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Okay! I came up with a more efficient way to get the 25% discount code out, instead of posting here or sending pms on an individual basis.

Email: signorina.sdn@gmail.com which is an email I don't use, but it's on auto-reply with the info, and it will send whoever needs it an automatic reply on its own.

Originally Posted by Isradoc16

On the other hand, from GT perspective and as devil's advocate, they thought they were giving the discount to only the original group of 25 people. Not sure if they would have agreed to give the deal to all of SDN.

If GT disagrees, we'll definitely stop. But ...have you seen what the code says? That doesn't look like it was made only for a private group of 25 people.

Originally Posted by Isradoc16

On the other hand, from GT perspective and as devil's advocate, they thought they were giving the discount to only the original group of 25 people. Not sure if they would have agreed to give the deal to all of SDN.

Couple of points on this:
1.) It is clear from previous post that their price is skyrocketing compared to what they are currently charging. They have created a good product, and this product is desired by consumers. They every right to increase the price, but as consumers, do we have the right to try and purchase a product as cheap as we can? They are going to set the price point at the top of the range to maximize income. I have nothing against them for doing this. I also have nothing against broke medical students trying to study as economically efficient as possible.

2.) GT said they wanted at least 25. Nowhere was I told, or did I read, that they were capping the discount at 25 people.

3.) I would bet that GT can readily see how many people are signing for their service, at a particular price for a specified time period. They could have stopped the discount code from working at any point. For all I know, they could have created a fire sale for their product by talking about price increases and giving out discount codes.

You make a fair point, and I respect that point. I will wait until I post the code in this thread until I hear from a mod.

Guys, do you think GT is worth for 3rd YEAR as well...I'm optimized until the end of 2nd year (2013) so I was wondering if you think it'll be worth, financially and academically, the extra year.

Thanks

Well, the idea is that they're adding Step 2 material, so it probably will have useful information for 3rd year. Ben's post seems to imply that they are writing a lot of content, but that is obviously yet to be seen.
My concern would be the amount of time it takes to answer daily questions, since it does currently take a decent time commitment and I've heard a lot of 3rd years complain that they don't always have time to study the resources that already exist. But it sounds like the folks at GT are trying to integrate questions and thus lower the question load. Perhaps the new option to cap your daily number of questions will help with that, too.
I'm pretty torn myself - it might be worth extending a year now while the prices haven't increased, but since it's new and untested I'm hesitant. I'm also considering just keeping an eye out for those free months they claim they're going to give out on social media, or just signing up during the months I know I'll have extra time (like Psych) and letting my subscription lapse during months where I'll be super busy (Surgery.)

Originally Posted by Transformers

Guys, do you think GT is worth for 3rd YEAR as well...I'm optimized until the end of 2nd year (2013) so I was wondering if you think it'll be worth, financially and academically, the extra year.

Thanks

I will give the opposing view just to allow people to realize that everyone isn't crazy about GT.

GT is ok, I used it for a year and went through about half of the cards. I decided to make my own Anki deck instead for many reasons. For example, my Anki deck for biochem is around ~1000 questions. My questions are much shorter than GTs on average (more direct) with shorter answers with only material from FA (no extraneous info, yet when I do add something for understanding it will not be for recall but just to support the info in FA). The main reason I think Anki works better for me is that I can use images/figures from any book (Robbins, RR, FA) and then paste them in Anki. I hope to finish my deck most of my decks by January then just cruise through the Qbanks.

I was reading this article about women, how a study had said that women were attracted to funny men, yet this guy pointed out that women aren't attracted to funny men, they think the men they are attracted to are funny. It's an interesting idea and it made me think about GT, which most people believe that spaced repetition is what makes GT so good but I don't think it's spaced repetition. I believe it is actually the flash card system asking you to retrieve information - then being able to see if you retrieved the proper info and being able to rate the info to see it sooner or later. This lets you work on weaknesses more and on strengths less and forces you to recall. Here's the kicker... you don't need spaced repetition. I found this out after mastering Anatomy and then dropping it for at least 4 months... mostly forgetting it, then rebanking it and mastering it within a week or so. Another poster spoke about this earlier, iCY, who said he banked everything then cleared his queue. This is why you can cram that which you learned really well 1 year ago, because it's the learning it well the first time which makes it easy to pick up. So for example, my biochem deck will probably not be touched for 6 months... but I could in essence knock out 250 cards an hour ~4 hrs and cover the entirity of biochem in one day, then repeat the next day focusing on weaknesses, and bam... in 2-3 days I'm at 80%+ mastery on a subject I haven't touched in months. This is the power of forcing recall + great images.

As for 3rd year, it's really the same thing. GT cards are good but the flexibility of your own system will far outweigh anything they can put together. I estimate it takes about the same amount of time because you don't really need to keep up with cards for 1 year... if you have quality cards and learn the cards thoroughly at one point, you can literally walk away from them for a year and have them up to speed within days.

Uworld is far superior tool for M3, just use that. And make your own cards along the way. Anki is available on mobile devices too like iPad or your phone without any internet connection and you can cycle through cards faster than on GT because of the load time for the website (I realize that's fast because with quick keys you can really move fast with GT). I personally got sick of doing the GT cards everyday and would much rather focus 100% on what I'm learning and make cards for those subjects. Then before boards you can really fly through cards faster with qbanks. I'm basically flashcarding FA + pathoma with images from all the best textbooks on those cards.

For those who haven't had to churn through a few hundred cards a day during class, you're in for a surprise... I'd be very careful signing up for a year before you've do this. Some people can study like crazy but geez, I couldn't stand doing all those cards so far ahead. And with how quickly I could remaster previous topics I ignored for 5 months, I don't think you need to. I really think people should read the 2012 thread on Step 1, there are some people who just use FA + Uworld and google and get a 250. It's pretty amazing, you don't need to memorize more material than is in FA which GT probably adds like ~20%+. Obviously if you have the discipline to do GT with other Qbanks you will do very well, but anyone would who studied that much. I don't say this to deter anyone using the program who likes it, more to inform those who haven't purchased yet that there are other options that work really well with 50% of the time invested. I guess the real thing I'm getting at is the idea of spaced repetition isn't the winning formula... it's not seeing a question every 30-50 days for 1.5 years. What the real formula is: Force the brain to attempt to answer (not passive), show the brain the answer (creates pathway or strengthens pathway), then focus on weaknesses. That's why it works. If I had 10,000 questions I could in essence cover every question in 50 hrs (that may be the entirety of FA). Well, only 15-30% of that will be weak while the other 70% will comeback fast. With the flashcard system, you can see those 1500-3000 cards more rapidly before the other 7000 cards... meaning you could cover the 1500-300 cards in maybe 1 day. That's huge to be able to only review weaknesses out of 10,000 cards. It has nothing to do with seeing the material over 10-12 months at a spaced interval. Could you do the entirety of GT in about 1-2 weeks? Probably not. Why? Because you didn't make all the cards and understand them and format them. If you did, the you could probably not touch GT for 6 months, then just go through every question in about a week. GT has around 6000 questions or so? I don' know, I'm predicting around 10,000 anki cards but those can be completed in a week without stress. GT could be completed in a week also BUT you didn't ever thoroughly understand all the cards and that is why you couldn't do it (plus, it's like 20% longer than FA).

Anyway, good luck aBROham lincoln!

Edit: final thought... memorizing stuff is only one part of doing well on the exam. Those that have done well understood all the material, then memorized it, then did lots of application (questions). The danger with GT is, for lazy people like me, you spend tons of time memorizing and less time on questions/understanding. A good example is the lysosomal storage diseases. I made those cards and it was a pain in the ass to find all the right images + understand it all, but now it's easy. So now if I come back 6 months from now, the cards are all laid out and ready to go. With GT, I would have just kept pounding the facts into my head for 1.5 years without images from Robbins/Lippincotts/RR and then adding a sentence here or there to first aid to make it make sense (while still only recalling the straight FA facts) this is huge. You memorize only the stuff in there, once you start trying to memorize beyond FA many months before the exam, you're investing too much effort. Adding to FA isn't for memory but for understanding.

Like sally said below, she thinks GT will work great and I think it will too. Just realize that there are many ways to use what really makes GT work... forcing recall and repeating weaknesses before strengths.

40$ a month is ridiculous. I already have a subscription I'm not going to touch for a year but if Bchandler is reading this, that's whack bro. Basically that's $1000 to get a 2 year subscription? Lol. Mine was like $800 less or something, I forget. Anyway, I think it's a ripoff and Uworld is much better money spent. FA is HUGE... $40 for all the high yield facts. I kid you not, some people only use FA + Uworld for 240-250'ish... They are probably smart but whatever, I'm building an Anki deck as a crutch for FA and Pathoma but that's it. With qbanks my prep would still cost less than ONLY GT for 1-2 years. To ask med students to pay $500 is crazy for an annual fee but they know they can make it and they have everyone on this site all freaked out about the $ increase now (more business!)

Here's an example of my point in a graph:


#1 - This is the story you know well. The guys using GT, Uworld, Kaplan qbank, FA x 3, honoring all their classes, possibly pathoma + RR path. These people are beasts and are not the majority. They score 270s. They spent the entire summer with GT and also used every source in the world. You see these guys with 270 scores and think wow. This is a work effort/pace that is in the top1-2% of medical students. They take little if any days off and taking a week off would be insane because they have to do their GT cards everyday. They are doing cards in every free moment during classes or in b/t classes and then they go study all the other stuff at home. GT helps these guys jump over that ~260 hump or whatever it is.

#2 - This is the majority. Have you ever stopped to wonder why only a handful of people have posted their scores referencing GT? Tons of people use the program but don't do as well. Why? There is a huge opportunity cost/energy investment to stay memorized on everything for a year. Those who are new to the program will find this out during M2 and probably stop using the program... OR they continue to use the program at the expense of understanding or application (qbanks). These are the people who think they can operate on beast mode / no life but studying but they find out they can't and there is only so much time in the day, giving up GT for qbanks but maybe too late. Remember, memory is only 1/3 of the game. Look at this thread over the last few years. Lots of posters saying they banked whatever but then only a few people a year post scores.

#3 This is the strategy known as the Taus method or the Penn method. They stress to AVOID memorizing until the final however many weeks... why? Because there is HUGE opportunity cost and energy investment to do so. Instead, they spend most of their time on application and understanding. This means they understand and apply as much as #1 BUT with MUCH less time invested. Their memory jumps up huge at the end and they still perform very well.

Isn't one of the additions to the new system supposed to be the fact that you will be able to edit cards or make your own cards?
Although honestly, I haven't seen that functionality anywhere on firecracker yet. The closest thing I saw early on was that you could pick individual cards to make custom decks. But the site looks pretty bare bones right now, so it's hard to figure out what exactly is going to pop up when the new system goes live.

That said, I do really like Anki. The process of making cards really helps me remember things. I guess my main concern was that I would miss parts if left to my own devices - I find it difficult to make cards about pieces of information I don't understand, which is why I usually and share flashcards with my classmates so other minds can hopefully fill some gaps or present questions in a different way than I might. The community aspect of GT and the fact that it is constantly updated is a great resource for me. For now, at $15/mo with the discount, I don't mind paying to have a system in place. At the proposed $40/mo I don't think it would be worth it.

Quick question guys...

Is the GT section of Biochem + FA good review for the Step? (In addition to Qbanks, of course)

I was reviewing Biochem and trying to annotate it... but realized there's way more I could add in but FA does a good job getting down pretty much (as far as I see) all that's actually important.

Originally Posted by thawunandonly

Quick question guys...

Is the GT section of Biochem + FA good review for the Step? (In addition to Qbanks, of course)

I was reviewing Biochem and trying to annotate it... but realized there's way more I could add in but FA does a good job getting down pretty much (as far as I see) all that's actually important.

I think it's a solid coverage of the biochem on the exam. Honestly FA is enough. The only problem is that FA is a review, so if you didn't know the stuff well then books like Lippincott + RR are money for referencing (amazing figures in each). With that said, FA biochem is great and I think GT biochem is solid (although their figures are only so so). I'm a visual learner so figures in RR and Lippincott / FA are huge for me and enhance my understanding/recall x10.

Basically, you'll be golden with whatever for biochem. Vitamins/storage diseases are big.

The reason I ask is because I was reading Lippincott and glazing over all the stuff I'm pretty sure is not high yield. So was second guessing myself if it was worth the time.

I knew Biochem when I took it well "enough" but my memory is shot. Names ring bells and but things such as regulatory enzymes are just out of my memory.

Originally Posted by DeadByDawn

I would not do this. I also do not think that I'd continue giving it out. This code was intended for the original 25 people- not cool to give to everyone as it may limit GT's willingness to give discounts to groups in the future.

I think GT just picked a random "large" number like 25 because they wanted to get the word out and get more people actually signing up. They are actually probably ecstatic with all the extra traffic. Don't think you're stealing or anything, they love it. If they really cared they could have shut it down after the first 25 but the whole point was to not give out the deal unless they could get at least 25 more users.

Originally Posted by thawunandonly

The reason I ask is because I was reading Lippincott and glazing over all the stuff I'm pretty sure is not high yield. So was second guessing myself if it was worth the time.

I knew Biochem when I took it well "enough" but my memory is shot. Names ring bells and but things such as regulatory enzymes are just out of my memory.

As I said before, books like Lippincott are awesome, but you don't use them to learn more info. You use them to understand what you need to memorize out of FA. Sitting and reading Lippincott and trying to recall things in it will not serve you well, IMO.

only problem I have with your graphs is that I and many others are unable to apply or understand without first memorizing. How am I supposed to apply and understand a concept before it is even memorized? GT helps me speak the language and prepares me to do battle (application).

and everyone does things differently, but do you really want to be memorizing things in your dedicated study time? I would prefer going in with it all memorized via GT and then just focus on the important things: application and understanding through QBanks.

I use GT because come dedicated study time, I don't want to be memorizing anything. I want to be hitting those QBanks all day long and focusing on application and understanding, NOT memorizing!

It is like when I took the MCAT. people would tell me to take practice tests to get the feel but I held off until I went through all the review books. I then went on a test taking spree of 1 a day until my exam to solely focus on understanding and application once I had the base. It worked great. Ain't saying step1 and mcat are the same thing but I think it's how I personally learn best.

I just don't understand why you would be focusing on application before memorizing the core material (this is what GT is for imho). It is like trying to write a novel before learning proper grammar and spelling.

Originally Posted by jhamaican

It is like when I took the MCAT. people would tell me to take practice tests to get the feel but I held off until I went through all the review books. I then went on a test taking spree of 1 a day until my exam to solely focus on understanding and application once I had the base. It worked great. Ain't saying step1 and mcat are the same thing but I think it's how I personally learn best.

I just don't understand why you would be focusing on application before memorizing the core material (this is what GT is for imho). It is like trying to write a novel before learning proper grammar and spelling.

Or like trying to learn a language before you've mastered the grammar. Oh wait...

(Just playing some devil's advocate with analogies that don't actually fit the situation.)

Originally Posted by jhamaican

I just don't understand why you would be focusing on application before memorizing the core material (this is what GT is for imho). It is like trying to write a novel before learning proper grammar and spelling.

This will probably be my last post as I'm not trying to start an argument with current users. I realize you guys are set and will be using the program and you should make the best of it. Everyone does things different, like you said.

Why focus on application before memorizing? Well, you don't really. If you look at my graph I tried to illustrate this, the memory is constantly in flux but VERY low. Why? You are only memorizing the small amount of info youre doing application on (and even then, not so much). Yet their application/understanding stays high because you don't lose application/understand (doing a qbank, you don't lose that. Deeply understanding an entire FA chapter, you don't lose that, you just lose the memory. This is why if you were to retake M1 you would dominate it. But how? Most people are posting "I forgot everything from M1" but they know they would dominate M1 if they retook it. You re-learn what you learn well very fast. Example: Taus Method has you read a section, then do questions in the section (could be any qbank), then annotate into FA as you do those questions. Lets say your working cardio... you do all the cardio questions alongside class, then annotate into FA. So you just understand/kind of memorize the material as you go through... this is NOT new. This is how people have studied for the board for the last decade before GT/Anki existed. How do you think some people work thorugh 2 qbanks (Rx and Kaplan) during 2nd year before dedicated prep without a program like GT? You know how long it takes to memorize that stuff, do you honestly think they had all of those 2 qbanks memorized? No, they just applied certain sections they knew kind of well.

Look, I think you will do well with discipline and focus no matter what you use. I have only offered a different option for those not using the program. A kid just studied 5 weeks for 14 hours a day to a 251 in the 2012 forum with basically Uworld/FA. This would not be possible if you couldn't obtain the proper memory necessary to answer multiple choice questions. My caveat to the people who haven't jumped in yet is to realize that GT takes a huge amount of effort and you likely won't realize how much until 4-5 months of use with classes going on/falling behind in a class and then starting to realize there's only so much time you can study.

jhamaican, I'm sure you will do great if you bank 100% and then focus on qbanks like crazy for 5 weeks. You'll be far ahead the kid who just started with FA/Uworld in 5 weeks and got a 251... so obviously, it can be done.

One argument I will have is I think it's very useless to try to memorize without understanding. I'm speaking from experience with GT. I tried to just memorize cards with less understanding, it awful. These are the cards people complain about (lysosomal storage disease, long lists of symptoms-don't get me started here, cytokines). Just throwing out a crazy list and forcing memory takes way too long. Spending the extra time to format the card to where it's understood, contains ONLY the FA material not more, and then beginning to memorize is key. Dr. Sattar in Pathoma said it: "I hate memorizing, I hate lists" It's in one of the earlier lectures, this blew me away. How could one be a brilliant medical student and hate memorizing, he's obviously done very well. Then I realized he just forced himself to understand things so well, that what he did memorize was way less. Then when he got long lists of crap, he probably hated that because those are very difficult to do anything but memorize. I developed an Anki method for lists that sidesteps this problem by only asking for a few symptoms each time and then making you see the symptoms in the same order everytime (i.e. if there are 6 or 7, only ask 3 but a different 3 everytime while sticking in the same order).

Anywho, good luck on the boards. GT solves 1 of the 3 problems. The people who do well are able to maximize all 3 areas. You must make sure you maximize each and have the time to do so. If you have the time to do 2-4 hours a day for a year then more power to you (there was some kid at 95% banked or something going into M2, bbagins?, anyway, he spent like 4 hours a day from the beginning of med school and banked pathology during M1 - not in a systems curriculum. Craziness. If you put 4 hrs a day on top of school into boards for 2 years, then sure you will do well. Especially with many people pulling a 5 week Uworld/FA cramfest in 5 weeks for 250s--- I just did the math on this, that bbagins kid will put 400 hrs into only GT before Step 1, he will likely add multiple qbanks... lets say he spend 500 hrs directly on boards, the kid who just got a 251 yesterday spent 14 hrs a day for 5 weeks, 70 hrs. So yes, spending 500 hrs vs 70 hrs, I hope you get a 250+ or whatever, lol. These people say, oh yeah, GT complements my classes so it's not that bad, or whatever. Lol, they spend 4 hours a day religiously for years? Do you realize that IS bad. Normal medical students take time off but the high end GT users don't. They always have to be banking more cards + reviewing cards. I LEARNED THIS THE HARD WAY. Spring break, week off, whatever.... damn, I have to do 200 cards a day or I'll fall behind, or damn, I'm only __% banked and most people are further ahead, I need to bank more. You never rest. After dropping GT I have no stress or whatever when I take a day or week off, I realize if I work hard I can get the score I need and there's plenty of time in the game - keep thinking back to that 5 week 250+ FA/Uworld cram, there's always time). I do believe GT doesn't understand WHY GT works. It's not spaced repetition. It's forcing recalling then allowing you to review your weaknesses first over a 600 page book, good students figure out how to do this by keeping lists of weaknesses or whatever, but most learning is too passive to really figure out your weaknesses let alone ONLY review your weaknesses before your strengths. That efficiency is what make GT work. If it was spaced repetition, everyone with GT would have a huge leg up on the competition, but we see that anyone can get a good score, even the 5 week crammers. A 5 week crammer should get obliteraed by a GT user IF the thing that worked was spaced repetition, but it's not. So yes, GT works, but I don't think the people making the program understand why. iCY figured this out. He would bank a system while he did it with GT, then clear his queue. Someone said he didn't use GT right, i.e. didn't use spaced repetition because he constantly cleared his queue, they were right! He didn't use GT as designed, he used it much better and got mid 250s. Go read his posts. I also realized GT's claim about spaced repetition is partly bogus because you FORGET stuff you bank in GT... what? Yes, even iPizzy who is a beast (like graph #1 above) said he would forget things from GT. This is stuff you've mastered. How would that be possible? Well, because you're always forgetting and re-memorizing, the thing that really matters is how much you UNDERSTAND THOROUGHLY before your dedicated prep. If GT gets you there, then fine, if just doing well in classes gets you there, great, but you need to have everything understood from the materials you'll be studying with... then the last 5 weeks you begin what called a PEAKING process. You do peak and by peaking, we mean a point where everything is memorized. Getting up to the peak from 12 months out is not easier, it's harder. It takes much more time but it can be equally or more effective because if you truly peak at 5 weeks out then you're 100% of your time on application (which is why some of these guys hit 270, because they peaked before their study period. Yet, as I illustrated earlier, some guys like bbagins will have hundreds of hours invested on top of medical school. I couldn't live like that, lol - please look at the last however many GT users that scored above a 250 and look at their study plan - GT - FAx3 - RR - Kaplan qbank Pathoma - etc on and on, the people who've used GT and scored very high typically are MASSIVE studiers and you can tell by the list of materials they use, seriously. Look at the guy who just said, oh year FA + Uworld - 250... do you see anyone saying GT + Uworld ONLY? No! I have yet to see someone who used GT only use GT + Uworld or whatever. THEY NEED TO check out/use it all. You see GT + a billion other sources - you'd think these people would have less time by using GT, but it's the opposite, they use a billion resources because they are study machines and that is why GT appealed to them at the start) Anyway, EVERYTHING WORKS GUYS!

Originally Posted by withrye

Or like trying to learn a language before you've mastered the grammar. Oh wait...

(Just playing some devil's advocate with analogies that don't actually fit the situation.)

I honestly don't know what you just said, but all I am trying to say is:

How can I answer the the QBanks when I don't even know what they are talking about or asking? GT for me is about building your foundation of knowledge so that you will be in a good position to hit the QBanks come dedicated study time.

Originally Posted by MedicalStudent9

This will probably be my last post as I'm not trying to start an argument with current users. I realize you guys are set and will be using the program and you should make the best of it. Everyone does things different, like you said.

You should keep on posting. No one is arguing, just talking about how we can all do the best and move on in life! It is nice to see alternate viewpoints instead of a bunch of religious fanboys. I honestly don't know if GT is the best as I still have a year until the Step, but I picked up the program due to the great reviews some high scorers gave it. It is nice to hear a counterargument!

Originally Posted by jhamaican

I honestly don't know what you just said, but all I am trying to say is:

How can I answer the the QBanks when I don't even know what they are talking about or asking? GT for me is about building your foundation of knowledge so that you will be in a good position to hit the QBanks come dedicated study time.

The premise is too simple. It isn't a choice between memorizing facts before qbanks or vice versa. Doing questions in a qbank does not fall under pure application. There is a claim that doing qbanks is a form of learning, and one that is enriched by the fact that the information learned appears in a form similar to the way in which it will be tested. This is all to say that you can bank a topic and then do board-style questions that apply that knowledge.

Writing a novel or learning a language before a grasp of grammar and spelling is a false analogy, because it refers to a process of creative production as opposed to critical thinking and application. They aren't apt analogies.

Originally Posted by withrye

The premise is too simple. It isn't a choice between memorizing facts before qbanks or vice versa. Doing questions in a qbank does not fall under pure application. There is a claim that doing qbanks is a form of learning, and one that is enriched by the fact that the information learned appears in a form similar to the way in which it will be tested. This is all to say that you can bank a topic and then do board-style questions that apply that knowledge.

Writing a novel or learning a language before a grasp of grammar and spelling is a false analogy, because it refers to a process of creative production as opposed to critical thinking and application. They aren't apt analogies.

Gotcha. That does make a lot of sense. I guess I was compartmentalizing the QBanks and FA too much . Just an MS1 here trying to make sense of all these different Step 1 strategies floating around.

Originally Posted by jhamaican

You should keep on posting. No one is arguing, just talking about how we can all do the best and move on in life! It is nice to see alternate viewpoints instead of a bunch of religious fanboys. I honestly don't know if GT is the best as I still have a year until the Step, but I picked up the program due to the great reviews some high scorers gave it. It is nice to hear a counterargument!

agree with the above, it's good to keep the debate going, so please carry on posting medicalstudent9.
I probably agree with you on a lot of things you pointed it out. I've been doing GT for almost a year now. What I have realized is that after using GT for this long my way of thinking has changed whenever confronted with a question. Whereas before I used to figure out a question using general concepts, now I just try to think of an answer and if I haven't memorized an answer I give up. this is not good but at least I am aware now and trying to readjust my way of thinking.


edit: also, I should mention, when I started GT I used to be a big fan and leave sarcastic and aggressive comments to everyone who tried to argue against GT on here. not even that long ago.

I don't understand the distinction between "spaced repetition" and the concept of forcing recall with a preference to weaknesses. Spaced repetition is based on the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, in which you review topics just as they fall to a forgetting threshold. This specifically timed forced recall maximizes the efficiency of learning by only reviewing facts right before they're forgotten. The subsequent difficulty of recall makes the forgetting curve slope less steeply, which means you don't have to review the fact until much later, when the fact is about to hit the forgetting threshold. When you're forced to remember it for a second time, at optimal difficulty, that forced recall again resets the forgetting curve and decreases its slope yet again. This is what it meant by "spaced repetition." In this way, a fact that you continually forget gets plotted on a steeper forgetting curve, and you're asked to recall it sooner than a fact that you remember well, which has a more gradual forgetting curve.

The concept of spaced repetition creates a forgetting curve for each fact and challenges the user to recall facts at optimal intervals based on the individual curve for that question. Is there a distinction that I'm not seeing in "It's not spaced repetition. It's forcing recalling then allowing you to review your weaknesses"?

Originally Posted by withrye

I don't understand the distinction between "spaced repetition" and the concept of forcing recall with a preference to weaknesses. Spaced repetition is based on the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, in which you review topics just as they fall to a forgetting threshold. This specifically timed forced recall maximizes the efficiency of learning by only reviewing facts right before they're forgotten. The subsequent difficulty of recall makes the forgetting curve slope less steeply, which means you don't have to review the fact until much later, when the fact is about to hit the forgetting threshold. When you're forced to remember it for a second time, at optimal difficulty, that forced recall again resets the forgetting curve and decreases its slope yet again. This is what it meant by "spaced repetition." In this way, a fact that you continually forget gets plotted on a steeper forgetting curve, and you're asked to recall it sooner than a fact that you remember well, which has a more gradual forgetting curve.

The concept of spaced repetition creates a forgetting curve for each fact and challenges the user to recall facts at optimal intervals based on the individual curve for that question. Is there a distinction that I'm not seeing in "It's not spaced repetition. It's forcing recalling then allowing you to review your weaknesses"?

I know that what I was saying is unclear and the only way to truly explain it would be through examples:

First off, understand that people who thoroughly study throughout 2nd year, then do some type of qbank + FA during the dedicated period do very well... this should give you pause. If spaced repetition really was king, then you wouldn't be able to basically ignore biochem for 12 months, then pick it up within weeks. The truth of that matter is how deeply and well you understand concepts makes them very easy to pick up later. In other words, student A deeply understand biochem in January, doesn't touch biochem until December, then studies biochem and is quickly up to 100% mastery. Student B deeply understands biochem, then memorizes all the finer points until December, and obviously knows it well. Question, does student B have an advantage? Not really, especially not really considering he spent 8 months with a hour a day or whatever to upkeep that material. That's opportunity cost, which means he couldn't be doing other things (i.e. a qbank or understanding the other material he's studying).

Here's a real world example again on biochem. Let's say I have 1000 biochem cards on Anki, I've thoroughly reviewed and understood them before I made them. Now 8 months later, I decide I want to get biochem up to speed. I can do those 1000 cards in maybe 5 hours, but 200 of them were bad. Then I do those 200, in the 6th hour of the day. Then I repeat the deck again. Possible seeing my weakness 4-6 times that day if I missed some cards multiple times. Then I do that again the next day. And like magic, with only 2-3 days, I'm at 80-90% mastery on biochem. Why? Because I could repeat my weaknesses maybe 6 times in one day. What is GT's solution for the same problem? Well, they will have you do the entirety of biochem for 9 months. If you have a weak area in biochem, they show you the card ONCE per day. ONCE. Let's say you miss a card 7 times, that means you see it once every 24 hours for 7 days. Well, with Anki, if I repeat my deck, I could literally see my weaknesses multiple times per day. Anki lets you merge decks when you want to, but I will probably keep all decks separate into FA topics EXCEPT for the current subjects, which you would want even more isolated (i.e. just gram negative bacteria, just viruses).

So in other words, the cost of keeping up all the FA material in memory over 1 year is high alongside a busy medical school / social / healthy person schedule. Yes it does work. But guess what works just as well, ignoring material for 12 months that you learned amazingly well, then ramp it up at the appropriate time.

Example laid out:

GT
Mon - Strong topics + weaknesses
Tue - 10 weakness
Wed - 10 weaknesses
Thr - 10 weaknesses
Fri - 10 weaknesses
Sat - 10 weaknesses
Sun - 10 weaknesses

~9 months

Forced recall/repetition

Mon - all strong sections - 10 weakness - 10 weakness - 10 weaknesses (MOMENTUM + Skill building - this is how sports/musical instruments are learned anyway, the repetition).
Tue - 10 weaknesses - 10 weakness
Wed - you know the material now better than that other method because you focused on it AND you could even drop this and pick it up in a week and still KNOW it as well. It the fact that you spread out and repeated the material - i.e. it could be 30 minutes later, it's the actual attempt to access the information actively that makes it stick, not spreading it out over 12 months or 30 days or whatever.

~ before prep or near dedicated period

That's how the brain works, it doesn't have to be a week or day or whatever, it just needs to be later (i.e. it could be 1 hour later), then the actual repetitions of hitting it 7 more times, whether it is in one day or 2 weeks is what makes it work. Your forgetting curve will have you figure that the repetition needs to be spread out over days, not true. It could be spread out by much shorter intervals, once you get to OWNING the material, it can stay will you much longer or is picked up VERY rapidly. Think about if you were golfing, do you really think it would be better to hit a bad shot, then wait to hit that shot 24 hours later, then 24 hours later, then 24 hours later? No. Hitting the same shot over and over again in the short period makes you see things and get into a higher level/understanding. The method I'm talking about could take easily 1/3 the time of what the other method is. Also, it explains why GT isn't truly an advantage and why qbanks work just as well. It's just repetition after it's not in your immediate short term memory. So I guess you could say it's spaced repetition... but it's really attempting to actively recall the info, this could happen entirely in a 24 hour period of time and be as effective as over 3 months.

What is learned REALLY well comes back REALLY quickly. What is memorized must be maintained with many hours (people who have used GT for more than 6 months will tell you this). Keeping those facts in memory is time consuming, truly understanding and then reviewing takes 1/3 the time.

I mentioned how I found this out was using GT. I banked all of anatomy, then ditched it for 4-5 months, came back and mastered it SUPER quick. It didn't matter one bit that I hadn't touched anatomy in 5 months, the fact that I had mastered it before + forcing me to recall the information is what made it work. Not the fact that I logged into a website every morning. The forgetting curve is BS, you're brain is actually much better than that. If you learned all the concepts during M1 really well then retook M1, you would do VERY well even if you didn't touch the material the entire summer. The brain is much better at picking up material you haven't done in months or even years. It's the learning process rather than the spacing of the review periods (this doesn't even mention the fact of how it's 100 times easier to remember the stuff you wrote in your own words/own cards rather than someone elses wording or language).

Your first example begs the question. If two people already have mastery of the material, as you've discussed, the facts relevant to that materials already have very shallow forgetting curves. This is what explains the ease of recall 12+ months later. There isn't a point to doing recall on facts that don't hit their optimal recall threshold, and if you have mastered the material then that threshold could be 12+ months away.

What's really being discussed here is that GT has a deficit with respect to the spacing algorithm. It has a (theoretical) maximum of one repetition per day, and a minimum of one repetition per 90 days. You are right in saying that some facts need to be reviewed at 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, and 1 hour intervals to solidify that initial learning. Anki lets you do that. You're also right in saying that once you've really mastered a fact you don't need to recall every 90 days, which GT forces you to do.

The balance here is that GT has compiled 6000+ spaced facts for you, and the real tradeoff is getting a premade deck with an imperfect algorithm versus using a more advanced algorithm but having to make all the cards yourself (or trusting that community decks will suit your particular needs). Many people, myself included, have opted to pay money and deal with the drawbacks instead of spending our time making our own cards.

Originally Posted by withrye

Your first example begs the question. If two people already have mastery of the material, as you've discussed, the facts relevant to that materials already have very shallow forgetting curves. This is what explains the ease of recall 12+ months later. There isn't a point to doing recall on facts that don't hit their optimal recall threshold, and if you have mastered the material then that threshold could be 12+ months away.

What's really being discussed here is that GT has a deficit with respect to the spacing algorithm. It has a (theoretical) maximum of one repetition per day, and a minimum of one repetition per 90 days. You are right in saying that some facts need to be reviewed at 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, and 1 hour intervals to solidify that initial learning. Anki lets you do that. You're also right in saying that once you've really mastered a fact you don't need to recall every 90 days, which GT forces you to do.

The balance here is that GT has compiled 6000+ spaced facts for you, and the real tradeoff is getting a premade deck with an imperfect algorithm versus using a more advanced algorithm but having to make all the cards yourself (or trusting that community decks will suit your particular needs). Many people, myself included, have opted to pay money and deal with the drawbacks instead of spending our time making our own cards.

Exactly my point. GT does have a the shortest recall at 24 hours later... on top of that, it forces you to do questions alongside with all the other topics. So let's say you have banked 80% and are really weak on 100 questions, you have to cycle through maybe 800 questions over 2 days and you see your weakest questions only twice, or to see your weaknesses 7 times you may have to complete 1500 other questions! Anki-way: By being able to isolate subjects, you could focus 100% on weaknesses for one day (i.e. Anki with 1000 card deck, you rate 200 weak, then you can repeat those 200 - 10 times that day!)... to repeat those 200 questions 10 times with GT, you would need to wait 10 days and do probably 2000 other questions. This is why people get frustrated seeing the same cards over and over (they can only see it once per day and have to see 500 cards alongside their weaknesses).

You're right, you pay them to make the cards for you. I found that my FA cards are not only shorter, but I also have better media (i.e. Netters/Theime/Robbins/RR path/whatever image on wikipedia or even google images, I can't tell you how MONEY it is to get a picture of an Angelman's patient or a picture of a patient with whatever disease and paste that in the flashcard. HUGE. connects all the symptoms and makes it so memorable, a trick a read somewhere and now I'm applying it bigtime). I think it takes LESS time because I don't need to upkeep 10 subjects, I only focus on the topic at hand, then will ramp up cards memory around Step 1... as you said, repeating the weakest topics maybe every 1 hour or 2 hours or whatever in the dedicated time. That's the flexibility I'm talking about when I say to use repetition and forced recall vs. spacing things out X amount of days over 1 year.

I actually decided to do what you did also, I just got tired of GT adding USMLE questions, not having media on certain questions (LOL at lysosomal storage disease card. How do you not have a figure for that?), then having way more material than what is in FA and less material than is in FA on other topics. There are too many cards with weak figures/images. The primetime books that I mentioned above, including FA have amazing figures which is what you need to remember this stuff. Visual memory >>>> straight fact recall. A good figure has like 20+ facts in it.

I'm not saying I will do any better or worse, I'm just saying multiple things work.

Originally Posted by MedicalStudent9

Exactly my point. GT does have a the shortest recall at 24 hours later... on top of that, it forces you to do questions alongside with all the other topics. So let's say you have banked 80% and are really weak on 100 questions, you have to cycle through maybe 800 questions over 2 days and you see your weakest questions only twice. By being able to isolate subjects, you could focus 100% on weaknesses for one day (i.e. Anki with 1000 card deck, you rate 200 weak, then you can repeat those 200 - 10 times that day!)... to repeat those 200 questions 10 times with GT, you would need to wait 10 days and do probably 2000 other questions. This is why people get frustrated seeing the same cards over and over (they can only see it once per day and have to see 500 cards alongside their weaknesses).

There are ways to hack this to make weak cards show up more often than once per day, but they aren't easy or pleasant to do.

Both systems require a compromise somewhere. However, GT should be able to implement changes to the algorithm that would more closely mirror what other spaced repetition applications are capable of.

Originally Posted by withrye

There are ways to hack this to make weak cards show up more often than once per day, but they aren't easy or pleasant to do.

Both systems require a compromise somewhere. However, GT should be able to implement changes to the algorithm that would more closely mirror what other spaced repetition applications are capable of.

Which is why I dropped it. There were many things I thought GT should have been able to do but wasn't. Like giving me the option to avoid doing those worthless USMLE questions with multiple paragraph questions or answers (WORTHLESS for fact recall). Or the one's with huge paragraphs that end with, "what does CN VIII do?" making you wonder why you had to read the entire vignette in a fact recall program. I found no way to be able to repeat isolated subjects in GT or to only cycle through certain subjects or sub-topics. At this point, I like Anki's ability to be used on an iPad anywhere without an internet connection and the extra figures all my questions have. But with that said, if GT added some of the options to do subtopics only or to opt out of their BS USMLE Uworld style Q's, I would be very happy with it. I can't go back now with all my own cards made, but I hope for you all that they make the program more flexible. And they shouldn't charge $40 a month which is murder.

Good luck guys... I only made this account to mess around with and this will be my final post! BOOM brotato!

I'm definitely enjoying this discussion over posts about getting free trials and codes and what not=)

I think MedicalStudent9 is making great points, one of which is that a definite danger of GT is that you can get caught up in banking and memorizing stuff that you don't understand. I've mostly been using GT for memorization heavy topics so far (Micro, Anatomy, and Pharm), so I don't know how well it's working for the more conceptual stuff, but because of the nature of the recall questions, I definitely found myself being able to answer questions, but not really having any idea of what my responses actually meant. This tended to happen with material that I just hadn't spent enough time learning on the card initially because it hadn't been covered in my classes yet. But since I had learned half of the information on a card previously, I figured what the heck, I can cram the other half of the card into my brain for now and get it out of the way! And yeah, after a while enough repetition forced me to figure out what some parts meant, or I'd eventually put in the effort to look it up and really study it after seeing the same question multiple times, but I definitely realized it would just save a lot of trouble if I put in the studying to understand the concepts up front first. Banking slowly definitely seems more optimal.

Someone sold me on the Pimsleur method for language learning a while ago, which uses this spaced repetition model, so I checked out some tapes over the summer. So, I don't think the language analogies are too far off base. But this organic form of learning does take a while - it's like learning a language via immersion because you're thrown into a country and you have to versus learning it in a classroom in school. Little children who are learning their native language make grammar mistakes all the time because they haven't fully understood the grammatical rules behind the content that they're repeating yet. But since they are being exposed to and are using the language every day all the time, they figure it out relatively quickly. But yes, it does take a lot of investment, and getting grammar lessons in school to supplement certainly helps, or having feedback from native speakers helps, too. My younger brother made fun of me endlessly this summer because I kept making stupid grammar mistakes while practicing my Spanish with him, but having taken language classes before, I at least knew to ask him about basic structural things like gender, verb conjugation, elision, etc. to round out my understanding. And having him there for live immediate feedback was a great help.

I'd agree that part of benefit is the forced recall aspect that MedicalStudent9 is citing. Active learning >> Passive learning. Part of the Pimsleur method is that it forces you to respond out loud to practice the language. If you've taken a language course, you know that it's easy to learn to read and write but harder to speak and you've really got to practice it! But he's right that there are certainly other ways to integrate active learning methods into your studying.

I guess I'm just slightly confused as to how MedicalStudent9 is proposing that Anki is different from GT. The biggest difference is you can make your own cards, which I totally agree helps a lot with integration and understanding. But you can also download sets made by other people, which is much like using GT because it is already set up for you. I have found when I download others' sets, it also doesn't work so well because people abbreviate or ask vague questions, so there is a period where I have to essentially learn the language or speaking pattern of the original user, at which point one realizes it isn't that much more effort to just make the cards yourself anyway.
But isn't Anki meant to be used long-term as well, so couldn't it potentially take up just as much time as GT? Or do you find it easier to mark cards (e.g. as leeches) so that they don't keep showing up? [In GT this is the problem people report with not really knowing a card well so you get 100s of the same questions rolling over day-to-day and sucking up your time. As I understand, Anki has a feature that will take these cards out of circulation.]
Or is it that you make separate decks for each topic and don't use them all long-term? Is feel like this is similar to how some people go ahead and complete all review questions for a topic in GT (and you could presumably do this repeatedly, much like MedicalStudent9 is suggesting to go through an Anki deck multipl times), or people use the "perfect recall" option to remove a bunch of questions from their scheduled reviews so that they can focus only on the questions for the system they're currently studying in class. It sort of looks like the method of "banking" in firecracker, which they call flagging, may be moving toward this, since I would presume you can unflag topics you don't need to study at the moment and just focus on certain relevant categories.

I guess there are ways to use GT that don't suck up so much time...and I think a great thing about this forum is that people are discussing those strategies. But I think the way the daily review schedule on GT is currently set up makes people think they need to spend a lot of time with the program. I feel like a lot of people have been requesting these types of time-saving features (e.g. limiting the number of daily cards you get, options for vacation or taking days of the week off, or being able to pull up subsets of questions) and I'm hoping they are all implemented in firecracker.

Having used GT for half a year, I do agree that I would love to be able to "star" certain cards that are my weakest or I'm still researching to get full comprehension. Just like we have the option of pulling certain topics from our day's review, I'd like to be able to pull those cards from the mix.

They say we can make our own "batches" in the new platform, and I hope that means we can tag cards and add to batches.

Couldn't you guys just adjust the weak cards to your own schedule? Rate it a 1 and repeat it every day. Or multiple times a day on your own (i.e. review it, answer questions, then review those same topics again...leave it open in your browser or something and do it an hour later or that night).

Either that or...Firecracker? Haven't been playing around with it but on the initial build the options for deck and such make it seem like there could be options. Haven't bothered with this updated build.

Yes, but my daily reviews were at one point 500+ questions per day and that's when it helps to break them down into categories... a "skip" function would also help to get through all the cards I know quickly, and leave the cards I need to do extra reading for later in the day when I can give them the time they need, since a 1 just puts them off for tomorrow.

Today I only have 105 review questions, so it's not bad.

my 2 cents:

#1- I agree with jhamaican and medicalstudent9 in the context of mcat and standardized testing...i strongly believe a 3 step process long-term knowledge base--> application + understanding (qbanks) --> practice tests (nbme) is an effective method not for just boards but down the road

#2- GT, although tedious, in my personal opinion is great because it covers the bare knowledge bones you need (FA + more) long term than cramming FA later on. Hence, I personally think its an effective way to learn FA and integrate with classes. The one step nature of the problems really drill the material into your head.

#3- MedStudent9, I think your criticisms are valid and as someone who is halfway into GT before starting 2nd year, here is what I have done to reach a common ground:
First off, Firecracker will be released so all your criticisms are workload, # of questions per day, time commitment are futile as the new interface is individual dependent and there won't be a punishment really for taking a "week off" (i.e.- your questions won't get backlogged) so basically, thank god, Firecracker will be out soon to afford time off/hit the pause button on GT. More importantly, all your arguments about the brain recalling info, true or whatnot, is speculative...bottomline, step 1 is the most important exam you will ever take in your life and if you're gunning for derm, plastics, rad one, etc... i personally would opt for the long term plan without hedging the risk of stuff coming back to me....yes its a sacrifice but hey 2 years of my life vs. downstream challenges, totally worth it. AT the same time, social life, sleep, eating right, workout out matter just as much as well.



a.) I have used the Kaplan videos which teach for understanding in sync with GT and have annotated brief notes on the side of GT hence I am LEARNING than simply interpreting the lists
b.) As far as "understanding," Physio and Path are the two subjects (an also >75% of Step 1) that merit the word "understanding" as a lot of other subjects- micro, immune, biochem, anatomy are straight up heavy memorization in my opinion. Hence, I have decided that BRS Phys and Pathoma will be the only two additional sources in addition to GT that I will use as alone sources because of the understanding that they provide. Bascially, brs and pathoma will be my teaching interface while gt will be my quizzing interface
c.) Questions I agree are important, especially quantity < quality...GT is amazing because it builds the one-step nature of learning and rote memorization. Rx and Kaplan even don't do justice (read countless threads...it is truly UWORLD + NBMEs only that do solid justice to reflecting the step 1 exam)...instead of killing myself with additional stuff beyond GT, my game plan for 2nd year, qbank/understanding wise is to continue to use GT/FC and use UWorld right off the bat and at least start doing 5-10 probe a night and get through it once --> hit up Kaplan qbank potentially -> come back to UWorld, GT, and pathoma during dedicated study time, focusing only on weaknesses while taking a plethora of NBMEs

Note, as someone middle of the pack at a top 20 med school, I realize time is of the essence...time to do p90x, time to drink, time to sleep so I'm picking my battles wisely to shoot at efficiency (know UWorld, GT, pathoma, BRS pays cold, and do a ton of practice exams)...GT yes requires time but I'm awaiting FC so I can customize all the stuff i need to and I'm hoping it'll be something doable. More importantly, the score itself is important that we must reflect for ourselves...im not an IMG gunning for a 270 to standout as a 245ish score is enough, hard to get, but attainable.

Originally Posted by MedicalStudent9

Which is why I dropped it. There were many things I thought GT should have been able to do but wasn't. Like giving me the option to avoid doing those worthless USMLE questions with multiple paragraph questions or answers (WORTHLESS for fact recall). Or the one's with huge paragraphs that end with, "what does CN VIII do?" making you wonder why you had to read the entire vignette in a fact recall program. I found no way to be able to repeat isolated subjects in GT or to only cycle through certain subjects or sub-topics. At this point, I like Anki's ability to be used on an iPad anywhere without an internet connection and the extra figures all my questions have. But with that said, if GT added some of the options to do subtopics only or to opt out of their BS USMLE Uworld style Q's, I would be very happy with it. I can't go back now with all my own cards made, but I hope for you all that they make the program more flexible. And they shouldn't charge $40 a month which is murder.

Good luck guys... I only made this account to mess around with and this will be my final post! BOOM brotato!

Nooo...Don't stop writing. I love reading your posts so far. Nicely written and you make an excellent point.

I have a feeling that you're going to destroy the Beast because you certainly know what you need for recall. I'm like you, I need a good image and just looking at an image once, will stick in my mind for the a long long time.

Anyways, I really hope that you decide to contribute here the way you've done so far. As I mentioned, your posts have been really enjoyable for me to read in the past few minutes.

Even though it's time consuming (extremely time consuming) I'm going to consider the Anki method. I believe that flashcards do work better when one makes them on their own. Time consuming indeed, but I guess it'll pay off in the end.

Thanks for your valuable comments.

seriously GT? you could ask this question in 1 sentence and save me time.
but time and time again you choose not to. It is so annoying that I have to rate it perfect so that I don't see this cr@p again!

Originally Posted by MedicalStudent9

Which is why I dropped it. There were many things I thought GT should have been able to do but wasn't. Like giving me the option to avoid doing those worthless USMLE questions with multiple paragraph questions or answers (WORTHLESS for fact recall). Or the one's with huge paragraphs that end with, "what does CN VIII do?" making you wonder why you had to read the entire vignette in a fact recall program. I found no way to be able to repeat isolated subjects in GT or to only cycle through certain subjects or sub-topics. At this point, I like Anki's ability to be used on an iPad anywhere without an internet connection and the extra figures all my questions have. But with that said, if GT added some of the options to do subtopics only or to opt out of their BS USMLE Uworld style Q's, I would be very happy with it. I can't go back now with all my own cards made, but I hope for you all that they make the program more flexible. And they shouldn't charge $40 a month which is murder.

Good luck guys... I only made this account to mess around with and this will be my final post! BOOM brotato!

Wow you sure showed me iCY. Way to troll. *clap clap* I wonder what the next username you post under will be?

Why does it take you back to the beginning of the quiz if you click on a picture in the answere while taking said quiz? WTF...........

Originally Posted by devils143

Why does it take you back to the beginning of the quiz if you click on a picture in the answere while taking said quiz? WTF...........

This happens whenever the picture is not coded properly to open in the same window. Your progress is not actually erased. Just go back to the dashboard and refresh the quiz. It'll update itself back to normal.

Theres some good stuff on either side of the argument up there.

But, I will say this. It has really given me a kick up the backside for an average to below average student in a midtier school . Seeing how much Ive stuff Ive forgotten from 1st year only after a couple weeks of break is major league scary I am paying good money for this and, as a result, my motivation to complete and bank questions is high. I am putting in way more hours actually actively answering questions and learning than I ever would have without GT(ie, stare passively at the syllabus). Will be interesting to see how this works for students of all caliber as the year progresses

Originally Posted by devils143

Theres some good stuff on either side of the argument up there.

But, I will say this. It has really given me a kick up the backside for an average to below average student in a midtier school . Seeing how much Ive stuff Ive forgotten from 1st year only after a couple weeks of break is major league scary I am paying good money for this and, as a result, my motivation to complete and bank questions is high. I am putting in way more hours actually actively answering questions and learning than I ever would have without GT(ie, stare passively at the syllabus). Will be interesting to see how this works for students of all caliber as the year progresses

I agree with this and what Transformers mentioned earlier. I know for me to be successful I have to start now so that the information is almost second nature. This is the most important exam we'll take and I am willing to give everything I have to reach my fullest potential. I am not reaching for plastics, ortho, ophtha, or anything highly competitive. I'm mostly undecided but I know I don't want to look back with regret knowing I could have done more. I have a friend 2 years ahead of me who I consider to be on par with and we both are at a upper tier school. He didn't do too well on Step 1 and he followed the typical study plan: some light reviewing a couple months before M2 ends and then about 6 months for his dedicated study period. After he told me about his score, I decided to start working now and GT is the best approach for me because spaced repetition is making this stuff second nature. I know for me that it will be a challenge trying to recall all M1 material during the dedicated study period without GT. I rather have a good grasp of the knowledge for M1 and M2 heading in to the dedicated study period and focus on UWorld and practice exams.

It is a good feeling to know that I can recall 1st year material now and it feels good not only because it better prepares me for the board but also because I have something to show for all the work I put in first year. GT is not perfect and requires a hell of a lot of commitment and effort but I am willing to give that. The satisfaction of knowing the material and knowing that I am giving myself the opportunity to do the best I can do on Step 1 is enough for me to continue with GT.

While medstudent9(/icy) made interesting points, I think the only real argument he has is the time issue. Honestly I am worried about doing GT along with MS2 work load. The only reason I am even hopeful I will be able to manage this is that I already stopped attending lecture entirely in MS1, I don't even watch lectures at home.

As far as making your own cards goes, I find it hard to believe that it takes significantly less time than just using GT, especially if they add a daily max to the number of questions. The other common MS2 technique is to annotate FA as you go along. I really hate annotating, and again this takes time.

Secondly, some people I think are just better at memorizing/cramming. These people are likely the ones that icy was talking about getting 250s with just FA/UWorld during dedicated study time. As someone who has done very well on standardized tests and classes up to this point, I was solidly mediocre in MS1 on tests. The reason was that I always felt like I was cramming. Always. I never really felt like I learned info that well during MS1, we just always moved too fast. Anyways, that's my reasoning for using GT.

Here's the reason all of these arguments about time are about to be obsolete: when firecracker comes out in a month we'll have the option to set "maximum # of questions per day".

/thread.

Im glad theyre changing the name to Firecracker. Definetely gives it more credibility going forward. I mean who didnt have a chuckle when they first heard about GT

haha yup! when telling my compadres about the program I'm doing, i always have to preface "Gunner Training" with the fact that's it's a cheesy title.....btw, 1000+ question days make me feel like a zombie.

Originally Posted by Brotato

Here's the reason all of these arguments about time are about to be obsolete: when firecracker comes out in a month we'll have the option to set "maximum # of questions per day".

/thread.

I've actually been wondering if that will reduce its effectiveness in the long run? Doesn't putting a cap mean that you will be missing a lot of material that you would have been forced to go over without the cap?

Just a thought...

Originally Posted by Isradoc16

I've actually been wondering if that will reduce its effectiveness in the long run? Doesn't putting a cap mean that you will be missing a lot of material that you would have been forced to go over without the cap?

Just a thought...

That's the whole point. YOU get to pick that limit. I plan on setting it to 100 initially. If I can handle more I'll bump it to 150 a day.

Hey guys. Started ms2 today and I'm already slammed with work. I'm so behind in gt it's epic (still at 47/32). My goal was 50/40. I also have 661 review questions I have to complete before midnight (in the next 45 min). Hope u are all havin better luck

On the bright side, our first path lecture was about angel man and p Willie. I didn't pay attention during the 15 min explanation cus I already learned this in gt.

Originally Posted by Brotato

That's the whole point. YOU get to pick that limit. I plan on setting it to 100 initially. If I can handle more I'll bump it to 150 a day.

Def don't think I'll be able to do more than 100.

Originally Posted by GTP

Hey guys. Started ms2 today and I'm already slammed with work. I'm so behind in gt it's epic (still at 47/32). My goal was 50/40. I also have 661 review questions I have to complete before midnight (in the next 45 min). Hope u are all havin better luck

On the bright side, our first path lecture was about angel man and p Willie. I didn't pay attention during the 15 min explanation cus I already learned this in gt.

This scares me.

Originally Posted by Thing1

Def don't think I'll be able to do more than 100.



This scares me.

What exactly is the scary part?

Classes starting again. Not looking forward to it.

How do i get the one month free trial?