Gold Standard MCAT CTBs 2014: How do they stack up???

[BrothaX]

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I was wondering if anyone who has taken the test in 2014/13 could care to comment on the quality of GS CBTs in preparing you for the real MCAT

I know I've heard good things about PS
But what about BS??

Also is the new revised verbal of good quality?? I have read that the old verbal was horrible but what about the new one? ( I have the TPRHL Verbal book; how does GS compare to that?)

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Also, how did your GS scores correlate to your AAMC scores and then then real deal?

 

[yanks26dmb]

Do they offer a sample GS test?

 

[BrothaX]

Yeah I'm pretty sure you can take one free test before committing to buying

Also as a heads up, if you go to ebay you can buy 3 months of access (instead of 4 months) for $50 dollars cheaper!

 

[BrothaX]

Bump?? Anyone??

 

[user12]

they suck. don't buy them. seriously, don't.

 

[BrothaX]

haha too late.. I've already done three

I think their VR is crap but their PS/BS are good. I feel like im learning from them

 

[NobleGas14]

they suck. don't buy them. seriously, don't.

Good advice, thanks! If I didn't know any better, you seem to be quite vocal against people using GS. Everyone has different experiences and yours isn't the ultimatum.

 

[user12]

Good advice, thanks! If I didn't know any better, you seem to be quite vocal against people using GS. Everyone has different experiences and yours isn't the ultimatum.

I am indeed against people using GS. and I know my experience isnt the ultimatum- i'm not trying to make it seem like it is- but i've taken more than half of their exams to give them a fair shot and I just don't think they're very representative of the real thing at all. I think there are far better resources and practice tests out there. their verbal is absolutely TERRIBLE- like they don't even try- and their science isn't much better. ive even caught at least 1 or 2 questions that have incorrect explanations. and you can be sure that the real exam is going to have passages that are more than 4 sentences long and aren't going to have 6 questions in a row asking about the same concept. id recommend trying some practice tests from other test prep companies, and verbal from pretty much anyone else. I JUST took the real mcat last week, and believe me, it was NOTHING like a GS test.

 

[BrothaX]

I JUST took the real mcat last week, and believe me, it was NOTHING like a GS test.

Hi user12

Thank for the input. What would you recommend to do as practice at this point?? SHould i take the rest of the GS exams and just practice?? should i do TPR SW passages?? Should i do TBR passages?? Any input would be great, since you just took the real thing. Thanks in advance .

 

[IslandStyle808]

Hi user12

Thank for the input. What would you recommend to do as practice at this point?? SHould i take the rest of the GS exams and just practice?? should i do TPR SW passages?? Should i do TBR passages?? Any input would be great, since you just took the real thing. Thanks in advance .

Have you done the official guide to the MCAT? This thing is just phenomenal.

 

[NobleGas14]

I am indeed against people using GS. and I know my experience isnt the ultimatum- i'm not trying to make it seem like it is- but i've taken more than half of their exams to give them a fair shot and I just don't think they're very representative of the real thing at all. I think there are far better resources and practice tests out there. their verbal is absolutely TERRIBLE- like they don't even try- and their science isn't much better. ive even caught at least 1 or 2 questions that have incorrect explanations. and you can be sure that the real exam is going to have passages that are more than 4 sentences long and aren't going to have 6 questions in a row asking about the same concept. id recommend trying some practice tests from other test prep companies, and verbal from pretty much anyone else. I JUST took the real mcat last week, and believe me, it was NOTHING like a GS test.

That's funny, I took the real thing last week also and felt pretty comfortable with how GS prepped me. Although the style and format are a bit different, the averages with my AAMC were almost identical while also being challenging.

 

[BrothaX]

Have you done the official guide to the MCAT? This thing is just phenomenal.

I've spent so much money already i'm not inlinced to buy more stuff but is it really that amazing? Will I gain something from it that i cant gain from GS, TBR or TPRHL?

 

[NobleGas14]

That's plenty of material. You can't overwhelm yourself with too many resources, sadly it will spread yourself thin. You will always read conflicting opinion on these forums. Your best bet is to find what you feel is most comfortable and work with that. From what I've heard, TPR and TBR are both great. I enjoyed using GS, though that opinion might change once I get my score back LOL


It should be noted that the style of AAMC is the best because it most resembles what you'll see on test day- though the difficulty will be harder.

 

[IslandStyle808]

I've spent so much money already i'm not inlinced to buy more stuff but is it really that amazing? Will I gain something from it that i cant gain from GS, TBR or TPRHL?

You won't gain another practice exam per say. However, what you will get is new passages with 146 questions straight from actual AAMC exams. And this by far is the most representative of what you will see on the real exam. I think maybe even more so than AAMC 11.

 

[user12]

Hi user12

Thank for the input. What would you recommend to do as practice at this point?? SHould i take the rest of the GS exams and just practice?? should i do TPR SW passages?? Should i do TBR passages?? Any input would be great, since you just took the real thing. Thanks in advance .

DONT take the rest of the GS exams. I dont mean to keep TRASHING GS, but I just think they're TERRIBLE. I've taken 6 of them. I never got below a 12 in either the PS or BS, so I'm not hating on them because I think they're too hard. They just aren't realistic. I could probably write a good 3 or 4 paragraphs about why they suck. I'll give a couple points. Verbal sucks. Worst I have ever seen from a test prep company. I could actually probably write a better verbal section. Orgo sucks. They don't ask nearly ANYTHING similar to what youll get on the real deal in terms of difficulty. The orgo I had on my exam last week was much different to anything I've seen on a GS exam. And they're passages are too damn short and most of the questions have little to nothing to do with the passage. It's like they just don't care, they're putting the passage there because they need to have 7 passages. I did one of their exams last night, which I guess it what pushed me over the edge into writing this. GS 8. In PS, I had 5 questions in a row asking about molecular shape. Yup, 5 in a row. It's just lazy. Youll never have that on the real deal. And of course the passage attached to the questions had nothing to do with the questions. No experiments in the PS section. Calculations coming out of your ears. And yeah, the exam I took last week had quite a lot of calculations, but it also had a lot of thinking and analyzing data, something you wont see in a GS test.
I've used materials from pretty much every major test prep company. Berkeley review is very good. As far as practice tests go, you should consider the Princeton review, if you can find any. They're pretty good. Even Kaplan is decent. If you don't have access to any of these materials, message me and Ill e mail you some. Seriously.

 

[Thisisthelife]

haha too late.. I've already done three

I think their VR is crap but their PS/BS are good. I feel like im learning from them

Wow I strongly disagree with you about their VR. I think their VR is more similar to the mcat than the other testing companies. EK actually made me do worse because their questions are nothing like ammc's. TPR is not bad, BUT they focus more on information retrieval than critical thinking and logic. I find GS to be very good when it comes to maintaining a good balance between locating information in the passage and having to use the main idea to make inferences. Im still surprised that people say they are crap. If I had listened to people I would have not improved as much as i have. The tests are great. Also, my friend (the one who told me to get them) she went from a 24 to a 27 in 1.5 months using GS practice exams. I highly recommend them.

 

[lumberjack89]

I've taken about half the AAMCs and just started with the Gold Standard stuff by taking GS-1 yesterday. I bought all of them, so I'll be taking them all (probably).

I agree on the verbal being unbelievably bad, at least from this one test. I've been taking VR from the TPR hyperverbal, Exam Krackers, AAMC full lengths, and Berkley Review, and they all have a sort of similar ethos to them. The GS VR was simply horrible, and radically different. I usually score 12s/13s on the verbal, and that's true across the board of all the companies I mentioned above, but I took the GS-1 yesterday and got a SEVEN (7). I nabbed a 15 on the VR section for AAMC-5, and like I said I've been scoring highly on all the others, so I feel like I have a certain right to say it really did suck and it's not just me.

As for the BS/PS I scored a point or two lower than I normally do, but I'd also agree that it was "flavored" very differently. Totally different approach to details and whatnot, and I'm not sure if that will be helpful in the end or if it's simply a wild goose chase for information the MCAT will never test. Either way I'll be taking them because I bought them and I don't see any evidence that other companies are all that much better... if you look hard enough you'll find opinions on both sides for every different PS/VR/BS section from every different company with accompanying scores to match the complaints/praises, so it seems like the best option is just to take material from a slew of sources and hope for the best.

 

[cafeverona]

I've taken about half the AAMCs and just started with the Gold Standard stuff by taking GS-1 yesterday. I bought all of them, so I'll be taking them all (probably).

I agree on the verbal being unbelievably bad, at least from this one test. I've been taking VR from the TPR hyperverbal, Exam Krackers, AAMC full lengths, and Berkley Review, and they all have a sort of similar ethos to them. The GS VR was simply horrible, and radically different. I usually score 12s/13s on the verbal, and that's true across the board of all the companies I mentioned above, but I took the GS-1 yesterday and got a SEVEN (7). I nabbed a 15 on the VR section for AAMC-5, and like I said I've been scoring highly on all the others, so I feel like I have a certain right to say it really did suck and it's not just me.

As for the BS/PS I scored a point or two lower than I normally do, but I'd also agree that it was "flavored" very differently. Totally different approach to details and whatnot, and I'm not sure if that will be helpful in the end or if it's simply a wild goose chase for information the MCAT will never test. Either way I'll be taking them because I bought them and I don't see any evidence that other companies are all that much better... if you look hard enough you'll find opinions on both sides for every different PS/VR/BS section from every different company with accompanying scores to match the complaints/praises, so it seems like the best option is just to take material from a slew of sources and hope for the best.

THIS.

I've taken two GS exams so far, and I simply skip their VB and do PS/BS. It's good practice for getting calculations down, but yes; it is a completely different style. It's less analytical than the AAMCs, but again, it's good practice, and I've found that I'm learning concepts while I'm doing it. In terms of scoring, I'm usually 1 or 2 points lower on GS than on my AAMCs.

 

[Thisisthelife]

I've taken about half the AAMCs and just started with the Gold Standard stuff by taking GS-1 yesterday. I bought all of them, so I'll be taking them all (probably).

I agree on the verbal being unbelievably bad, at least from this one test. I've been taking VR from the TPR hyperverbal, Exam Krackers, AAMC full lengths, and Berkley Review, and they all have a sort of similar ethos to them. The GS VR was simply horrible, and radically different. I usually score 12s/13s on the verbal, and that's true across the board of all the companies I mentioned above, but I took the GS-1 yesterday and got a SEVEN (7). I nabbed a 15 on the VR section for AAMC-5, and like I said I've been scoring highly on all the others, so I feel like I have a certain right to say it really did suck and it's not just me.

As for the BS/PS I scored a point or two lower than I normally do, but I'd also agree that it was "flavored" very differently. Totally different approach to details and whatnot, and I'm not sure if that will be helpful in the end or if it's simply a wild goose chase for information the MCAT will never test. Either way I'll be taking them because I bought them and I don't see any evidence that other companies are all that much better... if you look hard enough you'll find opinions on both sides for every different PS/VR/BS section from every different company with accompanying scores to match the complaints/praises, so it seems like the best option is just to take material from a slew of sources and hope for the best.

I score from 11-14 on AAMC verbal. and i happen to think that GS are really good. I took all of the AAMCs and all GS exams...I even purchased their extra verbal exams. I find it interesting that other people with high scores dont find them as good. To each his own I guess.

 

[Thisisthelife]

THIS.

I've taken two GS exams so far, and I simply skip their VB and do PS/BS. It's good practice for getting calculations down, but yes; it is a completely different style. It's less analytical than the AAMCs, but again, it's good practice, and I've found that I'm learning concepts while I'm doing it. In terms of scoring, I'm usually 1 or 2 points lower on GS than on my AAMCs.

Its more analytical than any of the other test companies. PLUS you get to discuss each question with other students and GS admins in case you dont agree with their reasoning or want to figure out where your reasoning went wrong. I personally think they are better than other test companies VR but it seems like im the only one haha

 

[lumberjack89]

I score from 11-14 on AAMC verbal. and i happen to think that GS are really good. I took all of the AAMCs and all GS exams...I even purchased their extra verbal exams. I find it interesting that other people with high scores dont find them as good. To each his own I guess.

Yeah, you and I just happen to represent the people on opposite sides of the fence who both have scores to support their position on this particular issue... Like I said, no matter the section and no matter the company, it seems like you'll always be able to find people with good/bad scores to support a claim that "section X from company Y is REALLY bad/good!" This phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that people who had so-so experiences aren't nearly as likely to get as passionate about their results as people who had very good and very bad experiences, like you and I.

This sort of goes hand in hand with people trying to rank the difficulty of exams from the same company in an objective way, e.g. "AAMC-7 is soooo much harder than AAMC-8," when all that claim really means is that for that individual, AAMC-7 tested their weaknesses and AAMC-8 didn't, making AAMC-7 subjectively more difficult for them, not objectively more difficult for everyone. The more I read here and the more tests I take the more I'm convinced that everyone's basically on their own in a certain sense, because our experiences and weakness/strength profiles are totally different from each others'. What was an interesting point from that one physics class 5 years ago to me, and therefore was stored away nicely in my memory, was not interesting to the person sitting next to me, and so on and so on...

The only truly consistent theme I'm finding on these forums in regards to full lengths is that if you want to do well, take as many full length practice exams from as many different sources as you can manage, and review all your answers.

 

[Blueprint MCAT Tutor]

you can be sure that the real exam is going to have passages that are more than 4 sentences long and aren't going to have 6 questions in a row asking about the same concept.

This is the most important point in this thread.

The Gold Standard exams serve a very particular purpose and for certain kinds of students they're a great resource. But they absolutely are not a "first line" resource that you should go to right away.

I always tell students: Gold Standard is good for skill-building, not simulation.

If your goal is to simulate test day and generate a realistic feel for the actual exam (and get a representative score), then you only have one choice: AAMC practice tests. That's it. There is no close second.

As has been said, the Gold Standard tests tend to be more nit-picky, more "science-y", and will ask you very similar questions multiple times in a row. That's not realistic when it comes to simulating the exam. What it is good for, however, is skill-building.

The real MCAT would never ask you to solve for pKa or Ka on four questions in a row, but the GS tests can. However, solving for pKa is a skill you need to have for Test Day. So asking you to do it four times in a row is a good way to build up that skill.

So wat do?!

I'd suggest this: if you're looking for full practice tests to take on a once-or-twice-a-week basis to simulate test day, you should do this: 1. AAMC, 2. Whatever tests came with whatever other prep you're doing (KTP/TPR usually include online practice tests if you buy their books, etc.), 3. TBR

If you've already gone through your MCAT books, you have a schedule laid out for taking your AAMC's and what you're looking for is just some 70min timed section practice that's really technical to do every day, that's where the GS tests can serve as a great resource. Again, they're not your "first line" prep materials, but if you've burned through other stuff they can fill that gap nicely.

Full Disclosure: I do not have any professional relationship with GS at all. No referral relationship, anything. I personally recommend GS to something like 10-15% of our own students.

 

[lumberjack89]

This is the most important point in this thread.

The Gold Standard exams serve a very particular purpose and for certain kinds of students they're a great resource. But they absolutely are not a "first line" resource that you should go to right away.

I always tell students: Gold Standard is good for skill-building, not simulation.

If your goal is to simulate test day and generate a realistic feel for the actual exam (and get a representative score), then you only have one choice: AAMC practice tests. That's it. There is no close second.

As has been said, the Gold Standard tests tend to be more nit-picky, more "science-y", and will ask you very similar questions multiple times in a row. That's not realistic when it comes to simulating the exam. What it is good for, however, is skill-building.

The real MCAT would never ask you to solve for pKa or Ka on four questions in a row, but the GS tests can. However, solving for pKa is a skill you need to have for Test Day. So asking you to do it four times in a row is a good way to build up that skill.

So wat do?!

I'd suggest this: if you're looking for full practice tests to take on a once-or-twice-a-week basis to simulate test day, you should do this: 1. AAMC, 2. Whatever tests came with whatever other prep you're doing (KTP/TPR usually include online practice tests if you buy their books, etc.), 3. TBR

If you've already gone through your MCAT books, you have a schedule laid out for taking your AAMC's and what you're looking for is just some 70min timed section practice that's really technical to do every day, that's where the GS tests can serve as a great resource. Again, they're not your "first line" prep materials, but if you've burned through other stuff they can fill that gap nicely.

Full Disclosure: I do not have any professional relationship with GS at all. No referral relationship, anything. I personally recommend GS to something like 10-15% of our own students.

^ This seems to make the most sense to me re: the PS/BS sections, which is why I bought the GS tests and will be taking/studying off of them. Actually, it's more like this: I read the two blog posts below, saw that my AAMC scores were similar to the authors', and immediately bought the GS tests in hopes of replicating the author's successes. I don't care if GS does it by skill building, test-day-simulation, or voodoo magic, I just want those numbers!

http://www.theherocomplex.com/gold-standard-mcat-practice-tests/

http://bkamrava.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-personal-experience-with-mcat-and.html