This audit is for a doctor who already owns a commercial DGM question bank and wants to know whether it is teaching current, correct geriatric medicine before sitting the Part 1 Knowledge Based Assessment (KBA). The method uses British Geriatrics Society (BGS) resources to test the clinical accuracy and currency of your bank, and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) official material to test its format and blueprint fit. State the limitation plainly: BGS resources are a knowledge standard, not an exam-question set, and none of this prepares you for the Part 2 clinical OSCE.
First, be honest about what "British Geriatrics Society Resources" are
If you searched expecting a BGS DGM question bank, the most useful finding of this audit is that there isn't one. The DGM is awarded by the RCP and developed collaboratively with the BGS, but the exam is administered by the RCP, and the official practice material — the syllabus and blueprint, the regulations and the published KBA sample questions — sits on rcp.ac.uk, not on the BGS site. The BGS is explicit that neither it nor the RCP endorses any particular commercial course.
What the BGS does provide is, for the knowledge layer, arguably more valuable than any single mock: an authoritative, UK-specific account of what good geriatric medicine looks like. That includes the CPD-accredited Frailty Hub and free frailty e-learning, best-practice guidance and position statements, the society's conferences, and its journal, Age and Ageing. Treat those as the clinical gold standard your question bank should agree with — not as a source of exam items.
| Attribute | Finding (last checked 21 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Product type | Professional-society resources; not a question bank and not the exam provider |
| DGM question count | None — BGS publishes no DGM questions; official sample questions are on rcp.ac.uk |
| Access period | Frailty Hub and much e-learning free to all; some content is member-only (BGS-reported) |
| AI / adaptive features | None |
| Price | Free to member-only depending on the resource (BGS-reported) |
| DGM components supported | Clinical knowledge only (informs Part 1 KBA); nothing for the Part 2 OSCE |
The exam you are auditing against
The DGM Part 1 KBA is one online written paper of 100 best-of-five (single-best-answer) questions, sat over three hours, held online once a year, with no negative marking; the pass mark is set by the Hofstee method (RCP, last checked 21 July 2026). That is a pace of a little under two minutes per item. Part 2 is a clinical OSCE of four live stations lasting roughly 1.5 hours at the RCP assessment centre at The Spine in Liverpool; you must pass the KBA before you are eligible, and you then have four years to complete it.
The published RCP syllabus (February 2025) weights the paper roughly as follows: common geriatric problem syndromes around 40% (frailty, falls and fragility fracture, delirium, dementia and mood, continence, dizziness, pain, nutrition); other illnesses affecting older people around 15%; pharmacology and therapeutics around 15% (polypharmacy, adverse drug reactions, medication review, STOPP/START); rehabilitation and comprehensive geriatric assessment around 8%; administrative, ethical and legal aspects around 10% (NHS structure, mental capacity); demographic and social factors around 5%; and the biology of ageing around 2%. iatroX covers this KBA knowledge and the unseen-MCQ layer only; it does not reproduce the OSCE, and neither it nor any bank should be treated as OSCE preparation.
Separate what is genuinely official from third-party claims
Before you compare anything, sort your materials into three tiers. The genuinely official tier is small and non-negotiable: the RCP DGM syllabus and blueprint, the regulations for candidates, and the RCP-published KBA sample questions. This is the only material written by the people who set your paper. The second tier is authoritative but not exam-specific: BGS clinical guidance, NICE and CKS topics, SIGN guidance, and the SmPC/eMC for medicines detail (there is no need to reach for any other formulary). The third tier is everything commercial — your Q-bank, revision notes, courses — which is useful but unverified until you check it against the first two tiers. The audit is simply the act of holding tier three up against tiers one and two.
Extract the signals before you compare
You cannot audit a bank against a standard you have not characterised. Read the RCP sample questions and record seven signals: stem length (DGM stems are typically a short clinical vignette of an older adult, not a single-line fact); option construction (five options, one best answer, distractors that are plausible in an older patient rather than absurd); cognitive level (application and management far more than pure recall); image and data use (occasional ECGs, imaging, blood results, continence or falls assessment findings); timing (about 1.8 minutes per item); negative marking (none, so never leave a blank); and domain emphasis (the ~40% syndrome weighting means frailty, falls, delirium and continence dominate). Write these down as your reference profile.
Build a side-by-side matrix — without copying item text
Never transcribe questions from any source; you are comparing characteristics, not content. Score a representative 30–40 items from your commercial bank against the profile.
| Signal | RCP official sample | BGS best-practice content | Your commercial bank | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stem style | Older-adult vignette, functional context | Person-centred, CGA-framed | ? single-fact or vignette | Match / drift |
| Cognitive level | Application, next best step | Reasoning, prioritisation | ? recall-heavy | Match / drift |
| Pharmacology framing | Deprescribing, STOPP/START, ADRs | Medication review, polypharmacy | ? drug-fact recall | Match / drift |
| Capacity and law | MCA-anchored scenarios | Ethical, rights-based | ? absent or dated | Match / drift |
| Currency | Current guidance | Current guidance | ? review date unknown | Match / drift |
| Domain balance | Syndromes ~40% | Frailty-led | ? tally by domain | Match / drift |
Fill the last column from your own sample and let the verdicts, not your impression, tell you where the bank drifts from the exam.
Use the discrepancies diagnostically
A gap between your bank and the standard is information, not a verdict on the bank. If your bank is harder than the RCP sample (denser stems, subtler distractors), it is good stress inoculation but may dent your confidence unfairly. If it is easier or more factual (single-fact recall), it will flatter your percentage while leaving you underprepared for application items. If it is narrower (thin on continence, capacity or transfers of care), you have a coverage hole to fill from BGS and RCP material. If it is differently worded (US spelling, non-UK service structures, a different formulary), you have a jurisdiction problem: reasoning may transfer, but service and medicines detail will not. Name the specific discrepancy; do not simply conclude the bank is "good" or "bad".
Preserve the calibration value of the official material
The RCP sample questions are finite and precious. Sit them once, unseen, under timed conditions, and treat the result as a calibration reading. If you drill them repeatedly, you are no longer measuring reasoning — you are measuring recognition of items you have memorised, and your score inflates while your true readiness does not move. This is the core of why your bank percentage is not your exam score. Keep the official sample sealed until you can give it a genuine one-shot run, then retire it.
Translate the findings into quotas and conditions
Convert the audit into a plan. For every domain where the matrix flagged drift, set a weekly quota of fresh, unseen questions — for example, 20 frailty and falls items, 15 pharmacology and deprescribing items, 10 capacity and ethics items — and always in timed, mixed blocks rather than one topic at a time. Use BGS resources to repair the underlying knowledge for the domains you fail, and use a bank you have not exhausted (iatroX among them) to supply the unseen volume that turns repaired knowledge into reliable exam performance.
A seven-day worked example
Give the two tools one job each. BGS resources are the knowledge-repair job; iatroX supplies unseen transfer practice. This is a candidate-driven loop, not a claim about any proprietary algorithm.
- Day 1: Run the audit above on 30 of your bank's items; log the two weakest domains (say continence and capacity).
- Day 2: Work the relevant BGS e-learning and guidance on those two domains; make five discrimination notes each.
- Day 3: Sit a fresh, timed 30-item mixed block in iatroX; do not revisit yesterday's material first.
- Day 4: Code every error by domain and by whether it was a knowledge gap or a reading error.
- Day 5: Return to BGS/RCP material only for the errors that were knowledge gaps.
- Day 6: Second unseen timed block; compare your continence and capacity accuracy with day 3.
- Day 7: Rest or a light review of your error log only. Repeat next week with the next two weakest domains.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue with the bank if the matrix shows a close format match, current content and adequate domain balance.
- Supplement it if one or two domains are thin: add a second, non-overlapping source for those domains only.
- Switch primary bank if more than a third of your sample drifts from the official profile on cognitive level or jurisdiction.
- Stop using any material — including the RCP sample — the moment you are scoring it from memory rather than reasoning. Recognition is not readiness.
The bottom line
You cannot audit a DGM bank against British Geriatrics Society resources in the way the phrase first suggests, because the BGS is not the exam body and holds no question bank. What you can do — and should — is treat BGS resources as the clinical-truth benchmark, treat the RCP syllabus and sample questions as the format-and-blueprint benchmark, and hold your commercial bank up against both. Where they agree, trust the bank; where they diverge, that divergence is your revision list.
Frequently asked questions
Is British Geriatrics Society Resources enough for DGM on its own? No, and not because the resources are weak — they are excellent — but because they are the wrong tool used alone. BGS resources build and update your clinical knowledge; they do not provide DGM-format questions, timed mocks or a way to rehearse best-of-five reasoning under exam pressure, and they do nothing for the OSCE. Used as the knowledge layer beneath the RCP sample questions and a question bank, they are close to indispensable; used as your only preparation, they leave the format and application layers untested.
Which DGM component does British Geriatrics Society Resources not reproduce well? Both exam components, in different ways. BGS resources do not reproduce the KBA's best-of-five format or its timed, mixed-domain pressure, so they cannot tell you whether your knowledge converts into marks under the clock. They reproduce the OSCE even less: the four live clinical stations at Liverpool test examination, communication and applied ethics in real time, and no reading resource, BGS or otherwise, can stand in for supervised clinical practice and station rehearsal.
How many British Geriatrics Society Resources questions should I complete per day for DGM? This is the wrong metric for this resource, because the BGS does not publish DGM questions to count. A more useful daily target is to work one focused BGS learning unit — a Frailty Hub module or a guidance topic on a domain you have flagged — and then immediately test that domain with 20 to 40 fresh, timed questions in a bank such as iatroX. The questions-per-day number belongs to your bank; the BGS number is measured in domains repaired, not items answered.
When should I stop using British Geriatrics Society Resources and move to mixed mocks? You do not stop; you change the ratio. Early on, weight your time toward BGS knowledge-building and light testing. As the exam approaches, invert it: most of your time should be spent on full-length, timed, mixed-domain blocks, dropping back into BGS resources only to repair the specific gaps your mocks expose. BGS material remains useful right up to the exam as a targeted reference, but it should stop being the main event roughly a month out.
How should I combine British Geriatrics Society Resources with iatroX without duplicating practice? Give each a single, non-overlapping job. BGS resources own knowledge repair — the authoritative account of frailty, falls, continence, deprescribing and capacity. iatroX owns unseen measurement — fresh, timed, mixed questions that tell you whether the repaired knowledge survives exam conditions. The rule that prevents duplication is directional: read BGS to fix a gap, then test the gap in iatroX; never re-read what you have already tested well, and never re-test what you have already scored from memory.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. Vendor and society figures were correct at the dates given; access terms, prices and resource availability change, so confirm current details on the primary pages before you rely on them. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank that competes with commercial DGM banks; this article confines iatroX to the unseen-measurement job that BGS resources and the RCP sample questions do not claim to do, and it is not a substitute for the OSCE. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: RCP Diploma in Geriatric Medicine exam page and syllabus/blueprint (February 2025), rcp.ac.uk; British Geriatrics Society DGM career page and e-learning/Frailty Hub, bgs.org.uk; iatroX DGM resource, iatrox.com/dgm; "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score," iatrox.com/blog/qbank-percentage-not-your-exam-score; iatroX comparison hub, iatrox.com/compare.