Firecracker changes - specifics

[docterspaceman]

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Hey everyone,

Could someone who has had access to both GT and FC tell me what specific changes have been made b/w the two? I think I've read every single post about GT/firecracker on studentdoctor by now, but it's been difficult to get a good picture of whether users are happy or unhappy with the changes.

From what I've been able to glean:
1.) The spacing mechanism/algorithim is different, in a bad way.

I guess I'm a little behind the pack, but I'm starting to see giant flaws in the firecracker algorithm. FC has been making a lot of really good updates lately, but the algorithm is the most important feature. If you have multiple questions from one day you rate a 5, many will show up next time on the same day. If you keep rating them 5s, or 4s, then these questions will always show up together, which again gives an artificial boost in recall. It seems like FC stopped incorporating the individual history of each card for each person. It takes away from the personalization of the algorithm and therefore FC, which makes using it much less effective. Am I just blowing smoke here?

Quality seems to be slipping on the new cards, and the rating algorhythm is clearly flawed...

Although the spacing with the new algorithm is a big problem, the bigger problem is its inability to change the spacing significantly even if a card has been missed multiple times. For example, if I rate a card a 2 multiple times the spacing may only go down from 6 days to 4.5 days. In GT, the spacing was far more adaptive and took into consideration past performance to a greater extent, making it much better for learning than the new algorithm.

2.) FC added more low-yield material when before it was mainly HY FA material and it is becoming hard to manage all the material.

FC is very good for every reason he described. Keep in mind though that GT was more manageable than FC is. They made it so the most amount of time a card will be sent out is around 43 days, as opposed to around 60 for GT. Also they added more questions. Most people say that it became way too much as questions piled, but I'm not there yet. FC doesn't seem to be listening to the users on this point. It's unfortunate for the users and eventually it's going to be the end of the road for FC. As more people drop out of it because of the burden of questions recommendations will stop coming in. It does have its positives though, if you think you can tough it out the way many people said they couldn't (keep in mind I'm using it even though I know people have said this; I also already paid for it though).

It would be GREAT if there was a mode that took out allll of the fluff that is currently in FC and basically added only the HY stuff seen in FA. Example - I'm looking at the MSK section in FA and the FC version of it in Derm and Ortho/rheum is like RIDICULOUSLY detailed compared to it, and I'm wondering if it all is even necessary?

Yeah, I hate how there is a lot of low yield, and how they took out a bunch of HY that used to be in GT but no longer in FC. (Side effect of protease inhibitor, endemetroid tumor of ovary, Rinne test just to name a few, all of which I've been tested on UWorld). Been sending them feedback to put those back up as quizes but no response. of course.

So what is the general consensus? Is FC still a strong product to utilize for STEP studying? Or is it now a diluted product because they added too much fluff? I hope i'm not coming off as being too critical, but I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into before deciding whether or not it's worth the money. Thanks guys.

 

[Chirurg]

Hey everyone,

Could someone who has had access to both GT and FC tell me what specific changes have been made b/w the two? I think I've read every single post about GT/firecracker on studentdoctor by now, but it's been difficult to get a good picture of whether users are happy or unhappy with the changes.

From what I've been able to glean:
1.) The spacing mechanism/algorithim is different, in a bad way.

2.) FC added more low-yield material when before it was mainly HY FA material and it is becoming hard to manage all the material.

So what is the general consensus? Is FC still a strong product to utilize for STEP studying? Or is it now a diluted product because they added too much fluff? I hope i'm not coming off as being too critical, but I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into before deciding whether or not it's worth the money. Thanks guys.

I have used both extensively!
1 is true, so much so that I'm not going to extend my subscription, going to use Anki in the future.

2 applies to both, GT and FC, none of them were ever high-yield, but you can circumvent this problem easily by marking questions as perfect-recall and they never show up again.

Edit: to expand on why I'm not going to renew my sub.
I've got 95% mastery of the topics that I've banked and yet I'm getting 120-150 questions/day on FC, wtf?? I haven't banked anything new for 3-4 months now!
On GT I would have had probably 40-50/day.

 

[withrye]

Edit: to expand on why I'm not going to renew my sub.
I've got 95% mastery of the topics that I've banked and yet I'm getting 120-150 questions/day on FC, wtf?? I haven't banked anything new for 3-4 months now!
On GT I would have had probably 40-50/day.

That's probably not quite right. The original GT qbank had almost 9000 questions in it, and the most space you could put between questions was 90 days. That's an average of 100/day if you have 100% mastery (and perfectly even spacing). With 95% mastery, that's an additional 450 questions that float around within a 2-3 week window in front of you.

Of course, this assumes you've banked all the Step 1 topics.

 

[Chirurg]

That's probably not quite right. The original GT qbank had almost 9000 questions in it, and the most space you could put between questions was 90 days. That's an average of 100/day if you have 100% mastery (and perfectly even spacing). With 95% mastery, that's an additional 450 questions that float around within a 2-3 week window in front of you.

Of course, this assumes you've banked all the Step 1 topics.

I haven't. I have banked about 65% and haven't added a single thing for months and
I'm perfect-recalling every single MCQ.
the algorithm is just f***ed up.

 

[propadex]

I started using a free trial recently, in terms of pros at least I know they have added images and the ability to add your own notes and essentially make your own flashcards.

But I never had a chance to use GT. Any other opinions out there?