Gunner Training?

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A

 

[ipizzy]

I totally agree with that. Interestingly enough, I just did the pharyngeal arch/etc. cards last night, and I think they must've broken it up recently. I feel like the main pharyngeal arch card in the embryo section was only like 11 questions and didn't seem that bad to me. I think that may be where a number of "new" cards they've added over the past year have come from, because I didn't think they had like 100-200 cards worth of missing material that needed to be added given that people scoring 270 were crediting GT with playing a big part in their success.

Oooh man. When I banked that card I think there was something like 38 questions (for 1 card) 😱. It's great they broke it up! There are only a few others that have questions numbering in the 30s (I think there are some toxicology cards that fit the bill) so fortunately these beasts are few and far between

 

[zaq00]

Does anyone else have functionality issues using GT? I just started GT and last night it was working fine on my laptop. However, today, there is some issue...I can't view my calendar and also the answers don't show up when I'm trying to do the quizzes. I've used a different browser and still nothing. I noticed that when I use another computer (e.g. university computers) these issues are resolved. So, I'm thinking there may be some setting issues with my laptop..I'm not sure though. I sent GT support an email but haven't gotten a response. Anyone else experiencing this and/or any suggestions???

thanks.

 

[Zarika]

Does anyone else have functionality issues using GT? I just started GT and last night it was working fine on my laptop. However, today, there is some issue...I can't view my calendar and also the answers don't show up when I'm trying to do the quizzes. I've used a different browser and still nothing. I noticed that when I use another computer (e.g. university computers) these issues are resolved. So, I'm thinking there may be some setting issues with my laptop..I'm not sure though. I sent GT support an email but haven't gotten a response. Anyone else experiencing this and/or any suggestions???

thanks.

I don't have any problems on my laptop, but if I try to use GT at school I need to use firefox not IE. I think the school's IE is an old edition and I can't update it without an administrator password, so I have to download firefox anytime I use a school computer for GT. Maybe try mozilla or upgrade your IE, because those issues (can't see the calendar, nothing appearing on the quizzes) are exactly what happens for me.

 

[zaq00]

I don't have any problems on my laptop, but if I try to use GT at school I need to use firefox not IE. I think the school's IE is an old edition and I can't update it without an administrator password, so I have to download firefox anytime I use a school computer for GT. Maybe try mozilla or upgrade your IE, because those issues (can't see the calendar, nothing appearing on the quizzes) are exactly what happens for me.

I just tried mozilla...still no luck w/ the issues...ie. the calender isn't showing and the quiz answers are not showing either. My IE is up to date and that doesn't help. I'm not sure what's wrong...It was working fine yesterday. As I mentioned previously, everything seems to work fine when I'm using another computer (e.g. university computers) despite the fact that they have an older version of IE. Unfortunately GT support hasn't been of any help thus far as I haven't gotten a response to my email that I sent them and so any other suggestions to help me with the issue will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[islandCrazy]

I just tried mozilla...still no luck w/ the issues...ie. the calender isn't showing and the quiz answers are not showing either. My IE is up to date and that doesn't help. I'm not sure what's wrong...It was working fine yesterday. As I mentioned previously, everything seems to work fine when I'm using another computer (e.g. university computers) despite the fact that they have an older version of IE. Unfortunately GT support hasn't been of any help thus far as I haven't gotten a response to my email that I sent them and so any other suggestions to help me with the issue will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

First write a message on the GT facebook page, that might get their attention faster. Second do you have google chrome, because that is the browser I use for GT. Third I have a tiny screen so sometimes I have to zoom in and out to actually get features to appear on the page.

 

[Doctopus]

That's a little dickish IMO. Whenever I email their customer support I get a response in a business day, typically in a few hours. Did you try emailing them before putting them on blast on facebook?

 

[zaq00]

thanks for the replies people, I really appreciate it....

Yes, I tried Google Chrome (which is my main browser), IE and Mozilla but the problem persists (i.e. I can't view the calendar or the answers on the quizzes. also, none of the shortcut keys are working either).

I guess I'll wait a couple days for an email reply. If nothing, maybe I'll send another email. I suppose last resort would be to leave a message on facebook.

If anyone else has had the same issue as me and/or for additional suggests, please either reply or even PM me.

 

[islandCrazy]

That's a little dickish IMO. Whenever I email their customer support I get a response in a business day, typically in a few hours. Did you try emailing them before putting them on blast on facebook?

There is a BIG difference between blast and facebook message. Several people have asked for support using their Facebook page.

 

[islandCrazy]

On another note, if I changed from Comprehensive to Light mode for a few days and then change back to comprehensive would I have to re-bank some of the questions?

 

[Chirurg]

thanks for the replies people, I really appreciate it....

Yes, I tried Google Chrome (which is my main browser), IE and Mozilla but the problem persists (i.e. I can't view the calendar or the answers on the quizzes. also, none of the shortcut keys are working either).

I guess I'll wait a couple days for an email reply. If nothing, maybe I'll send another email. I suppose last resort would be to leave a message on facebook.

If anyone else has had the same issue as me and/or for additional suggests, please either reply or even PM me.

one of my friends is having this issue today and I couldn't help, it must be terrible if you have more than 100 cards per day, please update if you have any news.

 

[JackShephard MD]

These sound more like computer/browser setting problems.

I've used GT on an android phone browser in the last 24 hours and it works fine.

 

[Chirurg]

These sound more like computer/browser setting problems.

I've used GT on an android phone browser in the last 24 hours and it works fine.

but how can this be from one day to the next??
I'm using it on my phone and laptop, no problems.
I don't think it's a browser problem, I'm not an expert but this can be a problem with their servers.
Specially if I think back about their server issues that have happened in the past...

 

[zaq00]

I believe the problem is resolved. I have some web protection program/software installed on my laptop and changed the settings on it. I'm guessing the program had prevented something w/in the GT website or one of the functions w/in the website that displays calendar and answers. Now it is working fine. However, what I don't understand is why it was working fine initially even w/ the original settings of my web protection program/software??? Very strange.

 

[abcshawnxyz]

hey guys. i'm not too sure how effective GT is but from reading a few posts, it sounds like a great idea. the thing i'm concerned about is whether or not it'll be effective for me so i want to make ask for some advice

currently i'm about 3.5 months away from my exam. i'm on pace to finish Uworld and FA in about 3 weeks. I was planning on doing Rx and reread FA next (w/ rapid review on certain patho and goljan audio), and then redo Uworld after that.

Do you guys recommend just me doing GT after i finish FA and Uworld and then after finishing GT, do Uworld second pass?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[JackShephard MD]

I was reading a post by iPizzy today about the Penn Method for studying for Step 1 and it made me think about the usefulness of GT. I will post an example of the Penn Method below, but basically it has you review all the material for a few weeks 3-4, then focus on really hammering Qbanks the last 5 days. I know people at my school who have used similar schedules to do well on the boards, in essence cramming the details that get you that higher score (240-250+). My question is this then, how useful is Gunner Training?

I have a long term subscription to this program and have banked between 15-20%. I definitely see the value in learning material and having it in my long term memory, but at the same time, it is an enormous amount of time that must be devoted to the program to use it.

I'm sure that anyone over 50%+ banked will spend 3-4 hours on GT alone every day. 100% banked, maintenance could approach 6 hours a day. Which I guess is fine, but is it necessary? In the 6 months before the exam, I'm sure that reviewing details of the sciences is important, but I wonder about the usefulness of keeping subjects like biochem or anatomy "on tap" for 12-18 months. There is an enormous amount of time that must be devoted to do this.

Looking at the Penn Method, they spend 4 days on biochem and then you're done. If you, as an M1 bank Biochem during the first semester, you've now spend months upon months maintaining that knowledge.

I'm struggling to decide about the usefulness of Gunner Training at this point. I think it is effective but to devote 2-3 hours a day at first, followed by as many as 5-6 hours, is that really more effective than cramming the details in the last 6 months and doing, for example: Kaplan, USMLERx, UWorld while reviewing details?

I guess the plan I am thinking may be superior to GT's would model the UPenn method. Basically, thoroughly learn all the material as you go, then let it go until the final 6-10 weeks. Then, you would quickly review all the details and do lots of questions for each subject area. The focus on learning would not be memorizing, as much as learning it so well that when you review it, it can be picked up very rapidly.

Obviously most of you enjoy GT's philosophy, which I do also, but I'm wondering how effective it is compared to the cramming of the details with more focus on problem solving + qbanks. I'm interested to hear the defense for GT, as I would like to use the program I've paid for if I can be convinced that it is a superior method.

Here's the Penn Method in case anyone is interested.

Books needed:
First-Aid for the Boards - USMLE part 1
Lippincott's Biochemistry
Lippincott's Pharmacology
Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple
Microbiology and Immunology (by Lange..orange and dark grey book) BRS Pathology BRS Physiology High Yield Anatomy High Yield Embryology High Yield Neuroanatomy High Yield Behavioral Sciences High Yield Histology

Question Sources:
Kaplan's Q-bank (2500 questions + answers online), 1 month subscription Appletion and Lange's USMLE Step 1 (1200 questions + answers, including 2 full-length exams)

Schedule (First 25 days*) - Background Reading
* These days are meant to get your familiar with the material. Don't get caught up on trying to memorize every detail. These days are not for memorization. They are just meant for you to see all the material once and to distill out the most testable points in order to take notes upon for further study (see "last 5 days" below). These days are approximately 8-9 hours of studying/day. Make sure you sleep, eat, and work-out religiously during this time. Also, try and relax for 2-3 hours per night (i.e hang with significant other, watch movies, go out of the library).

2 days First-Aid for the Boards (only cursory reading - get a feel for what you are up against)
4 days Biochemistry + 50 biochem questions per night
1 day Histology + 50 histology questions
3 days Microbiology (Micro made ridic simple only) + 50 microbio questions/night
1 day Immunology (Lange's book) + 50 immuno questions
1 day Embryology + 50 embryology questions
3 days Physiology + 50 physiology questions/night
1 day Anatomy + 50 anatomy questions
4 days Pharmacology + 50 pharmacology questions
1 day Neuroanatomy + 50 neuroanatomy questions
3 days Pathology + 50 pathology questions/night
1 day Behavioral Sciences + 50 behavioral sciences questions

So for each of first 25 days of reading, you review (in 1 hour each morning) the corresponding section from First-Aid. While you are doing your readings for the day, you take all your notes in the margins of First-Aid on the section that relates to that day's readings. At night, you do 50 to 100 practice questions on the topic (i.e Biochemistry) that you read about that day and read ALL the explanations for each question at the back of the Book or on the Kaplan Website.

Schedule (Last 5 days*) ->
key to a 250+ score:
*WARNING: last 5 days are the absolute meat of getting the score.
Everything you've done before
this is just a warm-up. These days are approximately 12-14 hours of studying/day. Besides eating, sleeping and working-out, you are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE BUT STUDYING.

Day 1 - review Biochemistry, Physiology sections of First-Aid (i.e deeply study these sections and all the notes you wrote in the margins). This should take approximately
5-6 hours. In the afternoon,
do 150-200 questions/answers related to Biochem, and Physiology.
Day 2 - review all small topics (i.e. Histology, Anatomy, Embryology, Neuroanatomy, Behavioral
Sciences) and Pathology sections of First-Aid plus your notes. Do 150-200 questions related to these topics.
Day 3 - review Pharmacology and Micro + Immuno sections of First-Aid plus your notes. Do 150-200 questions related to these topics.
Day 4 - review First-Aid sections/notes: Biochem, Physio, Path. Do 1 practice test from Appleton and Lange.
Do more questions related to these topics.
Day 5 (Last Day!!!) - Review First Aid sections/notes: Micro + Immuno, Pharm, and small subjects. Do second test from Appleton and Lange. Do more questions related to these topics.

 

[Brasco888]

That's an interesting post. Isn't the idea behind GT that once you have cemented certain concepts in your memory, achieving mastery, you click on "don't show me this again"?

That should cut down on a lot of maintenance - I'd like to think that by a month before the exam, I won't be doing 6 hrs a day of GT.

 

[Bernoull]

That's an interesting post. Isn't the idea behind GT that once you have cemented certain concepts in your memory, achieving mastery, you click on "don't show me this again"?

That should cut down on a lot of maintenance - I'd like to think that by a month before the exam, I won't be doing 6 hrs a day of GT.

ppl who have previously completely GT had about 100Qs a day for maintenance which can be knocked out in 30-60mins, a totally reasonable amout of time even in the last weeks b4 board.

For abcshawn since u're much further along in ur review you could try a couple of things.

1. For topics u know well, just go through them and rate them 4-5s, this way they don't bog down ur daily reviews (they'll show up less frequently) and ur weak topics will show up more frequently.
2. Alternatively, u can focus only on ur weak areas (i.e. renal physio, micro or pharm) and skip everything else.

Only u can do the calculus to see if your remaining time is best spent on GT, Qbanks or primary sources. It seems u're relatively good on the latter two since u're almost done with UW, so ur case is more dicey. Do u have classes?

 

[amaprez]

one person says 1 hour, another person says 5-6 hours? 😕 Big disparity.

 

[JackShephard MD]

one person says 1 hour, another person says 5-6 hours? 😕 Big disparity.

1 hour really isn't fair.

There are approximately 1,000 cards on GT. On comprehensive mode, the questions per card is anywhere from 3-30. Using an average of maybe 10 questions per card, that's 10,000 questions in your bank. To spend only 30 hours a month and assuming you only touch each question once every 6 weeks (which is a lot when you have 10,000 questions), you would need to do an impossible 222 questions per hour (that's 222 Q's/hr x 45 hours which is approximately 1.5 months to do a full rep). Closer to reality, if you aren't rating things 4 and 5 all the time (know instantly), you will see things at least every month (30 days for 1 full pass), leading to closer to 333 questions each day. Sit down and do 100 questions, it takes me anywhere from 60-100 minutes, probably around 80, depending how well I know the material.

I can't believe anyone could be 100% banked and spend less than 3 hours per day and those people would have been using the program religiously for a year, the rest of the people will be closer to 4+ hours, especially if you are banking new cards.

I think the true flaw of GT, which I didn't really notice until now, is that it requires you to memorize material way too far in advance. Being able to recite every enzyme in the glycolytic pathway isn't necessary 1 year before the exam day. I was reading through methods like the Taus or Penn method, I found it interesting that, on their first pass (months before the exam) they explicitly state to avoid memorizing the material, just work for understanding. The strategy is to peak on test day.

Maintaining 50%+ banked for over a year requires a HUGE investment of time and energy, defintely over 3 hours per day (as you need to keep banking new cards).

The program is very effective, but I'm not sure how efficient it is for me to know all the details of gross anatomy, biochem, and microbiology for the next 18 months, while adding pathology, physiology and more. I would like to add that I'm not a FAST learner, I'm average speed at best.

I find it interesting that GT added 200 new cards in the last ~6 months(?), yet as posters mentioned, people were already using GT to score 250 or 260+. Those 200 new cards are basically 2,000 more questions that must be maintained week after week. For a person to only use 30-60 min a day on GT with 10,000 questions, assuming an average speed of 80 questions per hour (which is very fair), you would go through the entire deck in 4 months (80 questions/hr x 125 sessions = 10,000). In other words, you would see each question once every four months. To see each question every month, working at the same speed, you would need to use 4 hrs each day. This is assuming you forget no questions, as that would slow you down. I work closer to 60 Q's an hour on stuff I don't know well, which would be nearly 6 hours a day to make a full pass in 1 month.

I think I may abandon this program. Obviously, you will do well if you dedicate 3+ hrs each day for a year will lead to success, but I would argue any method with a long-term disciplined plan will work. I know a guy who just scored 250+ a last year, he just hit it hard for 6 weeks with FA and UW. Good luck guys, do what you think is best.

 

[Bernoull]

That's an interesting post. Isn't the idea behind GT that once you have cemented certain concepts in your memory, achieving mastery, you click on "don't show me this again"?

That should cut down on a lot of maintenance - I'd like to think that by a month before the exam, I won't be doing 6 hrs a day of GT.

If you go through the older posts, there's some posts about ppl who had completed GT and their daily Q reviews were around 100Q/day. My post is just referencing the experiences of those ppl. Obviously, one's mastery and # cards marked as never to show up again will factor into one's daily review in the end.

Perhaps those that have completed GT or are close to doing so can shed some light into this. I think feedback from those that have completely for a while now (reached steady-state as opposed to recently banked a boatload) would be most instructive.

 

[Brasco888]

Perhaps those that have completed GT or are close to doing so can shed some light into this. I think feedback from those that have completely for a while now (reached steady-state as opposed to recently banked a boatload) would be most instructive.

Agreed 👍

 

[bbaggins]

I'm at 60% banked, 40% mastery. I recently have added more cards, but prior to that with similar numbers had around 120 questions a day. Obviously that would be lower if my mastery matched my banked %. It doesn't take very long to do those questions, one hour max if I do them all at once. When you're just reviewing stuff you already know, in other words at steady-state, the questions go super fast. Minus some of the more intense questions (list all 27 characteristics of such and such), I can burn through probably 4 in a minute.

 

[amaprez]

I feel like GT staff should do some kind of contest/search to find the users who've banked/mastered the most and interview them.

 

[ipizzy]

I've banked 100% of the cards and I don't spend longer than 1 hour on GT per day for my maintenance review schedule quizzes. Once you bank all the material and reach 'steady state,' you get down to 100-150 review questions/day. It's absurd to think that the minimum amount of time for a 100% bank-er would be 3+ hours. If it takes you that long, you're thinking too hard about the cards and you need to be ranking them at 1's or 2's so you see them more frequently and get faster at remembering.

I posted about the Penn method in another thread but honestly I know myself and I know the way I study best, and the Penn method would not have worked for me. I'm not a crammer and I prefer having the wiggle room to study a topic as much or as little as needed, rather than pigeon-holing myself into "4 days of biochem, no more." I don't see any downside in knowing the details "far in advance;" I'd rather do that than run the risk of not having enough time to learn the details for actual test day. It's not like I'm forgetting the details because I'm learning them too soon; I think the repetition of seeing them so often has made a huge difference for me in terms of my performance on Qbank. I started GT last fall.

 

[Bernoull]

I've banked 100% of the cards and I don't spend longer than 1 hour on GT per day for my maintenance review schedule quizzes. Once you bank all the material and reach 'steady state,' you get down to 100-150 review questions/day. It's absurd to think that the minimum amount of time for a 100% bank-er would be 3+ hours. If it takes you that long, you're thinking too hard about the cards and you need to be ranking them at 1's or 2's so you see them more frequently and get faster at remembering.

I posted about the Penn method in another thread but honestly I know myself and I know the way I study best, and the Penn method would not have worked for me. I'm not a crammer and I prefer having the wiggle room to study a topic as much or as little as needed, rather than pigeon-holing myself into "4 days of biochem, no more." I don't see any downside in knowing the details "far in advance;" I'd rather do that than run the risk of not having enough time to learn the details for actual test day. It's not like I'm forgetting the details because I'm learning them too soon; I think the repetition of seeing them so often has made a huge difference for me in terms of my performance on Qbank. I started GT last fall.

Bingo!!
Congrats on completion, that's freaking awesome! Did u pop open a bottle when u hit 100% 😀? I know i would! When's ur test date again?

This is why GT makes sense in the long run; there's light at the end of the tunnel, one's daily review become much more manageable, otherwise it'd be counterproductive especially in the final stretch of "dedicated studying".

I'm not a crammer either, I'm more conceptual and analytical (former engineer here) so GT helps me cram things over the long run, I could never do it in a month!

I think GT has to fit/complement one's learning style to justify the time investment.

 

[lrkoehle]

I find it interesting that GT added 200 new cards in the last ~6 months(?), yet as posters mentioned, people were already using GT to score 250 or 260+. Those 200 new cards are basically 2,000 more questions that must be maintained week after week. For a person to only use 30-60 min a day on GT with 10,000 questions, assuming an average speed of 80 questions per hour (which is very fair), you would go through the entire deck in 4 months (80 questions/hr x 125 sessions = 10,000).

I don't think the 200 new cards necessarily corresponds to all new questions. They used to have some cards loaded up with stuff and have since spread them out to multiple cards.

About question speed, I think the key thing with gunner training is to treat it almost like one of those personality test type things where you come up with the first answer that comes to mind right away. Don't take too long thinking through everything. If you don't get it correct right away, then mark it low and you'll see it again soon. This approach allows you to take advantage of the purpose of GT, which is repetition. This also let's you get through questions pretty quick; I hit 100-150/hr usually.

Anyways, best of luck with what ever method you use.

 

[lrkoehle]

I've banked 100% of the cards.

Damn, I am impressed. I can't wait for the day I do that (if that ever comes).

 

[Bernoull]

Damn, I am impressed. I can't wait for the day I do that (if that ever comes).

second that

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZc5_Z_zTZ4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[ipizzy]

Bingo!!
Congrats on completion, that's freaking awesome! Did u pop open a bottle when u hit 100% 😀? I know i would! When's ur test date again?

This is why GT makes sense in the long run; there's light at the end of the tunnel, one's daily review become much more manageable, otherwise it'd be counterproductive especially in the final stretch of "dedicated studying".

I'm not a crammer either, I'm more conceptual and analytical (former engineer here) so GT helps me cram things over the long run, I could never do it in a month!

I think GT has to fit/complement one's learning style to justify the time investment.

hahaha thanks Bernoull & lrkoehle! It was a little anti-climactic to hit 100% because that same day they added some new cards and I had to go back and re-hit 100% 😀

I'm taking the exam in June. Slow and steady hopefully wins the race? When are you guys taking the test? Hope to see you guys at 100% too 🙂

 

[Jay Gatsby]

.

 

[JackShephard MD]

I don't think the 200 new cards necessarily corresponds to all new questions. They used to have some cards loaded up with stuff and have since spread them out to multiple cards.

About question speed, I think the key thing with gunner training is to treat it almost like one of those personality test type things where you come up with the first answer that comes to mind right away. Don't take too long thinking through everything. If you don't get it correct right away, then mark it low and you'll see it again soon. This approach allows you to take advantage of the purpose of GT, which is repetition. This also let's you get through questions pretty quick; I hit 100-150/hr usually.

Anyways, best of luck with what ever method you use.

I've banked 100% of the cards and I don't spend longer than 1 hour on GT per day for my maintenance review schedule quizzes. Once you bank all the material and reach 'steady state,' you get down to 100-150 review questions/day. It's absurd to think that the minimum amount of time for a 100% bank-er would be 3+ hours. If it takes you that long, you're thinking too hard about the cards and you need to be ranking them at 1's or 2's so you see them more frequently and get faster at remembering.

I posted about the Penn method in another thread but honestly I know myself and I know the way I study best, and the Penn method would not have worked for me. I'm not a crammer and I prefer having the wiggle room to study a topic as much or as little as needed, rather than pigeon-holing myself into "4 days of biochem, no more." I don't see any downside in knowing the details "far in advance;" I'd rather do that than run the risk of not having enough time to learn the details for actual test day. It's not like I'm forgetting the details because I'm learning them too soon; I think the repetition of seeing them so often has made a huge difference for me in terms of my performance on Qbank. I started GT last fall.

Pizzy, can we talk specifics?

How many questions are you doing each day in that hour?

The only individuals I've heard talk specifics work about the same rate as me, 60-80 Q's per hour.

My pace is around 80 cards in an hour if I'm fairly focused for that hour. I try to keep my pile around 160/day. Starting to think I need to bump that number up and try to get done sooner. I'm projected to hit 100% banked by mid May and then was planning on using the month off to just do Uworld and nothing else.

I'm avg 150 questions/day and this is a good 2 hrs of solid work every day. I find when I get up early and do it first thing, it feels like I have more time for class stuff. In addition, I get to correlate my massive amt of class material to a high yield source and I'm able to see the bigger picture which is helping me in my classes.

300 takes me about 4-4.5 hours. sometimes longer if i just banked a bunch of stuff the week before and it's coming up for the first review.

~75 Qs/hr

The highest I got to was about 380 questions in a day, and that was after a few catch-up weeks of banking 10-20 cards/day. I would say the average number of questions I was getting was closer to 200 (I was pretty much banking 10 cards/day consistently throughout fall semester of MS2).

After getting used to GT, I was able to get through ~100 or so questions in 30 minutes. The key is to just go through as quickly as possible so your recall gets faster. Also, if you're not a fan of sitting down to do hundreds of questions at once, you always have the option of doing 10 questions here and there throughout the day whenever you find yourself with some free time (e.g. waiting in line somewhere, on the bus, whatever).

You're post saying you work @ 200 Q's an hour... which by the way is amazing. Anyone who has used the program can attest that 200 Q's an hour is intense (not even possible for me).

Absolutely not true. When I started GT in the fall, I had mandatory class (none of our lectures are video taped) from 8:30 to 4pm every day, and I was also working in a research lab for maybe 10 hours a week to finish up my summer project. I woke up around 6 or 6:30 to finish my review questions before class started, would use some of my lunch hour to finish up questions if I had a ton of questions that day and/or sometimes would bank a new card or two, and would take an hour or so before bed to bank new cards. I also made it a point to get enough sleep (for me, 7-8 hours a night), take Friday night and Saturdays off to spend with my significant other or friends, and to go to the gym for a run at least 3 times a week (sometimes I would multitask and bring my phone to do GT while I was cooling down). I started in September and made it to 85% banked/63% mastered by winter break in December.

I think if you're organized and strategic about it, GT can work for you. E.g. bank the cards that go along with your classes so you're studying for boards + class at the same time. Have goals and stick to them. I wanted to be mostly done with GT by the end of fall semester, so I tried to bank 10 flashcards every day. If I had a rough week with exams, I tried to catch up with banking GT cards after exams were done. I never failed to do the scheduled review questions, though.

I'd also like to point out that by no means was I sacrificing school work to study GT. I ended up ranking 1st in my class in 3/4 of the courses I took in the fall. The first two years of med school are not about being smart. They are about being organized and having the willpower/endurance to keep trucking through an incredible amount of information.

I think your situation is pretty unique. You ranked 1st in your class in 75% of your courses while doing 10 hours of research per week and spending 1-2 hours banking cards and 1-2 hours reviewing GT questions per day. In other words, you ranked #1 in 75% of your courses with ~20+ extracurricular hours of GT/research? That's a pretty intense schedule and I think most people would find success doing that.

I will admit, I probably take my time with the cards and don't move through at 150+/hr, which may be the reason why I'm struggling with the upkeep.

 

[ipizzy]

I do all my questions (100-150) in the hourish I spend for GT. If you can do 3 or 4 questions per minute, you're already in range for hitting 200/hr. (I was in this speed range in the fall; I've slowed down a little since I'm a little ways out from my banking period and things aren't as 'fresh'). There are GT questions that are so short that you can do 6+ per minute (I'm talking those short one-liners, of which there are many). There are also the long 'list 10 things about X' questions which clearly take longer. We probably approach answering the GT questions differently - I don't spend too much time on an answer if I don't know it; instead I rank it a 1 or 2 so I see it more frequently. I also admit I can focus pretty well and when I sit down to do GT questions, I can do so without getting distracted or bored too often. I know a lot of my friends who use GT say the temptation to open another tab in the browser is sometimes too strong 🙂

Clearly everyone is going to answer at different speeds but we can't look at N=3 and come up with a magic speed for everyone to live by 😉 Definitely if you think GT is a time sink that isn't giving you enough benefit for your efforts, it may be worth looking into different study approaches. GT is what works for me.

EDIT: I credit GT with helping me do well in class, so studying for GT and doing well in class were not mutually exclusive at my school (might not be the case elsewhere). Also, while my situation is not generalizable, it is certainly not unique (based on friends who also balanced lab and even more extracurriculars with GT). I meant to offer my experience as a counterpoint to those naysayers who come to the GT thread and expound about how impossible GT is to keep up with. I was certainly encouraged by reading other posters' successes with GT so I wanted to share my own.

 

[lrkoehle]

hahaha thanks Bernoull & lrkoehle! It was a little anti-climactic to hit 100% because that same day they added some new cards and I had to go back and re-hit 100% 😀

I'm taking the exam in June. Slow and steady hopefully wins the race? When are you guys taking the test? Hope to see you guys at 100% too 🙂

I'm a June taker as well (although I haven't picked a date yet, need to get on top of that). I'm not sure I can hit 100% by then considering I have like 54% left to go.

Slow and steady should win the race. This way you'll hopefully have everything pretty well down by the time you start dedicated step-I time and can focus on busting out Qbanks. That's been my goal with GT at least.

 

[jumpdiscontinui]

Some good points being made all around. My thoughts on the matter:

I have ~300 questions daily, and it usually takes me somewhere between two to three hours to cover them. It really shouldn't take longer than 15-20 seconds to answer each question -- either you know the answer, or you recognize that you've forgotten it and take a minute to read the card and refresh your memory. Sure it takes a lot of effort to go through all these questions day in and day out, but that's reality. Medicine is difficult not because there are difficult new concepts to understand -- it is difficult because there are mountains of details that must be internalized (memorized) in order to make sense of the context of the questions being asked. In other words, the limiting reagent; isn't our limited ability to grasp the logic of medicine -- it's our limited capacity to memorize all the details that must constrain and guide that logic. Settling for simply understanding the material the first time through is reasonable, but doesn't really cut down on the amount of time it takes to relearn the material, primarily because the major hurdle is (re)memorization, not understanding. Saving all of the memorization for the last week sounds risky to me; I'm not sure I could pull it off even if I were given double that time (and I'd only be given one chance to find out anyway).

Tangent: I see reading FA being pandered around a lot as an excellent way to get through all the memorization (not just on these boards, but among my classmates as well). It's no doubt a time-honored method that works quite well, but the major flaw I see with relying on FA for the memorization phase is that there's no concrete way to assess that the information has been internalized (aside from the use of qbanks like UW and Kaplan, which I think are essential for building "test IQ" but are not very helpful as indicators of how completely we have internalized the details of a given subject). FA is great as a quick reference, but I do not really believe that one can "read FA" and retain enough to make it worth it. The major problem is that we often think we remember and understand more than we actually do (we remember the things that we know; the things that we have forgotten, we have forgotten that we've forgotten, and are none the wiser). Without being asked pointed questions and therefore being forced to systematically make and remember all the crucial connections, it is inevitable that lapses in attention or memory will have us gloss over or forget important details.

GT has about 6000 questions total, according to their comparison page (http://www.gunnertraining.com/programs/medical/compare). Yes, it's a lot of effort -- but it's effort I would've had to spend anyway. The algorithm helps make sure nothing falls through the cracks, which is great. Earlier in the year, I used FA+UW+Kaplan exclusively. I find that GT does a lot of the things that I would normally have to do with FA anyway (memorize, self-assess), but rolls it all up into one nice package. Now GT has all but replaced FA on my schedule, as I trust it to be far more efficient and systematic than I am in making decisions regarding what I need reviewing on.

 

[lrkoehle]

You're post saying you work @ 200 Q's an hour... which by the way is amazing. Anyone who has used the program can attest that 200 Q's an hour is intense (not even possible for me).

200 Q's/hour is certainly beast mode for me, but I've done that pace a couple times. I will say though that when I first started with GT I would've thought pace to be impossible; however, after getting more comfortable with GT and focusing on rapid recall of the facts, rather than thinking through every detail slowly, I have become much more efficient. I'm not trying to push you one way or another. This rapid recall approach isn't for everyone and is pretty important if you want to be able to do anything during the day other than GT. At the end of the day, you've gotta use a method that fits your study needs. Honestly, maybe a DIT program would be better for you at a slower pace per question, because I hear they have fewer questions but they're more in depth per question (which may allow you to focus more on all the details if you want).

 

[lrkoehle]

I credit GT with helping me do well in class, so studying for GT and doing well in class were not mutually exclusive at my school (might not be the case elsewhere).

Interestingly enough (and maybe a bit embarrassing to admit as well), I used GT as my PRIMARY study source for micro at my school. We're on a non-traditional block system, so we just had our "I&I" (Immunity and Infection) block in the second half of the fall of MS-II. I didn't like our class notes, so I didn't use them. I have never been a huge fan of podcasting, so I didn't do that. Sitting in 5 hours of lecture would cause me to commit suicide, so I didn't do that either. I basically used the repetition of GT to hammer home all the various stuff about bacteria, viruses, etc. and did reasonably well on the exam. I missed some minutiae from lecture that could've netted me a few more points, but screw it, I got the big picture important stuff that will show up on Step-I and did so in a far more efficient manner (I would never have learned all the small factoids by sitting in a lecture anyways). I know this is an extreme example, but my point is that as ipizzy is dead on that GT and class can work very nicely together (kinda rough to think about learning basic science stuff from a program that cost a couple hundred bucks instead of from classes that cost ~$27k in tuition).

 

[JackShephard MD]

My final thoughts on this:

I don't mean to discredit GT. I think it may be the way to gain the best score possible, but it comes at the cost of lots of time for most of us. I do understand that the challenge in medicine is attempting to retain all this material, yet somehow people did it before GT. It is the best at what it does, solidifying FA facts in your brain, I don't doubt this. I just wonder if, for people who aren't moving at 150 Q's/hr, like me and many other average users (closer to 80/hr), we need twice as much time, so that "couple hours" the high end users have are really 4 hours per day for average speed users. I would guess GT has more than 6,000 cards, as I recall that comparison when I first heard about this program a year ago, and to cover only 150 Q's per day is pretty amazing, seeing as I'm at less than 20% banked and I have almost as many Q's, it appears lrkoehle is around 50% banked and I would think he has at least 150 Q's per day. Ipizzy, To start GT and 100% bank it in 7 months while doing research is intense, let's be real. You definitely are in the top 5% as far as workload/pace, especially considering you're #1 in 75% of your courses. And surely you were spending 3-4 hours a day on GT during this time to get 100% and rate all these cards 4's and 5's.

Honestly, I'm just hoping to go 240+ and people have been doing that with simple prep (review books + qbanks in final 3-6 months). I know there are some legendary scores out there and GT probably can get you in that 250-260+ range, yet that's expected because you start studying 1 year in advance of the test, everyday for multiple hours on content alone. Any method, the Taus Method or Penn Method stretched out as long would be just as effective, IMO. I'm sure GT is the best, it's just that some of us aren't as motivated as others. I want GT to work because I paid for it for 18 months or whatever, but I'm not seeing the point in keeping classes like Biochem test ready for 18 months.

 

[Bernoull]

My final thoughts on this:

I don't mean to discredit GT. I think it may be the way to gain the best score possible, but it comes at the cost of lots of time for most of us. I do understand that the challenge in medicine is attempting to retain all this material, yet somehow people did it before GT. It is the best at what it does, solidifying FA facts in your brain, I don't doubt this. I just wonder if, for people who aren't moving at 150 Q's/hr, like me and many other average users (closer to 80/hr), we need twice as much time, so that "couple hours" the high end users have are really 4 hours per day for average speed users. I would guess GT has more than 6,000 cards, as I recall that comparison when I first heard about this program a year ago, and to cover only 150 Q's per day is pretty amazing, seeing as I'm at less than 20% banked and I have almost as many Q's, it appears lrkoehle is around 50% banked and I would think he has at least 150 Q's per day. Ipizzy, To start GT and 100% bank it in 7 months while doing research is intense, let's be real. You definitely are in the top 5% as far as workload/pace, especially considering you're #1 in 75% of your courses. And surely you were spending 3-4 hours a day on GT during this time to get 100% and rate all these cards 4's and 5's.

Honestly, I'm just hoping to go 240+ and people have been doing that with simple prep (review books + qbanks in final 3-6 months). I know there are some legendary scores out there and GT probably can get you in that 250-260+ range, yet that's expected because you start studying 1 year in advance of the test, everyday for multiple hours on content alone. Any method, the Taus Method or Penn Method stretched out as long would be just as effective, IMO. I'm sure GT is the best, it's just that some of us aren't as motivated as others. I want GT to work because I paid for it for 18 months or whatever, but I'm not seeing the point in keeping classes like Biochem test ready for 18 months.

Honestly, I wish I was in your shoes given the head-start you have.
I'm assuming you have ~18mo to ur exam, how about significantly cutting down on the # of cards you bank per day, this way GT won't take as much of your time. If you (@ 20% overall) have about as many Qs/day as someone at 50%, then perhaps you were going too fast?

There's 1056 cards as of today, by doing 2.3 cards/day you can knock off the remaining 80% in 12 months and still have 6 months to do other stuff (and have minimal maintenance Qs). Granted, they'll add more cards, but you have the luxury of time, you can slow things down and still finish way ahead of ur exam date...

just my $0.02

 

[iheartmints]

My final thoughts on this:

I don't mean to discredit GT. I think it may be the way to gain the best score possible, but it comes at the cost of lots of time for most of us. I do understand that the challenge in medicine is attempting to retain all this material, yet somehow people did it before GT. It is the best at what it does, solidifying FA facts in your brain, I don't doubt this. I just wonder if, for people who aren't moving at 150 Q's/hr, like me and many other average users (closer to 80/hr), we need twice as much time, so that "couple hours" the high end users have are really 4 hours per day for average speed users. I would guess GT has more than 6,000 cards, as I recall that comparison when I first heard about this program a year ago, and to cover only 150 Q's per day is pretty amazing, seeing as I'm at less than 20% banked and I have almost as many Q's, it appears lrkoehle is around 50% banked and I would think he has at least 150 Q's per day. Ipizzy, To start GT and 100% bank it in 7 months while doing research is intense, let's be real. You definitely are in the top 5% as far as workload/pace, especially considering you're #1 in 75% of your courses. And surely you were spending 3-4 hours a day on GT during this time to get 100% and rate all these cards 4's and 5's.

Honestly, I'm just hoping to go 240+ and people have been doing that with simple prep (review books + qbanks in final 3-6 months). I know there are some legendary scores out there and GT probably can get you in that 250-260+ range, yet that's expected because you start studying 1 year in advance of the test, everyday for multiple hours on content alone. Any method, the Taus Method or Penn Method stretched out as long would be just as effective, IMO. I'm sure GT is the best, it's just that some of us aren't as motivated as others. I want GT to work because I paid for it for 18 months or whatever, but I'm not seeing the point in keeping classes like Biochem test ready for 18 months.

Only you will know what works best for yourself and it's nice that you've accepted it now rather than forcing yourself down a path that is not necessary. I've had friends who have used a similar method to the Penn Method and scored 250+: it won't work for everyone and neither will GT. I only use GT to touch up on things that I need extra help on now and then but I've mostly abandoned it for actual qbanks. I know exactly where you're coming from and I wholeheartedly agree

 

[DoctwoB]

Another nice thing about GT is that it includes lots of things not in first aid. It's like all of first aid + the highlights of BRS physio + rapid review path.

I've been doing GT since the middle of first year and when I started board prep my first NBME was a 260 and I've been hitting 90% on Uworld (2 weeks into studying). GT is definitely a major reason for that.

 

[Chirurg]

please don't confuse people with assuming you need 5-6 hours or 3 hours if you banked everything!
This is just not true!!
I've banked 50% and mastered 33% and I get about 120Q/day. I do this in an hour before I leave for school. I did this over the past 6 months, regularly adding stuff. I don't think there is going to be more than 120Q/day if I have banked everything in the next 5-6 moths.

Now, obviously if you try to do the 50% in 2-3 months you might be looking at 2-3 hours.

 

[JackShephard MD]

I don't think I'm confusing anyone, if anything I've cleared up things. Now we know that some people work at 200 Qs/hr and that others only 80 Qs/hr. We've also heard people who have 150 Q's a day @ 20% banked while others are at 120 Q's a day with 50% banked. I think I've worked through denser cards which is why I have more daily Q's, like 100% anatomy which has lots of heavy cards. Plus I've added the big cards from subjects I've studied (cranial nerves, complement, etc.) which have 25-30 Q's per card.

I may end up using GT (I've already paid for it). I just wanted to lay out the challenges of the program clearly and also, to hear from the people @ 80-90%+ banked/mastery, so I can determine if I want to invest the time. So if it feels like I've attacked the program, I was, just to hear the defense from heavy users.

I think if I could work at a pace of 120-150 Qs/hr, that would double my pace and make this more practical. If I could successfully bank everything 6 months before the exam and move to Qbanks, then I think would be valuable. Understand where I'm coming from though, I'm 20% banked and am spending 2 hrs a day on this stuff, maybe I'm rating too low (mostly 3's, some 2's) and working at too slow of a pace.

Chirug: You say you're 50% banked with 120 Q's, double that, 240 Q's and you are at 3 hours everyday working at what I've seen as the average work rate (80 Q's/hr). Also, you have done 50% banking in 6 months? That leaves 50% to do in a few months. Combine the upcoming 200 Q's per day with banking and you're approaching 4-5 hrs a day for sure.

I may just try faster paces, maybe I'm treating it too much like test questions and should just fly through @ 120 Qs/hr. I still can't comprehend 200 Qs/hr, maybe I consult review books/wikipedia b/t Q's too often.

Honestly, I wish I was in your shoes given the head-start you have.
I'm assuming you have ~18mo to ur exam, how about significantly cutting down on the # of cards you bank per day, this way GT won't take as much of your time. If you (@ 20% overall) have about as many Qs/day as someone at 50%, then perhaps you were going too fast?

There's 1056 cards as of today, by doing 2.3 cards/day you can knock off the remaining 80% in 12 months and still have 6 months to do other stuff (and have minimal maintenance Qs). Granted, they'll add more cards, but you have the luxury of time, you can slow things down and still finish way ahead of ur exam date...

just my $0.02

Yeah, I realize I only need to do 2-3 cards a day to bank everything. It still comes at the expense of 2-3 hours a day for a year. We'll see, you guys might be talking me into it.

 

[QQm]

Disregard; search function ftw.

 

[lrkoehle]

M it appears lrkoehle is around 50% banked and I would think he has at least 150 Q's per day.

The big determinant to how many questions I have per day is how quickly I have been banking new cards, but I would say about 150/day is about right. The thing is though, I had about that many Q's/day when I was at 30% complete too, but as I get stuff mastered my daily questions decreases (until I add more new cards). There are times where I jump up to 300 Q's/day when I bank a lot of stuff and I am purposely ranking it low so I can keep seeing it over and over (I do this with class stuff so I can really hammer it home).

Again, as I said above, you have to do what is best for you, and only you can know what that is. However, I have a couple suggestions that may help make your GT experience better. First, try focusing on doing GT for speed. When I first started it, I went slow and took my time on every question, but then when MS-II started back up in the fall, I really had to kick it in gear and there were times where I was basically forced to "rush" through my daily GT questions. That "rushing" became my new normal, and now it feels like just a good, steady pace. Second tip, try rating stuff higher. I know a lot of people like to keep stuff at a 1-2 until they know it 100% backwards and forwards, but since this is free recall I feel like if you answer a question pretty well, that is good enough for a 4. The obvious benefit to this is that you see 4's less often and thus have less questisons/day and you'll probably be surprised at your recall still. The last suggestion is to just wait until the summer after MS-I to really do much GT. You'll have a lot more time and that way you won't be over a year out from Step-I, so you may feel more of that pressure to start getting things under control.

Anyways, I like all the questions you brought up about GT. It's made this thread way more interesting than just being people asking for an access code...

Edit: another suggestion I thought of while I was doing my questions was: if you come across a question you want to look into greater detail about, maybe try writing down a list of things to look up after you do all your questions. That way you can stay in the flow of answering questions and not get distracted with wikipedia leading to facebook leading to ESPN.com leading to etc.

 

[abcshawnxyz]

it seems like GT is beneficial if you start during MS1 or at least beginning of MS2. Will it be effective if I start it 3 months prior to my exam? I feel confident with roughly 40-50% of FA but I need to work on patho and micro. Do you guys recommend gunning it with GT for these next 3 months? How many hours would I need to do per day in order to get good results? would GT be my only source?

My original plan was just to keep on rereading FA, Uworld & Rx qbanks, and using micro made easy and RR patho for further readings.

 

[DoctwoB]

it seems like GT is beneficial if you start during MS1 or at least beginning of MS2. Will it be effective if I start it 3 months prior to my exam? I feel confident with roughly 40-50% of FA but I need to work on patho and micro. Do you guys recommend gunning it with GT for these next 3 months? How many hours would I need to do per day in order to get good results? would GT be my only source?

My original plan was just to keep on rereading FA, Uworld & Rx qbanks, and using micro made easy and RR patho for further readings.

It will be very hard to use all of GT in three months, but if you have very specific needs like just path and micro, then you could definitely get through that and it would be very helpful. GT is especially good for those pure memorization type subjects.

 

[Robot Skeleton]

It will be very hard to use all of GT in three months, but if you have very specific needs like just path and micro, then you could definitely get through that and it would be very helpful. GT is especially good for those pure memorization type subjects.

I definitely agree with this. I used GT specifically to learn micro in the summer between M1/M2 since my school's micro was horrendous. Easily converted a big weakness into a big strength. GT is many million times more effective than reading a text for micro since micro is pretty much a pure memorization subject, and are you really going to retain all the details from a 300-400 page text? Maybe if you read through it 3-4 times, but I certainly don't have the attention span for something like that.

 

[abcshawnxyz]

I definitely agree with this. I used GT specifically to learn micro in the summer between M1/M2 since my school's micro was horrendous. Easily converted a big weakness into a big strength. GT is many million times more effective than reading a text for micro since micro is pretty much a pure memorization subject, and are you really going to retain all the details from a 300-400 page text? Maybe if you read through it 3-4 times, but I certainly don't have the attention span for something like that.

thanks guys. is the pathology in GT good enough where i don't need to refer back to RR or pathoma?

i really want to limit my resources to FA, Uworld, Rx, and GT. just the thought of having to read more is pretty intense.

 

[Robot Skeleton]

thanks guys. is the pathology in GT good enough where i don't need to refer back to RR or pathoma?

i really want to limit my resources to FA, Uworld, Rx, and GT. just the thought of having to read more is pretty intense.

I didn't use the pathology sections of GT, so someone else might want to comment. I will say that you should still at least use Goljan's audio. There were a couple questions on my test that I specifically remembered from his lectures and nowhere else.

 

[JackShephard MD]

I'm going to try and stick with GT.

I figure if I can bank 50-70% before the start of M2, combined with working closer to 120Q's/hr, then I can possibly keep review to less than 2 hours per day, which was my only major issue with the program.

Thanks everyone for the tips.