Hey Guys

For those of you guys who did the tests from the Gold Standard textbooks, do you guys tend to score lower/higher on the real thing? How does the difficulty and format of the questions compare to the real MCAT? I am asking this because I would like to start doing them soon and I dont want to be shocked/overjoyed by my score :)

Thanks

You will score lower on GS's

1-3 weren't too bad I don't think. 5,7 I think are the tougher ones. I just did all of the tests for the problems, I don't think they are indicative of the real test at all, just there to give you practice.



Best of luck!

personally I thought the tests were terrible...2 sentence passages??? Completely wrong answer explanations and other errors all over the place.

My GS avg was 21-23
My real thing: 29 :)

These are curved WAY more strict than the actual thing, but it is good practice for getting those WTF moments out of the way before test day.

I took the first one had plenty of "What the hell do they mean?" moments. I found the test poorly written and I did pretty bad, but it was also expecting level of detail that I never saw on aamcs. I got them because they were cheap relative to the others and I need to remove myself from the aamc exams for a while.

My GS avg was 21-23
My real thing: 29 :)

These are curved WAY more strict than the actual thing, but it is good practice for getting those WTF moments out of the way before test day.
I agree about the strict curve...especially the freaking verbal, besides one 13 I never scored over a 10 on the verbal

ya i took GS 3 today and thought it was curved so ridiculously. I hope they really aren't indicative of the real deal... I'm just going to do them for practice passages.

I tried kaplan's mapping strategy on that test and barely finished did pretty low on the verbal as well, but i figured it would be low.. but does mapping work for any of you guys and if so how what's the procedure you are taking? I'm hearing that the real deal has passages of GS' length so that might be a +

I think there is some adjusting with the gold standard tests. As I said before, many of the questions are poorly worded and take a little extra thought. I got them because they were, well, cheap. I'm not horrible impressed so far. The verbal was ridiculous. The only way it was similar to the real mcat was that it had a passage and questions. They nitpicked details and a bunch of other crap. It really irritated me because I never get below 10s on aamc test and I took the gold standard and got an 8....

yup, I just did GS2, i got 10s in physical science and biological science(50/77 and 60/77 perspectively) and i got 45/60 on the verbal (I didnt use the curve because the curve I had was out of 65 questions and GS2 only had 60... lol).. so I think i got around 29-30 on GS2. Do you guys think ill do better or worse on the real thing?

I think you'll end up scoring higher. I find the gold standard exams pretty crappy compared to the real thing. Far more calculation intensive in the physical science section. The verbal is much more detail centric. The bio isn't horrible, but there is a bit more of a focus on inane details with that as well. Most questions on the MCAT have the information needed in the passage. That isn't always the case with these. I took GS2 today and there were a few questions that were ridiculously calculation intensive. I was getting 36s on the aamc exams and I got a 23 on today's....

I think there is some adjusting with the gold standard tests. As I said before, many of the questions are poorly worded and take a little extra thought. I got them because they were, well, cheap. I'm not horrible impressed so far. The verbal was ridiculous. The only way it was similar to the real mcat was that it had a passage and questions. They nitpicked details and a bunch of other crap. It really irritated me because I never get below 10s on aamc test and I took the gold standard and got an 8....

I feel better now that I know this.

I never got below a 11 on the AAMC verbal, but I got a freakin' 7 on the GS-1. :scared:

I feel better now that I know this.

I never got below a 11 on the AAMC verbal, but I got a freakin' 7 on the GS-1. :scared:

I feel like the kaplan verbal passages are more similar to the real thing than GS. I get the feeling that the goal of GS is to make you commit more to memory and try to focus harder. I was getting caught for moot details that I know would never be asked. The aamc verbal passages just aren't that big on picking out one negating word. They are bigger on taking in the article as a whole and accurately interpreting and applying details from it.

I feel like the kaplan verbal passages are more similar to the real thing than GS. I get the feeling that the goal of GS is to make you commit more to memory and try to focus harder. I was getting caught for moot details that I know would never be asked. The aamc verbal passages just aren't that big on picking out one negating word. They are bigger on taking in the article as a whole and accurately interpreting and applying details from it.

Kaplan's verbal is terrible. Don't go by Kaplan. I can't speak for GS's verbal since I don't have any. AAMCs are perfect indicators for verbal. I got 10s on all the AAMCs (minus one 8 on AAMC7) and a 10 on the real thing. :thumbup: The real thing actually had slightly longer passages than AAMC's BUT they were easier reads, so they balanced out.

Kaplan's verbal is terrible. Don't go by Kaplan. I can't speak for GS's verbal since I don't have any. AAMCs are perfect indicators for verbal. I got 10s on all the AAMCs (minus one 8 on AAMC7) and a 10 on the real thing. :thumbup: The real thing actually had slightly longer passages than AAMC's BUT they were easier reads, so they balanced out.

Kaplan's verbal really isn't that bad. I never scored below 10 and was mostly in the 12+ range on both kaplan and aamc. I got a 9 on the real thing which baffled me. When it comes to practicing and getting repetitions in, you can't really repeat the verbal as much as the other stuff. Your score gets inflated. If I read that stupid Li Confucius story, or the wolves winging the piece of meat thing one more time, I may flip.

Really, for the sheer repetition and quantity, most kaplans aren't that bad. If you are taking a test as an indicator then you are pretty much stupid to use anything but aamc, but for practice one should use whatever they can get their hands on.