GAMSAT scratch paper and whiteboards: what to confirm and rehearse

ACER's 2026 information booklet has a section headed scratch/note paper and small whiteboards, and its contents list a question about whether blank A4 paper, laminated, can stand in for a small whiteboard. That section is where the rules are. What you may use, how much of it, and what you must do with your materials when a session ends are ACER's to state, so read them there before you build any system on top of them.

What the booklet does not do is tell you what to put on the surface once you have it. That is a design decision, and leaving it open means inventing a layout mid-question while the clock runs. The rest of this article is our suggestion for deciding in advance. It is our reasoning, not an ACER recommendation, and we have no outcome data showing that it raises a score.

Three things to confirm in the booklet first

• What is permitted in each part of the test. Written Communication is delivered by remote proctoring, while the two reasoning sections (Humanities and Social Sciences, and Biological and Physical Sciences) are sat together in a single test centre session. Do not assume that one answer covers both settings, and check the booklet's remote proctoring and test centre equipment questions as well as the scratch paper section.
• The quantity you are allowed. Whatever the booklet states is the size of the surface you should practise on.
• What happens to your materials when a session ends, and whether the laminated A4 question changes what you plan to bring.

Give the surface a job before the test starts

A surface filled without a plan records whatever you happened to think of. A surface with assigned jobs holds the items you would otherwise carry in your head while doing something else. Our reasoning is that anything written down is something you no longer need to hold, and that matters most where a question asks you to keep several things in play at once: the answer alternatives, several quantities, a position and its complication. Every system below follows the same pattern. A few fixed items, written in the same place, in the same shorthand, every time.

Section 1: keep an elimination record

Questions in the Humanities and Social Sciences section have four alternatives. For a question you may leave and come back to, list the four letters down the margin and give each one a mark: out, still live, or unsure. Beside any option you mark out, add a few words naming the part of the passage or the reasoning step that rules it out.

The few words are what make the record usable. If you return to the question, you can check whether each option was set aside for a reason you can still state, instead of repeating the whole comparison from the start. If a question leaves two options live, the record also shows which two, so the return visit begins at the decision rather than before it.

Section 3: definitions and relationships before arithmetic

The Biological and Physical Sciences section presents its material as text, mathematics, graphs, tables and diagrams. Two habits suit that range. First, before any calculation, write each quantity the stimulus names with its unit, and write what the question asks you to find. A unit that does not match what is asked for becomes visible on the page, rather than something you hope you would notice.

Second, for a graph or table, write one line stating how one quantity changes as the other changes, and do it before you look closely at the options. The line gives you something fixed to test each option against. Your Section 3 working space then has two recurring blocks, definitions and relationships, and the calculation is the only part that varies in length.

Section 2: a two-line plan built from the day's statements

Written Communication has two 30-minute tasks, and each task gives you four statements built around one theme. A plan small enough to fit the task is two lines. The first states the direction your essay will take. The second names the contrast, tension or complication you will bring in against it. Among the features ACER says it considers is how the piece is shaped and formed, and a two-line plan fixes that shape before you write the first sentence.

The plan has to come from the statements in front of you. The booklet says pre-prepared responses, and ones unconnected to the topic, receive a low score, so a plan or thesis drafted at home is a risk, not a shortcut. What you can rehearse beforehand is the method, not the content. If you study sample essays while building it, read them for the decisions behind them and keep their sentences out of your own.

Rehearse with the space you will have

While you are learning a system, keep your paper. A kept page can be reviewed afterwards, and a wiped board cannot. Nearer the test, switch to the size and kind of surface you confirmed in the booklet, and practise full sections on it. A layout built on a generous sheet may not fit a small one, and the only way to find that out is to run out of room in practice rather than on the day.

Settle one rule for running out before you need it. For example, if the space you have given a question fills before the answer arrives, mark the question for a return visit and move on. That rule is ours, offered as an example. What matters is that you chose it in advance and have tried it.

What this costs, and what it does not settle

Writing takes time, and the time comes out of a fixed clock. A system that is too heavy can cost more than it returns, so test it by dropping elements and seeing which ones you miss. Handwriting speed varies between candidates, and so will the amount of shorthand you can afford. We do not know which elements help any given candidate, and the booklet does not recommend a method. If your score has not moved in proportion to your effort, one thing worth checking is whether a recurring reasoning pattern is still costing you marks, whatever your notes look like.

Paper shows what you wrote, not whether it did anything. A tidy elimination record beside a wrong answer leaves open why the reasoning went where it did, and a neat page can sit next to the same error attempt after attempt. Verantrix can record how you reasoned through a practice question, not only which option you chose, and can identify patterns across your attempts that share a reasoning failure. It does not read your scratch work. As a next step, keep the paper from ten questions you got wrong and note beside each whether the surface held what its job required. If the same gap appears more than once, that is the part of the system to change first.