We all know watercooler conversations: Otherwise professional ppl gather around during their breaks, and gossip and complain and make fun of others¹ .

Section 2 examiners are ppl too, and have their own watercooler conversations. Since ppl who have these sorts of inane, negative, tabloid conversations tend to have poor social skills², they tend to talk about the same topics, like family, pets, the weather, front-page news, um, family, the weekend, relationships, and work.

By work, I mean essays they marked – including ridiculous, watercooler essays.

Especially watercooler essays.

Watercooler Essays, You Say?

What do I mean by “watercooler essays”?

I don’t just mean boring essays, unfinished essays, essays with piss-weak arguments – these essays don’t have a good punchline, and aren’t funny or notable to talk about.

What I mean by watercooler essays, are essays that miss the point so much, that gossipers feel better about themselves – because they feel they they can’t possibly be that stupid³.

So, let me ask you, are you writing ridiculous, watercooler-worthy essays?

Watercooler Essays: Completely Missing The Point of The Quote

Ok, let’s start with an example quote:

“I might act like a rhinoceros, but I’m a unicorn.”

― Nuno Roque

When you read the quote, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

If it’s:

“Like seriously, what the fuck. Who knows anything about rhinos and unicorns⁴ in this day and age??”

Then congrats – you’re well on your way to writing watercooler essays, and having examiners laugh about you over tea and bickies. 😊

If that’s not what you want (hint: it’s not what you want), then let’s see what went wrong, and how to write non-ridicule-worthy essays.

Wrong: Taking Things Literally

Firstly, what do you think was the theme of the above quote?

If you answered “rhino” and “unicorn”, then you made the mistake of taking things literally.

In literature and essay-writing, taking things literally⁵ is like reaching for the mouse-trap⁶: The good stuff is obvious, it’s just sitting there, and it’s waiting to fuck you up (bitch).

Right: Reading Between The Lines

If taking things literally is wrong, then what is right?

Ok, so “right” is the opposite of “wrong”.

So what’s the opposite of taking things literally?

It’s reading between the lines.

This is not just some bullshit thing that you have to learn to pass S2 then forget about – this is a general skill that will not only serve you well in life, but is critical to walk the path of medicine.

Reading Between The Lines: Useful Skill In Medicine

This is just a hunch, but I feel that the GAMSAT sometimes tries to test some of the same aptitudes that one needs in a medical career.

In medicine, a huge part of your practice is communication, and a huge part of communication is reading between the lines:

Patients will sometimes be too scared or ashamed to bring up certain issues – like becoming (ノﾟ∀ﾟ)ノ✨Sexually Active✨\ \(^Ф д Ф^)و ̑̑  (and wanting/needing contraception), or STIs, or domestic violence – and it’s up to you to dig deeper if the patient came to see you for an exceedingly trivial matter, or seem like they’re bothered or distracted by something unrelated to the consult, or seem to be lingering after the session.

Or, it might be helpful to tell if your underlings, colleagues, or overlords superiors are acting positively, neutrally, or negatively towards you – and if it’s negative, are they that way with just you, or everyone else too.

As you can see, reading between the lines not only helps you do your job properly, but also helps you get ahead without getting stabbed in the back. If the GAMSAT does indeed test for indicators of performance in a medical career, examiners will be selecting for Gamsters good at reading between the lines.

Reading Between The Lines For Different Media

Reading between the lines for a quote, is quite different to doing so in conversation, or for a longer piece of writing.

Unlike a conversation, you can’t read into the other person’s body language and voice tone, and you can’t take into account the context of the conversation, or the other person’s current mood or usual manner of communication⁷.

Unlike longer texts, you can’t take into account the context of the situation, or the outcome or implications of the events; or get a more accurate vibe of the author’s or characters’ communication styles.

For a quote, you only have the limited context provided by the quote. Maybe the quote is part of a conversation or longer text, and through isolating the quote, the meaning has been taken out of context.

None of that matters though – you just have to work with what’s in front of you: The quote, and nothing more.

Finding the Right Theme: Reading Between The Lines For Essay Quotes

The following steps should work for most quotes – especially GAMSAT Section 2 quotes, which seem to be selected for the following:

• Not too long
• Grammatically straight-forward
• Has understandable and manageable themes⁸

Replace the Keywords With X, Y, Z – Then Look For Meaning

When staring at quotes, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, and think “what you see is what you get”, and get fixated on the keywords in front of you.

So, let’s remove those keywords, and replace them with placeholders.

“I might act like a rhinoceros, but I’m a unicorn.”

Becomes

“I might act like a X, but I’m a Y.”

Without the pesky distracting keywords, suddenly it becomes easier to analyse the quote: In this case, the general theme is “Acting differently to how one really is”.

We’ve all acted in ways that aren’t really what we’re really like:

• We’ve told white lies before
• We’ve caved to peer pressure
• We’ve acted differently for a job interview or a date

It’s for a range of reasons:

• We don’t think or feel that we’re enough
• We think that’s what we need to be to achieve our goals
• We think that’s what the other person needs or wants
• We think that’s what society expects
• We don’t feel we know what we really want
• We don’t feel what we need or want matters

As you can see, there’s quite a few ways of interpreting the quote – and it has nothing to do with animals.

Get Even Closer To The Theme: Analyse the Keywords

Of course, the point of writing essays, isn’t just to not get laughed at⁹ for missing the theme completely – it’s also to write to the relevant theme, so you get a high mark.

So, by looking past the literal keywords, you’ve gotten closer to the relevant theme.

(For the above quote, it’s: To act one way, yet be another way)

However, you can get closer than that – from the general theme, to the specific theme, which is essay-topic-material.

To do so, we have to return to the keywords we isolated, “rhino” and “unicorn”.

Of course, there’s countless ways of analysing keywords – including stuff you might know nothing about, such as the price of a rhino’s horn on the black market in the 1920s¹⁰, or the scientific names of different species of unicorns.

So, let’s specify – we want to analyse the quote keywords:

• In the context of the quote, then
• In the context of other keywords

And then use the analysis to make our theme more specific.

Step 1: Analysing Keywords In the Context of the Quote

The quote sees the author refer to himself as different animals, to make an analogy: A comparison for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Since they are used for making a point easier to understand, analogies are only useful if the comparison can be understood by normal ppl, without the help of specialised knowledge or reference material¹¹.

Accounting for the above, we want for analyse the keywords for their intuitive, human-relatable aspects: In other words, no need for facts or statistics – think up the common impressions ppl have about these animals¹².

Step 2: Analysing Keywords In the Context of Other Keywords

So, how would you compare “rhino” and “unicorn”, in terms of common impressions?

Well, compared to a unicorn🦄, a rhino🦏 seems slow, stubborn, awkward, conservative, grounded, unexpressive, hard to connect with, etc.

And compared to a rhino🦏, a unicorn🦄 seems fabulous, imaginary, mythical, colourful, agile, popular, friendly, etc.

Step 3: Specify the Theme With the Keyword Analysis

So, here’s the quote:

“I might act like a X, but I’m a Y.”

Let’s substitute the analysis in, where the keywords were:

“I might act slow / stubborn / awkward / conservative / grounded / unexpressive / hard to connect with, but I’m (actually¹³) fabulous / imaginary / mythical / colourful / agile / popular / friendly.”

Um, yeah, so obviously not every option will make sense – and that’s ok: Let’s tidy things up into viable options¹⁴:

1. “I might act conservative, but I’m (actually) fabulous.”
2. “I might seem hard to connect with, but I’m (actually) friendly.”
3. “I might seem slow, but I’m (actually) agile.”
4. “I might seem awkward, but I’m (actually) popular.”

And from there, you can brainstorm:

• No one knows about your out-there hobbies (point 1)
• You’ve been struggling about coming out with your real gender identity or sexual preference (point 1)
• You look stand-off-ish, but you’re actually an easygoing person (point 2)
• You seem judgemental all the time, but ppl you know you know that you’re just all about the deadpan snarky humour (point 2)
• You’re E. Honda (point 3)
• You show one side at work, and the other in your social life (point 4)

Fine To Do: Switch Between Argumentative & Reflective Essays

Did you notice something about the Replacing Keywords step?

I replaced the objects (rhino and unicorn) of the quote, but I didn’t replace the subjects (“I”).

This is intentional.

Objects and subjects are both relevant to the meaning of a quote – but for the purposes of Section 2/essay-writing, there are two key differences:

A. You Don’t Need to Analyse Subjects

For the quote:

“I might act like a rhinoceros, but I’m a unicorn.”

The subject is “I”, which means the author is talking about himself.

For the quote:

“How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.”

The subject is “We”, which means the author is referring to ppl in general, which includes himself.

In real life, when ppl say “Asking for a friend”, or when blackmailers or torturers talk casually to their victims about horrible stuff happening to ppl in general, or when a mean girl bad-mouths plaid skirts to their clique – within earshot of a girl wearing a plaid skirt, or when a girl tells a nice-guy confessor that she’s not looking to date anyone right now, or when anyone in a royal court ever speaks, you can wonder if they’re really talking about who they’re apparently talking about¹⁵.

With GAMSAT quotes though, the context is self-contained, and you can safely take the quote’s subjects at face value.

B. You Can Change the Subject For the Essay

In Section 2, you have the flexibility to write argumentative or reflective essays.

Usually, the essay topic determines the type of essay:

• Argumentative
  • Topic is about a group of ppl
    • E.g. Plumbers get paid too much
  • Topic is about ppl in general
    • E.g. World peace is good (for ppl/humanity/society)
• Reflective
  • Topic is about the essay-writer
    • E.g. I have surprising hobbies¹⁶

Here’s A Random Rant For Your Entertainment You could technically write an argumentative essay when the topic is about the essay-writer, but you really shouldn’t, because: The examiner doesn’t know you I.e. You can argue the topic however you like, then just bullshit up evidence to support your case, which defeats the purpose of argumentative essays (see third point) You’ll come across as the biggest narcissist Seriously, out of all the quotes and possible essay topics, you pick one about how you’re right about yourself, and try to pass it off as the objective truth? Give the examiner (and the rest of us) a fucking break Nobody cares The purpose of reflective essays, is to share your personal challenges, insecurities, emotions, and other experiences, and how these things informed your attitudes, decisions, and life. By sharing these things, the reader can feel that they can understand you, and that you probably could understand them too; this builds emotional connection and goodwill, and is why readers will want to read reflective essays and care about you as the author, even when you’re writing about yourself The purpose of argumentative essays, is to convince the reader to think or feel a certain way about a topic that is worthwhile to the reader to learn about, through using good logic and trustworthy evidence Note that the emphasis is that the topic is worthwhile to learn about; if the topic isn’t worthwhile to the reader, there is no point reading the essay As noted above, the reader doesn’t know you, and thus has no reason to care when the topic being argued about is yourself – but since they’re getting paid to mark essays, you’ve locked the examiner away with an essay they don’t want to read, with the obligation to read it: This leads to a passive-aggressive marker who is looking to mark your essay down rather than up. Is that conducive to you getting into med? (Hint: No) So, the lesson? Don’t write argumentative essays about yourself.

The flexibility to write argumentative or reflective essays actually extends to all quotes.

The way to do this, is to change the subject of the essay topic.

Take this topic for instance:

“I might seem hard to connect with, but I’m actually friendly.”

(About the author – write something reflective)

Change a few words, and voila:

“The opposite sex might seem hard to connect with, but are actually friendly.”

(About the other sex – argue something about society and media make dating and mating relationships harder than it needs to be)

Or:

“Other people may seem hard to connect with, but are actually friendly.”

(About ppl in general – argue something about how ppl lose the practice and tendency to make new friends after school and uni, and that we reflect our own insecurities¹⁷ onto others in social situations)

So, Don’t Replace the Subject

As explained above, (a) there’s no misinformation surrounding quotes for GAMSAT essay-writing – so the subject of a quote needs no analysis, and (b) you can freely change the subject at the essay topic stage anyway.

So, save yourself the hassle, and keep the subject of the quote as is.

To Review

So, here are the steps again:

1. Replace the keywords with letters or whatever
2. Analyse the quote for the general theme
3. Consider how to analyse the keywords in the context of the quote
4. Analyse the keywords in the context other keywords
5. Put the keyword analyses back into the quote
6. Consider viable combinations
7. Choose your specific and relevant theme to write about

Share your thoughts and strange quotes in the Comments below!

Cover all essay topics, and start writing strong essays, in just 2 or 3 days. LEARN HOW

Want loads more tips and strategies? Check out the FastGAMSAT ebook pack on the homepage! (Yes, that’s Snarksy on the cover) ( ^ΦдΦ^) Draw me like one of your French girls, Willeo.

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1. Whose cat just died, who has a crush on whom, whose baby looks like a manatee (they say they like manatees, so it’s ok for them to say that), who’s sleeping with their sibling but it’s actually their step-sibling so it’s kind of not illegal but still naughty and so it’s sort of really hot and oh I think the real sibling knows and actually seems jealous they hear….

2. If YOU like having watercooler convos, I’m sorry – about your poor ppl skillz.

3. And they’re pretty low down there, not that they like to brag.

4. For maximum hijinks, make sure the German subtitles are turned on.

5. It’s the lowest rung on the intelligence ladder. The humour equivalent is the slapstick of things like Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, which appeals to 5-year-olds, bogans, and special-needs ppl, because they can at least understand that it’s socially inappropriate to fall over, or get hit really hard, or make funny faces or noises, or all of the above at the same time (preferably). Meanwhile, the same TV show makes the rest of us roll our eyes, finish our veges, and go back to memes on our phones.

6. The exception is of you’re taking things literally in an obviously ironic and humorous way – like you’re deliberately playing the fool, and trying to put the reader into the straight man role. That said, for the purpose of GAMSAT, trolling the reader with your essays is NOT the point of Section 2. (It is also way too hard to get right on a tight deadline, and the reader might just mistake you for a fuckwit)

7. E.g. Are they usually earnest? Ironic? Sarcastic? Passive-aggressive? Secure? Insecure? How often do they try to be funny? Do they seem to be joking right now? How emotional are they usually? What emotions do they commonly exhibit? Etc.

8. I.e. You don’t need to take too long working out the theme, you don’t need to do extra research to understand the theme, and the theme is easy enough to write for.

9. Btw, notice that I’m using bad grammar deliberately, not for linguistic accuracy, but for humour. Me and my sister are both Grammar kids (we went to Grammar schools, which in my layman brain, stereotypes us to be good with English), and we regularly communicate with grammatical and cultural misappropriations (e.g. “le me” or “le am is good”) and Engrish (we’re Asian so we can). However, as noted with Footnote 5, if I was writing for the GAMSAT, I’d still just stick with good grammar and vanilla humour, which I’m confident will be understood and positively received by examiners.

10. Don’t forget to adjust for inflation.

11. In fact, you can probably assume this about all GAMSAT quotes: For Section 2 on GAMSAT Day, you won’t have Google handy, or necessarily know about the authors of the quotes, or read the background work that the quote comes from. So, in almost all cases, you can just analyse the keywords as a normal person would (i.e. with your common impressions).

12. In other words, stereotypes.

13. I added the word “actually” to better connect the two parts of the sentence, since the 2nd half is surprising, because it contradicts the 1st half.

Likewise, I’ve made word-substitutions (e.g. “seem” instead of “acted”) where appropriate.

Remember, this is the Brainstorming phase Section 2, where the Gamster interprets the quote to decide what to write about: As long as we’re not completely missing the mark (e.g. taking things literally, choosing something unrelated), interpretations can be flexible (because they are, in fact, subjective).

14. This is not an exhaustive list: You can definitely come up with your own descriptions of rhinos and unicorns, and word-combos that make sense.

15. Real life is hard, man, even without the need to deal with all the mixed messages and counter-intelligence bull-crap.

16. Like eating cat-food: Then you talk about that time your sibling pranked you and you thought it was SPAM but it wasn’t it was really cat-food, and now it’s your guilty pleasure on your weekends away, and you end on an inspirational/insightful note about how you never really know what your real preferences are until you try something.

17. E.g. We feel that we look bitchy when we don’t feel like being social, so if we see others looking bitchy, we think that they don’t want to be social – not realising that they might just look bitchy and not actually be bitchy, or look bitchy because they’re miserable from being lonely.

Or, we think that if we seem happy and chatty, then we must enjoy our social company, so when we see ppl seemingly happy chatting away at an event, we think they’re socially satisfied and don’t want to be bothered, when they might be there with their just-acquaintances colleagues or frienemies or social circle they passively accumulated and don’t really enjoy, they’re too inhibited or peer-pressured to venture off and meet new ppl, they despise their company or are bored to tears, but have to keep up appearances of being social and enjoying themselves – but they really hope someone new would talk to them and save them from the same beige conversation for the whole event.

Or a dating example: Guys think that if they were a cute girl, then they would definitely have a boyfriend; so when they see really cute girls, they don’t approach, because why bother, cos why would they not have a bf? But dem really cute girls could actually be single, not just because they can get broken up with or break up with ppl too, but because too many guys assume they have a bf (and also have massive approach anxiety), that they automatically skip her, leading to her not getting approached all that much.