Gunner Training?

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What is the general consensus on GT?

Is it essential and/or a very useful tool for Step 1? (Sorry, don't want to read 28 pages)

Depends. If you you skim even the first couple pages you'll quickly find out that GT offers a 1 month free trial. Best way to find out is to test out the waters yourself...in a few months when you actually start school. Until then, just relax a little. You'll have plenty of time to worry about Step-I related stuff later. Maybe read a book...although reading doesn't seem to be your thing...:p
 
Depends. If you you skim even the first couple pages you'll quickly find out that GT offers a 1 month free trial. Best way to find out is to test out the waters yourself...in a few months when you actually start school. Until then, just relax a little. You'll have plenty of time to worry about Step-I related stuff later. Maybe read a book...although reading doesn't seem to be your thing...:p

Thank you, I didn't know there was a free month trial.

I'm planning to read several books before school starts, but I seem to keeping them off my desk for some reason... :rolleyes:
 
Thank you, I didn't know there was a free month trial.

I'm planning to read several books before school starts, but I seem to keeping them off my desk for some reason... :rolleyes:

No problem. I'll shoot you a PM with a code for the 1 month free trial. It's probably best to wait a couple weeks into school before activating it though, so you can adjust some to school and so you actually have learned some material to review with GT.

Enjoy your summer, if you do research between MS-I and MS-II like a lot of us do, this may be your last one ever! :eek:
 
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This was one of my problems with GT. I also would advise not annotating, just realize they are giving you background information to help you understand, in the end the FA material will be what you need to know. Definitely do not stress over the details, just try to understand them.

GT should make a FA mode.
\

Thanks for the reply. I actually started off using Gunner without even touching FA, I felt like everything in gunner was stuff I've seen before and that Gunner would just help me in retaining info and recalling it on demand.

For Endocrinology Gunner threw me a curveball with random questions so I ended up opening up FA to see where I need to fill in my gaps and from then on I kinda kept annotating into FA thinking it's just one extra point, might as well write it down.

For Example: FA has a list of 5 things related to a hormone, but gunner will have a 6th fact and they will also test you on it, so the OCD inside of me just killllls me and it's so hard not to write it in.

The reason I write it down is because I feel like if I spend 20 reptitions trying to master it and then I mark it a 5 and it doesn't come up again until after my exam, I may just forget it so having it in FA will quickly refresh it before the exam.

It would be a great strategy if the info was indeed HY, but the question always remains "am I just wasting time?"

Ok I'll stop ranting.... I'm just a bit frustrated as I'm sure everyone is... I had a question session at lib with some friends and it felt nice to be able to regurgitate facts instantaneously like a genious, but also half the time they would laugh at my questions and say I've just wasted half my time learning useless science facts and not medicine :(

I agree. GT annotates your brain, so you don't need to worry so much about filling up FA as you go. As ipizzy said, you can annotate other sources/qbanks into your FA instead of GT, because you'll be reviewing the GT stuff daily, especially your weak areas (which is kind of the point of GT).

Also, as JackShephard said, don't stress over the tiny details. I know this can be hard sometimes to differentiate between what's truly important and what is just extra background detail, but the super detailed stuff you can cut yourself some slack on if you don't get it 100% perfect (i.e. rate it as a 4 if you mostly get it). Step-I is not a recall exam anyways, so if you can recognize those details, should they pop up on your exam as some of them will, then you should be OK. At least that's my philosophy, but I have NOT take step-I yet, so take it for what it's worth (although it's common knowledge that recognition is easier than straight recall).

Haha, it's quite funny that I'm the idiot who said Gunner annotates your brain and now I'm the idiot asking questions about annotating FA. I guess I'm just at that point where all those questions I marked 5 are coming back into my schedule and some of them have slipped through the cracks and I'm starting to panic a bit.

I'm using a lot of the kaplan videos and they emphasize a lot of stuff not in FA so it kinda gets me stressed out about annotating FA. I really have no clue what to annotate and what not to into FA, I just wish there was a pre-annotated version available haha... that would be awesome to not need to add any new details and to just annotate explanations for the details already present in the book.
 
\

Thanks for the reply. I actually started off using Gunner without even touching FA, I felt like everything in gunner was stuff I've seen before and that Gunner would just help me in retaining info and recalling it on demand.

For Endocrinology Gunner threw me a curveball with random questions so I ended up opening up FA to see where I need to fill in my gaps and from then on I kinda kept annotating into FA thinking it's just one extra point, might as well write it down.

For Example: FA has a list of 5 things related to a hormone, but gunner will have a 6th fact and they will also test you on it, so the OCD inside of me just killllls me and it's so hard not to write it in.

The reason I write it down is because I feel like if I spend 20 reptitions trying to master it and then I mark it a 5 and it doesn't come up again until after my exam, I may just forget it so having it in FA will quickly refresh it before the exam.

It would be a great strategy if the info was indeed HY, but the question always remains "am I just wasting time?"

Ok I'll stop ranting.... I'm just a bit frustrated as I'm sure everyone is... I had a question session at lib with some friends and it felt nice to be able to regurgitate facts instantaneously like a genious, but also half the time they would laugh at my questions and say I've just wasted half my time learning useless science facts and not medicine :(



Haha, it's quite funny that I'm the idiot who said Gunner annotates your brain and now I'm the idiot asking questions about annotating FA. I guess I'm just at that point where all those questions I marked 5 are coming back into my schedule and some of them have slipped through the cracks and I'm starting to panic a bit.

I'm using a lot of the kaplan videos and they emphasize a lot of stuff not in FA so it kinda gets me stressed out about annotating FA. I really have no clue what to annotate and what not to into FA, I just wish there was a pre-annotated version available haha... that would be awesome to not need to add any new details and to just annotate explanations for the details already present in the book.

Don't stress over the details! Do lots of qbank questions and make sure you know First Aid. Don't annotate FA with more info/facts, annotate only if it helps you understand the material already there.
 
Don't stress over the details! Do lots of qbank questions and make sure you know First Aid. Don't annotate FA with more info/facts, annotate only if it helps you understand the material already there.

Haha, I always try to stop myself from stressing over details, but it's hard to do so. It's a lot more reassuring to hear the advice from someone else.

These kaplan videos are great for understanding concepts, but I feel like they feed me a lot of details that put me in this cycle of stressing/not stressing over details.

Time to go back to my orginal plan of annotating FA with UW only and my brain with GT... the rest of the info will hang out somewhere in the depths of my brain until the exam and we'll see if it comes out if called upon.
 
Server is really slow today. Anyone else notice this?

It's going quicker for me this morning than it was going late yesterday evening...hopefully they're not about to drop another massive reformat on us like back in September or whatever...
 
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I just read all 29 pages and I think you guys have me sold. I saw the general consensus was that people generally use GT during MSII, but I was wondering if there were any more thoughts/opinions on getting a 2 year subscription and using it during both MSI and MSII. Worth it? Not worth it?
 
I just read all 29 pages and I think you guys have me sold. I saw the general consensus was that people generally use GT during MSII, but I was wondering if there were any more thoughts/opinions on getting a 2 year subscription and using it during both MSI and MSII. Worth it? Not worth it?

I started using it after my first block second semester. I think Jack started using it right away. I don't regret starting when I did yet - I think the 1st semester really requires that your primary focus be learning how to study (at least, that was the case for me). I plan to catch up on first semester stuff this summer, neglecting some of the lower yield anatomy stuff until late 2nd year probably. Will also try to knock out micro, psych, and behavioral, along with whatever other 1st year stuff I've neglected so far. FWIW, I'm in a traditional curriculum - I think there would be more benefit to doing it throughout all of first year in a systems-based curriculum.
 
I started using it after my first block second semester. I think Jack started using it right away. I don't regret starting when I did yet - I think the 1st semester really requires that your primary focus be learning how to study (at least, that was the case for me). I plan to catch up on first semester stuff this summer, neglecting some of the lower yield anatomy stuff until late 2nd year probably. Will also try to knock out micro, psych, and behavioral, along with whatever other 1st year stuff I've neglected so far. FWIW, I'm in a traditional curriculum - I think there would be more benefit to doing it throughout all of first year in a systems-based curriculum.

Hey thanks. FWIW, I'm also going to be in a traditional curriculum, so you're opinion is highly valued!
 
SO......anyone who has taken step 1 after GT prep want to chime in?

This thread is full of 28 pages of hype from people using GT right now, without any indication of improvements in step 1 score or practice NBMEs/other full length diagnostic tests.

so my questions to those who have taken Step 1 already, or those who are near the end of their prep -->

1) Is all the extra info that GT has added really necessary for step 1? or is it just there to make you feel like a "gunner" because you're memorizing more details than your peers?

2) Does spending hours a day memorizing facts really pay off? or would you have been better off doing more questions?
 
SO......anyone who has taken step 1 after GT prep want to chime in?

This thread is full of 28 pages of hype from people using GT right now, without any indication of improvements in step 1 score or practice NBMEs/other full length diagnostic tests.

so my questions to those who have taken Step 1 already, or those who are near the end of their prep -->

1) Is all the extra info that GT has added really necessary for step 1? or is it just there to make you feel like a "gunner" because you're memorizing more details than your peers?

2) Does spending hours a day memorizing facts really pay off? or would you have been better off doing more questions?

Below is the post that sold me on giving GT a try...

I got a lot out of this board in deciding how to go about my board prep and hopefully this will be useful to some of the MS1s and MSOs out there. I don't really have much advice for my fellow ms2s nearing the test, but i've got my fingers crossed for you

First things First: figure out what your goals are. for a lot of people, going all out to max out their step1 score makes little sense. If you know that you want to do family practice or something that you don't need that really high score, celebrate rejoice and work hard on doing things you think will make you a great doctor. STEP 1 is not the be all end all, but for some people, myself included getting as high a score as is possible is important and this is what I did and it worked for me. I put in an incredible amount of work over the last year and it was worth it for me based on my goals (pretty set on one very competitive field) and strong desire to be in one of a few difficult to match locations for family reasons. I wanted to put myself in a position where I felt confident that I could break 260 on any test that I got and made a year long study plan accordingly. It is not for the faint of heart, but I'm pretty sure that any US medical student will break 250 if they do what I did and the good test takers among us will be over 260 with this type of study plan. Final advice, don't follow anyone study plan exactly, but figure out what you need to use (first aid and uworld) and then tailor the specifics towards what you need.

Things used during the year:
Gunnertraining: Awesome, awesome, awesome. This was a huge part of my success on this exam. It hammers an incredible amount of stuff into your brain and made me a rockstar all year in classes and small groups and payed off big time for board studying. First aid is great, but I would not really have been able to memorize it, but gunnertraining has most of first aid plus a lot of the best tidbits of goljan and other good stuff. If you are finishing up first year and have a goal of a very hight step1 score I would start it now, bank all of the first year stuff over the summer, bank the rest along with classes, but double up at the end of the year so that you have gt fully banked by at least 1 month before your dedicated study period-that way you will be able to keep doing your gt questions, but it will be down to a more manageable 100 or so qs a day.

Kaplan Qbank: Did this along with classes. Did all questions on tutor mode, would do a question read the explanation, flip to the page in first aid, read the appropriate section and annotate if necessary.

First Aid: In addition to the annotations from qbank, i made sure to read the appropriate sections from first aid at least once (usually 2x) along with classes second year. Not to memorize but to get very familiar with all the content.

Goljan audio: This is still great though it has a few errors (but not really more than most up to date written texts). Had a 25 minute commute to school and listened to goljan almost everyday=about 1 lecture a day. I would listen to what we were studying in school and just repeat it until my exam, this meant that i listened to each lecture around 3x at least during the year.

RR path: Also good and a good combo with the audio. I would generally read through each chapter 2 times along with classes. Also it has all the pictures referred to in the audio and has a synergistic learning response when combined.

Robins Q book and webpath: Did these along with classes, maybe a little over the top, but I found it helpful in really nailing down path.

BRS Physio: I would read the appropriate chapters and do the questions at the beginning of each block at school. It is great to be really solid on your physio because it makes a lot of things make sense and the more that you understand pathology and pathophysiology (vs memorize) the better. Plus physio is high yield in general and this is a great book.

Brenner pharmcards and Katzung and trevors examination and board review: My schools curriculum is a little weak in pharm. I don't really know if these books are the best, but they worked for me. Would do the appriate drugs/chapters along with class.

CMMRS: book is gold, read it twice during our ID (micro +micro pharm block)

HY neuroanatomy: read before neurology block, a little overdetailed but very good.

Lily for cardiology: great book, but way beyond what you need for boards

BRS behavioral-read this twice plus all the questions twice during our psych block (final was the BS shelf). Big fan of this book.

Class syllabi and lectures: I read the syllabi and went to or watched all of my class lectures until the end of february. I think that you need to learn things for the first time somewhere and this was good for me, but YMMV. The 20 points above 250 IMO are made up largely of somewhat random stuff and you'll find some of it in your classes. My school is P/F though, so I would go to class, read the syllabus once and did the rest of my studying including the 3-4 days before the test solely w/board level materials




Few months before step1 (while still in class)
UWORLD: the best resource of all, an amazing learning tool-use it that way. I did my first pass of uworld + marked and incorrects during my last two months of classes. All on tutor mode with the same method I used for kaplan qbank (see above). Though I was doing tutor mode, I tried to do the questions quickly (but took my time with the answers) though occasionally i would take 2-3 minutes for a question. remember uworld is a learning tool, not a prognosticator first and foremost, use NBMEs for that.

Rx: did about 1000 questions from it (including all behavioral science) but didn't have time to do more. IMO for qbanks UWORLD >>>kaplan>rx, but kaplan and rx aren't that far apart in quality, what really turned me off to rx was that there were at least 3 or 4 completely incorrect answers which didn't happen in the other qbanks (i.e. in world or qbank there might be an error here or there, but the right answer to the question is still the right answer, whereas the rx questions that were incorrect the actual answer choice was wrong)

Read RR biochem: I liked this book alot, and along w other resources I thought was good, though not super high yield.

Last 23 days (after classes)-beast mode
Would read through the appropriate section in BRS physiology (but not do the questions), then read the section in first aid and do all of the kaplan qbank questions for that subject on tutor mode(some subjects had 2-3 days according to their length in first aid and my gut feeling on strengths and weaknesses), doing the easy questions, then medium then hard (would intersperse reading with questions because I could not read first aid for extended stretches). I would also do 100 UWORLD questions on random tutor mode and my gt questions for the day last once I was thoughouly burnt for the day (would actually do the last 50qs in bed). I only used RR as a reference during this period and referred to other books/wikipedia as necessary. I also listened to goljan while walking to and from the library and got through most of it again.

along the way i did some practice exams

Last 5 days I was done w kaplan qbank and finished UWorld plus incorrects and read through first aid one more time (didn't get fully back through it). I did UWSA 2 one block a day for the first 4 days (i.e. not the day before the test) to get myself back to being used to doing random questions i'd never seen in 46q blocks and then read the answers.

Wasn't able to take the last day off, but stopped studying at 7pm, ate dinner and watched one of my favorite movies in bed and was able to get a good nights sleep the night before (try as hard as you can to do this)



Good luck everybody. for the younguns-set your goals intelligently and do what you need to do to get there. Hard work over a long period of time pays off on this test.

numbers (all qbanks done on untimed tutor mode with annotation into first aid on first pass)
Gunnertraining: 98% banked (didn't bank some of the stuff they added during the last 3 weeks) and about 76% mastered with a peak of 80% mastered
Kaplan qbank along with classes: 81%
1st pass uworld (in the last two months of school): 84.5%
Usmlerx (did about 1000qs):hungover:on't remember exactly but around 93%
Behavioral Shelf about 2months before step1-910
Second Pass qbank: around 90%
second pass UW: 97% (though I was recognizing a fair amount of the answers)
NBME 5 4/1: 690: 264 (old scale)
UWSA1 4/13: 265
NBME 12 4/23: 680:264 (missed 9)
NBME 11 5/1: 710: 271 (missed 6)
UWSA 2 (taken as 4 separate blocks):265 (max for uwsas)
STEP1: 5/16: 270

Sure this guy was hardcore, but even he attributed GT to playing a big role in his success...who knows how he would've done without it, but you can say that about any resource...

Note: if you wanna see this post in it's original thread with the follow up posts by Encephalectomy, just click the ">" next to his name at the top of his post.
 
I started using it after my first block second semester. I think Jack started using it right away. I don't regret starting when I did yet - I think the 1st semester really requires that your primary focus be learning how to study (at least, that was the case for me). I plan to catch up on first semester stuff this summer, neglecting some of the lower yield anatomy stuff until late 2nd year probably. Will also try to knock out micro, psych, and behavioral, along with whatever other 1st year stuff I've neglected so far. FWIW, I'm in a traditional curriculum - I think there would be more benefit to doing it throughout all of first year in a systems-based curriculum.

I bought during 1st semester.

I'm currently on a GT hiatus though. :) I was around 30% and when I cleared my queue.
 
True, that is "beast", but not representative of a normal person using GT. Either he didn't sleep or he just studied board material all throughout the year for classes (completed 2 full question banks (+ uworld incorrect twice) + 1000 from usmlerx+ robbins qbook + webpath + all of GT banked?!?! + read independent review books in each area????)

Hopefully more people can comment about the role of GT in improving their step 1 score
 
I bought during 1st semester.

I'm currently on a GT hiatus though. :) I was around 30% and when I cleared my queue.

I'd have a really hard time clearing what I've done, and I'm only like 13 banked / 11 mastery. Was it interfering too much with studying? Just hitting "perfect" on the low yield stuff could have been an option maybe
 
True, that is "beast", but not representative of a normal person using GT. Either he didn't sleep or he just studied board material all throughout the year for classes (completed 2 full question banks + 1000 from usmlerx+ robbins qbook + webpath + all of GT banked?!?! + read independent review books in each area????)

Hopefully more people can comment about the role of GT in improving their step 1 score

So after banking all of GT and doing a cursory glance through FA (1x), I took NBME 7 and did very well (270+). I haven't taken the real thing yet but they say NBMEs are good prognostic tools (I really hope so!) :xf: GT and 1x FA were literally my only sources of preparation (aside from learning things in school of course). I acknowledge that I am a pretty good test taker, but I think that if anyone can get a decent mastery percentage on GT they'll be equipped to do very well on step 1. (For the curious, I sit at about 77% mastery at the moment).

EDIT: I was also doing Kaplan qbank at the time. Sorry, forgot about that! But my only content review sources were GT and FA.
 
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Well done on the ridiculous NBME, lol.

Did you find looking through FA worth it, having banked all of GT? If so, was it due to different information, information presented differently, or just having a strong condensed push through all of it? Or something else?
 
So after banking all of GT and doing a cursory glance through FA (1x), I took NBME 7 and did very well (270+). I haven't taken the real thing yet but they say NBMEs are good prognostic tools (I really hope so!) :xf: GT and 1x FA were literally my only sources of preparation (aside from learning things in school of course). I acknowledge that I am a pretty good test taker, but I think that if anyone can get a decent mastery percentage on GT they'll be equipped to do very well on step 1. (For the curious, I sit at about 77% mastery at the moment).
That is reassuring.

I've got a bit more than a month left 'til d day. I've got about 85% complete and my mastery increases everyday by a few percentage points (currently about 40). This is on top of UW and such.

However, those unfamiliar with GT never fail to tell me I am wasting my time with that.
 
Looking through FA was responsible for me knowing 1-2 questions I may have not gotten otherwise... But FA has had plenty of time to comb through NBME 7 and include "high yield" facts accordingly, I guess, so I don't know. I think 90-95% of FA is covered by GT. Going through FA after GT is such a breeze lol
 
So after banking all of GT and doing a cursory glance through FA (1x), I took NBME 7 and did very well (270+). I haven't taken the real thing yet but they say NBMEs are good prognostic tools (I really hope so!) :xf: GT and 1x FA were literally my only sources of preparation (aside from learning things in school of course). I acknowledge that I am a pretty good test taker, but I think that if anyone can get a decent mastery percentage on GT they'll be equipped to do very well on step 1. (For the curious, I sit at about 77% mastery at the moment).

well done!

GT is pissing me off right now, it's soo slow.
 
well done!

GT is pissing me off right now, it's soo slow.

Haha, it's like gunning with a freaking musket...

Mine was really only going slow loading the quiz and loading the quiz review. During the actual quiz it was moving along pretty nicely, although I don't usually open the images attached during the quiz so maybe that's why it's going so slow for you?

I hope they're just doing some serve updating or something right now and that it will be back to rapid fire gunning mode in no time. If this is the case, then it's better than them shutting down the website for server repair.

Also, regarding the guy who got the 270 that I quoted above, I know he was in beast mode all year long studying for step-I, but ignoring his score for a second, just consider how many resources he used during that time and yet he still listed GT as the top one for long term prep. That to me is a pretty solid endorsement of GT rather than someone who maybe only used FA or only used GT arguing why one is better than the other; he had a thorough comparison of GT to almost every other major study source out there. That was the message I was trying to send by posting that, not that we'll all get a 270 like encephalectomy did or like ipizzy will do in a few weeks. :smuggrin:
 
well done!

GT is pissing me off right now, it's soo slow.

Yeah, this. it's so slow for me right now too.. pretty frustrating, especially after what happened to the servers last month w/ them being down with no warning. Some of these things are out of their control, but we do pay a lot for their service for technical issues like this
 
Yeah, this. it's so slow for me right now too.. pretty frustrating, especially after what happened to the servers last month w/ them being down with no warning. Some of these things are out of their control, but we do pay a lot for their service for technical issues like this

You must not have been around last fall when without warning they complete changed the formatting of the program...that was a real nightmare. Slow servers or a couple hour outage is just a rare inconvenience and part of an online program sometimes. They're usually really good about getting things going again quickly too. That reformatting last fall though, I didn't do GT for a few days and about demanded a refund (everything is better now though :D).

Oh, and how about when they let their website license expire and that massage school stole their web address??? That one was more funny than anything...
 
You must not have been around last fall when without warning they complete changed the formatting of the program...that was a real nightmare. Slow servers or a couple hour outage is just a rare inconvenience and part of an online program sometimes. They're usually really good about getting things going again quickly too. That reformatting last fall though, I didn't do GT for a few days and about demanded a refund (everything is better now though :D).

Oh, and how about when they let their website license expire and that massage school stole their web address??? That one was more funny than anything...
People would ask why my top visited website involved massage therapy.

Awkward...
 
I don't want to jinx anything but my review quiz (once it loaded) isn't being too slow. Wonder what's going on?

I'm going to be optimistic and hope the slowness indicates that they are upgrading to include step 2 stuff :cool:
 
Once I get the review quiz going it's normal speed, but something isn't right. Randomly the quiz will go blank in the middle and I'll have to restart.



Edit

Oh great, it seems like it's not recording any of my progress. Oh Blagargghh.
 
People would ask why my top visited website involved massage therapy.

Awkward...

Haha, that's awesome...I guess there are more embarrassing sites than massage therapy that it could've been...

I don't want to jinx anything but my review quiz (once it loaded) isn't being too slow. Wonder what's going on?

I'm going to be optimistic and hope the slowness indicates that they are upgrading to include step 2 stuff :cool:

I hope so too. I am actually getting more and more interested in GT for step 2, especially since I found out that they're trying to make it so that it's not a totally new program, but integrates the relevant step 1 stuff with it. I know they've been working on the Step 2 portions for a while now, so maybe it's time?

Once I get the review quiz going it's normal speed, but something isn't right. Randomly the quiz will go blank in the middle and I'll have to restart.



Edit

Oh great, it seems like it's not recording any of my progress. Oh Blagargghh.

Now that's really frustrating. I was fortunate to not have that problem earlier, so hopefully that's just a glitch and it actually did record the questions you did...
 
I don't want to jinx anything but my review quiz (once it loaded) isn't being too slow. Wonder what's going on?

I'm going to be optimistic and hope the slowness indicates that they are upgrading to include step 2 stuff :cool:

in that case I could forgive them :xf:
 
I'd have a really hard time clearing what I've done, and I'm only like 13 banked / 11 mastery. Was it interfering too much with studying? Just hitting "perfect" on the low yield stuff could have been an option maybe

I think I may come back to GT. I was experimenting with Anki and other things. I'm considering banking through the summer and adding all my old cards quicks (~30%) to hit maybe 55-60% before school begins. If I can do this, then I can keep daily review down.

I was getting bogged down in the details.

So after banking all of GT and doing a cursory glance through FA (1x), I took NBME 7 and did very well (270+). I haven't taken the real thing yet but they say NBMEs are good prognostic tools (I really hope so!) :xf: GT and 1x FA were literally my only sources of preparation (aside from learning things in school of course). I acknowledge that I am a pretty good test taker, but I think that if anyone can get a decent mastery percentage on GT they'll be equipped to do very well on step 1. (For the curious, I sit at about 77% mastery at the moment).

EDIT: I was also doing Kaplan qbank at the time. Sorry, forgot about that! But my only content review sources were GT and FA.

If stories like this come out in the next few months then I will for sure hammer GT during the summer, lol.
 
GT Quick Update: From an average / below average student (not some genius)

To start off with I'm a student coming off a long leave of absence so my brain in terms of medicine is basically empty. My study group has gone through larger books 3-4 times and have taken kaplan/falcon prep courses on top. I am reading my kaplan books for the FIRST TIME (haven't seen this material in YEAARS too) and then just banking it on GT.

When we do Q and A sessions my "study buddies" always mix up concepts or need to quickly peak at FA to clarify something they mixed up. Often they spend 2-3 minutes doodling on paper making some arrows trying to organize their thoughts to come up with an answer.

Me on the other hand, I'm still on my first read versus their 3-4 and when it's time to recall info I feel like a ROCKSTAR!. If I don't know it, then I don't know it at all, but if I've gone over it I can spit out the answer like a simple multiplication math problem in a matter of seconds. I am amazed by myself because I don't feel like I know this stuff, but when the time comes I'm somehow able to recall it and recall it VERY FAST. I've never been a smartypants or a top level student so this is pretty exciting haha, I just hope it lasts and my memory doesn't take a big dump on me.


"But USMLE isn't a recall exam"

Even if this doesn't help me conceptualize things or help me answer Q's or whatever (which it has with qbanks so far), the simple fact that I can access my memory storage so quickly will help me answer recall related questions much faster and recall bits of info required to think through a question MUCH faster and this will leave me a lot more time to logically think through a question. Being able to do the Q's you know faster is always going to be an advantage because it leaves you some extra time to think through and try to tackle some trickier questions. Aside from knowings things faster, a lot of conceptual concepts do require you to know some related facts... being able to recall those easily rather then being confused and mixed up will also make life during the exam a lot easier.

EDIT: No GT isn't really just memorizing info, it does help solidify your concepts and often does ask "what is the mechanism" etc..., the paragraph above was just for the non-believers... I think GT can help everyone in one way or another.

Back to my daily Q's :D
 
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I'm interested to hear from those who have transitioned to qbanks + practice exams.

Can you talk about how GT has prepared you for them + your % banked/% mastery?
 
I just read all 29 pages and I think you guys have me sold. I saw the general consensus was that people generally use GT during MSII, but I was wondering if there were any more thoughts/opinions on getting a 2 year subscription and using it during both MSI and MSII. Worth it? Not worth it?

I started GT at beginning of first year (I'm still in first year), and if anything I feel like it has made me do better in first year material than I would otherwise. I'm in a traditional curriculum. And I am actually able to bank quite a bit of path/pharm material on top of the so-called first year stuff. Even though we have not taken the official pharm and path classes, a lot of that stuff is brought up in physiology to illustrate concepts. So if they talk about, I just go ahead and add the material to my review. And I am able to add stuff they have not specifically mentioned because when I understand the underlying physiology/anatomy/biochem etc... then I think it is easy to understand the pathology when things go wrong.

It varies, but I would say I spend an average of 4 hours a day doing daily review and banking new material. I'm at 82% banked and 60% mastery. It's not like it's 4 hours on top of the normal studying, because I don't have to study as much since I already know the material from doing the GT. I actually don't directly study for most of my tests anymore. I do a little above average for my class tests, but way above average for shelf exams (anatomy/embryo, biochem, histo, physiology so far).

Ultimately you have to try it out and see if it works for you. I would recommend waiting until school is busy to try the free month, so that way you can see for sure if it helps or hinders you.
 
I'm interested to hear from those who have transitioned to qbanks + practice exams.

Can you talk about how GT has prepared you for them + your % banked/% mastery?
100% banked, 59% mastery, just started q banks, hitting 75% on UWorld and 64% on kaplan, all random blocks, with coursework and GT my only knowledge base (those are considered fairly solid first-pass percentages)
 
I started GT at beginning of first year (I'm still in first year), and if anything I feel like it has made me do better in first year material than I would otherwise. I'm in a traditional curriculum. And I am actually able to bank quite a bit of path/pharm material on top of the so-called first year stuff. Even though we have not taken the official pharm and path classes, a lot of that stuff is brought up in physiology to illustrate concepts. So if they talk about, I just go ahead and add the material to my review. And I am able to add stuff they have not specifically mentioned because when I understand the underlying physiology/anatomy/biochem etc... then I think it is easy to understand the pathology when things go wrong.

It varies, but I would say I spend an average of 4 hours a day doing daily review and banking new material. I'm at 82% banked and 60% mastery. It's not like it's 4 hours on top of the normal studying, because I don't have to study as much since I already know the material from doing the GT. I actually don't directly study for most of my tests anymore. I do a little above average for my class tests, but way above average for shelf exams (anatomy/embryo, biochem, histo, physiology so far).

Ultimately you have to try it out and see if it works for you. I would recommend waiting until school is busy to try the free month, so that way you can see for sure if it helps or hinders you.

lol 82/60 during first year?


100% banked, 59% mastery, just started q banks, hitting 75% on UWorld and 64% on kaplan, all random blocks, with coursework and GT my only knowledge base (those are considered fairly solid first-pass percentages)
:thumbup:
 
I'm interested to hear from those who have transitioned to qbanks + practice exams.

Can you talk about how GT has prepared you for them + your % banked/% mastery?

Well in my case I have started Kaplan Qbank and am scoring between 70-75% most of the time. I know they say this exam is conceptual, but in my experience so far the Kaplan Qbank is just a fancier gunnertraining haha. It asks you the same "concepts" but in long fancy scenarios... I don't really find it conceptual I find it more recall and apply. The way GT has helped me is that I don't have to do my usual routine of brainstorming and thinking hard before recalling the info for some questions... I pretty much read the question and try to understand what it's asking and if I can figure it out I can shoot our answers pretty fast... most of the time I know what answer I'm looking for before even looking through the M/C options.... and once again I re-iterate I am quite the ******* and a horribly slow test taker from med school, I was always the last one out of the room during exams. I knew my stuff, but I had to write things out on paper in order to retrieve info before answering questions... GT has helped me overcome that.

I'm told Uworld is different and it does require you to tie things together a bit more... but a recent test taker told me that since the exam is becoming more clinical those straight information type of questions were very common on his exam.

My Qbank average will come down soon because I haven't been doing patho, but micro, pharm, biochem you will be a total rockstar on Qbanks if you have mastered the info from gunner. Uworld is apparently a lot easier than Qbank according to the people doing Uworld right now from my school so I hope I can keep up a similar average in Uworld.
 
I'm glad it's working so well for you! It's interesting that so many people here and elsewhere say that UWorld is easier; I've found it to be harder at times than Kaplan and sometimes nitpickier than I was expecting. GT helps a lot in both qbanks regardless :thumbup:
 
I'm glad it's working so well for you! It's interesting that so many people here and elsewhere say that UWorld is easier; I've found it to be harder at times than Kaplan and sometimes nitpickier than I was expecting. GT helps a lot in both qbanks regardless :thumbup:

The fact that people find it easier may simply be because they did the Kaplan Qbank before Uworld. I've peaked at both questions on certain topics and I definitely find Uworld a LOT more challenging than Qbank, it seems to integrate a lot.

Doing Qbank beforehand lets people sort out their weaknesses, fix up things they had mixed up in their head and get's them used to USMLE style Q's, so Uworld is probably going to seem easier afterwards.
 
I started GT at beginning of first year (I'm still in first year), and if anything I feel like it has made me do better in first year material than I would otherwise. I'm in a traditional curriculum. And I am actually able to bank quite a bit of path/pharm material on top of the so-called first year stuff. Even though we have not taken the official pharm and path classes, a lot of that stuff is brought up in physiology to illustrate concepts. So if they talk about, I just go ahead and add the material to my review. And I am able to add stuff they have not specifically mentioned because when I understand the underlying physiology/anatomy/biochem etc... then I think it is easy to understand the pathology when things go wrong.

It varies, but I would say I spend an average of 4 hours a day doing daily review and banking new material. I'm at 82% banked and 60% mastery. It's not like it's 4 hours on top of the normal studying, because I don't have to study as much since I already know the material from doing the GT. I actually don't directly study for most of my tests anymore. I do a little above average for my class tests, but way above average for shelf exams (anatomy/embryo, biochem, histo, physiology so far).

Ultimately you have to try it out and see if it works for you. I would recommend waiting until school is busy to try the free month, so that way you can see for sure if it helps or hinders you.

Suspicious bro. I suppose it is possible. I am a first year at 30/25 and I thought that was decent. Had a hard time getting there on top of classes. Either your classes are easy, you are at a p/f school, or you are just a beast.
 
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