Periodic Table – A Core Chemistry Concept In Relevance With GAMSAT Section III
GAMSAT Section III is about the logical reasoning in Biological and Physical Sciences. ACER has designed this section to test the aptitude ability of a GAMSAT aspirant with respect to his understanding in Basic Sciences. However, the format for the questionnaires of this section is reasoning based multiple choice questions (MCQs) following a background passage. This is mainly due to the ACER’s viewpoint in screening away pure-concept based questions from the section. Still, a basic understanding in Biological, Chemical and Physical Sciences is required to answer the questions in minimum amount of time, as GAMSAT is a time-bound test. One such key topic in GAMSAT-related chemistry is periodic table.
Periodic table of the chemical elements (H, O, N, P, C, etc) is a tabular display of the chemical elements. It is an indispensible tool within the academic discipline of chemistry, providing an extremely useful framework to classify, systematise, and compare all of the many different forms of chemical behaviour. The table has found wide application in chemistry, physics, and even biology. An important and sizable portion of Biology is constituted with Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry, whose domain couldn’t be justified, properly, without the involvement of Periodic table. Let us take a detailed view of the periodic table.
Now, many GAMSAT candidates may wonder why one has to learn this amount of chemistry while sitting for GAMSAT. Well, let me point out a few example questions to clear their doubt. The ACER practise booklets contain questions based on electro negativity, atomicity, inert gases and chemical transition among various elements. All of these properties of a chemical entity are directly linked with the periodic table. Even a few attributes like valency, electrochemistry and radioactivity could be justified in details with the help of periodic table. In Biological sciences, there are certain topics like membrane potential and protein structures, which need the helping hand of periodic table for proper understanding.
By now, most of us are convinced with the utility of periodic table for GAMSAT Section III. It’s not totally impossible to answer a related question without proper understanding of the periodic table, because GAMSAT is a logical reasoning test where candidates can find out the answer hidden in the background passage using aptitude. But, that will consume enormous amount of time for a single question which a GAMSAT aspirant can’t afford at all. Hence, basic background knowledge will be a wise decision in favour of the candidate. Always remember, “knowledge never goes wasted in life”.
