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does anyone else have a problem with flashcards that are already banked showing up as unvisited? i don't seem to see any new info on these cards either..
Is GT too easy?
I have been going through questions by system, and have found certain blocks really easy, especially embryology. How does it compare with other Q-banks? I plan on moving on to UWorld soon but just wandered if GT is at a lower standard than others?
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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=54.570585,-1.102608
Don't use it as a qbank. Use it as a way to pound FA into your head. I always do GT with FA open in the window next to it.I think the question banks are definitely easier than Uworld or even qbank. I like to use them more for our faculty written exams than for shelves or step prep. The cards are what the majority are using for retention, but I don't consider the banks to be very good.
Don't use it as a qbank. Use it as a way to pound FA into your head. I always do GT with FA open in the window next to it.
i've banked 3 subjects so far (~50% mastery) and right now I have around 170 review questions per day. i'm getting through them, but--how is this going to work after i bank more subjects? (14 more to go...) i'm not sure i can handle more than 200 daily. how are you guys doing it?
I do something similar. When I take my exam for a specific unit (we just got done with immunology) I go bank all the material I can for that subject while it's fresh in my head. The goal is to just keep that info fresh and not to ever have to relearn something. When you just covered the subject in massive med school detail, you can probably score 3-4 on most questions and it's a lot easier than learning something new.You'll notice that as you work on the same questions, you'll remember them better, they'll be spaced out further, and your daily question load will go down. As you add more material, however, your question load will go up, as you're adding more Q's to the review calendar and you'll see those questions more frequently as they haven't sunk in yet.
I like to go in spurts. As i start a class, i add most of the material, which means a lot of daily Qs. I do this early in the class, when I can afford more time to spend on GT. Later, closer to the test, I'm not adding new material, and have learned the things well enough to master most material and see it less frequently, which lowers the daily question load significantly.
Can anyone comment on how to rate your recall level (1-5) to best use the spaced learning algorithm of GT? There seems to be alot of ambiguous cases where I'm really confused what I should rate things.
This is what I'm doing now.
1. I basically have never seen this material before. I have yet to rate anything a 1
2. Just like it says: Something I forgot, but on seeing the flashcard it's familiar. This is pretty much anything I cannot recall.
3. I use 3 for alot of cases. If I sit there trying to remember and it takes me a long time. If I know the gist of the question's answer moderately well, but I miss some minor detail that is either not specifically asked for or I miss some other aspect of the answer I deem at least mildly important.
4. I remember all the details for the answer, but it doesn't come to me INSTANTLY. If I have to think for even a little bit of time I rate it a 4.
5. Stuff that I basically know before I even finish reading the question.
Also how do you deal with rating questions from a card you just banked where all the information is really fresh (4 or 5). And then in the same vein, how do you guys rate questions after you just restudied a topic due to rating something a 2 in your initial review?
Can you guys give me any pointers about how to alter my rating method to best make use of the system? Thanks in advance.
Is this program even necessary if you plan on thoroughly going through first aid?
I signed up for gunner but just the act of adding new cards takes forever, and then doing and reviewing the questions also take forever.
I worry that if I spend too much time on this everyday, I won't be able to go through first aid as well as I like. I also seem to recall things from paper text better than computer screen text.
Wouldn't just focusing on first aid be enough? I mean this program didn't exist a few years ago and people did well without it.
Any M1's using GT?
No one ever seems to answer this question!
I am. I'm about to start week 8 of M1. I switched from lite mode to comprehensive mode from the very first day. I've banked almost all the material we have covered in class lectures so far, which amounts to 11.2% (95/846 flashcards) and I have an overall mastery of 6.3%.
I spend probably an hour a day on GT at this point; ~30min on flashcards and ~30min educating myself on things on new cards have that weren't taught in class. I'm not using or annotating FA at all right now, and I don't plan to at this time.
I plan on using GT all the way through M2, but I hope to have mastered the vast majority of it near the end of M2, at which point I will stop using it (or at least greatly phase it out) in favor of reading through FA once or twice before I take Step 1 while doing other qbanks and review books.
Does that plan sound good to current M2s, or anyone who has studied for Step 1 using GT in the past?
Is this program even necessary if you plan on thoroughly going through first aid?
I signed up for gunner but just the act of adding new cards takes forever, and then doing and reviewing the questions also take forever.
I worry that if I spend too much time on this everyday, I won't be able to go through first aid as well as I like. I also seem to recall things from paper text better than computer screen text.
Wouldn't just focusing on first aid be enough? I mean this program didn't exist a few years ago and people did well without it.
I'm at P/F but grades are kept internally, and I'm still aiming to be in the top 20% after two years (for AOA, a more effusive dean's letter, and for pre-clinical honors that are calculated at the end of M2). At this point, I don't feel like GT is hurting my pre-clinical grades; if that changes when I am eventually doing ~200 questions per day I will let you know. I know 7 hours a week sounds like a lot, but it's not that much. It aids in my studying rather than taking away from it (except for the first 2 weeks when I was getting used to the program and figuring out how to use it effectively). I've definitely gotten test questions correct due to the clinically-oriented questions that appear in GT after you've mastered a concept that I wouldn't have gotten correct if I hadn't been using GT to supplement my studying.
A lot of it is going into long-term memory, but I'm still losing some of it. I think the major advantage of GT is that even after you've "mastered" a question, it will still show up every few months. What I'm really hoping to get out of this program is that my review before Step 1 will be much more manageable and I will be able to focus more on qbanks and less on reviewing because the material will come back to me easier (even though it might not be perfectly in my long-term memory). I feel like without GT, I would have to re-learn a lot of material for a second time before Step 1; with GT, I feel like a simple review will suffice and the material will come back to my memory easier and allow me to focus on qbanks instead.
I've only been using GT for 7 weeks so hopefully I'm not completely off-base
also, FWIW, I feel like my school is easier than others. They've been teaching to the boards and have been teaching pathways in surprisingly low levels of detail...like, GT requires more detail than some of my classes So maybe that is what allows me to take so much time away from studying lecture notes to use for GT.
First Aid has some better pictures and diagrams. GT has a lot of the same info, but is really lacking in good pictures. However, they do seem to be updating a lot so it may be just a matter of time.I would say is first aid even necessary if you plan on thoroughly going through gunner training? Adding cards GT takes a long time, but so does going over that same material in first aid. And with GT you might just remember it.
And yes, people did well without GT, or Uworld, etc. But the average score for Step1 keeps creeping up, and I doubt its because people are getting smarter. More likely it's the better test prep materials available.
I'm at P/F but grades are kept internally, and I'm still aiming to be in the top 20% after two years (for AOA, a more effusive dean's letter, and for pre-clinical honors that are calculated at the end of M2). At this point, I don't feel like GT is hurting my pre-clinical grades; if that changes when I am eventually doing ~200 questions per day I will let you know. I know 7 hours a week sounds like a lot, but it's not that much. It aids in my studying rather than taking away from it (except for the first 2 weeks when I was getting used to the program and figuring out how to use it effectively). I've definitely gotten test questions correct due to the clinically-oriented questions that appear in GT after you've mastered a concept that I wouldn't have gotten correct if I hadn't been using GT to supplement my studying.
A lot of it is going into long-term memory, but I'm still losing some of it. I think the major advantage of GT is that even after you've "mastered" a question, it will still show up every few months. What I'm really hoping to get out of this program is that my review before Step 1 will be much more manageable and I will be able to focus more on qbanks and less on reviewing because the material will come back to me easier (even though it might not be perfectly in my long-term memory). I feel like without GT, I would have to re-learn a lot of material for a second time before Step 1; with GT, I feel like a simple review will suffice and the material will come back to my memory easier and allow me to focus on qbanks instead.
I've only been using GT for 7 weeks so hopefully I'm not completely off-base
also, FWIW, I feel like my school is easier than others. They've been teaching to the boards and have been teaching pathways in surprisingly low levels of detail...like, GT requires more detail than some of my classes So maybe that is what allows me to take so much time away from studying lecture notes to use for GT.
Once you've completed the quiz for a card, those questions are "banked" and will appear in your daily schedule. It doesn't matter what score you rate yourself.
First Aid has some better pictures and diagrams. GT has a lot of the same info, but is really lacking in good pictures. However, they do seem to be updating a lot so it may be just a matter of time.
When I do my daily review, I usually go by sections. For example, I have 20 questions for Biochem and half my screen is my annotated FA Biochem section and 1/2 is GT. If I get a question I can't make a 4 or higher on, then it's time to look at both GT explanation and FA explanation. Since my FA is digitally inserted into OneNote, I can search it and go right to the section. This has really drilled FA deep into my brain.Yeah GT has pictures, but they aren't incorporated in the questions at all. First aid has better visual appeal.
Ideally, I would like to go through both GT and first aid several times, but there are only so many hours in a day.
When I do my daily review, I usually go by sections. For example, I have 20 questions for Biochem and half my screen is my annotated FA Biochem section and 1/2 is GT. If I get a question I can't make a 4 or higher on, then it's time to look at both GT explanation and FA explanation. Since my FA is digitally inserted into OneNote, I can search it and go right to the section. This has really drilled FA deep into my brain.
...Since my FA is digitally inserted into OneNote, I can search it and go right to the section...
Kinkos will put it in a machine to cut off the binding so it's just a stack of pages. They did this for me for free (If they do charge, it can't be much at all). Then I used a scanner at work to load em, came back in an hour, and they were all scanned in a nice neat little pdf. Printed that to OneNote and wah-la!How do you get FA digitally? I just have the book.
Kinkos will put it in a machine to cut off the binding so it's just a stack of pages. They did this for me for free (If they do charge, it can't be much at all). Then I used a scanner at work to load em, came back in an hour, and they were all scanned in a nice neat little pdf. Printed that to OneNote and wah-la!
All my text/review books are digital and are in OneNote. All my class stuff is in there too. It's all searchable and I can write, highlight, and paste pictures/videos/recordings. Love it.
It also has some great online sharing features which I'd love to use with my classmates, but they're sold on the mac/pdf bubble note combo. People will catch on one day.
I didn't. This dude at kinkos did.you chopped up all of your review books?
I didn't. This dude at kinkos did.
It's nice being able to carry 30 some books with me at all times that have a search function and are integrated into my notes.
Give it a few more years and they'll be no need for physical books. I'll get to enjoy that for about 1-2 yrs before the machines that I love so much become aware and destroy me.
I know who to blame for the upcoming Cylon invasion.I didn't. This dude at kinkos did.
It's nice being able to carry 30 some books with me at all times that have a search function and are integrated into my notes.
Give it a few more years and they'll be no need for physical books. I'll get to enjoy that for about 1-2 yrs before the machines that I love so much become aware and destroy me.
GT is horrible when trying to learn the material for the first time. It's like trying to use First Aid as a primary source.
I don't think a coupon will better convince you that your trial is over.Anyone have a coupon code that can be added to an existing account? My free trial just ended and I'm still not convinced.
I didn't. This dude at kinkos did.
It's nice being able to carry 30 some books with me at all times that have a search function and are integrated into my notes.
Give it a few more years and they'll be no need for physical books. I'll get to enjoy that for about 1-2 yrs before the machines that I love so much become aware and destroy me.
Get this when it comes out in a week or so: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-XE700T1A-A03US-11-6-Inch-Slate-128/dp/B005OUQ9WO. Can't wait!I am actually planning on doing the same thing as you with regards to going digital. I use OneNote now for all my notekeeping, and I am gonna buy a tablet soon so I can annotate FA digitally in Onenote.
The problem I think, is that Onenote will insert FA as an image file and not in PDF format. How do you exactly annotate this way in Onenote, unless you write directly on the image itself? I was thinking about buying the program PDF annotator for all my annotating so my digital ebooks can stay in PDF format, but I want to somehow incorporate Onenote because then I can take advantage of its search and organization features.
I am actually planning on doing the same thing as you with regards to going digital. I use OneNote now for all my notekeeping, and I am gonna buy a tablet soon so I can annotate FA digitally in Onenote.
The problem I think, is that Onenote will insert FA as an image file and not in PDF format. How do you exactly annotate this way in Onenote, unless you write directly on the image itself? I was thinking about buying the program PDF annotator for all my annotating so my digital ebooks can stay in PDF format, but I want to somehow incorporate Onenote because then I can take advantage of its search and organization features.
I don't think a coupon will better convince you that your trial is over.
OneNote has a search function that can search images, type, and writing. It actually does a pretty decent job on my chicken scratch doctor hand writing. No need to use pdf for anything. If you wanted, you could convert the onenote to pdf and read it on your phone I guess.I'm not sure why a tablet is necessary for annotating digitally in onenote...I've been doing that the whole time with a normal laptop keyboard and mouse
also, you can convert image files to pdfs and hope that the text will still look good enough that pdf can recognize the letters and thus that the search function will still work
I'm not sure why a tablet is necessary for annotating digitally in onenote...I've been doing that the whole time with a normal laptop keyboard and mouse
also, you can convert image files to pdfs and hope that the text will still look good enough that pdf can recognize the letters and thus that the search function will still work