From: AceGAMSAT
Re: GAMSAT Section 2 – Thesis Brainstorming

Do you struggle with generating a thesis from the stimulus material in the GAMSAT section 2 section? Never fear! The ultimate thesis guide is here! The following gives you a step-by-step approach to developing a thesis and identifying ideas that may be explored via that thesis and examples that can be used to demonstrate those ideas!

Step #1: Read all of the quotes and identify the major theme

Read all of the quotes and try to identify what the major theme is. You can do this by explaining the meaning of the quotes back to yourself. The theme may be democracy, environmental protection, technology or the legal system for a type A set of quotes, or trust, relationships, identity or optimism for a type B set of quotes. Once you have done this, pat yourself on the back! You are most of the way there! Identify a single word that captures the main theme.

NB: If you are totally confused by a particular quote, simply ignore it! The theme will be present in the other quotes that you can understand.

Step #2: Identify minor theme/s

This is something that many students overlook! Most people will identify an overarching idea, but fail to pick out smaller yet important sub-themes that the quotes are hinting at. For example, while the overall theme might be environmental protection, a key sub-theme might be social complacency in regards to environmental protection. Or if the theme is relationships for a type B essay, an important sub-theme implied by the quotes might be the importance/ necessity of relationships to human beings. Take the time to identify possible angles that ACER may have wanted students to consider.

Step #3: Take a step back

The next thing that you could do is to pick one of the quotes and compose a thesis in response to it. Nothing wrong with this option at all. If you like this approach, go for it!  If, however, you are finding this difficult or discovering that your essays seem to repeat the same ideas rather than covering various different aspects of a topic, you may find it helpful to give the following process a go…

 gamsat section 2

Step #4: Tweak your thesis (or your arguments and examples!) if needed

If you find that your thesis does not fit with what you would like to discuss, or your examples do not fit with your thesis, keep brainstorming until they match up in a way that will allow you to compose a well-reasoned and sophisticated essay. 

Hopefully the above guide has given you some direction on how to get from the quotes to a thesis. When you attempt GAMSAT Section 2, try to keep all these steps in mind!

Happy writing!

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