ATAR Notes: Forum

Archived Discussion => 2008 => Mid-year exams => Exam Discussion => Victoria => The GAT => Topic started by: AppleXY on June 12, 2008, 01:39:08 pm

Title: The GAT.
Post by: AppleXY on June 12, 2008, 01:39:08 pm
The GAT, gat, good ole GAT :)

Hard? Easy? Funny? Happened on your birthday? (:P) Discuss here :D

;)
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: costargh on June 12, 2008, 01:40:16 pm
Can we listen to our iPod in the GAT? LOL
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: droodles on June 12, 2008, 01:49:14 pm
Can we listen to our iPod in the GAT? LOL
-3/10
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: psychlaw on June 12, 2008, 02:04:54 pm
what is the gat like??? its my first one:D

Question: Does it actually effect our enter at all ? (If were not sick)
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: JL_91 on June 12, 2008, 02:23:48 pm
(I moved this post from the other thread about the GAT). The GAT is a waste of 3 hours imo. Lol, my former tutor told us that he drew a turtle instead of writing one of his essays, wrote half of the 2nd one, and circled 'C' for every multiple choice XD yet he still came out with a 99+ ENTER, so that proves how useful the GAT really is! I'll still try my best though...sort of...:P
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: moshi on June 12, 2008, 03:01:04 pm
lol what were his predicted scores?
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: JL_91 on June 12, 2008, 03:07:27 pm
What exactly do you mean by predicted scores? Well, he said that his GAT results basically indicated that he was, quite literally, a complete retard :D
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ElephantStew on June 12, 2008, 03:15:00 pm
just wondering if anybody has any interesting or creative ways of doing the first writing thingo...please share :D
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: clinton_09 on June 12, 2008, 03:19:06 pm
i'm not keen at all for the GAT the mc is bearable but the writing tasks are just annoying.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ice_blockie on June 12, 2008, 03:26:12 pm
just wondering if anybody has any interesting or creative ways of doing the first writing thingo...please share :D

The whole point of the first task is to see if you can organise the material into some coherent structure. So here are some ideas:
- feature article
- television commercial or those 'info breaks' you see on EVERY morning talk show...
- some sort of ad
- magazine column
- proposal/design brief
- talk show
- tourist guide talk

But remember don't get too stuck with these 'text types'. It's how you put all the info together so don't add too much irrelevant details...ie no story line, no plot, just basic info. Here's a random example of the 2007 GAT ( I think)


Members of the Board,
Today I present you a proposal that will revolutionise...situated close to 30'45 N [add details of place] with spacious dormitories which are fully equipped...[add details about place]

All meals will be cooked inhouse and all foods grown in a specially developed hydroponics plant....

...specially designed to withstand.[..temperature statistics, graphs and climate numbers...]

etc...
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: clinton_09 on June 12, 2008, 03:28:20 pm
thats some good ideas there, thanks for that
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: enwiabe on June 12, 2008, 03:33:02 pm
More like General wAste of Time AMIRITE. Nah jk, jk, treat it seriously, it can really be the deciding factor in your marks if something happens.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ice_blockie on June 12, 2008, 03:41:38 pm
Well, he said that his GAT results basically indicated that he was, quite literally, a complete retard :D

If he happened to be involved in a crash the day before the end of year exams or something else happened....his derived score wud totally suck...
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: moshi on June 12, 2008, 03:43:57 pm
What exactly do you mean by predicted scores? Well, he said that his GAT results basically indicated that he was, quite literally, a complete retard :D

i haven't done the gat before, so i assumed that it was an indicator of how well you're going to perform in your subjects at the end of the year
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: enwiabe on June 12, 2008, 03:45:57 pm
just wondering if anybody has any interesting or creative ways of doing the first writing thingo...please share :D

The whole point of the first task is to see if you can organise the material into some coherent structure. So here are some ideas:
- feature article
- television commercial or those 'info breaks' you see on EVERY morning talk show...
- some sort of ad
- magazine column
- proposal/design brief
- talk show
- tourist guide talk

But remember don't get too stuck with these 'text types'. It's how you put all the info together so don't add too much irrelevant details...ie no story line, no plot, just basic info. Here's a random example of the 2007 GAT ( I think)


Members of the Board,
Today I present you a proposal that will revolutionise...situated close to 30'45 N [add details of place] with spacious dormitories which are fully equipped...[add details about place]

All meals will be cooked inhouse and all foods grown in a specially developed hydroponics plant....

...specially designed to withstand.[..temperature statistics, graphs and climate numbers...]

etc...

I wrote an imaginative story for my first piece. The info they gave us was about this ice station, so I set it 30 years into the future and incorporating almost all of the features from the info given I wrote a 10-paged short story thriller. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the plot was that global warming was so severe that all of the world was pretty much flooded. Only those in Antarctica were safe and not for much longer. In the research institute there they were coming up with a new chemical to deliver as a payload into the atmosphere to rebuild the ozone layer and rectify the situation. They JUST launched the rocket with the payload as the waves crashed into their station.

AWESOME, YOU THINK!?! I incorporated EVERY LAST detail into it about how it was set up etc. and do you know what i got for written communication? 32. The bastards. :(
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: JL_91 on June 12, 2008, 03:49:24 pm
Well, he said that his GAT results basically indicated that he was, quite literally, a complete retard :D

If he happened to be involved in a crash the day before the end of year exams or something else happened....his derived score wud totally suck...

Yeah. That's why he said looking back, he would definitely not have done something that stupid, and told us not to copy him lol. He was lucky nothing bad happened to him during exam season.

I always wonder, what happens if you get sick on the day of the GAT lol..where would they get your derived study scores from then?

What exactly do you mean by predicted scores? Well, he said that his GAT results basically indicated that he was, quite literally, a complete retard :D

i haven't done the gat before, so i assumed that it was an indicator of how well you're going to perform in your subjects at the end of the year
[/quote]

Hmm..usually 'predicted scores' has nothing to do with the GAT...it's just a set of grades your subject teachers put in to VCAA, saying what they think you'll get in the exams. I don't exactly know what their purpose is though..
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: BA22 on June 12, 2008, 03:50:09 pm
The GAT can be used by some universities, like monash, for slection processes if you are in the middle band
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Pop on June 12, 2008, 03:53:57 pm
just wondering if anybody has any interesting or creative ways of doing the first writing thingo...please share :D

The whole point of the first task is to see if you can organise the material into some coherent structure. So here are some ideas:
- feature article
- television commercial or those 'info breaks' you see on EVERY morning talk show...
- some sort of ad
- magazine column
- proposal/design brief
- talk show
- tourist guide talk

But remember don't get too stuck with these 'text types'. It's how you put all the info together so don't add too much irrelevant details...ie no story line, no plot, just basic info. Here's a random example of the 2007 GAT ( I think)


Members of the Board,
Today I present you a proposal that will revolutionise...situated close to 30'45 N [add details of place] with spacious dormitories which are fully equipped...[add details about place]

All meals will be cooked inhouse and all foods grown in a specially developed hydroponics plant....

...specially designed to withstand.[..temperature statistics, graphs and climate numbers...]

etc...

I wrote an imaginative story for my first piece. The info they gave us was about this ice station, so I set it 30 years into the future and incorporating almost all of the features from the info given I wrote a 10-paged short story thriller. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the plot was that global warming was so severe that all of the world was pretty much flooded. Only those in Antarctica were safe and not for much longer. In the research institute there they were coming up with a new chemical to deliver as a payload into the atmosphere to rebuild the ozone layer and rectify the situation. They JUST launched the rocket with the payload as the waves crashed into their station.

AWESOME, YOU THINK!?! I incorporated EVERY LAST detail into it about how it was set up etc. and do you know what i got for written communication? 32. The bastards. :(

Sounds like you spent ages on it but did you answer any of the multichoice questions related to english?
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: BA22 on June 12, 2008, 03:55:05 pm
there . . are none . . .
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: enwiabe on June 12, 2008, 03:55:33 pm
Yup, that 10 pages took me ~45 minutes. I nutted out the persuasive in half an hour and sped through the 70 multi-choice in about 1.5 hours.

Got 45 for maths/sciences and 40 for humanities. Bastards shafted me on my written comms. I wrote a good persuasive as well arguing the case for the limiting of internet anonymity.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ice_blockie on June 12, 2008, 03:56:33 pm
I wrote an imaginative story for my first piece. The info they gave us was about this ice station, so I set it 30 years into the future and incorporating almost all of the features from the info given I wrote a 10-paged short story thriller. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the plot was that global warming was so severe that all of the world was pretty much flooded. Only those in Antarctica were safe and not for much longer. In the research institute there they were coming up with a new chemical to deliver as a payload into the atmosphere to rebuild the ozone layer and rectify the situation. They JUST launched the rocket with the payload as the waves crashed into their station.

AWESOME, YOU THINK!?! I incorporated EVERY LAST detail into it about how it was set up etc. and do you know what i got for written communication? 32. The bastards. :(

1. Your story would have been awesome!
2. You should attempt to get story published (If VCAA hasn't already and received million dollar paychecks..)
3. The assessors probably ignored your story hence the low mark...
4. You gave your space station wings...and chemicals and random stuff...which = assessor's head explode
5. Best not to explode assessor's head
6. You shud have got higher...
7. Who cares now...
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ell on June 12, 2008, 04:00:54 pm
VCAA should post reports like they do for the other exams to give students some idea of what they expect on the written tasks. But then again, it's the GAT.  ::)
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: enwiabe on June 12, 2008, 04:01:58 pm
Pffft, it's an amusing anecdote. Lesson to be learnt: Don't try to be clever writing this. Stick to the facts and leave the side-story out of it
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: bubble sunglasses on June 12, 2008, 04:02:12 pm

  yeah, if I'd written something I was especially proud of, i dunno, i might have taken it away with me
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: costargh on June 12, 2008, 04:02:43 pm
Yup, that 10 pages took me ~45 minutes. I nutted out the persuasive in half an hour and sped through the 70 multi-choice in about 1.5 hours.

Got 45 for maths/sciences and 40 for humanities. Bastards shafted me on my written comms. I wrote a good persuasive as well arguing the case for the limiting of internet anonymity.

Wow thats like a page every 4.5 minutes :|
*shits himself for english exam*
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: bubble sunglasses on June 12, 2008, 04:05:07 pm
 an unnamed BOSer wrote excellent 1000+ word essays for history, in >30 mins. It's possible
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: BA22 on June 12, 2008, 04:06:35 pm
Nah, don't worry costa, the script books have smaller writing space than a regular A4 size book.

Still a good effort though
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: AppleXY on June 12, 2008, 04:08:26 pm
how the hell? So you can write one whole page that has like 40 lines or more, in 4.5 minutes? When do you think? That can't be right :P
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: enwiabe on June 12, 2008, 04:09:16 pm
I have big writing... it was more like 6 pages of normal writing. Also once I got into the flow it, I was writing as I was thinking. I proofread it at the end, it actually flowed really nicely (I thought grrrr)
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: cathtacular on June 12, 2008, 04:14:51 pm
i think we have different script books this year,
instead of just script books there like special gat, 'write your response to task 1 here' books.

they look red. however dont quote me i was looking at it last night and i may have been hullicinating due to lack of sleep and stupid psych exam..

take it serious though, it can only help you, cant hinder you.

have fun for 3 hours.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: nickalaz on June 12, 2008, 05:21:03 pm
The GAT, gat, good ole GAT :)

Hard? Easy? Funny? Happened on your birthday? (:P) Discuss here :D

;)


+1
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ausyid on June 12, 2008, 05:59:45 pm
i did well last year by pretty much writing an informative piece on the ice station.

i prefer to work on instincts in the writing pieces. whatever comes to me in the GAT is what i will write.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ElephantStew on June 12, 2008, 06:25:21 pm

I wrote an imaginative story for my first piece. The info they gave us was about this ice station, so I set it 30 years into the future and incorporating almost all of the features from the info given I wrote a 10-paged short story thriller. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the plot was that global warming was so severe that all of the world was pretty much flooded. Only those in Antarctica were safe and not for much longer. In the research institute there they were coming up with a new chemical to deliver as a payload into the atmosphere to rebuild the ozone layer and rectify the situation. They JUST launched the rocket with the payload as the waves crashed into their station.

AWESOME, YOU THINK!?! I incorporated EVERY LAST detail into it about how it was set up etc. and do you know what i got for written communication? 32. The bastards. :(

hahah lol, i did something similar to that... but mine was a cheesy rip off of Matthew Reilly's Ice Station :D
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: JL_91 on June 12, 2008, 06:30:34 pm
LOL :D ...I was a bit more conservative than you two..I just described the ice station in an 'interesting-sounding' way, sort of like a magazine article about it...they gave me 45 for written communication
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: costargh on June 12, 2008, 06:35:00 pm
What time is the GAT on? and till when?
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: JL_91 on June 12, 2008, 06:37:14 pm
What time is the GAT on? and till when?

10-1.15, including reading time. 3 hours of excruciating pain!
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: costargh on June 12, 2008, 06:40:42 pm
Thats too early! Geez
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: chubz90 on June 12, 2008, 07:23:56 pm
LOL  :D i did the GAT last year. I was so nervous as it was my first official anything. The thing was i didnt bring a watch with me and the only clock there was like a 5 cm wall clock about 20m from my desk, lol. I was worried about not finishing, especially after i began to see people walking out around half an hour into it. I rushed as quick as i could and finished the GAT like an hour early  ::) As a result i got a border line average for pretty much the whole GAT. Hope to do better this year though.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: extra-UNcool on June 12, 2008, 07:34:15 pm
monash have that new system where they can give you an extra 5 aggregate points if you're applying for their courses and you're gat score was higher than the minimum enter required for the course. sounds pretty good, esp. if you JUST missed out. i think it's worth just doing what you can in the gat.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: elaine on June 12, 2008, 08:07:24 pm
just wondering if anybody has any interesting or creative ways of doing the first writing thingo...please share :D

The whole point of the first task is to see if you can organise the material into some coherent structure. So here are some ideas:
- feature article
- television commercial or those 'info breaks' you see on EVERY morning talk show...
- some sort of ad
- magazine column
- proposal/design brief
- talk show
- tourist guide talk

But remember don't get too stuck with these 'text types'. It's how you put all the info together so don't add too much irrelevant details...ie no story line, no plot, just basic info. Here's a random example of the 2007 GAT ( I think)


Members of the Board,
Today I present you a proposal that will revolutionise...situated close to 30'45 N [add details of place] with spacious dormitories which are fully equipped...[add details about place]

All meals will be cooked inhouse and all foods grown in a specially developed hydroponics plant....

...specially designed to withstand.[..temperature statistics, graphs and climate numbers...]

etc...

our school always taught us to write a standard informative essay, just the boring old details.
i didn't know there was such creative freedom. hmm might consider that for tommorow

where did you get the sample response from?
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: amyminchin on June 12, 2008, 08:20:50 pm
Yeah same ^ (obviously). I might just stick with a newspaper article... I'm not confident enough to do an imaginative piece when this is first I've heard of beign allowed to do so. Not that I don't trust you guys or anything... just... you know.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: ice_blockie on June 12, 2008, 10:33:09 pm
our school always taught us to write a standard informative essay, just the boring old details.
i didn't know there was such creative freedom. hmm might consider that for tommorow
where did you get the sample response from?

I briefly summarised the key points from something I read. I'll flesh out the first paragraph because I feel like it....

"Esteemed members of the board, I come before you today with a proposal that will revolutionise Antarctic research. Proposed to be situated 75'37'S, 26'06'W, the Halley VI Antarctic Station will be fully self-sufficient, accomodating up to fifty two in summer and sixteen in winter. This station has been designed with full considerations of the harsh surrounding environment and also improving the working and living conditions of the personnel.

...There's my GAT study...lol
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: cathtacular on June 13, 2008, 07:53:46 am
good luck everybody


i just cant wait

lol
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Fyrefly on June 13, 2008, 11:29:53 am
LOL :D ...I was a bit more conservative than you two..I just described the ice station in an 'interesting-sounding' way, sort of like a magazine article about it...they gave me 45 for written communication

Me 2... I just made my writing colourful and interesting. Got similar score 2 u 4 both years. Last year was the ice station, year b4 was something about chocolate.
I took the GAT *relatively* seriously.
I think the students that take it most seriously are those doing IB.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: /0 on June 13, 2008, 07:02:41 pm
Lol today is Friday the 13th, just noticed
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Fyrefly on June 13, 2008, 07:18:54 pm
Lol today is Friday the 13th, just noticed

U just noticed??

Haha... I am random enuf 2 notice something random straight away... XD
It gave me something interesting 2 talk 2 my customers about 2day.
U know wot word 1 of them came out with?
Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Fear of Friday the 13th.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Fyrefly on June 13, 2008, 07:21:23 pm
Me 2... I just made my writing colourful and interesting.

Lol... I just re-read wot I wrote and imagined myself doing the GAT with crayons... :smitten:
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: AppleXY on June 13, 2008, 07:24:16 pm
Quote from: Fyrefly
Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Fear of Friday the 13th.

Thank god I don't have that fear, otherwise I would be scared on my 18th birthday LOOOL ZOMGWTFBBQROFLLMAO. :P
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: millstone on June 13, 2008, 10:05:56 pm
day BEFORE my birthday haha

turned up half an hour late cos i woke up at 10:15, opps

was boring, didn't try, don't care
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Glockmeister on June 13, 2008, 11:43:24 pm
One of my friend's birthday was on the same day as the GAT

And she had to sit it.
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: millstone on June 14, 2008, 12:21:26 am
yeah that was me last year

3rd and last gat everrrr
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: AppleXY on June 14, 2008, 08:52:00 am
One of my friend's birthday was on the same day as the GAT

And she had to sit it.

So did I, it's not a big thing :P
Title: Re: The GAT.
Post by: Mao on June 14, 2008, 11:58:35 am
One of my friend's birthday was on the same day as the GAT

And she had to sit it.

So did I, it's not a big thing :P

yes it was. I spent phone credit on you :P