Firecracker

[JackShephard MD]

med.firecracker.me

New medical education website rooted in an adaptive learning platform. Looks impressive, check it out.

Cheers.

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[seminoma]

New app is awful.

 

[Megatron2016]

Yea, new app is the worst. I'm really glad I'm locked into this product for the next 6 months. So much potential ....

 

[seminoma]

Yea, new app is the worst. I'm really glad I'm locked into this product for the next 6 months. So much potential ....

I won't have a problem as long as they don't change the desktop site.

 

[jwfirecracks]

New app is awful.

Well this isn't a helpful comment. How about some more details?

I won't have a problem as long as they don't change the desktop site.

You might have a problem then. But the website won't lose features like search (coming to mobile soon), USMLE questions, adding content, etc. Just the algo change and allowing for quizzes to be started at any level like the app.

 

[seminoma]

Well this isn't a helpful comment. How about some more details?

It's super slow, freezes constantly, randomly quits, and doesn't autosync. Beyond that I can't say much because everytime I've tried to use it something goes wrong; it is unusable.

You might have a problem then. But the website won't lose features like search (coming to mobile soon), USMLE questions, adding content, etc. Just the algo change and allowing for quizzes to be started at any level like the app.

You've already got my money so I guess that's the attitude I should expect.

 

[surely]

It's super slow, freezes constantly, randomly quits, and doesn't autosync. Beyond that I can't say much because everytime I've tried to use it something goes wrong; it is unusable.


You've already got my money so I guess that's the attitude I should expect.

You might wanna try uninstalling and reinstalling the app... That might fix some of the clearly broken behavior you're seeing. Just a suggestion!

 

[theartfuldodger]

Hi all,

M1 here who has been using FC since beginning school basically. For the people who have taken Step 1, did you all keep all the topics flagged still? I'm wondering how this is possible because I'm having so many review questions a day from previous topics (biochemistry for example). I'm utterly tempted to just unflag material from my previous block.

 

[Ophthoseidon]

Hi all,

M1 here who has been using FC since beginning school basically. For the people who have taken Step 1, did you all keep all the topics flagged still? I'm wondering how this is possible because I'm having so many review questions a day from previous topics (biochemistry for example). I'm utterly tempted to just unflag material from my previous block.

I haven't taken step 1 yet, but from what I hear if you want to do it right, you should not unflag anything. How can you possibly have that many review questions so far? Im also an M1 and only have about 180 topics flagged (granted I havent flagged EVERYTHING I should have yet) I'm sitting anywhere between 80-110 review cards per day, then I flag a few more things. I try to do 130-160 questions/day.

 

[Ophthoseidon]

Also, I don't do firecracker from my phone, but can someone explain more in depth what is happening/ how the new layout is constructed? Since popular belief has it that this will also transpire on the desktop version soon...

 

[jwfirecracks]

"It's super slow, freezes constantly, randomly quits, and doesn't autosync. Beyond that I can't say much because everytime I've tried to use it something goes wrong; it is unusable."

What phone / operating system are you on? I encourage you to contact Firecracker customer support to work on these issues. I've used the app hundreds of times since its release, and its yet to quit or freeze a single time. Are you on the latest version?

"You've already got my money so I guess that's the attitude I should expect."

Firecracker is constantly trying to improve the site and the app, and it's often disheartening to here such absolutist remarks on issues that are affecting users, especially that changes should be rolled back or that products a great amount of time was spent on should be disregarded. If having your money was the end all, I suppose Firecracker could cease working on any updates.

As for the discrepancy in questions, I encourage you to read the blog on the new recommendation engine. It is confusing to see a different algorithm on the site and the mobile app, but the new algorithm will make its way to the web app soon to cease the confusion.

http://blog.firecracker.me/2014/11/06/firecrackers-mobile-app-recommendation-engine/

 

[firecrackerJason]

AND WORST: YOU CAN'T SKIP QUESTIONS. This puts a major jam in how I used firecracker (skipped questions I didn't know so that I would see them several times throughout the day). Considering how slow they are at making changes, I would avoid updating this if I could

We added back skipping to the mobile app today and it will be in the next release. We recognize that users will use the app differently and skipping should absolutely be an option. Sorry about that!

 

[firecrackerJason]

I may have been a little to haste in judging the new FC app...after messing around with it I actually like it quite a bit. I feel like it gives me more control to do a focused review of a topic than the web system. Its nice that you can choose to questions based on different levels within a topic (for example, pulmonolgy vs. pulm path vs. just emphysema). It's also nice that you don't feel like questions are piling up on you if you skip a day. I'm still getting used to the whole not flagging topics, but rather just going straight to answering questions on the topic.

Change is scary, especially when it comes out of no where and isn't properly explained to you. But I think I'll be sticking with the app over the web version.

In light of some of your other comments, I really appreciate this one We strive to continually improve the app and sometimes that means trying out new things. You've done a great job capturing the motivations behind some of those changes. We found that many users were stressed out by flagging topics and accumulating too many questions. Med school is stressful enough without Firecracker adding to that.

As a point of comparison to some of the other negative comments in this thread. We've had over 500,000 recalls recorded from the app in the past 10 days. Building a mobile app that we can release on both Android and iOS with ~30000 questions, offline capabilities, and a bunch of soon-to-be released features while pleasing every user is not an easy task! We take all these comments to heart and will continue to improve both the experience in the app and the way in which we release updates.

 

[mcloaf]

In light of some of your other comments, I really appreciate this one We strive to continually improve the app and sometimes that means trying out new things. You've done a great job capturing the motivations behind some of those changes. We found that many users were stressed out by flagging topics and accumulating too many questions. Med school is stressful enough without Firecracker adding to that.

As a point of comparison to some of the other negative comments in this thread. We've had over 500,000 recalls recorded from the app in the past 10 days. Building a mobile app that we can release on both Android and iOS with ~30000 questions, offline capabilities, and a bunch of soon-to-be released features while pleasing every user is not an easy task! We take all these comments to heart and will continue to improve both the experience in the app and the way in which we release updates.

Do you plan to keep the calendar approach as an option for current users?

Any interest in addressing the unflag/reflag issue for cards that get edited?

 

[jwfirecracks]

Do you plan to keep the calendar approach as an option for current users?

Any interest in addressing the unflag/reflag issue for cards that get edited?

I'm not understanding the dedication to the calendar. You will still have a similar number of questions each day; the 80 is a suggestion. I'd love to have a discussion on why this is important to you versus the new system.

The flag/unflag issue is fixed in mobile, and will be in the web revamp.

 

[lovemango]

The new app is not syncing correctly across devices which is extremely annoying. Did questions on my iPhone app and it's showing zero questions done on my iPad app. It's also really slow when syncing the content.

 

[mcloaf]

I'm not understanding the dedication to the calendar. You will still have a similar number of questions each day; the 80 is a suggestion. I'd love to have a discussion on why this is important to you versus the new system.

Thanks for replying.

Just as you don't understand why I like the calendar, I don't understand why it's surprising to you that I'd have reservations about big changes being made to a product that I've already spent hundreds of dollars to purchase in its current form and spent hundreds of hours using. Is the new algorithm roll out going to force users with quite a bit of time/money invested to suddenly seriously change how they use the product?

Keep in mind the below is based solely on my understanding of the new system that I got by skimming the FC blog post about it, I may be misunderstanding facets of the system so please correct me if/when I mischaracterize anything.

I like having a discrete number of questions scheduled every day. It keeps me motivated and focused. My fear with having some "suggested" number of questions is that it makes it harder to know how many questions I should be doing per day. Why stop at 80? Why not 300? I like that having that fixed number of questions takes my own judgment out of the equation and doesn't allow me to let myself off the hook if I have a busy day. The current calendar system is pretty much idiot proof, which I love. I flag things as I learn them and do the study questions, and every day I do all of my assigned review questions. There are enough judgment calls for me to make about how to allocate my study time on a daily basis without having to debate with myself how many review questions I feel like completing. Some people value the flexibility to do less, I appreciate the rigidity that makes me do more.

I absolutely see the benefit of the new system for some people who get intimidated by large daily question loads, but for someone who has adjusted to the program and doesn't mind doing what it requires it's hard for me to feel like I'll be getting the same benefit in the new system.

The other, simpler reason is that I'm 90% banked and will be taking Step 1 in five months. I'm just not all that interested in trying to learn a new system when I already understand and like the current one.

I hope I'm not coming off as too reactionary or negative. I really do appreciate how much FC is open to user feedback and it means a lot that you guys are willing to come on SDN to answer these questions and engage with users. I've sung FC's praises since the beginning of M1 and have turned multiple friends onto the product, I truly do think that it's made a measurable difference in my medical school education and hopefully this will be borne out when I take boards.

The flag/unflag issue is fixed in mobile, and will be in the web revamp.

This is fantastic news. Thanks so much for getting this figured out.

 

[AnalisCanalis]

In light of some of your other comments, I really appreciate this one We strive to continually improve the app and sometimes that means trying out new things. You've done a great job capturing the motivations behind some of those changes. We found that many users were stressed out by flagging topics and accumulating too many questions. Med school is stressful enough without Firecracker adding to that.

Except firecracker is a voluntary complement to med school. I did not buy firecracker to reduce my daily amount of stress.

I'm not understanding the dedication to the calendar. You will still have a similar number of questions each day; the 80 is a suggestion. I'd love to have a discussion on why this is important to you versus the new system.

The benefit of the calendar system is that it forces you to keep up with a pace that you would not maintain if you were to pick an arbitrary amount of questions everyday. I like that. I honestly don't understand why firecracker would try to change a system that is demonstrably fine.

Can you guys give me a timeframe for when the new implementations will reach the website, so that I can discontinue my subscription in a timely fashion?

 

[ChEMD]

Except firecracker is a voluntary complement to med school. I did not buy firecracker to reduce my daily amount of stress.


The benefit of the calendar system is that it forces you to keep up with a pace that you would not maintain if you were to pick an arbitrary amount of questions everyday. I like that. I honestly don't understand why firecracker would try to change a system that is demonstrably fine.

Can you guys give me a timeframe for when the new implementations will reach the website, so that I can discontinue my subscription in a timely fashion?

You do realize that by saying this you are admitting that you don't have enough discipline to keep up with the questions without a number on a calendar telling you to do so. There are some days during which there's just not enough time to do FC questions. For example, in the days leading up to a test, I don't want to be answering questions on some random biochemical pathway from first year. In the calendar system, my unanswered questions would build up over those couple of days, in addition to test day (because who the hell wants to do FC after a test!), so by the time the day after the test comes, I have 400+ questions built up which is very stressful.

 

[AnalisCanalis]

You do realize that by saying this you are admitting that you don't have enough discipline to keep up with the questions without a number on a calendar telling you to do so. There are some days during which there's just not enough time to do FC questions. For example, in the days leading up to a test, I don't want to be answering questions on some random biochemical pathway from first year. In the calendar system, my unanswered questions would build up over those couple of days, in addition to test day (because who the hell wants to do FC after a test!), so by the time the day after the test comes, I have 400+ questions built up which is very stressful.

More or less, yes. The calendar has proven to be a good way for me to measure how fast I can progress with adding questions while keeping a sufficient retention of the questions already included in my routine. Knowing the daily load of questions helps me estimate how much content I should be adding. If not for that, I might as well flag all topics at once, which is not how I want to use this resource. There is already an option to reschedule your questions. I don't see the need to fundamentally change the way the algorithm works just because some user are too lazy to use the product as it is intended.

 

[jwfirecracks]

I think there has been a serious misconception. We are not changing the number of questions you get per day or cutting them to 80. If you're getting 200 a day now, you'll still be getting 200 prioritized questions, they'll just be ordered differently.

The 80 is a suggestion, a goal the average user can hit and feel accomplished. But after you complete 80, there is an option to keep going. If you keep going you continue to get prioritized questions.

I think what we're seeing here is that an option needs to exist to continue telling power users the exact number of questions they receive each day.

Does that solve the misconception?

 

[mcloaf]

I think there has been a serious misconception. We are not changing the number of questions you get per day or cutting them to 80. If you're getting 200 a day now, you'll still be getting 200 prioritized questions, they'll just be ordered differently.

The 80 is a suggestion, a goal the average user can hit and feel accomplished. But after you complete 80, there is an option to keep going. If you keep going you continue to get prioritized questions.

I think what we're seeing here is that an option needs to exist to continue telling power users the exact number of questions they receive each day.

Does that solve the misconception?

As long as I am still able to see how many I have and do all of my questions for the day as assigned then I am happy. If it has to be some sort of opt-in option to display total daily questions or whatever I'm fine with that. Whether or not they are prioritized is immaterial to those of us that do them all, but if people don't want to or can't then the option of doing fewer is fine to have available to them. Thanks for clearing this up.

 

[jwfirecracks]

Ok that's it then -- opting into a daily count.

The intention of the priority is for people that don't follow the daily recommendation, so they always get the most important questions first. The priority reshuffles daily.

Before if you didn't do questions for several days, you'd be stuck playing catchup.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

Ok that's it then -- opting into a daily count.

The intention of the priority is for people that don't follow the daily recommendation, so they always get the most important questions first. The priority reshuffles daily.

Before if you didn't do questions for several days, you'd be stuck playing catchup.

When will the website algorithm and app one be the same?

 

[DrEnderW]

I think there has been a serious misconception. We are not changing the number of questions you get per day or cutting them to 80. If you're getting 200 a day now, you'll still be getting 200 prioritized questions, they'll just be ordered differently.

The 80 is a suggestion, a goal the average user can hit and feel accomplished. But after you complete 80, there is an option to keep going. If you keep going you continue to get prioritized questions.

I think what we're seeing here is that an option needs to exist to continue telling power users the exact number of questions they receive each day.

Does that solve the misconception?

Thanks for doing this!

I've been approached by at least a dozen students at my school asking the same question about the 80 goal, so I know it's on people's minds.

This clarification will help to ease a lot of the more "dedicated" FC users concerns.

 

[ChEMD]

One thing that would be nice is for it to sync across my devices. Right now it seems like when I switch from my iPad to my phone, the phone app remembers which questions I've done (b/c I've never been asked the same question in the same day after switching devices), but the number of questions I've answered that day doesn't transfer over.

Also, the FC app always crashes on iPad when loaded in landscape orientation.

Last thing, it would definitely be nice to be able to set the question goal rather then having it auto set at 80 (I think you said this feature was coming though).

 

[jwfirecracks]

A super robust goal feature is under development now that would allow for setting dates, and creating goals -- i.e., I have a test on these 4 subjects on x date, and the goal will intelligently recommend the number of cards a day to meet that goal.

 

[GrabSlamBoot]

How about you get the app and website on the same platform. You guys are a mess get it together

 

[TheFuture_22]

Here I am, sitting in a Doctor's office waiting on my appointment. I would be doing Firecracker, but the app is all crazy and not synced up with the website. Jk @firecracker you know I love you, but really fix it so my bathroom/standing in line at grocery store/waiting on doctor/bored during OMM time is more productive.

 

[jwfirecracks]

Here I am, sitting in a Doctor's office waiting on my appointment. I would be doing Firecracker, but the app is all crazy and not synced up with the website. Jk @firecracker you know I love you, but really fix it so my bathroom/standing in line at grocery store/waiting on doctor/bored during OMM time is more productive.

Just use the app. The two will integrate soon, but in the meantime the app will be the platform receiving the most attention. If you want to do more than 80 questions, do the 80, and you'll have the option to keep going!

 

[surely]

I think there has been a serious misconception. We are not changing the number of questions you get per day or cutting them to 80. If you're getting 200 a day now, you'll still be getting 200 prioritized questions, they'll just be ordered differently.

Prioritizing the questions you know the least well has its drawbacks. The hardest questions will take the most time to review/understand. Perhaps they'll take so much time that I only get through 20 of them, leaving another 80 easier questions unanswered. Those easier questions will get pushed out and out, perhaps going unanswered for days. The hope is that I'll see those cards before they fall off my "forgetting curve," but what if I don't? Then they'll be a "hard" question again, which takes longer to review/understand... Perpetuating the cycle. If it takes me 20 minutes to do 20 hard questions or 20 minutes to do 80 more familiar questions, my 20 minutes is better spent on the more familiar material. Not to mention the psychological impact of getting a few "I totally remember this one, I'm an awesome student!" self-esteem booster questions amidst an onslaught of fresh material.

With this in mind... Would Firecracker consider an option where I can review my cards without regard for each card's priority, or where I can review the easiest questions first? (Easiest questions, in this context, means cards that I have seen multiple times and tend to do well on.) If Firecracker made this option available, no customer could say "I paid for A and then you changed it to B and I want a refund!"

 

[jwfirecracks]

Prioritizing the questions you know the least well has its drawbacks.

With this in mind... Would Firecracker consider an option where I can review my cards without regard for each card's priority, or where I can review the easiest questions first? (Easiest questions, in this context, means cards that I have seen multiple times and tend to do well on.) If Firecracker made this option available, no customer could say "I paid for A and then you changed it to B and I want a refund!"

In the app, you can start quizzes by card rating. Click questions on the bottom menu bar, then at each level of the content tree you can click the Avg Score button, and you can take a quiz based off rating.

So you can take a quiz of all 1s, or only Basic Sciences 1s, or only Anatomy, or only Upper Limb, or only Brachial Plexus. You can do this from anywhere within the tree. Wherever you start is the starting point for the questions you get.

 

[lovemango]

Just use the app. The two will integrate soon, but in the meantime the app will be the platform receiving the most attention. If you want to do more than 80 questions, do the 80, and you'll have the option to keep going!

One thing that would be nice is for it to sync across my devices. Right now it seems like when I switch from my iPad to my phone, the phone app remembers which questions I've done (b/c I've never been asked the same question in the same day after switching devices), but the number of questions I've answered that day doesn't transfer over. Also, the FC app always crashes on iPad when loaded in landscape orientation.

Yeah, but that's only helpful if the app actually worked correctly across platforms. I am having the same issue as ChEMD, my phone will show that I did questions but when I load it up on my iPad, either it doesn't work at all and I got a blank screen or it simply shows zero questions done. I've really enjoyed using Firecracker on the website so far, but the app needs to work and be accessible if you're going to push this new algorithm on us.

 

[surely]

In the app, you can start quizzes by card rating. Click questions on the bottom menu bar, then at each level of the content tree you can click the Avg Score button, and you can take a quiz based off rating.

So you can take a quiz of all 1s, or only Basic Sciences 1s, or only Anatomy, or only Upper Limb, or only Brachial Plexus. You can do this from anywhere within the tree. Wherever you start is the starting point for the questions you get.

That's not exactly what I asked for, though. The algorithm is based off of more than just what number I last rated the card... It's also based off of how many times I've seen that card, and how recently. Your work-around also doesn't give me the option of interspersing my "hard" cards among my "easy" cards.

 

[jwfirecracks]

Yeah, but that's only helpful if the app actually worked correctly across platforms. I am having the same issue as ChEMD, my phone will show that I did questions but when I load it up on my iPad, either it doesn't work at all and I got a blank screen or it simply shows zero questions done. I've really enjoyed using Firecracker on the website so far, but the app needs to work and be accessible if you're going to push this new algorithm on us.

The firecracker development team worked on a fix for that today. Look for it soon.

The defective iPad app has also been addressed and will be part of the next point fix, hopefully next week (approval times in the App Store vary).

 

[cwwm]

@jwfirecracks
Just wanna say that I had a lot of doubts like others about this change in platform but after I updated the app on my phone and played around with it, I can see the real benefit in the upgrade if you're the type of person who uses firecracker to prepare for an upcoming school exam or shelf. For example, you can basically cram all of the microbiology section and focus on your "1s" and "2s" whereas on the older platform, it was more difficult to do so unless you used the study ahead feature (which isn't as efficient and potentially pushes questions further down your schedule). I think a lot of the frustration and doubt stems from the fact that we don't know what the new "algorithm" is and therefore can't be sure that if, for example, a question that would have appeared on the old platform 20 days from now instead shows up 180 days from now because lower-rated questions are showing up instead. Maybe you can help clarify this a bit?

I also had a question about the timing of questions between the app and the website. As I mentioned before, I was playing around with the app and did all of the questions for a subsection of microbiology and noticed on the website calendar that my # of questions switched around for the month because I was giving different ratings to the questions. My question is - hypothetically, if I were to cram the entire microbiology section using the new app, will that push those questions further into the future on the website spaced-repetition scheduling (similar to what would happen if you used the study ahead option on the website)? The reason I ask is I'm worried that if I run through the micro cards 3 times in 1 day, that I won't be seeing any micro cards for months. Thanks for your help

 

[TheFuture_22]

For the record, I do like the idea of front loading the 80 most important questions as long as it doesn't mess with the current overall format. Just curious, what is the ETA (just ballpark figure) of about when we can expect the changes to go to the website format as well?

 

[midweststudent1]

Just use the app. The two will integrate soon, but in the meantime the app will be the platform receiving the most attention. If you want to do more than 80 questions, do the 80, and you'll have the option to keep going!

I don't know why the heck this wasn't made Explicitly clear somewhere in the process. We pay a significant amount of money when there's a ton of other resources to use and are left in the dark . I like firecracker, but this has turned into a serious customer support nightmare and it's disappointing

 

[jwfirecracks]

For the record, I do like the idea of front loading the 80 most important questions as long as it doesn't mess with the current overall format. Just curious, what is the ETA (just ballpark figure) of about when we can expect the changes to go to the website format as well?

Before the end of 2014.

I don't know why the heck this wasn't made Explicitly clear somewhere in the process. We pay a significant amount of money when there's a ton of other resources to use and are left in the dark . I like firecracker, but this has turned into a serious customer support nightmare and it's disappointing

I agree. Firecracker made a mistake in customer communication, and this shortcoming has been addressed internally. The company will strive to not only be more transparent, but also preemptively as opposed to after the fact.

 

[ChEMD]

Any estimate as to when FC will be implementing some of these additional features you've been talking about? I'm looking forward to being able to tell it when I have a test and what material I will be covered so it can help me prioritize the questions.

 

[jwfirecracks]

Soon, but no estimate. It's not a feature under consideration, it's under active development at this moment.

 

[FedSquarewall]

Used firecracker a bit for mcat prep and I've just been playing around with the new app trying to decide if I want to use it for the next 2 years.

I think a big problem with the "just do more than 80" mentality is that there is no concrete goal. I like achieving some set goal when I study and when you hit 80, yes you can do more than 80, but in the corner it just stays at 80. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. Where as, when I did questions in the past, I could see my card count gradually go down.

Also, before on the old algorithm it seemed to be approx. 70:30 review:new. Now it seems like it's more like 10:90 with only a few review questions spiced throughout.

I think this echos some people's concerns here. Firecracker advertises as a long term retention tool and not a primary learning tool.
Just my 2 cents. I could be totally wrong.

 

[TheFuture_22]

Used firecracker a bit for mcat prep and I've just been playing around with the new app trying to decide if I want to use it for the next 2 years.

I think a big problem with the "just do more than 80" mentality is that there is no concrete goal. I like achieving some set goal when I study and when you hit 80, yes you can do more than 80, but in the corner it just stays at 80. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. Where as, when I did questions in the past, I could see my card count gradually go down.

Also, before on the old algorithm it seemed to be approx. 70:30 review:new. Now it seems like it's more like 10:90 with only a few review questions spiced throughout.

I think this echos some people's concerns here. Firecracker advertises as a long term retention tool and not a primary learning tool.
Just my 2 cents. I could be totally wrong.

I agree. There should be at least the option to keep the daily goal calendar format, and the first 80 could just be the highly prioritized ones. I don't think that would be hard to implement. Is that a possibility @jwfirecracks ?

 

[jwfirecracks]

Also, before on the old algorithm it seemed to be approx. 70:30 review:new. Now it seems like it's more like 10:90 with only a few review questions spiced throughout.

The new questions are for topics you've preciously answered questions within/flagged. So it's not asking you to really learn new questions as you've already opened that door. Let me know if you're seeing something different.

I agree. There should be at least the option to keep the daily goal calendar format, and the first 80 could just be the highly prioritized ones. I don't think that would be hard to implement. Is that a possibility @jwfirecracks ?

The goal feature will provide users what they are looking for. One of the goals will be USMLE, with your test date. From there you'll get an exact recommendation of daily questions. For the hardcore users, if you want to stay on top for your USMLE date, you'll do those questions. But the casual users can do 80.

 

[TheFuture_22]

The new questions are for topics you've preciously answered questions within/flagged. So it's not asking you to really learn new questions as you've already opened that door. Let me know if you're seeing something different.



The goal feature will provide users what they are looking for. One of the goals will be USMLE, with your test date. From there you'll get an exact recommendation of daily questions. For the hardcore users, if you want to stay on top for your USMLE date, you'll do those questions. But the casual users can do 80.

Ok, if I'm understanding this correctly, this is basically what I was looking for. Sounds great! Thanks!

 

[BurghStudent]

Is firecracker worth it if you are at this point not even 25% flagged and intend to take Step this coming June?

 

[TheFuture_22]

Is firecracker worth it if you are at this point not even 25% flagged and intend to take Step this coming June?

I think it is, I am only about 25% as well (I started in August). I plan on taking both Comlex and usmle in June as well. If I flag 4 topics a day I will be at 100% by test time. That is definitely doable in my opinion.

 

[ChEMD]

Is firecracker worth it if you are at this point not even 25% flagged and intend to take Step this coming June?

Also remember, you don't have to do all of the topics either. You could always just do the topics that you cover in class from now on. I think it would be worth it for that alone.

 

[ChEMD]

Another feature request: it would be nice to see how many questions there are total for each topic. Right now when I go to do a topic I feel like I don't really know what I'm getting myself into in terms of how long it'll take me to get through the new questions.

 

[mcloaf]

Is firecracker worth it if you are at this point not even 25% flagged and intend to take Step this coming June?

It may not be worth it to try to flag everything but if you already paid for it at a minimum you could at least use it for things like micro and pharm that are pretty memorization heavy.

 

[ChEMD]

@jwfirecracks I've noticed that information from newly updated topics on the website aren't showing up on the app, even after I've used the "sync content" feature within the app. Any comment?