Gunner Training?

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I'm starting MS2 and have been eyeing GT for a while. I would love a code to try it out. Thanks in advance.
 
Agree with all of the above about banking and coursework. It sucks and there's no easy way around it. I'm also an MS2 and this is an issue that comes up for me constantly.

Some things that have worked for me thus far (40%+ banked, 55% mastered):

1. Never miss a day unless coursework absolutely requires it.

2. Click "never see this card again" more liberally on multiple choice questions. My theory being that multiple choice questions are more easily remembered and less useful to a bludgeoning from repetition. Also, I expect to see similar multiple choice questions as I move through the other questions banks anyway. The free response questions, however, always seem to be of some use to me no matter how many times I see them. I keep almost all of these in my rotation and they seem to really hammer home the details. Knowing the free response questions cold allow you to dominate PBLs in Asperger's like fashion (the vocab GT gives you doesn't mean you really understand the material - but it does give you the vocabulary armament to see disorders just by getting a couple of symptoms that you memorized - feels good man).

3. I shoot for a 1% overall increase in mastery per week during schoolwork. This sounds easy, but when GT keeps adding questions as they have recently, mastery is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and maintain. Yikes.

4. Set reasonable goals. Most of the people that recently destroyed step 1 and used GT had mastery of a lot (like 70%) but not all of the material. I think this is a good goal. If you grade yourself honestly, it will be near impossible to get 100% mastery, but I don't really think that number should be the goal. My goal is 70%, then I'm just putting GT on cruise control (hopefully by dedicated study time), and then transition to UW/FA (i.e. continue to maintain my mastery on GT during this time, but add no new cards).


The above are just my experience, and not "strategies" or "advice". I'm struggling myself with this and just wanted to share and vent a little.
 
Agree with all of the above about banking and coursework. It sucks and there's no easy way around it. I'm also an MS2 and this is an issue that comes up for me constantly.

Some things that have worked for me thus far (40%+ banked, 55% mastered):

1. Never miss a day unless coursework absolutely requires it.

2. Click "never see this card again" more liberally on multiple choice questions. My theory being that multiple choice questions are more easily remembered and less useful to a bludgeoning from repetition. Also, I expect to see similar multiple choice questions as I move through the other questions banks anyway. The free response questions, however, always seem to be of some use to me no matter how many times I see them. I keep almost all of these in my rotation and they seem to really hammer home the details. Knowing the free response questions cold allow you to dominate PBLs in Asperger's like fashion (the vocab GT gives you doesn't mean you really understand the material - but it does give you the vocabulary armament to see disorders just by getting a couple of symptoms that you memorized - feels good man).

3. I shoot for a 1% overall increase in mastery per week during schoolwork. This sounds easy, but when GT keeps adding questions as they have recently, mastery is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and maintain. Yikes.

4. Set reasonable goals. Most of the people that recently destroyed step 1 and used GT had mastery of a lot (like 70%) but not all of the material. I think this is a good goal. If you grade yourself honestly, it will be near impossible to get 100% mastery, but I don't really think that number should be the goal. My goal is 70%, then I'm just putting GT on cruise control (hopefully by dedicated study time), and then transition to UW/FA (i.e. continue to maintain my mastery on GT during this time, but add no new cards).


The above are just my experience, and not "strategies" or "advice". I'm struggling myself with this and just wanted to share and vent a little.
Good post! I feel your pain. I like your idea on "never see this card again" for most of the mc questions. I'm going to start doing that. It's pretty pointless to do the same question over and over again when it isn't a free response that helps with memorization.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
They currently give out 8 week trials on gunner trainings fan page on facebook.
If you already are a member they also give a code which extend your account for 8 weeks for free. Only works if you use it on or before August 21.
 
They currently give out 8 week trials on gunner trainings fan page on facebook.
If you already are a member they also give a code which extend your account for 8 weeks for free. Only works if you use it on or before August 21.
Good call. I just added 2 mo to my account. Love it.
 
They currently give out 8 week trials on gunner trainings fan page on facebook.
If you already are a member they also give a code which extend your account for 8 weeks for free. Only works if you use it on or before August 21.


THANKS ALOT. Would have never seen this deal.
 
I know it's hard to believe people like me still exist, but is it possible to access this deal if you don't have facebook? Also, I'm using a free trial right now, so would that exclude me as well?

Thanks again guys
 
I know it's hard to believe people like me still exist, but is it possible to access this deal if you don't have facebook? Also, I'm using a free trial right now, so would that exclude me as well?

Thanks again guys

PM me if you want it.
 
Agree with all of the above about banking and coursework. It sucks and there's no easy way around it. I'm also an MS2 and this is an issue that comes up for me constantly.

Some things that have worked for me thus far (40%+ banked, 55% mastered):

1. Never miss a day unless coursework absolutely requires it.

2. Click "never see this card again" more liberally on multiple choice questions. My theory being that multiple choice questions are more easily remembered and less useful to a bludgeoning from repetition. Also, I expect to see similar multiple choice questions as I move through the other questions banks anyway. The free response questions, however, always seem to be of some use to me no matter how many times I see them. I keep almost all of these in my rotation and they seem to really hammer home the details. Knowing the free response questions cold allow you to dominate PBLs in Asperger's like fashion (the vocab GT gives you doesn't mean you really understand the material - but it does give you the vocabulary armament to see disorders just by getting a couple of symptoms that you memorized - feels good man).

3. I shoot for a 1% overall increase in mastery per week during schoolwork. This sounds easy, but when GT keeps adding questions as they have recently, mastery is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and maintain. Yikes.

4. Set reasonable goals. Most of the people that recently destroyed step 1 and used GT had mastery of a lot (like 70%) but not all of the material. I think this is a good goal. If you grade yourself honestly, it will be near impossible to get 100% mastery, but I don't really think that number should be the goal. My goal is 70%, then I'm just putting GT on cruise control (hopefully by dedicated study time), and then transition to UW/FA (i.e. continue to maintain my mastery on GT during this time, but add no new cards).


The above are just my experience, and not "strategies" or "advice". I'm struggling myself with this and just wanted to share and vent a little.

Also, don't get discouraged. The questions get harder on each review the more you master the concepts.
 
Quick question about one of the cards and some possible errata, but I am unfamiliar with the concept so I just want to see what you guys think. The issue is with Transport maximum (Tm) for glucose and the card says that Tm ~ 375mg/min and that this corresponds to a plasma glucose of 350mg/dl if GFR is 1.25dl/min.

What is the math for this type of question? I say this because if you multiply 350mg/dl x 1.25dl/min you don't get 375mg/min. Are these values wrong or am I inappropriately plugging and chugging? I was just trying to use dimensional analysis to cancel units and the values are off. I have no clue if there is some equation I should be using and Wiki just yielded more confusion. Anybody have any input?

Also, I just wanted to say that I have sent the GT folks a fair bit of errata and that they have been very responsive. Most of my suggestions have been nitpicky, as opposed to blatant errors (vice a cranial nerve that was totally off). Their new feature for feedback is great. GT is like a living organism now - it's much improved since I first started using it. I sent them a correction to a brain tumor card yesterday, and the question was fixed within 24 hours. Today I told them to add pneumocystis jirovecii to the uses for SMX-TMP...hopefully they'll update that card soon.

Thanks guys/gals.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Quick question about one of the cards and some possible errata, but I am unfamiliar with the concept so I just want to see what you guys think. The issue is with Transport maximum (Tm) for glucose and the card says that Tm ~ 375mg/min and that this corresponds to a plasma glucose of 350mg/dl if GFR is 1.25dl/min.

What is the math for this type of question? I say this because if you multiply 350mg/dl x 1.25dl/min you don't get 375mg/min. Are these values wrong or am I inappropriately plugging and chugging? I was just trying to use dimensional analysis to cancel units and the values are off. I have no clue if there is some equation I should be using and Wiki just yielded more confusion. Anybody have any input?

Also, I just wanted to say that I have sent the GT folks a fair bit of errata and that they have been very responsive. Most of my suggestions have been nitpicky, as opposed to blatant errors (vice a cranial nerve that was totally off). Their new feature for feedback is great. GT is like a living organism now - it's much improved since I first started using it. I sent them a correction to a brain tumor card yesterday, and the question was fixed within 24 hours. Today I told them to add pneumocystis jirovecii to the uses for SMX-TMP...hopefully they'll update that card soon.

Thanks guys/gals.

I think the 350 value is referring to when Splay occurs (i.e. when glucose begins to appear in urine). However, I'm totally guessing, have not seen the card, and don't even have GT yet. Good luck :)
 
They've changed that card a few times but I think it currently says splay begins to occur at 180 mg/dl and complete oversaturation of glucose reuptake at 350 mg/dl

Different sources state different numbers, it's the concept that's important.
 
I answer the flash cards, I dont understand the concept of it giving me review cards? Should I answer the flash card quizes and then do reviews also?
 
I answer the flash cards, I dont understand the concept of it giving me review cards? Should I answer the flash card quizes and then do reviews also?

:confused: I'm a little confused about what you're asking. Are you asking if you should be doing the daily review questions for the flashcards you've banked? If so, then YES! That is basically the point of the program. It gives you daily review of questions before you forget the concepts on a given card (at least that is the theory). If you just read and answer a card and then never review it, then you're just going to forget it. Is that what you were asking?
 
Yeah thanks I wasn't doing the review part :( I was just doing the flash cards part for what correlated with my courses. Man its really hard to keep on top of course work and this stuff too...
 
I think the 350 value is referring to when Splay occurs (i.e. when glucose begins to appear in urine). However, I'm totally guessing, have not seen the card, and don't even have GT yet. Good luck :)

Thanks for the feedback - I guess I'll get a better handle on this stuff when I officially start renal. We didn't fully explore this topic in first year physiology.
 
They've changed that card a few times but I think it currently says splay begins to occur at 180 mg/dl and complete oversaturation of glucose reuptake at 350 mg/dl

Different sources state different numbers, it's the concept that's important.


Thanks! That's pretty much the gist I was getting from the card as well - it was more the values they gave to derive the oversaturation that were bothering me and not the specific value itself.

Have you already taken Step 1? I wasn't sure if you were a 3rd-year or not. Your posts in regards to GT and your experiences with the other question banks have been helpful to read.
 
It says that the 3-month deal is already "ON". Does this mean I'll get the special sign-up link right away or will I still have to wait until the campaign end date of Aug 31?
 
i just signed up for a free one month trial and was wondering if anyone can send me the 3 month code? i would really appreciate it!
 
It seems like GT would be a waste of time during M1, right?

I mean, how could you possibly keep fresh on all biochem/genetics/anatomy/etc?

Wouldn't it be better to gear up the entire last 6-12 months?

People talk about having trouble keeping everything banked, well, if other people still learn all the biochem and other M1 topics in the last year, why not do that to do better in courses?

I wonder about the value of GT during M1...
 
Sometimes when I was slammed during 3rd/4th semester I would just really bang through a few hundred questions. I'm talking about just looking at the question, realizing I couldn't answer it instantly and using the keyboard rate them as 1 or 3 to just crank through them until I was done. It sounds like a waste of time, I agree, but it really helped me later on when I was doing questions from question banks as I learned to make those instant associations and hone in on what the question was really asking. It also helped to make judicious use of the perfect recall button to 86 stuff like pscyh / behavioral that I'm just never going to forget.

And yeah, it happened a lot. Especially when I'd wake up the day after a midterm or whatever, or if I had just banked a bunch of stuff I didn't really know well enough. I'm thinking biochem/immuno/musculoskeletal were some of the worst offenders.

I never really thought I would finish the bank in the full year but it only took about 8-10 months of really half assing my way through it. Got a ton done over the winter break / spring break though.
 
Is gunner training really a great problem. I currently have the 1 month trial and I have done both Kaplan and Uworld. Has anyone used gunner training and received a great score on the step 1???:confused:
 
What's the average time some M2s are spending on GT?
Right now, I'm looking at a solid 1.5-2 hours a day. I started in the summer and am constantly adding new material covered in class. Does this seem about right to everyone? I'm usually going through 150-200 questions a day as well.

Thoughts.
 
What's the average time some M2s are spending on GT?
Right now, I'm looking at a solid 1.5-2 hours a day. I started in the summer and am constantly adding new material covered in class. Does this seem about right to everyone? I'm usually going through 150-200 questions a day as well.

Thoughts.

That seems about right. I'm on light mode and I am getting about 200-250 questions per day.
 
is there a benefit to doing comprehensive mode over lite, or is it unnecessary?

Yes, HUGE difference. Most that have used the program stated that they really didn't see as big of a benefit until switching to comprehensive...myself included.
 
does anyone know the actual step 1 scores of people who have used GT? i keep hearing that people "rock the boards" after using it, but i'm curious what that means exactly...
 
What's the average time some M2s are spending on GT?
Right now, I'm looking at a solid 1.5-2 hours a day. I started in the summer and am constantly adding new material covered in class. Does this seem about right to everyone? I'm usually going through 150-200 questions a day as well.

Thoughts.


Idk, I'm trying to do GT too, but I'm just so far behind I don't even want to try to catch up. 2 hours is a lot of time that most med students don't have. You guys are beasts! :p How you guys are managing that on top of studying for classes is beyond me.
 
I was putting in about 1-1.5 hours in the summer for MS1 review but then went on vacation and MS2 promptly started over, haven't been able to catch up since. Gotta start adding this year's stuff in too -.-
 
I have six months before I plan to take the exam. I was wondering whether 4 hours a day on top on my studying was reasonable to get through the entire program. I plan to do 2 hours in the morning and then 2 hours at night.
 
A lot of people sound like they're having trouble keeping up with the amount of questions. Here's how my experience with GT has evolved.

I started over the summer to bank my MS1 mat'l which turned about to be a little more than 25% of the bank. Since I did this in a short amount of time and the material wasn't fresh (took a lot of effort to relearn stuff), I ended up with sometimes well over 250 review questions a day and it took up a lot of time. It wouldn't be practical for MS2 to spend 3-4 hours doing questions per day with all the other stuff going on.

There's been enough time now (and I haven't banked new stuff for a while) that I've been able to get 4's on a lot of the material and the spacing is wide enough that questions are down to ~100/day which is very doable. I can do 100 in about an hour except when I get a lot of the big questions in a row (name the 18 symptoms of hyperthyroidism, etc.). I usually just do this over lunch or on my phone when I'm waiting for something else.

I'm now able to bank a few flashcards after an exam or after I see something in class. The idea here is not to try learn or relearn mat'l like before, but to just keep it "fresh". Instead of rating myself a 1 or 2 and having to force it back in my head, I can start at a 3 and sometimes 4 now since I just learned the mat'l in class in more detail. These questions can be spaced further and ultimately you'll have less per day.

I also use the custom spacing button after answering questions a lot. This way if I see I have one day where I have few questions, I can customize the spacing on that question to help load that day up and keep thinks more balanced.

Further more, sometimes you miss a day or two. In those instances, you can click below the calendar and space those questions out over something like 30 days. Then you're only adding like 3-5 extra ones a day. No biggie.

I think the best way to use this program is to keep the info fresh as opposed trying to go back and relearn something after forgetting it. For the blocks you have to go relearn, just do a little bit here and there and it will add up over time. This isn't something you can just sit down and do over the span of week.

Hopefully that helped a little :D
 
Yes, HUGE difference. Most that have used the program stated that they really didn't see as big of a benefit until switching to comprehensive...myself included.
Yah, comprehensive is a must. I do that with FA open and compare both sources a lot.
 
Been using GT for about 6 months now and loving it! Though I agree that the questions are building up and it'll be a challenge to balance it with 2nd year. If anyone's interested in a free trial code PM me!
 
Hi Guys,
the group buy offer that is on at the moment, does it extend my current subscription for 3 months or how does it work?
 
With the group offer they give you a code that you would put into your current account so it would extend it for three months.
 
I'm not digging this new format...I liked before when I answered a question that it would show that entire card, so I could look over it if I wanted to. This is making it more like just flash cards, and I'm not liking it. What do you guys think?
 
I'm not digging this new format...I liked before when I answered a question that it would show that entire card, so I could look over it if I wanted to. This is making it more like just flash cards, and I'm not liking it. What do you guys think?

dude i totally agree.. at first i thought there was something wrong with my browser. anyone know how we can revert to the old format??
 
dude i totally agree.. at first i thought there was something wrong with my browser. anyone know how we can revert to the old format??

OK, good to know I'm not the only one (I even thought the same thing about my browser screwing up). I am trying to not be like everyone anytime Facebook changes its format, so I want to give it a little bit of time. There are some decent things about the new format, but overall I much prefer the old one. I definitely do not like the new quiz format. Everything else I could deal with, but the new quiz format pisses me off. I liked how before you could look at all the bullet points about a given sub-topic, even if the question wasn't specifically about them. That helped me connect everything about that sub-topic, and learn it better. For instance, if it asked about the mechanism of a given drug it used to also show the side effect of that drug, and if I wasn't super familiar with that drug I would also look at the side effects to get some extra re-enforcement.
 
OK, good to know I'm not the only one (I even thought the same thing about my browser screwing up). I am trying to not be like everyone anytime Facebook changes its format, so I want to give it a little bit of time. There are some decent things about the new format, but overall I much prefer the old one. I definitely do not like the new quiz format. Everything else I could deal with, but the new quiz format pisses me off. I liked how before you could look at all the bullet points about a given sub-topic, even if the question wasn't specifically about them. That helped me connect everything about that sub-topic, and learn it better. For instance, if it asked about the mechanism of a given drug it used to also show the side effect of that drug, and if I wasn't super familiar with that drug I would also look at the side effects to get some extra re-enforcement.
yeah, the biggest thing is not being able to look at the whole flash card, which really helped me go over stuff again. i also noticed that with the new format, sometimes the answer is incomplete/doesn't match up to the question. i hope they fix that soon or at least give us the option to revert back to the old format.:thumbdown:
 
yeah, the biggest thing is not being able to look at the whole flash card, which really helped me go over stuff again. i also noticed that with the new format, sometimes the answer is incomplete/doesn't match up to the question. i hope they fix that soon or at least give us the option to revert back to the old format.:thumbdown:

this was the case before, but you could see the right answer on the card when they displayed it in the answer.

I don't get it...when it works, why change it????
100% dislike! :thumbdown:
 
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