Gunner Training?

[hope2bpaindoc]

A

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[deleted501164]

kinda confused about this program. would this be good for step 1 preparation rather than during med school? im studying for the step atm. also, is this mainly something that makes you memorize concepts rather than understanding them? there are still a few concepts i need to tighten up on. thanks.

 

[kautionwirez]

kinda confused about this program. would this be good for step 1 preparation rather than during med school? im studying for the step atm. also, is this mainly something that makes you memorize concepts rather than understanding them? there are still a few concepts i need to tighten up on. thanks.

I think it is more beneficial if you do it throughout M1/M2. Not sure if anyone has the entire GT/Firecracker during dedicated study time.

 

[madchemist89]

I've been banking topics as we learn them in class. This summer I'm banking all of the stuff I missed before starting FC about halfway through first year. I'm working on biochem right now.

 

[Doctopus]

I've been using GT consistently throughout most of M2, however, not in the traditional way following the full spaced repetition schedule .. just couldn't do it at an efficient pace and keeping up with the review kept me from efficiently learning new material, so, I dropped that aspect.

I take Step 1 in a few weeks and will report back. I decided to use it during dedicated time too because I figured if it has worked for me for so long ... why change my ways now, and plus at this point I'm reviewing flash cards I already knew at one point so it's coming back quickly and helping me have an active way of getting through FA. My only regret at this point is not having covered more of GT before dedicated time and not having solidified some of the more annoying memorization subjects - micro, pharm, biochem, anatomy .. etc.

While I did not appreciate/understand the reasoning for some of the questions GT asks, now doing Uworld and NBME's - I do. First Aid is only a starting point ... I think supplemented with GT it is 100% all you need, well, in terms of memorization at least ... it does not necessarily substitute for your core understanding, but it certainly does help. Pathoma is great too to get the understanding/core down, but all the programs like DIT, UsmleRx, etc, are doing is walking you through FA in a way that GT already has walked me through it.

Same here. Using it alongside FA with great results.

 

[Doctopus]

Well, technically I don't have "results" yet (haven't yet taken Step1--will in a few wks). But...with great ... effectiveness in terms of mastering my understanding of the relevant (FA) concepts.

 

[withrye]

I was a heavy/complete user of GT and I got my score back, so I thought I should write a little bit up about my experience.

I used GT for about 7-8 months, fairly consistently. I started some time in the summer between first and second year and just went through the topics that my school had already covered. Once I got through those, I moved on to second year material that was starting to be presented, and eventually got ahead of the curriculum so to speak. This meant that I was 100% banked before the end of MS2, which was great not only for looking like I knew a thing or two in class, but also for giving me time to get my mastery up.

I think for GT/FC it's far less important to try to nail down some ideal "start time." You can start this program probably as late as the middle of the first semester of MS2 and likely get as much out of it as I did. You basically want to find the intersection of how much you're willing to pay, how far ahead of your test date you want to be 100% banked, and how many cards you think you can handle per day. It's all just simple math; the knowledge portion doesn't really depend on timing so very much.

While I did GT I always tried to keep my mastery within less than 10% of my banked percentage. It's this floating differential that really creates your day-to-day-to-week question load, and if this number is 15-20%+, you're going to have hundreds and hundreds of questions each day and it's not going to feel good. That being said, I used a fairly loose interpretation of "mastered." GT is a way to read FA in an interactive, testable format. Only be as anal about GT scoring as you would be about memorizing FA. Yes, everyone wants to memorize FA. That being said, no one does it. For that reason, there's no reason to try to gain perfect recall on every card and tidbit of GT.

That bolded bit above is really my entire impression of the GT/FC system. If you read FA slowly, deliberately, for 8 months while testing your recall and comprehension, you're obviously going to do well on the exam. Most people, however, use FA for 6-8 weeks. This is why many people criticize GT for being too time-intensive. It is incredibly time intensive, but it does it in such a way as to break down the reading of FA into single-concept snippets spread out over months rather than weeks. This is the power behind approaching the material that way. If you have the money and inclination, I wholeheartedly recommend a spaced repetition approach to learning the material on step 1, and FC is probably the best intersection of convenience and quality that I've seen for any such product. You might be able to get more quality (for less money) from making your own Anki deck, but the time investment will stil be huge, and your time is also valuable.

After I banked and more or less "mastered" GT, I started doing Rx and then later UW. GT was crucial to how I used these two resources. GT is much like FA; it's a raw, unmolded pile of facts. Rx helps you shape that pile of facts into a usable knowledge base of how those facts often get presented, asked, and tested. UW goes on to take your knowledge base and allow you to develop some deeper insight into the material. I believe that this sequence is key to maximizing the utility of these products. You get the facts hammered in (GT), you learn the common ways these facts are utilized (Rx), and then you refine your understanding of the deeper connections and concepts behind these facts (UW). You can absolutely just use FA and UW to do all three of these things, but in my opinion it's less efficient and you're more likely to be left in a jumble of facts, associations, and random ideas about how things work. Doing it in this ordered way made sure for me that there was minimal overlap in these processes. Once I got to UW, I was mostly focused on learning new tricky presentations and new associations that weren't really there in a pure fact memorization form.

I took a few NBMEs to track my progress and took the test when I was happy with where I was. I ended up with a 257, which I'm totally happy with. Please let me know if you have specific questions about anything I've written. I don't come to SDN very often anymore, but I'll try to take a peek now and again. I hope this has been helpful, if scattershot.

 

[madchemist89]

I was a heavy/complete user of GT and I got my score back, so I thought I should write a little bit up about my experience.

I used GT for about 7-8 months, fairly consistently. I started some time in the summer between first and second year and just went through the topics that my school had already covered. Once I got through those, I moved on to second year material that was starting to be presented, and eventually got ahead of the curriculum so to speak. This meant that I was 100% banked before the end of MS2, which was great not only for looking like I knew a thing or two in class, but also for giving me time to get my mastery up.

I think for GT/FC it's far less important to try to nail down some ideal "start time." You can start this program probably as late as the middle of the first semester of MS2 and likely get as much out of it as I did. You basically want to find the intersection of how much you're willing to pay, how far ahead of your test date you want to be 100% banked, and how many cards you think you can handle per day. It's all just simple math; the knowledge portion doesn't really depend on timing so very much.

While I did GT I always tried to keep my mastery within less than 10% of my banked percentage. It's this floating differential that really creates your day-to-day-to-week question load, and if this number is 15-20%+, you're going to have hundreds and hundreds of questions each day and it's not going to feel good. That being said, I used a fairly loose interpretation of "mastered." GT is a way to read FA in an interactive, testable format. Only be as anal about GT scoring as you would be about memorizing FA. Yes, everyone wants to memorize FA. That being said, no one does it. For that reason, there's no reason to try to gain perfect recall on every card and tidbit of GT.

That bolded bit above is really my entire impression of the GT/FC system. If you read FA slowly, deliberately, for 8 months while testing your recall and comprehension, you're obviously going to do well on the exam. Most people, however, use FA for 6-8 weeks. This is why many people criticize GT for being too time-intensive. It is incredibly time intensive, but it does it in such a way as to break down the reading of FA into single-concept snippets spread out over months rather than weeks. This is the power behind approaching the material that way. If you have the money and inclination, I wholeheartedly recommend a spaced repetition approach to learning the material on step 1, and FC is probably the best intersection of convenience and quality that I've seen for any such product. You might be able to get more quality (for less money) from making your own Anki deck, but the time investment will stil be huge, and your time is also valuable.

After I banked and more or less "mastered" GT, I started doing Rx and then later UW. GT was crucial to how I used these two resources. GT is much like FA; it's a raw, unmolded pile of facts. Rx helps you shape that pile of facts into a usable knowledge base of how those facts often get presented, asked, and tested. UW goes on to take your knowledge base and allow you to develop some deeper insight into the material. I believe that this sequence is key to maximizing the utility of these products. You get the facts hammered in (GT), you learn the common ways these facts are utilized (Rx), and then you refine your understanding of the deeper connections and concepts behind these facts (UW). You can absolutely just use FA and UW to do all three of these things, but in my opinion it's less efficient and you're more likely to be left in a jumble of facts, associations, and random ideas about how things work. Doing it in this ordered way made sure for me that there was minimal overlap in these processes. Once I got to UW, I was mostly focused on learning new tricky presentations and new associations that weren't really there in a pure fact memorization form.

I took a few NBMEs to track my progress and took the test when I was happy with where I was. I ended up with a 257, which I'm totally happy with. Please let me know if you have specific questions about anything I've written. I don't come to SDN very often anymore, but I'll try to take a peek now and again. I hope this has been helpful, if scattershot.

Strong work.

 

[thawunandonly]

@withrye

Congratulations!

How were your question bank performances from the start (and what was your FC progress at that time) and where were they when you finished?

Also was it just Rx and UW that you did?

Also, have you decided to carry on FC for Step 2 or not?

 

[withrye]

@withrye

Congratulations!

How were your question bank performances from the start (and what was your FC progress at that time) and where were they when you finished?

Also was it just Rx and UW that you did?

Also, have you decided to carry on FC for Step 2 or not?

I had completely banked and mastered GT before starting Rx, and I dropped doing GT entirely pretty soon into working through Rx. I don't remember my Rx percentage at all, but for UW I think I started around the low 70s and ended around the high 80s, with a cumulative around 74 maybe?

I watched Pathoma twice, just listening with no notes or anything. I also watched the Kaplan lecture videos for Biochem and Pharm, which were great.

I've thought about doing FC for step 2, and I still might, but right now I'm just enjoying some free time. I haven't looked closely at the material yet, and I have no idea how applicable it'll be for me in the future.

 

[thawunandonly]

I had completely banked and mastered GT before starting Rx, and I dropped doing GT entirely pretty soon into working through Rx. I don't remember my Rx percentage at all, but for UW I think I started around the low 70s and ended around the high 80s, with a cumulative around 74 maybe?

I watched Pathoma twice, just listening with no notes or anything. I also watched the Kaplan lecture videos for Biochem and Pharm, which were great.

I've thought about doing FC for step 2, and I still might, but right now I'm just enjoying some free time. I haven't looked closely at the material yet, and I have no idea how applicable it'll be for me in the future.

How useful was FC's anatomy and embryo? That is the one big section I have left to bank (minus a few cards here and there from other sections) and it sure is a pain. I just finished banking Micro, too, so that's two huge sections of blaaaaaarghhhh

 

[withrye]

How useful was FC's anatomy and embryo? That is the one big section I have left to bank (minus a few cards here and there from other sections) and it sure is a pain. I just finished banking Micro, too, so that's two huge sections of blaaaaaarghhhh

I thought both were prime examples of choosing your battles. You could go nuts on anatomy and embryo if you were super strict about grading your answers, and in a lot of cases you're getting more detail than you'll need for your exam. That being said, anatomy was great because it hammers in those associations and relations of vessels, nerves, organs, etc. Embryo is a trickier situation. I think you should find, somewhere else, a comprehensive "story" or picture of how everything develops. Once you know the broad strokes, and where things start and end, etc, GT becomes helpful for reinforcing that knowledge. If you don't have that conceptual basis I think it's a lot harder to just pound those facts in without losing yourself in detail.

 

[thawunandonly]

Well I guess I'm asking... I don't remember much from anatomy. I understand things like injuries are significant, and MAJOR landmarks, but as for where collateral vessels run, etc. Is that worth it, even by gunner standards? lol

How'd your Step anatomy experience go?

 

[withrye]

Well I guess I'm asking... I don't remember much from anatomy. I understand things like injuries are significant, and MAJOR landmarks, but as for where collateral vessels run, etc. Is that worth it, even by gunner standards? lol

How'd your Step anatomy experience go?

I don't remember any straight-recall anatomy questions on my exam, but I'm sure there was a lot of anatomy tucked away in stems and answer choices. I don't think it's a huge part of the exam in either case. Eventually, though, you do a surgery rotation and the more familiar you are now, the easier it's going to be to review before cases.

 

[GTP]

Oh actually had a content question. Could someone please explain this:



During a cosmetic surgery, a patient becomes hypotensive and requires multiple boluses of epinephrine to maintain her blood pressure. The patient is known to have rheumatoid arthritis and takes prednisone but has no other medical issues. She reported no medical allergies. Surgical blood loss has been minimal. What may explain this sudden hypotension?

A The patient had unrecognized bleeding
B The patient had a pulmonary embolus
C The patient had an unspecified anaphylactic reaction
D The patient had an adrenal crisis
E The patient suffered a pericardial effusion

Answer
Patients who are on long-term steroid therapy may present with an adrenal crisis if they acutely stop taking their steroids or become acutely stressed. Acute stressors include infection, surgery, and injury. In the above situation, unexplained intraoperative hypotension in an individual taking long term steroids is concerning for adrenal crisis.


...Something's not clicking but I honestly don't know why this is the answer.

------------------------------------


Also:



A 66-year-old Jewish male presents with progressively worsening pain in his right hand. His symptoms are unrelated to ambient temperature or the time of day. His past medical history is significant for hypertension, diabetes type II, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He has been a one-pack-a-day smoker for over 30 years. On exam, he has intact light touch and proprioception over the majority of both the upper and lower extremities, but the fingertips of his right hand are cyanotic. The tip of his right fifth digit is black and insensate. What is the diagnosis?

A Electrolyte disturbance
B Diabetic neuropathy
C Thromboangiitis obliterans
D Peripheral vascular disease
E Raynaud’s disease

Answer
Thromboangiitis obliterans (aka Buerger’ disease), is a painful ischemic disease that can lead to claudication and gangrene of the hands and feet. It most often occurs in Jewish males who have long smoking histories. It is a segmental thrombosing vasculitis that affects small and medium arteries.

Diabetic neuropathy would have decreased sensation/proprioception on both hands in a glove like distribution. Peripheral vascular disease can also result in claudication and gangrene, but this is more commonly seen in the lower extremities and is associated with loss of light touch sensation early in the disease course. Raynaud’s disease is recurrent vasospasm of small arteries, with finger pallor and cyanosis that worsens during cold weather.


> Just to clarify: according to FA and Pathoma, Raynaud phenomenon IS associated with the Buerger's. Yet, the patient was cyanotic of his fingers, but unrelated to temperature (=not Raynaud)... why then were his fingers cyanotic? Or do they just mean that it should be Raynaud phenomenon (which it is) and Raynaud DISEASE (the answer choice) is indeed incorrect. But then, shouldn't it still be temperature sensitive? lol, hope that makes sense.

For the first question, the pt was on steroids meaning his adrenals underwent atrophy. This is why u have to taper when u take people off steroids because while medicated, their hypo-pit axis is suppressed (low ACTH, low crh). He underwent surgery and they probably didn't supplement his steroids (you are supposed to up the dose when patients on steroids do surgery). As a result, his hypo-pit axis didn't have enough time to kick in and he developed hypotension

The second question is not Raynauds because the question stem said it's not temperature sensitive. Smoking is a big deal. I know you are hung up on the cyanosis but his finger tips are blue because of ischemia to his blood vessels due to thromboangitis obliterans (his vessels are literally obliterated). Classically, if they want to present a question about Raynauds, it will most likely be a female with esophageal issues, anti centromere antibody, tight fingers (ie crest syndrome). You get used to questions like these the more qbanks u do. As soon as I saw smoking, male, no relationship to temperature, buergers came to mind

 

[crazyozone]

I had completely banked and mastered GT before starting Rx, and I dropped doing GT entirely pretty soon into working through Rx. I don't remember my Rx percentage at all, but for UW I think I started around the low 70s and ended around the high 80s, with a cumulative around 74 maybe?

I watched Pathoma twice, just listening with no notes or anything. I also watched the Kaplan lecture videos for Biochem and Pharm, which were great.

I've thought about doing FC for step 2, and I still might, but right now I'm just enjoying some free time. I haven't looked closely at the material yet, and I have no idea how applicable it'll be for me in the future.

Would you mind giving a loose time frame for all of this? What are your thoughts on when to drop GT and start the Rx? If you can't remember that's understandable. Way to go with the 257.

 

[arkuna]

I'm an incoming MS1 this year, and I'm thinking of using GT during the year, alongside my courses. Is this advisable? From this thread, it looks like most people start in their summer between MS1/MS2, but I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with using it right from MS1 and if it worked for them. Thanks.

Edit: Just found an allo thread talking about exactly this, so never mind.

 

[Isradoc16]

I'm an incoming MS1 this year, and I'm thinking of using GT during the year, alongside my courses. Is this advisable? From this thread, it looks like most people start in their summer between MS1/MS2, but I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with using it right from MS1 and if it worked for them. Thanks.

Edit: Just found an allo thread talking about exactly this, so never mind.

Link to the thread please?

I'm just finishing MS1 and had planned to use FC from the beginning. Didn't quite work out as much I would have liked. It's a great tool for reviewing material as you would in First Aid, but it becomes too much to try to correlate what you are learning and which cards to flag if you try to use it as a main study to before understanding this yourself.

It helped me a ton in anatomy and a bit of physio/histo but that was the only block that was long enough for it to have its own effect beyond my regular studying.

I think it depends a lot on your curriculum though, and I do plan to use it over the summer to go over MS1 material. I would save the trial and use it about a month or two in to the year. See how it goes for you.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[WhizoMD]

What do you guys think the yield is on some of the anatomy? Ex. do you think it would be ok to just click "never see again" for something like the Anuli fibrosis (of the Heart)?

 

[jayareus]

So I've skimmed some of these threads and I'm reading a lot of angst about firecracker vs. gt, a changing algorithm (?), etc. It's the beginning of summer between M1 and M2 for me, I think I can dedicate an hour or two a day to this, and want to get started, but I'm not sure what the differences between FC and GT are, or which one month trial I should try, etc. etc. Any help would be awesome!

 

[Blue Spoon]

Gunner Training turned into Firecracker. Gunner Training is going off line and is only still operating for a few months to let me those using it close out on it. Firecracker is really your only option. (Having used both Firecracker is significantly better). Good luck.

 

[thawunandonly]

So I've skimmed some of these threads and I'm reading a lot of angst about firecracker vs. gt, a changing algorithm (?), etc. It's the beginning of summer between M1 and M2 for me, I think I can dedicate an hour or two a day to this, and want to get started, but I'm not sure what the differences between FC and GT are, or which one month trial I should try, etc. etc. Any help would be awesome!

Yes, FC has added all the features and more and improved since all the bantering on this thread a while ago. So ignore those now.

RIP GT

 

[withrye]

Would you mind giving a loose time frame for all of this? What are your thoughts on when to drop GT and start the Rx? If you can't remember that's understandable. Way to go with the 257.

I think I started Rx around 2-3 months before my exam, and stopped GT around the same time. I'd seen all the GT questions so many times that it wasn't worth it anymore to do the reviews once my exam got close enough.

 

[kautionwirez]

For my distribution of recall, I currently have 35% at 3 with the rest at 4 or 5 (40% and 25% respectively). I am worried I am not learning these concepts well enough.

Should I keep plowing through and flagging new topics or try to learn the 3's well enough so that they are marked as 4/5s?

What percentage should my 4 and 5's be for recall?

 

[crazyozone]

I think I started Rx around 2-3 months before my exam, and stopped GT around the same time. I'd seen all the GT questions so many times that it wasn't worth it anymore to do the reviews once my exam got close enough.

Thanks

 

[Blue Spoon]

For my distribution of recall, I currently have 35% at 3 with the rest at 4 or 5 (40% and 25% respectively). I am worried I am not learning these concepts well enough.

Should I keep plowing through and flagging new topics or try to learn the 3's well enough so that they are marked as 4/5s?

What percentage should my 4 and 5's be for recall?

I think that everybody plays this game a little differently and I am not sure there is a right answer. Personally I try to keep my mastered percentage around 85%-90% to keep my total daily questions reasonable. This means that sometimes I go through periods where I don't bank for awhile. That said I am also pretty loose on my percent mastery, don't hold it at 3 until you completely memorize every detail or you will never make any progress. The beauty of the system is that you see the cards enough over time that they really get drilled in. Good luck and just use the tool the however, works best for you.

 

[madchemist89]

For my distribution of recall, I currently have 35% at 3 with the rest at 4 or 5 (40% and 25% respectively). I am worried I am not learning these concepts well enough.

Should I keep plowing through and flagging new topics or try to learn the 3's well enough so that they are marked as 4/5s?

What percentage should my 4 and 5's be for recall?

How many questions do you have banked currently? If you just started, I would keep banking, but remember to bank at about a maximum of 50 questions per day. As long as your reviews are not 300 or 400 questions, you should be in pretty good shape to keep banking right now.

 

[kautionwirez]

I think that everybody plays this game a little differently and I am not sure there is a right answer. Personally I try to keep my mastered percentage around 85%-90% to keep my total daily questions reasonable. This means that sometimes I go through periods where I don't bank for awhile. That said I am also pretty loose on my percent mastery, don't hold it at 3 until you completely memorize every detail or you will never make any progress. The beauty of the system is that you see the cards enough over time that they really get drilled in. Good luck and just use the tool the however, works best for you.

Thanks. I'll try to increase my mastered percentage, not worry about the 3's, and keep banking.

How many questions do you have banked currently? If you just started, I would keep banking, but remember to bank at about a maximum of 50 questions per day. As long as your reviews are not 300 or 400 questions, you should be in pretty good shape to keep banking right now.

I have about 350 q's banked and 55 topics flagged. So far I'm hovering around 30-60 per day, with a 90 in a week.

Why would you limit yourself to 50? Is it because it will increase the reviews over 300/400?

 

[madchemist89]

Thanks. I'll try to increase my mastered percentage, not worry about the 3's, and keep banking.



I have about 350 q's banked and 55 topics flagged. So far I'm hovering around 30-60 per day, with a 90 in a week.

Why would you limit yourself to 50? Is it because it will increase the reviews over 300/400?

It helps to keep the reviews evenly distributed and mastery up.

 

[whatdidigetinto]

What the hell did they do to the calendar???

 

[tartrate]

We hear of people using the program and doing well...has anyone used GT/FC all the way through (>90% banked) and NOT do well (or as well as they hoped) on Step 1?

Also, if devs are still tracking this thread, it would be nice to have an option where you press or click a number and it automatically goes to the next question. There is a back key (arrow) anyways, so the "save" key is an unnecessary extra step for many.

It also appears as if errors/poor phrasing corrections are not being updated as frequently as people have noted earlier in this thread. The 5 star "rating" system accompanying feedback also doesn't make contextual sense, considering we are submitting corrections that may not correlate with whatever "rating" we want to give the overall presentation of the question/answer. Even unrelated to error submissions, I really don't see the value of the 5 star rating system, and it just makes FC look cheesy.

 

[Brain Bucket]

It also appears as if errors/poor phrasing corrections are not being updated as frequently as people have noted earlier in this thread. The 5 star "rating" system accompanying feedback also doesn't make contextual sense, considering we are submitting corrections that may not correlate with whatever "rating" we want to give the overall presentation of the question/answer. Even unrelated to error submissions, I really don't see the value of the 5 star rating system, and it just makes FC look cheesy.

Agreed. I just wish they'd allow us to share errata we find in each topic with other users in a little box. The ratings system is useful in that I look especially carefully when a topic has a 1-3 star review, and every now and then I find some surprisingly stupid errata.

 

[Bancrofti]

I started the free trial 2 days ago and hit that I wanted to include all topics that I covered in first year. It says I need to get through 2,000 questions... :/ I start my next term next week. The first couple weeks should be ok commitment-wise, but is this still something that's doable this late?

I've seen people say starting during the summer between M1 and 2 is fine, but this is essentially the end of it. I've also seen people say they loved it for keeping up during first year, but that once path comes around it became too much to keep up with. Any thoughts?

 

[Isradoc16]

I started the free trial 2 days ago and hit that I wanted to include all topics that I covered in first year. It says I need to get through 2,000 questions... :/ I start my next term next week. The first couple weeks should be ok commitment-wise, but is this still something that's doable this late?

I've seen people say starting during the summer between M1 and 2 is fine, but this is essentially the end of it. I've also seen people say they loved it for keeping up during first year, but that once path comes around it became too much to keep up with. Any thoughts?

I really wouldn't recommend blindly flagging that many topics all at once. It just becomes overwhelming and you don't end up using the system.

I would recommend to unflag them and then go through again in smaller chunks. Read the cards, flag the cards, do the questions, and as you master the questions, flag some more.

The system is pretty flexible, so you can decide how fast you want to flag, but if you just flag everything you'll never get to a point where you see a benefit.

(just my 2 cents)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[withrye]

I started the free trial 2 days ago and hit that I wanted to include all topics that I covered in first year. It says I need to get through 2,000 questions... :/ I start my next term next week. The first couple weeks should be ok commitment-wise, but is this still something that's doable this late?

I've seen people say starting during the summer between M1 and 2 is fine, but this is essentially the end of it. I've also seen people say they loved it for keeping up during first year, but that once path comes around it became too much to keep up with. Any thoughts?

I kept up just fine during second year, and I think you can start as late as December or so (or whatever 5ish months pre-test is for you.

 

[thawunandonly]

Is anybody's review question count stopping on the calendar prematurely?

i.e. My question count only goes until July 6 (been like the for a while) but I KNOW I have been scheduling questions beyond that date. I'm assuming that maybe it will change once the month changes, but that's a pretty weird date to stop. No other numbers show up past July 6th...

 

[tartrate]

Agreed. I just wish they'd allow us to share errata we find in each topic with other users in a little box. The ratings system is useful in that I look especially carefully when a topic has a 1-3 star review, and every now and then I find some surprisingly stupid errata.

Seconded. They took out a really useful feature. If they're going to be slow with updating/fixing their content, why not allow users to make comments? And please remove this silly star system...

Is anybody's review question count stopping on the calendar prematurely?

i.e. My question count only goes until July 6 (been like the for a while) but I KNOW I have been scheduling questions beyond that date. I'm assuming that maybe it will change once the month changes, but that's a pretty weird date to stop. No other numbers show up past July 6th...

Mine also stops at July 6. Perhaps it recalculates later on? Or maybe a bug.

 

[Bancrofti]

I really wouldn't recommend blindly flagging that many topics all at once. It just becomes overwhelming and you don't end up using the system.

I would recommend to unflag them and then go through again in smaller chunks. Read the cards, flag the cards, do the questions, and as you master the questions, flag some more.

The system is pretty flexible, so you can decide how fast you want to flag, but if you just flag everything you'll never get to a point where you see a benefit.

(just my 2 cents)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Thanks for the help.

I didn't necessarily blindly flag them, but I didn't study each topic beforehand by clicking the link as you're supposed to. If I knew it was something I had already covered in my courses then I flagged it. But that isn't really how it's meant to be done.

I unflagged everything as you recommended and I'll slowly be flagging the topics again after reviewing the cards. I was hoping to get through all the first year topics before I got heavy in to Path and started adding those topics as they came as well. I'm not sure if there is any point in rushing though.

I kept up just fine during second year, and I think you can start as late as December or so (or whatever 5ish months pre-test is for you.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Gives me the confidence I need to know that it'll actually be feasible and I won't be wasting money after the free trial.

 

[docterspaceman]

What is the fastest that any of you have gone through and banked material all at once? I read a lot of posts that talk about banking all of MS1 during the summer - this seems very difficult. In order to do so, I'd have to go through all of the basic sciences (460 topics) as well as 5 organ systems (221 topics) in 6 weeks. This means I would have to flag/do around 16 topics a day, every day.

Could anyone who has banked all of MS1 during the summer post about how difficult it was, how much time it took, or any advice on how to approach it? Thanks in advance.

 

[001100010010011]

I just started banking M1 topics for M2. I want to get it done before school begins but the pace seems really demanding.

I wonder if I should just slowly bank topics throughout the year instead of rushing through them this summer.

 

[addy]

Does the FC app work on iPod touches?

 

[RookTookIt]

Does the FC app work on iPod touches?

I wasn't aware there was an app. But the mobile site is pretty decent and should work on any device.

 

[Bancrofti]

What is this "banking" cards concept everyone speaks of? Would that be considered ranking it a 5 or is it doing so while also saying never show me the card again?

I'm reluctant to ever click don't show this again. Only a couple things so far have I thought that for, such as... what is the net ATP yield from Glycolysis?

Also, there are some things I ranked a 5 that I didn't have to think to answer the question, but I would probably like to see the question again sometime in the future within a month or so. Anybody know how long it'll take for those to pop back up?

 

[RookTookIt]

I think most people here use banking to mean flagging.

Not all questions that you mark 5 will show up at the same interval. It depends on their algorithm for how you've rated that question in the past. If you want to see when you'll see a question next, click "adjust" after you select 1-5. It will show you how many days until you see that concept again. From there you can alter it to your liking.

 

[withrye]

What is the fastest that any of you have gone through and banked material all at once? I read a lot of posts that talk about banking all of MS1 during the summer - this seems very difficult. In order to do so, I'd have to go through all of the basic sciences (460 topics) as well as 5 organ systems (221 topics) in 6 weeks. This means I would have to flag/do around 16 topics a day, every day.

Could anyone who has banked all of MS1 during the summer post about how difficult it was, how much time it took, or any advice on how to approach it? Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't try to bank all of MS1 before the end of the summer if it seems like it'll take away your summer. Find the long term pace: take all the topics you want to flag and divide by the number of days you want to do them over. Don't try to cram all of MS1 into one summer, and then space all of MS2 over 9 months. Do it all at a steady pace, even if it means you're doing "MS1" stuff at the beginning of MS2.

 

[001100010010011]

Thanks for that advice about going at a steady pace. I tried banking about 100 subjects (10%) in one day. My head exploded.

 

[jayareus]

Hey, I was wondering if there was any way to figure out how many questions are in a given topic without having to go to the study page for that topic. Basically I'd like to flag a bunch of the 2 or 3 question small topics and get them out of the way now, and save the 20+ question topics for a when I have a little more time.

 

[WhizoMD]

do you guys think FC is lacking a bit in the neuroanatomy / neuro embryology area?

 

[FearlessHyena]

do you guys think FC is lacking a bit in the neuroanatomy / neuro embryology area?

Yes. Supplement with either HY Neuro or USMLE Roadmap Neuroscience.

 

[Brain Bucket]

do you guys think FC is lacking a bit in the neuroanatomy / neuro embryology area?

I assume you looked under Organ systems > Neurology > Physiology.

Our neuroanatomy course was pretty clinically oriented, so I have no complaints. For the Step, like Hyena said, HY. BRS if you're ambitious (same author). If you have the time/interest, I'd highly recommend Neuroanatomy through clinical cases by Blumenfeld and Draw it to Know it Neuroanatomy.

 

[sliceofbread136]

So I'm starting med school in a week and I want to know when would be a good time to start using FC. Is there anything wrong with starting close to the beginning of med school?