Heeyy, im going for the jmss exam this year(2019) and i was realllllyyyyy hoping you could answer some of my questions, i was just wondering, how much general knowledge you need for this test, and like what you need to know, could you give me some topics i could learn, do you need to know the periodic table, body parts etc? and could you go more in depth on what BOTH the essays wer about plz? thankssssss
Hello there! I did the JMSS entrance tests 2 years ago, and was lucky enough to attend the interview after that. I actually didn’t study at all for this exam and I regret not taking a look at some practice exams or even just knowing there would be a science reasoning test and the writing tests would be based on science (yes - believe me, I didn’t know this) - I thought my experience from the select entry exam I did the previous year would suffice. Needless to say, I was able to get through. Also, you shouldn’t get discouraged if you didn’t do as well as you expected in the selective entry exams, as the type of questions in the JMSS exam was different.
You don’t need much general knowledge, but I can tell you the obvious - they are looking for students who excel in the science area. I recommend you go through some general science textbooks, as the questions are from all science areas. Familiarise yourself with units, conversions and experimental design/research methods too. From what I remember, the questions in the science reasoning exam were mostly based on year 9-10 science knowledge. You should be fine as long as you ensure you know science basics as well as year 9-10 content well.
For the essays, the year I did it, there was one based on an article and the other was a PRAC report. Ensure you know what’s going on at the moment in the world that is science-based, as it does help with the article-based essay. I recommend reading some articles online or just browsing science websites if you aren’t really confident about this section. When I did it, it was based on pollution and issues surrounding (Port Phillip? I can’t remember) Bay. You were expected to use evidence from the article given to construct an answer to a the question given in the form of an essay.
The other writing piece was a prac report. If you want practice in this area, then I suggest looking up some experiments and practise writing prac reports on them. Familiarise yourself with the basic structure of a prac report - especially the discussion section. When I did it, the experiment was a physics one. Physics is the science I absolutely dislike - so be prepared to be given an experiment based on any science.
I do recommend going over the periodic table. Obviously they aren’t going to expect you to have memorised relative atomic masses of elements. Just ensure you have enough basic knowledge of the periodic table to be able to tackle chemistry questions. Know which elements (out of the most common ones, like carbon, hydrogen, aluminium etc) are noble gases, metals, non-metals, etc. I definitely don’t remember any question about body parts specifically.
Good luck for the exam!