How closely should test prep match the AAMC?

[TorontoCowboy]

Please answer the poll question above and leave comments if you have them. I am curious if the SDN/premed community is kosher with prep companies making "very close copies" of AAMC material and then reselling it to students as their own original work. How close is too close?

Some prep companies are copying the layout of a passage, all of the ideas about which tables or figures to use, which kinds of questions to ask, etc, but changing the molecule it is about and using their own new text. Maybe that's not plagiarism??, but it could mess up of your AAMC practice when you see that passage again on AAMC FLs? Other companies, like NextStep, have been caught multiple times right-out plagiarizing. I made a post a few days ago showing NS had word-for-word copied from AAMC in their FL#5.

I was actually surprised that no one on here seemed to care? Only one SDN user responded to my post? Thus the reason for this poll. NextStep responded to a plagiarism incident last year saying that it was actually a good thing because they were tyring to mimick the MCAT as close as possible for their students. Maybe we've bought into that? What is your opinion?

Here's my post and an older one about plagiarism if you want some background or to see examples.

Current NS plagiarism incident: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/next-step-plagiarizing-the-aamc-again.1246289/

NS plagiarism incident from last year: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/lol-next-step.1132070/.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

Please answer the poll question above and leave comments if you have them. I am curious if the SDN/premed community is kosher with prep companies making "very close copies" of AAMC material and then reselling it to students as their own original work. How close is too close?

Some prep companies are copying the layout of a passage, all of the ideas about which tables or figures to use, which kinds of questions to ask, etc, but changing the molecule it is about and using their own new text. Maybe that's not plagiarism??, but it could mess up of your AAMC practice when you see that passage again on AAMC FLs? Other companies, like NextStep, have been caught multiple times right-out plagiarizing. I made a post a few days ago showing NS had word-for-word copied from AAMC in their FL#5.

I was actually surprised that no one on here seemed to care? Only one SDN user responded to my post? Thus the reason for this poll. NextStep responded to a plagiarism incident last year saying that it was actually a good thing because they were tyring to mimick the MCAT as close as possible for their students. Maybe we've bought into that? What is your opinion?

Here's my post and an older one about plagiarism if you want some background or to see examples.

Current NS plagiarism incident: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/next-step-plagiarizing-the-aamc-again.1246289/

NS plagiarism incident from last year: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/lol-next-step.1132070/.

No offense intended, but this seems like a silly poll to me. You're basically asking if prep companies should break the law or keep it. The top half of the options would all be illegal reuse of the AAMC's copyrighted work.