Firecracker

[JackShephard MD]

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med.firecracker.me

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

Cheers.

 

[Bancrofti]

a little under half? 1100 total topics or so, about 500 can be considered M1 material



most of the organ systems have an "anatomy and histology" and "physiology" section

👍 That's correct. I'm only about a month in and I'm just trying to bank as much 1st year stuff as possible before path starts so I hadn't even expanded the organ systems tab. Thanks for the correction, I had been wondering how they could have excluded that info. Figured it was somewhere else, just didn't see it.

 

[001100010010011]

How far along are you in banking material? The questions are just piling up.

Do you all aim for over 70%, 80%, or 90% mastery?

 

[Blue Spoon]

How far along are you in banking material? The questions are just piling up.

Do you all aim for over 70%, 80%, or 90% mastery?

I am about 60% banked and the questions do pile up. I would recommend being lenient with your scoring and not banking too quickly or your question totals will become all-consuming. I try to keep my percent mastery above 85% (would like to get to be above 90% eventually).

 

[001100010010011]

Thanks for the reply. How long did it take to get up to 60%?

 

[Blue Spoon]

Thanks for the reply. How long did it take to get up to 60%?

Feels like forever. I have been using it since I started MS1, so all year.

 

[Bancrofti]

I am about 60% banked and the questions do pile up. I would recommend being lenient with your scoring and not banking too quickly or your question totals will become all-consuming. I try to keep my percent mastery above 85% (would like to get to be above 90% eventually).

How do you know how much you've banked? Just know how many topics there are and do the math yourself? I know I'm nowhere close to that :/ probably still somewhere around 5%. I agree with the keeping it above .85 for mastery. It actually isn't that difficult. I also try to pair my flagging of topics so that if I'm flagging more "difficult/time-intensive" topics that day then instead of flagging only that type I flag something with it that I personally know is simple to master like behavioral sciences or anatomy.

 

[Blue Spoon]

How do you know how much you've banked? Just know how many topics there are and do the math yourself? I know I'm nowhere close to that :/ probably still somewhere around 5%. I agree with the keeping it above .85 for mastery. It actually isn't that difficult. I also try to pair my flagging of topics so that if I'm flagging more "difficult/time-intensive" topics that day then instead of flagging only that type I flag something with it that I personally know is simple to master like behavioral sciences or anatomy.

Just divide # Step 1 topics flagged by Total # Step 1 Topics.

 

[JABWS]

My apologies if this question has already been answered in the GT thread. It's getting rather big and therefore difficult to sift through.

I'm wondering how much time it will take per day (or week?) to keep up with FC during the MS2 year. I've been banking at a steady rate (~3-5 cards per day) throughout the summer and expect to be somewhere ~20% completed by the time classes start. So far my daily workload has remained fairly constant (35-75 cards, sometimes more), as I've intentionally tried to resist the temptation of banking a lot all at once. I'm also fairly liberal with my ratings (not afraid to rank something a five).

Anyways, I can already clearly see the benefits of the program, I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up with it once classes start. My school is not P/F, so I don't have the luxury of focusing solely on step material. Any thoughts?

Also, has anyone used light mode? Do you think the benefit of comprehensive over light mode justifies the extra time it requires? Thanks.

 

[Fox800]

Started MS2 today. I'm planning to use Firecracker throughout the year. To be done by 4/1/14, I'm planning to do 5 cards per day. I plan on completing cards relevant to my systems courses each day, and if I haven't reached 5 for that day, I'll make up the difference with MS1 material. Thoughts/feedback?

 

[soundnin]

Started MS2 today. I'm planning to use Firecracker throughout the year. To be done by 4/1/14, I'm planning to do 5 cards per day. I plan on completing cards relevant to my systems courses each day, and if I haven't reached 5 for that day, I'll make up the difference with MS1 material. Thoughts/feedback?

if you already have a good base of knowledge from M1 year (well, even if you don't), don't be afraid to front load more M1 material in addition to your 5 cards/day. the earlier you master (score >= 4) the material, the better imho. this also allows you to miss days, because we all do 😛

 

[Ebola4Breakfast]

My apologies if this question has already been answered in the GT thread. It's getting rather big and therefore difficult to sift through.

I'm wondering how much time it will take per day (or week?) to keep up with FC during the MS2 year. I've been banking at a steady rate (~3-5 cards per day) throughout the summer and expect to be somewhere ~20% completed by the time classes start. So far my daily workload has remained fairly constant (35-75 cards, sometimes more), as I've intentionally tried to resist the temptation of banking a lot all at once. I'm also fairly liberal with my ratings (not afraid to rank something a five).

Anyways, I can already clearly see the benefits of the program, I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up with it once classes start. My school is not P/F, so I don't have the luxury of focusing solely on step material. Any thoughts?

Also, has anyone used light mode? Do you think the benefit of comprehensive over light mode justifies the extra time it requires? Thanks.

I tried using FC during MS1 (we do path first year) and ran into that problem. A lot of the questions are either poorly written or are not conducive for quick review. It was too time consuming to keep up with during classes. In the end, I gave up and switched to Anki. I can cruise through 100+ cards in less than half an hour. It's definitely not as convenient as having pre-made cards, and it took me a while to get the hang of writing appropriate cards, but it works better for me. Just one opinion though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Edit: if you're dead set on pre-made cards and want to try an alternative to FC, google "Dr. WillBe Anki". It's the blog of an MD/PhD student who hangs around SDN who used Anki to prep. He's selling his path deck (like 6000 cards) for $10. I attempted to use it back when he offered it for free, and it seemed very quality. I just quit using it because making my own questions worked better for me.

 

[Signorina]

Ciao everyone,

I posted a while back a way to tweak keyboard shortcuts with AutoHotkey so that the keyboard shortcut I choose enters a score and automatically goes to the next question. 1 click.

I've been busy with my first year of med school, but now I'm back at it and this time I tweaked the script so that it ONLY works when the Firecracker page is open, and it works for any browser, but it won't affect the other browser tabs, since I find myself googling a lot, and I need a full keyboard to search for info at the same time as I'm doing my questions.


1) Install AutoHotkey

2) Right click on the icon and "edit this script"

3) Paste the following:

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive, Firecracker

h::Send {1} {Enter}
j::Send {2} {Enter}
k::Send {3} {Enter}
l::Send {4} {Enter}
Space::s
return

4) Save script and right-click "reload script"

-- 1 click selects a score, saves the score, and automatically goes to the next question
-- You can edit the script and use any letter-number combination you'd like.
-- The space bar shows/hides the answer
-- The code only activates when you have the Firecracker page open, on any browser, and disables when you're on any other tab/webpage


This way when I do my daily questions I'm just clicking.... space... k... space... l... space ..k ...space... etc.

That's it!

 

[Bancrofti]

That's it!

👍 Thanks


I've found myself wondering why some questions are rated 1-2 stars at times. At times things are clearly poorly worded or the answer choice given isn't complete (to mind at the moment I can think of a question regarding the Rhinne's test), but I wonder if things are ever rated low because people found a mistake that I haven't caught yet? I feel like there wouldn't be mistakes on this type of program, but who knows. I don't know how many people on SDN are using FC though and if it would be worth starting a thread for it?

 

[Brain Bucket]

👍 Thanks


I've found myself wondering why some questions are rated 1-2 stars at times. At times things are clearly poorly worded or the answer choice given isn't complete (to mind at the moment I can think of a question regarding the Rhinne's test), but I wonder if things are ever rated low because people found a mistake that I haven't caught yet? I feel like there wouldn't be mistakes on this type of program, but who knows. I don't know how many people on SDN are using FC though and if it would be worth starting a thread for it?

I've been trying to get FC to start an errata thread. They don't appear to be interested.

We might as well do it.

 

[Dr007007]

Is there an app for firecracker?

 

[Brain Bucket]

Is there an app for firecracker?

No. They have a mobile friendly website. This takes all of a second to Google.

 

[Skeleman]

Yesterday there were 1121 cards and today there are 1100. I'm guessing they either thought they were low-yield cards or they combined them with existing cards, but does anyone know for sure?

 

[jmath27]

I've been trying to get FC to start an errata thread. They don't appear to be interested.

We might as well do it.

I am completely fine in contributing to this. I've found a section that has quite a few errors with regards to the brachial plexus (and first aid has it right despite this section in FC referencing the pages with the correct info)

 

[Isradoc16]

I am completely fine in contributing to this. I've found a section that has quite a few errors with regards to the brachial plexus (and first aid has it right despite this section in FC referencing the pages with the correct info)

The First Aid page references are user contributed. I don't think the FC writers actually referenced FA for most cards.

The old user comment system was great, I wish they brought it back!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[Bancrofti]

I'm guessing they've taken critiques into consideration and have started making some modifications to the site. I know it was down after 11pm yesterday for a while. I just realized there is a small button to show/hide comments on topics at the bottom of the page. I'm not sure if I saw that previously when flagging questions. The little help/live-chat icon I'm fairly certain wasn't there before last week either. Good to see they're trying to make improvements.

Edit: The comments button is only while flagging topics, not while answering questions. I just had a vignette question, for which the question asked what disease was being described (Chediak-Higashi), but that wasn't displayed in the answer choice. It was only the mnemonic to help remember the s/sx. The answer was obvious, but it was still obviously a mistake.

I've also found that quite a few times after I've answered a question, there will be an answer to the question, then below my answer will be information from a randomly flagged topic not pertaining to the question at all.

 

[tartrate]

👍 Thanks


I've found myself wondering why some questions are rated 1-2 stars at times. At times things are clearly poorly worded or the answer choice given isn't complete (to mind at the moment I can think of a question regarding the Rhinne's test), but I wonder if things are ever rated low because people found a mistake that I haven't caught yet? I feel like there wouldn't be mistakes on this type of program, but who knows. I don't know how many people on SDN are using FC though and if it would be worth starting a thread for it?

I've been trying to get FC to start an errata thread. They don't appear to be interested.

We might as well do it.

I am completely fine in contributing to this. I've found a section that has quite a few errors with regards to the brachial plexus (and first aid has it right despite this section in FC referencing the pages with the correct info)

Errata page, although a nice idea, would not be practical considering the thousands of questions on FC. Instead, I wish that FC, as a paid subscription model, would be more vigilant about fixing errors and poor/incomprehensible phrasing, of which there is plenty.

 

[DrizzyDrake]

Hey guys, do you guys sometimes ad topics that havent been covered in school yet you your daily questions fro the day?

Also am I using the site right? I just log on, and do 50-60 questions a day, and then log off. I added all of pharmacology to it since that is all we have done in school thus far, but I'm getting a lot of questions that are about drugs we haven't learned about yet...

Am I supposed to prestudy these drugs and stuff before doing my 50-60 questions, or do I just keep trucking along flagging them as 1's and 2's until even they are 4's and 5's? I only want to do 50-60 questions a day and then ill start adding more cards

 

[THH]

How is the firecracker QBank?

Any takers for this question? Does it compare even remotely to the lower tier qbanks like Kaplan or USMLERx?

 

[001100010010011]

The question bank is pretty bad. I'd use FC to cover FA material and then use USMLERx or a higher quality bank--in fact, this is what I am doing.

 

[Bancrofti]

Am I supposed to prestudy these drugs and stuff before doing my 50-60 questions, or do I just keep trucking along flagging them as 1's and 2's until even they are 4's and 5's? I only want to do 50-60 questions a day and then ill start adding more cards

You're M1 and you started with pharm? If that's the case (regardless it doesn't matter) you can just flag only the things you guys have covered. If you'd like, you can look ahead to see what you will cover soon and flag those topics if you need new material. Likewise, you can look ahead and see what will be covered and if something that isn't covered in your class is a flaggable topic, then you can flag that as well if you need more. How you rate your questions is a subjective thing. Several people have recommended that you rate fairly loosely, so that you know if you see the topic/answer on exam you'd get it correct. I know others will be a bit more anal though.

 

[notbobtrustme]

How much time do you guys spend? I've been flagging 3-6 topics a day during my free month trial and answer between 25-40 questions a day which takes me around 45 minutes. Is that appropriate?

Also, is that it to FC? Just flag topics, review em and answer the cards? How does the time period work? Should I **** around with it or just leave it at 14 days? The documentation is pretty sparse, so I've just been following what's been said in this thread.

 

[Frazier]

How much time do you guys spend? I've been flagging 3-6 topics a day during my free month trial and answer between 25-40 questions a day which takes me around 45 minutes. Is that appropriate?

Also, is that it to FC? Just flag topics, review em and answer the cards? How does the time period work? Should I **** around with it or just leave it at 14 days? The documentation is pretty sparse, so I've just been following what's been said in this thread.

Fairly new to it (about 10% banked total). I strive for ~3 per day.

I don't know how some people consistently flag 15+ cards per day. A lot of the cards have too much info IMO and should be broken down into small portions.

 

[Bancrofti]

Fairly new to it (about 10% banked total). I strive for ~3 per day.

I don't know how some people consistently flag 15+ cards per day. A lot of the cards have too much info IMO and should be broken down into small portions.

It really depends on what's being flagged and whether you have other obligations.

If you're on a break, 15 cards I guess is doable if you had a good grasp of the material beforehand. There are many cards that have a lot of info, but there are also those that don't have much.

I just got done with a relatively easy block in school, and I was only flagging about 3 topics/day for the last 2 or so weeks since I decided for sure this was going to be something I could commit to. That being said, I wanted to flag all of Immunology, which isn't my forte, and flagged some Micro topics, which I haven't taken yet, but studied ahead for. When I flag Anatomy, Biochem, or Behavioral Science topics, I can usually do 5+/day without a problem.

 

[rodmichael82]

How do people handle firecracker after flagging a lot of topics?

I feel overwhelmed by all the questions each day (60-70 a day).

Do people unflag topics while they learn or just grind through hundreds of questions?

 

[WhizoMD]

How do people handle firecracker after flagging a lot of topics?

I feel overwhelmed by all the questions each day (60-70 a day).

Do people unflag topics while they learn or just grind through hundreds of questions?

increased efficiency and increased repetitions makes the hundreds not feel as bad as you would think.

Also, banking at a reasonable rate helps; the question load will creep up and you'll adapt as you go, as opposed to jumping from 60/day to 150/day in a short period of time.

 

[QualityProcess]

Is Firecracker targeted more towards broad-based mastery of material, or getting a great score on Step 1? What do you all mean by "banking?"

As an incoming M1 its a little intimidating trying to dig through all these possible resources to find the most efficient ones. Anki and spaced repetition worked well for me in learning Spanish but I'm concerned that making my own cards in medicine will be too time consuming, especially when inputting media like muscle/bone/nerve diagrams.

 

[001100010010011]

increased efficiency and increased repetitions makes the hundreds not feel as bad as you would think.

Also, banking at a reasonable rate helps; the question load will creep up and you'll adapt as you go, as opposed to jumping from 60/day to 150/day in a short period of time.

I agree. I can get through questions quickly now. Even if I have 200/d. I'm trying to pile as much M1 material right now as I can before my M2 courses pick up.

 

[addy]

I have a question---

What do you guys do when you've covered a topic in class but have yet to learn some things that are in the topic? Do you just go ahead and learn it and flag it or do you wait until you cover it in class and THEN flag it?

Thanks!

 

[Isradoc16]

I agree. I can get through questions quickly now. Even if I have 200/d. I'm trying to pile as much M1 material right now as I can before my M2 courses pick up.

What do you guys mean by increased efficiency and increased repetition?

I find that when I know the answers right off the top, I go quickly. When it's material that I keep getting wrong, I slow down a lot though. Reading explanations takes me a long time. If I have more than 100 qs then I know I'm looking at an hour -hour and a half easily.

I want to get a better idea of how people blast through two hundred qs quickly.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

 

[notbobtrustme]

I have a question---

What do you guys do when you've covered a topic in class but have yet to learn some things that are in the topic? Do you just go ahead and learn it and flag it or do you wait until you cover it in class and THEN flag it?

Thanks!

I flag it the night before and do the study questions on topics. We are just wrapping up our first M2 block and it worked out pretty well. I typically had 40-60 questions a night, which is totally doable in 30 minutes.

Still debating whether or not this is worth it for the entire year though. I still got another 10 days on my free month, so we'll see how the test next week goes.

 

[001100010010011]

I have a question---

What do you guys do when you've covered a topic in class but have yet to learn some things that are in the topic? Do you just go ahead and learn it and flag it or do you wait until you cover it in class and THEN flag it?

Thanks!

The details will come because of the spaced repetition. You will catch yourself remembering answers about the 3rd or 4th time seeing a question.

 

[Bancrofti]

bleh. Averaging around 40ish cards per day with a max of around 75 so far, not including flagged questions that day. Asked a couple people so far how many questions they have per day that have been doing it for a while and a few said way over 100 per day, with someone saying about 200ish because he's been flagging a lot to make up for the 1st year material. I'm hoping doing this will at least get me a couple points on an exam so I don't feel like I'm wasting time every day.

 

[ninjasurgeron]

The details will come because of the spaced repetition. You will catch yourself remembering answers about the 3rd or 4th time seeing a question.

I've always wondered about this: Are firecracker questions automatically generated from the info or are they premade? I was wondering if I would lose any questions by unflagging several topics.

 

[thawunandonly]

I've always wondered about this: Are firecracker questions automatically generated from the info or are they premade? I was wondering if I would lose any questions by unflagging several topics.

It's something like if you flag a card, there is a number of questions associated with it. Let's say 7. That part is obvious.

These 7 questions are drawn from a pool of possibly more than 7 that consists of straight recall type or multiple choice type. I think the one that you get depends on previous progress and scores, and it's also possible to see a question twice by coincidence (but really, poor design).

So let's say I bank acute coronary syndrome. I get questions that ask me to describe or define it. If I rate it 1 or 2, I'll probably see the same exact thing tomorrow. If I rate it 4 or if it's the 5th time I've seen it, I might instead get a multiple choice question about acute coronary syndrome. If I see it 3 months from now and rate it 1 again, I might see the straight recall again.

The poor design part IMO is that you have potential to get double/repeat questions of the same topic and also that you might never see the "other type" of question in your review out of sheer luck/design flaw.

All of this is based off what I've observed in my experience so it doesn't necessarily happen that way... but the same result IS I have witnessed firsthand (i.e. I have gotten repeat questions plenty of times, which can lead to me scoring a five once and "perfect recalling" the other to save time, which potentially subtracts one from a question load improperly, because the double might actually represent a question that could have been drawn differently. I have also seen a question for let's say 20 repetitions of the same thing and all of a sudden I get one I've never seen before on #21. This sounds good when I say it like this, but I've also gotten a question e.g. direct recall on attempt #1 and then never see it again after 20+ repetitions, I only see the multiple choice type. I would have liked to see the original question again!)

Also, for those of you straining over 45questions/day.... you ain't seen nothin' yet.

 

[001100010010011]

Yeah, that is a pretty good point you raise. It fluctuates depending on your recall but it would be nice to get a bit more variety.

 

[docterspaceman]

Does anybody know how often Firecracker add material to its cards over time, and if these additions make the program lower yield? How do we know if the product that last year's students used to do so well on Step I is getting diluted and becoming less useful? For example, I was looking at the "Cardiac Tamponade" card in FC today and it is ridiculously, ridiculously over detailed. In FC there are about 4 sentences on the topic, in FC there are approximately 30 sentences worth of material. I had originally assumed that FC was basically FA but in a flashcard form - this is the first time I have actually compared an FC card with its equivalent FA information (because this card just seemed so insanely over the top). Seeing how different they are makes me worried that a lot of the material I have been learning from FC is just low yield, extraneous fluff.

How do you guys deal with some of these cards that seem super extraneous and low yield? Just hit the "never see this again" button?

 

[001100010010011]

That's the dilemma. There is a high-yield only option that you can cover if you feel strapped. Generally, if I know what the question they are asking is and feel that I understand the general pathophysiology behind it, or the structures around it if it's an anatomy question, then I just rate bank the question. I generally do not hit "never see again" unless it's an atrocious question/typo/utterly confusing the way it is presented. I usually mark it a 5 and move on.

I think that the topic number you see (1101) will fluctuate again in the next few months. They changed it to 1100 a few months ago--people were kind of sore about it, but I don't really recall why. I do not recall if they added cards or consolidated.

 

[Kbkilla]

For example, I was looking at the "Cardiac Tamponade" card in FC today and it is ridiculously, ridiculously over detailed. In FC there are about 4 sentences on the topic, in FC there are approximately 30 sentences worth of material.

The cardio section is messed up. I emailed them about it like 4 months ago and they prob haven't fixed stuff yet. Cards are loaded with info (and it seemed like step 2 content).

That section isn't a good representation of what most cards look like, so don't let it turn you off.

 

[Bancrofti]

looks like they added exam simulator feature. Glad to see they're upgrading things. Hopefully it doesn't have too many bugs in the beginning.

 

[001100010010011]

The exam sim section is pretty awful. Other qbanks are better.

 

[Brain Bucket]

Does anybody know how often Firecracker add material to its cards over time, and if these additions make the program lower yield? How do we know if the product that last year's students used to do so well on Step I is getting diluted and becoming less useful? For example, I was looking at the "Cardiac Tamponade" card in FC today and it is ridiculously, ridiculously over detailed. In FC there are about 4 sentences on the topic, in FC there are approximately 30 sentences worth of material. I had originally assumed that FC was basically FA but in a flashcard form - this is the first time I have actually compared an FC card with its equivalent FA information (because this card just seemed so insanely over the top). Seeing how different they are makes me worried that a lot of the material I have been learning from FC is just low yield, extraneous fluff.

How do you guys deal with some of these cards that seem super extraneous and low yield? Just hit the "never see this again" button?

I just looked at the card. Which information did you find that you feel is "insanely over the top" and/or "low yield extraneous fluff" on that card? It all looks pretty damn high yield to me.

 

[docterspaceman]

I may have phrased that poorly. However, would you agree that there seems to be a glut of information when the material is compared to first aid (pg. 275, 2013)?

 

[rodmichael82]

I may have phrased that poorly. However, would you agree that there seems to be a glut of information when the material is compared to first aid (pg. 275, 2013)?

lol@ passing judgment based on a comparison against 1 page of first aid.

 

[docterspaceman]

lol@ passing judgment based on a comparison against 1 page of first aid.

Yes, lol, I asked a question about Firecracker on a forum thread dedicated to Firecracker. So out of line.

Thanks everyone else - I agree that I haven't had a problem with the other sections I've covered. Very helpful to know that the topic number doesn't really fluctuate.

 

[docterspaceman]

This is definitely an extreme example, but for reference:

Cardiac Tamponade
Firecracker (http://imgur.com/a/XTfWq) vs. First Aid (http://imgur.com/ay7ShSH)