FIRECRACKER

[youraveragedoc]

Current firecracker user here. It kicks my ass everyday but I absolutely love it! I do about 230 cards per day, 5 days a week. I'm also keeping up with the NBME questions that the program offers.

Was curious to see if any other users who have taken step 1 did the same, if not more or less, amount of cards that I'm doing per day and scored well. I'm going into my second year and am thinking about cracking it up a bit to 300-400 cards per day.

I plan on starting either the USMLERx or Kaplan Q banks starting second year and am saving the UWorld questions for dedicated.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

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[operaman]

I was a FC user. Never even bought a first aid. Keeping up with cards became quite a burden by about halfway through second year. I was also aiming for top scores on my class exams for AOA eligibility so it may have been more doable if I’d been solely focused on step.

I used Kaplan qbank during the year as FC’s question bank wasn’t quite up and running yet back then. I probably started adding in more UWorld around Jan/feb ish. Also used pathoma and picmonic all year with classes. Would have probably used sketchy but it wasn’t out yet.

All in all I think the FC approach worked great for me. My baseline NBME before dedicated was already a 250 so that was definitely a load off. I found the ability to cram review by section was also helpful during dedicated time.

It’s definitely a great resource for some people. Worked for me!

 

[4thtimeretaker]

How do you think Firecracker is compared to all the other question banks, video supplements?

 

[7331poas]

I actually took a week trial of firefracker's flashcards and they were excellent. The questions were difficult and definitely contained some information that wasn't in zanki (on occasion).


My plan is to mature zanki well before dedicated. And during dedicated do firefracker/uworld/and first aid passes only.

 

[Goro]

How do you think Firecracker is compared to all the other question banks, video supplements?

I tested out FC and found its item bank to have too many pseudoquestions and trivia. I have a very high opinion of UWorld and B&B.

 

[4thtimeretaker]

I tested out FC and found its item bank to have too many pseudoquestions and trivia. I have a very high opinion of UWorld and B&B.

Okay thank you so much Goro, will stick with UW and B&B

 

[youraveragedoc]

How do you think Firecracker is compared to all the other question banks, video supplements?

I think firecracker is phenomenal! It is very detail oriented. You will learn every bit of minutiae for step and your block exams. Flash cards are pretty difficult but they make you recall a lot info per card. I find that doing 200 cards is almost equivalent to 350-400 Anki cards based on conversations with Anki users in my class. There are no videos but you could supplement with YouTube. Overall, most of the upper class individuals who used firecracker scores well in the 250s and 260s. One person I know scored a 276 and gave most of the credit to firecracker...I’m going to stick with it and up my reviews to 350 per day in my second year.