is far more important. Tutoring style: How our sessions are run is partly up to you, so always keep in mind what you would like to focus on, and I can tailor our sessions around that. With that in mind, I have some general session plans I fall back on when you're not sure what to do. For S1, I start by doing close readings of a text together. We read the text out loud, make sense of each sentence as best we can, and then approach the questions. From this close reading, we come up with strategies and heuristics for interpreting texts, images and graphs. Week-by-week, we focus on a different text type (e.g., fiction, non-fiction, cartoons, poems etc.). As we near the exam, sessions shift toward small practice exams. We spend 20-30 minutes doing questions in exam conditions (I'll do the questions too), and then we compare our answers and reasoning behind them before checking our scores. I find this helps you see my reasoning whilst helping me see where you may be going wrong under exam conditions. I also have a reading list of texts I've either found in past GAMSAT sittings (nothing illegal here - a Jane Austen novel is quite noticeable) or that fit the style that GAMSAT seems to like. For S2, I start by giving an overview of what you're trying to show the marker about who you are and how you think. I have a general structure for essays that can be useful to fall back on. However, over the weeks, we will try and find a structure that works for you. These sessions focus on generating ideas to unseen prompts with a focus on cohesive ideas that flow from one to the other, whilst also aiming for nuance and creativity. I encourage students to do a practice essay before each session too, so we can go through feedback and areas for improvement. I also have some recommended videos and podcasts (because reading books for S2 isn't super time efficient) to build your background knowledge on topics that may come up, on top of my own practice essays for reference. I also have some useful scaffolds to develop more original ideas in response to the ACER prompts, and some good rules of thumb for developing sentences that are coherent, clear, but also interesting! I am available between tutoring sessions to mark essays and answer questions, too. Group tutoring: For S2, I would also encourage group sessions. S2 is partly about considering multiple perspectives on an issue and having a dialogue with yourself. You can build this skill by having a dialogue with others. You can be exposed to ideas you hadn't thought of, or may realise your ideas are not as original as they could be if everyone has the same initial thoughts on a topic. This is also cheaper option, as I'm aware one-on-one costs may be too expensive for some. If you're interested, let me know and I can pair you up with others into a group. You can also organise your own group with some friends and we can go from there. Practice essays must be completed two days prior to the group session to give me time to mark. Rate: One-on-one = $100 Group tutoring = $50 pp (1.5 hour session) Location: Online or in-person. I am located in Hunters Hill, so can travel to nearby suburbs, or locations near the University of Sydney.