Firecracker

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
JackShephard MD

JackShephard MD

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2011
Messages
895
Reaction score
15
Points
4,641
Location
New York
  1. Medical Student
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
med.firecracker.me

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

Cheers.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
My test date is June 4th. At this rate I don't think I'll be able to finish all of FC before my dedicated studying time. I'm hoping I can get close to 90% sometime in April.

On a side note, has anyone recently made the change from legacy to MD mode? I'm still using legacy and was wondering if maybe I should switch over.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I switched to MD last fall. I like the interface better and once they introduce a mechanism to review missed cards in the same review session (should be soon :xf:), then I would wholeheartedly recommend it. As it stands I would say wait. Since we are getting close to your test date it might just not be worth switching.

The old FC has all of the data behind it anyway, I kind of feel like I'm taking a risk using the new version.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Can I get some feedback on which interface is better for me? I'm a DO student looking to jump into firecracker soon but mainly focusing on USMLE study plans, should I get the MD/DO version or the MD? Is MD/DO an older format and harder to use? Also I should mention I'm an MS1 looking to start doing something for boards which is why I want to start firecracker/first aid.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey guys, I start medical school in the fall, and I've been thinking about getting firecracker once I'm in school. I see people say that they banked this concept or they banked a certain %. What does this mean? I apologize for the ignorant question!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MedBrah 19 said:
Can I get some feedback on which interface is better for me? I'm a DO student looking to jump into firecracker soon but mainly focusing on USMLE study plans, should I get the MD/DO version or the MD? Is MD/DO an older format and harder to use? Also I should mention I'm an MS1 looking to start doing something for boards which is why I want to start firecracker/first aid.
Click to expand...
If you're a DO, get firecracker DO lol. You can get either MD or DO there isn't a hybrid that I know of. I think DO just has the OMM stuff added in, and I'm not positive but there may or may not be a slightly different focus. If you're talking about MD/DO vs. legacy I'd still go with MD/DO (which is the newer user interface

OverlyRomantic said:
Hey guys, I start medical school in the fall, and I've been thinking about getting firecracker once I'm in school. I see people say that they banked this concept or they banked a certain %. What does this mean? I apologize for the ignorant question!
Click to expand...

Banked means you have flagged and completed the questions for the topic in question. But seriously, it's January. Go climb a mountain or something 🙂
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ophthoseidon said:
If you're a DO, get firecracker DO lol. You can get either MD or DO there isn't a hybrid that I know of. I think DO just has the OMM stuff added in, and I'm not positive but there may or may not be a slightly different focus. If you're talking about MD/DO vs. legacy I'd still go with MD/DO (which is the newer user interface)
Click to expand...
Oh, you're right I think I got confused because firecracker DO has USMLE material in it. I guess my question was am I missing out on USMLE material by getting the DO version? I don't know if it contains ALL the MD material plus DO stuff or if they've cut out USMLE material to accommodate the COMLEX stuff. No doubt I want to do well on COMLEX but I really want to do an ACGME residency so my main focus is USMLE.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Will Firecracker help if I begin to use it now in the 2nd year or is it meant for starting in the first year? If I have a good background in year one material, how long will it take to finish the Firecracker material? Thank you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nds86 said:
Will Firecracker help if I begin to use it now in the 2nd year or is it meant for starting in the first year? If I have a good background in year one material, how long will it take to finish the Firecracker material? Thank you.
Click to expand...
If it was the beginning I would say yes. But since it;s over midway through second year I think it'd be a detriment to you. There's just too much to cover even if you have a good grasp on the material
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ophthoseidon said:
If you're a DO, get firecracker DO lol. You can get either MD or DO there isn't a hybrid that I know of. I think DO just has the OMM stuff added in, and I'm not positive but there may or may not be a slightly different focus. If you're talking about MD/DO vs. legacy I'd still go with MD/DO (which is the newer user interface



Banked means you have flagged and completed the questions for the topic in question. But seriously, it's January. Go climb a mountain or something 🙂
Click to expand...


Thank you for the answer! And don't worry, I didn't mean starting now. I meant when school starts
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I don't post on here much but wanted to share my progress to motivate other users or people considering using FC. I'm an MS 2, currently at ~87% Flagged and will be about ~93% Flagged by mid-February with hopes to be fully flagged by April. Classes have been going awesome, all but 3 honors from a total of 12 courses. I've completed 63,000+ recalls since starting day 1 of medical school. Few months out from Step 1 let's do this Firecrackers!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MedBrah 19 said:
Can I get some feedback on which interface is better for me? I'm a DO student looking to jump into firecracker soon but mainly focusing on USMLE study plans, should I get the MD/DO version or the MD? Is MD/DO an older format and harder to use? Also I should mention I'm an MS1 looking to start doing something for boards which is why I want to start firecracker/first aid.
Click to expand...
I picked MD just because they have USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 material, whereas DO only has COMLEX Lvl 1 material. I'm not sure how relevant that is for you, but I decided I could keep using FC throughout my third and four year to review relevant information for the rotations, so I wanted the Step 2 stuff as well.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
polylux said:
I picked MD just because they have USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 material, whereas DO only has COMLEX Lvl 1 material. I'm not sure how relevant that is for you, but I decided I could keep using FC throughout my third and four year to review relevant information for the rotations, so I wanted the Step 2 stuff as well.
Click to expand...

The DO version doesn't have USMLE material? Their website says it does http://www.firecracker.me/product/firecracker-do
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
deecee90 said:
I don't post on here much but wanted to share my progress to motivate other users or people considering using FC. I'm an MS 2, currently at ~87% Flagged and will be about ~93% Flagged by mid-February with hopes to be fully flagged by April. Classes have been going awesome, all but 3 honors from a total of 12 courses. I've completed 63,000+ recalls since starting day 1 of medical school. Few months out from Step 1 let's do this Firecrackers!
Click to expand...

Nice Work!!! Your killing me, I'm at 65% flagged and 31,000 total cards. Goals are to finish FC by March 15 and do 100,000 reviews by Step 1 😀
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
How in the world do you guys have that many cards in circulation? I'm at 70% flagged and I have a bit more than 10,000 cards. Also how do you see how many reviews you've done? Isn't that an old thing they use to mail you?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nabilesmail said:
How in the world do you guys have that many cards in circulation? I'm at 70% flagged and I have a bit more than 10,000 cards. Also how do you see how many reviews you've done? Isn't that an old thing they use to mail you?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I just messaged them and asked. Nice work on getting to 70 %, when are you trying to finish FC by?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nabilesmail said:
How in the world do you guys have that many cards in circulation? I'm at 70% flagged and I have a bit more than 10,000 cards. Also how do you see how many reviews you've done? Isn't that an old thing they use to mail you?
Click to expand...

It's not that we have that many individual questions (cards) it's that the total recalls from the pool of questions add up to that much i.e. 300 cards/day for 300 days = 90,000 recalls for instance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Has anyone taken their Practice test for step 1 .. it is one of the standardized tests they are making which replicate the shelf exams... (This is not the Legacy QBank..it is a separate test series)
If anyone has used the practice test then please post your score here. I would really appreciate a correlation of sorts between this test and the final 3 digit score. FC in it's wisdom has not given a 3 digit correlation. 😛
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SeahawksFan said:
Has anyone taken their Practice test for step 1 .. it is one of the standardized tests they are making which replicate the shelf exams... (This is not the Legacy QBank..it is a separate test series)
If anyone has used the practice test then please post your score here. I would really appreciate a correlation of sorts between this test and the final 3 digit score. FC in it's wisdom has not given a 3 digit correlation. 😛
Click to expand...
Probably not enough data points yet to identify one. I'm sure if it is found to be a good predictor, they'd be the first to publish the data and let everyone know. I'd imagine they just don't know yet since it's relatively new (came out last summer?)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
theKeithF said:
Yay! Thank you, Daitong. We quietly released our new notes experience today, but will be announcing all of its functionality in the morning. Would love everyone's thoughts on this.
Click to expand...


Long time no see! Any update on the '0' AKA see again very soon (on the same day) for cards we really don't know?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
Long time no see! Any update on the '0' AKA see again very soon (on the same day) for cards we really don't know?
Click to expand...
I'm back! Yes, we are. The goal is to introduce an Anki-esque snooze feature before the end of February, which will allow you to shuffle a card back into your review session to randomly see again (you can snooze as many times as you'd like, and we'll only record the final review score for the question). Shortly after, we're going to introduce a post review session summary, from which you can relaunch review of questions from different review scores, meaning you could relaunch all the questions you had absolutely no clue on.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
theKeithF said:
I'm back! Yes, we are. The goal is to introduce an Anki-esque snooze feature before the end of February, which will allow you to shuffle a card back into your review session to randomly see again (you can snooze as many times as you'd like, and we'll only record the final review score for the question). Shortly after, we're going to introduce a post review session summary, from which you can relaunch review of questions from different review scores, meaning you could relaunch all the questions you had absolutely no clue on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update, it is really appreciated! With this feature, will it be obvious that you have 'snoozed' the card before? I'm thinking that if I snooze the 5th card that I see in my review session and I don't see it again until ~300 cards later (and also perhaps half a day later, if I break up my Firecracker cards throughout the day), I may forget that it was one of the cards that I originally didn't know well and rank it a 4 or 5 because I remembered the answer.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
CyberMaxx said:
Thanks for the update, it is really appreciated! With this feature, will it be obvious that you have 'snoozed' the card before? I'm thinking that if I snooze the 5th card that I see in my review session and I don't see it again until ~300 cards later (and also perhaps half a day later, if I break up my Firecracker cards throughout the day), I may forget that it was one of the cards that I originally didn't know well and rank it a 4 or 5 because I remembered the answer.
Click to expand...
Yes - at the top left of a snoozed card will be a little indicator that says 'Previously Snoozed'. It'll be nearly impossible to miss. As for the intervals, they will be much shorter than that; based on all of the feedback we've received, I believe the ballpark will be something more along the lines of a random number of cards between 5 and 15 later.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
theKeithF said:
Yes - at the top left of a snoozed card will be a little indicator that says 'Previously Snoozed'. It'll be nearly impossible to miss. As for the intervals, they will be much shorter than that; based on all of the feedback we've received, I believe the ballpark will be something more along the lines of a random number of cards between 5 and 15 later.
Click to expand...

I really appreciate you taking the time to write on these boards and take our input into account. It is one of the reasons I've stuck with FC, even when there have been problems! 🙂
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Has anyone else had this problem where is that the auxiliary tab/screen on the right side of the screen for the 'tell us how you're doing' and the newly updated 'Feedback' system doesn't pop up as it should, BUT it does when I open up FC in incognito Chrome mode, which makes me think that I messed with some settings accidentally, and IDK how to revert back to it. Do you have any ideas?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
Has anyone else had this problem where is that the auxiliary tab/screen on the right side of the screen for the 'tell us how you're doing' and the newly updated 'Feedback' system doesn't pop up as it should, BUT it does when I open up FC in incognito Chrome mode, which makes me think that I messed with some settings accidentally, and IDK how to revert back to it. Do you have any ideas?
Click to expand...
Whoa, that's odd. I'll chat with my engineering team tomorrow. Maybe they'll have an idea. Sit tight.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey guys, incoming M1 here. Does anyone have any experience using FC alongside a curriculum with 1.5 pre-clinical years, a year of core clerkships and THEN Step 1? Does FC have functionality for shelf exams? At this point, I'm guessing that it wouldn't make sense to flag anything until the summer after M1. I'd appreciate any opinions!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
@theKeithF
@Ophthoseidon

Could you guys give some thoughts on FC anatomy and esp for Keith at how students use it? We're organ systems based and all of our anatomy is learned in 4 weeks as part of MSK; FC seems to have ALOT and it seems overkill, especially when path/micro/pharm is much more HY, and I'd rather not 'waste' time learning the nitty gritty details of anatomy if I could run through more passes of FA. For example, even with the respiratory anatomy, do we really need to know the various structures of the larynx/pharynx in that amount of detail?

What do you guys think? Would I shoot myself in the foot if I deliberately do not flag certain portions of anatomy?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
@theKeithF
@Ophthoseidon

Could you guys give some thoughts on FC anatomy and esp for Keith at how students use it? We're organ systems based and all of our anatomy is learned in 4 weeks as part of MSK; FC seems to have ALOT and it seems overkill, especially when path/micro/pharm is much more HY, and I'd rather not 'waste' time learning the nitty gritty details of anatomy if I could run through more passes of FA. For example, even with the respiratory anatomy, do we really need to know the various structures of the larynx/pharynx in that amount of detail?

What do you guys think? Would I shoot myself in the foot if I deliberately do not flag certain portions of anatomy?
Click to expand...
Hmm... good questions. I'm going to ask one of our content editors to hop in and give some feedback on this. They're more qualified to respond, and you all will just laugh at me if I try to play med student for even 2 seconds.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
Could you guys give some thoughts on FC anatomy and esp for Keith at how students use it? We're organ systems based and all of our anatomy is learned in 4 weeks as part of MSK; FC seems to have ALOT and it seems overkill, especially when path/micro/pharm is much more HY, and I'd rather not 'waste' time learning the nitty gritty details of anatomy if I could run through more passes of FA. For example, even with the respiratory anatomy, do we really need to know the various structures of the larynx/pharynx in that amount of detail?

What do you guys think? Would I shoot myself in the foot if I deliberately do not flag certain portions of anatomy?
Click to expand...

Hi Daitong, I'm a 4th yr FC content editor (252 on Step 1, 253 on Step 2). I would recommend flagging all topics, including ones in the anatomy sub-subject, within a organ system (e.g., Pulmonology) as you learn the material in your classes. When you do your first review of the questions just answer any questions as a "5" if you feel like they are low-yield. When you are in your MSK block, I recommend using the Anatomy subject, especially if you never had a dedicated anatomy course, and flag all topics and prune any ones you feel are low-yield by giving them a "5". As a content editor and 4th yr medical student, I highly recommend doing every FC question at least once. It will be worth the few seconds to at least read the material even if you don't give yourself the time to actually answer the question. In addition, some of that nitty-gritty is good to review every once in a while since it has a tendency to come up randomly when you're in your clinical rotations (i.e., when pimped by an attending). Every piece of content is there for a reason, and we are constantly tweaking the topics to fit the right balance of high-yield and low-yield. Let me know if you have any additional questions!
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
navsk13 said:
Hi Daitong, I'm a 4th yr FC content editor (252 on Step 1, 253 on Step 2). I would recommend flagging all topics, including ones in the anatomy sub-subject, within a organ system (e.g., Pulmonology) as you learn the material in your classes. When you do your first review of the questions just answer any questions as a "5" if you feel like they are low-yield. When you are in your MSK block, I recommend using the Anatomy subject, especially if you never had a dedicated anatomy course, and flag all topics and prune any ones you feel are low-yield by giving them a "5". As a content editor and 4th yr medical student, I highly recommend doing every FC question at least once. It will be worth the few seconds to at least read the material even if you don't give yourself the time to actually answer the question. In addition, some of that nitty-gritty is good to review every once in a while since it has a tendency to come up randomly when you're in your clinical rotations (i.e., when pimped by an attending). Every piece of content is there for a reason, and we are constantly tweaking the topics to fit the right balance of high-yield and low-yield. Let me know if you have any additional questions!
Click to expand...


Oooh that's great advice- giving a 5 to things that aren't particularly high yield, but just to see it and have some level of exposure.

I guess I'm wondering if there are moves to stratify cards by their relative importance; for example the pathology cards in each block carry more weight as they are more likely to be tested both in class or on boards, but as it is now, those cards carry 'equal weight' as an obscure anatomy factoid. Especially as the exam date approaches, it would likely be more valuable to have a path card show up at a higher frequency than an anat/histo/embryo card, even if they have been rated the same in the past.


Also great to see Keith + the FC team make a return to the forums.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
Oooh that's great advice- giving a 5 to things that aren't particularly high yield, but just to see it and have some level of exposure.

I guess I'm wondering if there are moves to stratify cards by their relative importance; for example the pathology cards in each block carry more weight as they are more likely to be tested both in class or on boards, but as it is now, those cards carry 'equal weight' as an obscure anatomy factoid. Especially as the exam date approaches, it would likely be more valuable to have a path card show up at a higher frequency than an anat/histo/embryo card, even if they have been rated the same in the past.


Also great to see Keith + the FC team make a return to the forums.
Click to expand...
I have all of anatomy flagged but I did it during first year when we had anatomy. You might think something is low yield (and technically it is) but if you miss a question on it on step 1, you'll be pissed you didn't do it. I understand what you're saying though. I think firecracker is nearly comprehensive and recently people have said UWorld and FA aren't really enough, so I've stuck with it. I've had it flagged so long though I rarely see it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
theKeithF said:
I'm back! Yes, we are. The goal is to introduce an Anki-esque snooze feature before the end of February, which will allow you to shuffle a card back into your review session to randomly see again (you can snooze as many times as you'd like, and we'll only record the final review score for the question). Shortly after, we're going to introduce a post review session summary, from which you can relaunch review of questions from different review scores, meaning you could relaunch all the questions you had absolutely no clue on.
Click to expand...
I can't wait. I'm really excited. These features make my life way easier. If I'm ever in Boston I'm hitting you up and buying you a drink (assuming this comes out on time !).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
@Ophthoseidon what is your target score on FC? Obviously we're all shooting for 250+ and for the most part I've been hitting my target goals of ~180 cards a day, but I'm thinking about lowering my 'goal score' just so I don't have too much pressure to rush through some near the end of the day.

@theKeithF

What are your thoughts? Would it better to have a daily goal of 180 cards and only hit 80% of them, or lowering my goal card count (via decreasing my 'goal score') and hitting 100% of them? I wonder what the best optimizing technique is for the FC algorithm.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ophthoseidon said:
I can't wait. I'm really excited. These features make my life way easier. If I'm ever in Boston I'm hitting you up and buying you a drink (assuming this comes out on time !).
Click to expand...
Any med students who are in/come to Boston, drinks are on me. (And challenge accepted!)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
@Ophthoseidon what is your target score on FC? Obviously we're all shooting for 250+ and for the most part I've been hitting my target goals of ~180 cards a day, but I'm thinking about lowering my 'goal score' just so I don't have too much pressure to rush through some near the end of the day.

@theKeithF

What are your thoughts? Would it better to have a daily goal of 180 cards and only hit 80% of them, or lowering my goal card count (via decreasing my 'goal score') and hitting 100% of them? I wonder what the best optimizing technique is for the FC algorithm.
Click to expand...
Honestly, this comes down to a question of personal motivation: Will you feel demotivated/defeated if you fail to reach your goal card count some days? If so, perhaps you should change your goal score. However, I would suggest not doing that. Here's why:

The algorithm always presents you with cards that cover the concepts you're at the greatest risk of forgetting. Focusing on answering as many cards (as you comfortably can) is more important than worrying about the percent of daily goal card count. If you do 180 cards, you should feel positive about the fact that you've successfully refreshed the highest 180 cards. The same if you do 170, but your goal is 180. The point is, 180 cards is 180 cards; regardless of if that is 90% or 100% of your daily goal, you've put in a commendable amount of work and are still well within spitting distance of your recommendation. That's reason enough to pat yourself on the back. So, I would say to stick with your current goal score so you always have that motivational carrot dangling a bit out there, do your best to hit it each day, and don't get down on yourself if you happen to fall short from time to time. Just remember this is a marathon, and every bit of work you're doing is helping ensure the outcome you're pursuing. (Hope that helps and isn't too rah rah.)
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Daitong said:
@Ophthoseidon what is your target score on FC? Obviously we're all shooting for 250+ and for the most part I've been hitting my target goals of ~180 cards a day, but I'm thinking about lowering my 'goal score' just so I don't have too much pressure to rush through some near the end of the day.

@theKeithF

What are your thoughts? Would it better to have a daily goal of 180 cards and only hit 80% of them, or lowering my goal card count (via decreasing my 'goal score') and hitting 100% of them? I wonder what the best optimizing technique is for the FC algorithm.
Click to expand...
I think I have mine at 250 but I don't remember. I honestly don't think the score changes your card about by much if at all (at least in my experimentation). Right now I have like 235/day, but once I finish flagging I'll probably ramp my review questions up since I won't be spending so much time flagging. 180 review cards should take about an hour/slightly over so if you can keep up with that you should be fine.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Quick question guys, I just finished flagging 100% (woo!) and I need some opinions. I plan on keeping this stuff current for 1.5 weeks in order to make sure I have a good grasp but after that I was going to move everything to past. But I'm thinking about it more and not sure if I should keep the current organ systems stuff current or not. I currently have ~20% of the bank in current, and moving everything besides concurrent system we're covering in class to past would still alleviate a huge "current" load. What did/would you do? Move everything to past and use it as 100% review? Or shift everything for current organ system to current?

Edit: I feel like I haven't seen a TON of stuff in a long time (my amount of "10" prioritization cards is getting intense) which is why I wanted to move the stuff, to see older stuff.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ophthoseidon said:
Quick question guys, I just finished flagging 100% (woo!) and I need some opinions. I plan on keeping this stuff current for 1.5 weeks in order to make sure I have a good grasp but after that I was going to move everything to past. But I'm thinking about it more and not sure if I should keep the current organ systems stuff current or not. I currently have ~20% of the bank in current, and moving everything besides concurrent system we're covering in class to past would still alleviate a huge "current" load. What did/would you do? Move everything to past and use it as 100% review? Or shift everything for current organ system to current?

Edit: I feel like I haven't seen a TON of stuff in a long time (my amount of "10" prioritization cards is getting intense) which is why I wanted to move the stuff, to see older stuff.
Click to expand...

Congratulations man!!! Looks like you're the first in our group to finish FC for boards this summer! My thought would be to put everything in past very soon. I still am not done with flagging but I have put everything in past at this point and am using it to review. I think its helpful for me to work through my pile of top prioritization cards and start really cramming in the stuff that I am consistently rating lowly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I decided to switch everything to past. Thanks for the suggestion! I figure, might be rating the stuff I just tagged 1s, so if it needs to be seen it will be at the top of the priority anyway.

Also, FC user FYI (since it's been asked many times), the current total step 1 card count is 14,572. The team is obviously always creating and editing, but I figured I'd share it for future reference.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

WeedForLunch
  • Question Question
FIRECRACKER - Anticholinergic agents contraindicated in ?
Replies
2
Views
835
studentdocftw
S
The Knife & Gun Club
  • Question Question
FireCracker Full Length Exams
Replies
0
Views
1K
The Knife & Gun Club
The Knife & Gun Club
S
  • Question Question
Firecracker Practice Tests
Replies
1
Views
2K
srs33
S
F
  • Question Question
firecracker
Replies
0
Views
2K
firecrackertrain
F
R
  • Question Question
looking for a firecracker study buddy
Replies
1
Views
1K
siena
S
Top Bottom