The short answer
Clear, controlled, varied prose is a third of your Section II score — and it's learnable.
Written and checked by GAMSAT tutors — not AI-generated.
Try the reasoning style
We treat forgetting as a failure — a lapse to be patched with reminders and records. Yet a mind that kept everything could not think; it would drown in the undifferentiated noise of every moment it had ever lived. To forget is not so much to lose information as to decide, mostly without our noticing, what was never worth keeping.
The author's argument relies most directly on which unstated assumption?
Pick an option to see how the tutor reasons to the answer — not just whether you were right.
Not quite — the answer is B.
Work backwards from the conclusion: a mind that ‘kept everything’ supposedly ‘could not think.’ That only follows if thinking means leaving most of experience out — so B is the premise the argument quietly rests on. A raises reliability, which the passage never weighs; C contradicts ‘mostly without our noticing’; D smuggles in a claim about intellect the passage never makes. The question rewards finding the hidden premise, not recalling a fact.
In Section II, expression — how you write — is scored alongside your ideas and structure. Clear, controlled, varied prose signals a sharp mind. The good news: unlike raw talent, this is learnable through a handful of habits.
Precision beats decoration
Cut every word that isn't working. Clear, exact word choice impresses far more than long words used to sound clever. "Utilise" isn't better than "use"; "in order to" is just "to." Prune the padding and the sentence gets stronger.
Wordy vs tight
Wordy
- 'Due to the fact that…'
- 'At this point in time…'
- 'It is important to note that progress…'
- Long words chosen to impress
Tight
- 'Because…'
- 'Now…'
- 'Progress…'
- The plainest word that's exact
Vary your sentences
A wall of identical medium-length sentences lulls the reader. Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, flowing ones. A short sentence after a long one lands hard. Use the active voice by default ("The study found…", not "It was found by the study…").
Worked example
Tighten this sentence: "Due to the fact that the experiment was conducted in a manner that was very careful, the results that were obtained were reliable."
Check yourself
Which best improves the sentence 'It was decided by the committee that the proposal would be rejected'?
Key takeaways
- Expression is scored — clear, controlled prose lifts your mark.
- Cut every word that isn't working; precision beats fancy vocabulary.
- Vary sentence length; a short sentence after a long one hits hard.
- Prefer the active voice ('The study found…').
- Leave two minutes to proofread — fix the obvious slips.
Practise this with real GAMSAT-style questions
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