Plan your essay: Brainstorming
On this page
The second step in writing a strong GAMSAT essay is to plan your response. You should spend 8 minutes in total on planning, divided equally between two essential pre-writing tasks:
- Brainstorming: 4 minutes
- Organising ideas into an essay outline: 4 minutes
Taking time to plan might feel counterintuitive when you’re working under strict time pressure. However, the planning phase is what separates muddled essays from clear, effective, well-organised ones.
If you skip the planning steps and dive straight into writing, you’re likely to lose track of your argument, include irrelevant points or fail to articulate your ideas clearly.
The few minutes you spend planning will save you time during the writing phase and will dramatically improve the quality of your final essay.
If you want to convey your thoughts clearly (as GAMSAT expects), you absolutely must pre-organise your notes into a logical, coherent structure.
Arrange your ideas into a series of focused paragraphs that build on one another and contribute to your overall argument.
Trying to include everything you can think of in your essay will likely lead to a muddled and confused piece of writing.
.png)
.png)
Good planning prevents the kind of major mistakes that simply cannot be fixed during the review stage.
If you suddenly realise during review that you’ve fundamentally misidentified the core theme, you won’t have enough time to make the necessary corrections without making your work look disorganised.
This should not happen if you plan well. The planning stage is your opportunity to ensure you’re on the right track before you commit your ideas to writing.
During brainstorming, you will:
- Reflect on both sides of the topic.
- Come up with succinct examples for each side.
- Decide on your own opinion.
Once you have finished brainstorming, you will have an exhaustive record of all your relevant ideas and examples. These can then be rearranged or discarded when you move on to organising your essay.
You will most likely already have a good idea of the main points that you want to make, since you will have spent time thinking about the question in the assess stage.
Start by jotting down any ideas you can think of that relate to the theme. These should include:
- A definition of any key concepts
- Pros and cons (the positive and negative aspects of the relationship you have identified)
- Examples for both pros and cons
- Possible conclusions
Find the brainstorming method that feels most natural and efficient for you, and practise it so that it becomes second nature by Test Day.
During the brainstorming stage, note down examples that illustrate each point you wish to make.
Good examples are often current but general. This means they pertain directly to the contemporary world, but are also clearly applicable to a wide range of cases.
Very often, a hypothetical or counterfactual example, rather than a real one, is the best way to achieve this balance. For instance, you might discuss what the consequences would be if a certain trend continued (hypothetical) or what would have happened if a different policy had been implemented (counterfactual).
You can also use real-world situations as examples or even draw on your own experiences. You could mention a common dilemma that doctors face or your own experience of a difficult situation, for example. These anecdotal examples can be simple and straightforward, but are easier to tailor to the point you are trying to make.
A mix of different types of examples will show off your thinking skills. The most important thing, though, is that each example you use supports the point you are trying to make.
Using a real, current example can demonstrate that your ideas are directly applicable to the world around you. However, if you’re not confident in the examples you use, you might misremember a key detail and accidentally undermine the strength of your argument.
A hypothetical example might be useful if you want to explore the potential consequences of something. That said, the example won’t provide very good support if it’s too outlandish or unrealistic.
Referring to your own experiences can add a personal touch and will allow you to focus on situations you know in-depth. On the other hand, relying too much on them might miss opportunities to show that you can engage with perspectives you don’t share.
Walkthrough
Brainstorming methods
Let's try out different brainstorming methods.
Brainstorming is most effective if you pursue ideas that are genuinely interesting to you. If you are convinced by what you come up with, you’re much more likely to also convince your reader — that is, your assessor.
If you find yourself struggling for things to say during brainstorming:
- Include additional comments that you were not planning to address.
- Replace a comment or two with another that lets you say more in your analysis.
This may feel like a waste of time, but it’s far better than trying to continue with the wrong comments. Spend an extra minute or two getting the right building blocks in place, rather than struggling through writing an essay about comments you don’t fully understand or can’t develop effectively.