How to Tackle Poetry in the GAMSAT: A Step-by-Step Guide
If you’re prepping for Section 1 of the GAMSAT, you’ve probably had that sinking feeling when you flip to a page of poetry. It looks abstract, vague, and deliberately confusing. You reread the lines, and instead of clarity, you get… nothing.
Sound familiar? Don’t stress. Poetry is supposed to feel a little slippery, but the good news is you don’t need to understand 100% of it to crush the questions. In fact, you can walk away with the right answers even if you only grasp 30 to 50 percent on your first read. The key is learning how to approach poetry systematically, instead of letting it intimidate you.
Here’s a simple framework to make poetry your ally instead of your enemy.
Step 1: Accept Partial Understanding
The first mental hurdle is accepting that you won’t fully “get” every line. That’s not a failure, that’s poetry. It balances literal and figurative meaning, so by design it’s not meant to be crystal clear.
Your job isn’t to write an English essay. It’s to pick up enough of the mood, tone, and perspective to answer multiple-choice questions. If you walk away with half the picture, that’s often more than enough.
Step 2: Use the Title as a Shortcut
This is the simplest trick that students constantly overlook. The title often gives away the central subject or theme before you’ve even read a line.
For example, in the GAMSAT’s practice materials there’s a poem titled Sandpiper.
If you know a sandpiper is a bird, you’ve immediately narrowed the scope. Even if you don’t, the poem drops hints early on to confirm it.
Sandpiper, Elizabeth Bishop
By anchoring yourself with the title, you’re no longer stumbling in the dark, you’ve got a compass.
Step 3: Read for Mood, Not Meaning
Forget trying to decode every metaphor straight away. Instead, scan for:
Tone words (grim, hopeful, chaotic, calm).
Imagery (auditory, visual, tactile).
Atmosphere (is this heavy and bleak, or light and playful?).
Even if the narrative is fuzzy, mood and tone are usually clear, and they’ll guide you toward the correct answers.
Step 4: Spot Personification and Symbolism
Poets love giving human qualities to non-human things.
In Sandpiper, the bird is personified, and the sea is described as “roaring” with violent energy.
These little details are gold.
They tell you not just what the text says but how the author wants you to feel.
Step 5: Work Backwards from the Questions
This is where strategy trumps guesswork.
Don’t panic if you didn’t fully grasp the poem on first read. Poetry is an artistic artform that doesn’t demand 100% comprehension - just like an artist doesn’t make a painting expecting you to get all the small, niche references off the bat.
The multiple-choice options are designed to point you back to the relevant lines.
For example, if the question asks how the sandpiper views the sea, you only need to revisit the lines where the bird interacts with it.
You don’t need the whole poem, you just need evidence for that specific angle.
The Takeaway
Poetry in Section 1 isn’t about perfect comprehension, it’s about systematic decoding. If you can:
Accept partial understanding
Use the title for context
Read for tone and imagery
Spot personification and symbolism
Anchor your answers in evidence
…you’ll turn one of the scariest GAMSAT text types into a manageable, even predictable, part of the exam.
Want to Go Deeper?
I run dedicated Section 1 group classes where we practice exactly this kind of step-by-step analysis with tricky poems as well as other difficult text types like complex non-fiction, short story extracts and more.
You’ll learn how to quickly break down texts under exam pressure and avoid common traps.
If you’re serious about improving your Section 1 score, click here to learn more and sign up.
Spots are limited, and these fill fast ahead of the exam - early bird discount live now for March 2026!
