Gunner Training?

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hope2bpaindoc

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When i grow up, I want to be like you :D! The slow n steady banking is just the way to go with GT, less stress, more time to let things sink in, and u're done banking early and can incorporate other things! Way to go!

What's ur daily GT load like?

Aw thanks :D My daily load is typically around 150 or so, ranges between 80 and 200.
 
I've been done banking for a little over a month now, and I still keep up with my daily review questions. For me, I think it's still incredibly useful to get the repetition. There is stuff that I've seen literally 20+ times, but I'm constantly surprised at how stupid stuff can slip through the cracks. (Today, I had to think harder than I would have liked in order to remember S3 vs S4). :laugh:

I plan on sticking with the daily GT review right up til test day (June for me). Right now I'm focusing on UWorld and reading (currently RR Path). Since RR Path is kind of a b*tch to get through, I like to take a break every 2-4 pages and do 10 GT questions. That way I feel compelled to keep reading RR Path until my daily question load is up...lol

everyone should listen to this dude. this was my original plan for GT and i just couldn't get through it all in time, with coursework and life going on at the same time. If i had done it this way, the way i wanted to, i could have gotten another ten points.

this poster is going to do very, very well. the key is pacing yourself, maintaining your knowledge base, and then surging at the right time as you roll into the exam.
 
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To get through the last block of information you hadn't been taught, you just taught it to yourself or what?

Yes, basically just used GT + wikipedia as needed to learn it. It was certainly slower and more difficult than banking things I had already seen in class, but since it was only for a two (fairly straightforward) subjects it wasn't too bad. Now that I've banked them on GT, class is soooo much easier.

No matter where you go to school, I figured there is inevitably material on the boards that you haven't seen in class, so at some point we all pretty much have to teach ourselves something :D
 
I've been done banking for a little over a month now, and I still keep up with my daily review questions. For me, I think it's still incredibly useful to get the repetition. There is stuff that I've seen literally 20+ times, but I'm constantly surprised at how stupid stuff can slip through the cracks. (Today, I had to think harder than I would have liked in order to remember S3 vs S4). :laugh:

I plan on sticking with the daily GT review right up til test day (June for me). Right now I'm focusing on UWorld and reading (currently RR Path). Since RR Path is kind of a b*tch to get through, I like to take a break every 2-4 pages and do 10 GT questions. That way I feel compelled to keep reading RR Path until my daily question load is up...lol

Yeah I think I'm going to do something similar, except with Pathoma instead of RR. The integration in RR is great, but it's useless if you can't get through it. My attention span is not long enough to do RR.
 
Yeah I think I'm going to do something similar, except with Pathoma instead of RR. The integration in RR is great, but it's useless if you can't get through it. My attention span is not long enough to do RR.

I'm guessing you're a fan of Pathoma? I actually have a tab open in my browser on the purchase page of the Pathoma, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. I know there is a whole thread on here that talks about Pathoma, but I haven't had a chance to read through it. Do you find it to be a good way to integrate all the information? Also, is it reasonable to watch it at 2x? I watch all my class podcasts at 2x, and it makes getting through an hour lecture much more reasonable.

Sorry for thread-jacking, but this seems like a good place to ask how us GTers can integrate something like pathoma in with it.
 
I'm guessing you're a fan of Pathoma? I actually have a tab open in my browser on the purchase page of the Pathoma, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. I know there is a whole thread on here that talks about Pathoma, but I haven't had a chance to read through it. Do you find it to be a good way to integrate all the information? Also, is it reasonable to watch it at 2x? I watch all my class podcasts at 2x, and it makes getting through an hour lecture much more reasonable.

Sorry for thread-jacking, but this seems like a good place to ask how us GTers can integrate something like pathoma in with it.

The book is only ~200 pages, but it's deceptively dense. It's not as comprehensive and detailed as RR [for example I can't find anything about porphyria's in it], but it has 99% of everything you need. Most importantly it reads very easily, unlike RR which is always a dreadfully plodding read. I get a lot more out of something I enjoy reading and can get through over a more highly rated resource I don't like reading and can't get through.

That being said the real value of the program is the videos. He's just a really good teacher. By that I mean, he explains things very clearly, makes "whiteboard" drawings for complex things, never sounds dull, never just reads to you, etc. I watch the videos at 1x the first time, then 1.7x the second time. I annotate into the book's margins. Oh and of course I bank the relevant cards on GT!

I'd like to take this moment to state my opinion that there is no such thing as "the right" method/books. Spending a lot of time researching/tinkering with different resources is a huge temptation we must resist; we'd be much better served not jumping back and forth but sticking to something and putting in the time to master it. Sometimes you have to jump around a little to find what works for you, but some people never move past the indecision phase and that is absolutely fatal.
 
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The book is only ~200 pages, but it's deceptively dense. It's not as comprehensive and detailed as RR [for example I can't find anything about porphyria's in it], but it has 99% of everything you need. MOST IMPORTANTLY it reads very easily, unlike RR which is always a dreadfully plodding read.

That being said the real value of the program is the videos. He's just a really good teacher By that I mean, he explains things very clearly, makes "whiteboard" drawings for complex things, never sounds dull, never just reads to you, etc. I watch the videos at 1x the first time, then 1.7x the second time. I annotate into the book's margins. Oh and of course I bank the relevant cards on GT!

I'd like to take this moment to state my opinion that there is no such thing as "the right" method/books. Spending alot of time researching/tinkering with different resources is a huge temptation we must resist; we'd be much better served not jumping back and forth but sticking to something and putting in the time to master it. Sometimes you have to jump around a little to find what works for you, but some people never move past the indecision phase and that is fatal.

I'm done 13/19 chapters in Pathoma and I'll highly recommend it! I agree with amaprez that the real advantage to pathoma is the videos and the clear, crisp explanations. I dare say he's Goljan-oid :D!

He's very logical in his explanations and he'll review relevant anatomy/physio/embyro, as needed, b4 delving into the pathology. He also has "nice tricks" to help make the concepts intuitive and easy to remember.

I've been watching all the lectures @ X1.4 but yesterday I bumped it to X1.7 (highest speed) and I could understand him just as well.

I'm also addicted to watching class lectures at X2 :D!

How are the daily GT Qs treating you (lrkoehle)?

Back to exam prep...
 
The book is only ~200 pages, but it's deceptively dense. It's not as comprehensive and detailed as RR [for example I can't find anything about porphyria's in it], but it has 99% of everything you need. Most importantly it reads very easily, unlike RR which is always a dreadfully plodding read. I get a lot more out of something I enjoy reading and can get through over a more highly rated resource I don't like reading and can't get through.

That being said the real value of the program is the videos. He's just a really good teacher. By that I mean, he explains things very clearly, makes "whiteboard" drawings for complex things, never sounds dull, never just reads to you, etc. I watch the videos at 1x the first time, then 1.7x the second time. I annotate into the book's margins. Oh and of course I bank the relevant cards on GT!

I'd like to take this moment to state my opinion that there is no such thing as "the right" method/books. Spending alot of time researching/tinkering with different resources is a huge temptation we must resist; we'd be much better served not jumping back and forth but sticking to something and putting in the time to master it. Sometimes you have to jump around a little to find what works for you, but some people never move past the indecision phase and that is fatal.

Thanks for the run down. I totally agree on the point about picking a review source and sticking to it. I've seen people buy every book out there, but just having the books or programs or whatever does you no good if you can't use them properly. Right now, I am trying to decide what to use along with GT to supplement and give me a complete picture. I already have RR, so I was thinking of using that (and saving the $85) but then I also hear good things about pathoma. I keep wondering if I'll have enough time for all the videos...then again, getting through RR will take at least as long as watching all the videos. Oh well, I still have a couple days of getting caught up with school work before I really need to start worrying about this.
 
I was also considering Pathoma, but I ended up figuring that I could force myself through RR (and I was a cheapskate)... but it looks like a really awesome program. I will say that once you've done GT, getting through RR path is a lot easier than attempting to go at it without any prior review.
 
Btw I don't know if you guys have checked out the short videos GT is putting out on FB/Youtube via Firecracker but I think they're pretty good. They should integrate them onto the cards themselves though rather than having to go on youtube.
 
Btw I don't know if you guys have checked out the short videos GT is putting out on FB/Youtube via Firecracker but I think they're pretty good. They should integrate them onto the cards themselves though rather than having to go on youtube.

You can subscribe to the podcast on itunes if you prefer.
 
I was also considering Pathoma, but I ended up figuring that I could force myself through RR (and I was a cheapskate)... but it looks like a really awesome program. I will say that once you've done GT, getting through RR path is a lot easier than attempting to go at it without any prior review.

That's what I was hoping for. Thyroid stuff is a prime example of this. I have been working through that with GT and now I'm starting to get some of it, but before my GT review there was just an empty space in my brain where thyroid pathology was supposed to be stored. I imagine the RR endocrine chapter would've been rough without that background...

Also, a little progress report on my rapid banking approach. They've either changed the algorithm or customized it for my account based on the rapid banking. Either way, I rated everything as a 4 the first time through, which in the past I had discovered meant the second time through if you rated it a 2 your'd see it in 8 days and if you rated it a 4 again, you wouldn't see if for 30 days. Now, the things I am rating as a 4 the second time through are scheduled for their next review in 9 days, and rating something as a 2 the second time through brings it back up in 2 days. I'm not sure why this change occurred, but it has forced me to modify my approach to avoid having the like 3,000 questions (or however many it was) I banked all show up on the same day...3,000 is just too many for one day. What I am doing now is rating everything that I would've rated as a 4 the second time through (i.e. things I already know really well) as a 4, but the things I don't know, I am rating as a 3 (meaning they're supposed to come back in 6 days) and then using the custom review schedule to push them back an additional 2 days to 8 days out. This is allowing me to clear out some of the things I know, without killing myself with daily questions. It's not perfect, but in a couple of weeks it should have the easy stuff pushed further out and my weak areas being reviewed with the appropriate frequency. All in all, I am really glad I'm not worrying about banking 15 or 20 or 40 cards a day anymore, and that I can instead know that I have like 500 questions to get through and then I will be finished for the day. It's really been nice...I even podcasted over a week's worth of lectures in the last 2 days, and hopefully I can start with daily RR reading to further solidify everything.
 
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Thanks for the run down. I totally agree on the point about picking a review source and sticking to it. I've seen people buy every book out there, but just having the books or programs or whatever does you no good if you can't use them properly. Right now, I am trying to decide what to use along with GT to supplement and give me a complete picture. I already have RR, so I was thinking of using that (and saving the $85) but then I also hear good things about pathoma. I keep wondering if I'll have enough time for all the videos...then again, getting through RR will take at least as long as watching all the videos. Oh well, I still have a couple days of getting caught up with school work before I really need to start worrying about this.
You already get those 4 or 5 Qbanks free for your school so go ahead and pull the Pathoma trigger. Based on reading your posts, you'd love it.

Having the corresponding GT card open along with a pathoma video in the window beside it is amazing. They both hit the same points, but each has a slightly different perspective. On one side of the screen you have your GT summary card and pictures and the other is the video of Sattar explaining, drawing diagrams, and highlighting. Good mix of learning methods.

You can watch all the videos on Pathoma on 1.7x speed and probably get down with it all in 3-5 days depending on how long you can sit for. I feel the videos have way more than just the book and don't even use it.

Check out the sample videos they have and see if you like it.
 
You already get those 4 or 5 Qbanks free for your school so go ahead and pull the Pathoma trigger. Based on reading your posts, you'd love it.

Having the corresponding GT card open along with a pathoma video in the window beside it is amazing. They both hit the same points, but each has a slightly different perspective. On one side of the screen you have your GT summary card and pictures and the other is the video of Sattar explaining, drawing diagrams, and highlighting. Good mix of learning methods.

You can watch all the videos on Pathoma on 1.7x speed and probably get down with it all in 3-5 days depending on how long you can sit for. I feel the videos have way more than just the book and don't even use it.

Check out the sample videos they have and see if you like it.

I'd be careful at getting too many sources. As you approach the end, it's probably best to stick to the core stuff. Especially if you have a daily GT load.

More resources isn't always better. Better to know one quality resource cold than to know 3 good resources pretty well.
 
You already get those 4 or 5 Qbanks free for your school so go ahead and pull the Pathoma trigger. Based on reading your posts, you'd love it.

Having the corresponding GT card open along with a pathoma video in the window beside it is amazing. They both hit the same points, but each has a slightly different perspective. On one side of the screen you have your GT summary card and pictures and the other is the video of Sattar explaining, drawing diagrams, and highlighting. Good mix of learning methods.

You can watch all the videos on Pathoma on 1.7x speed and probably get down with it all in 3-5 days depending on how long you can sit for. I feel the videos have way more than just the book and don't even use it.

Check out the sample videos they have and see if you like it.

I think I'll check out the free videos to see if it seems like something I can see myself benefiting from. I do a pretty good job of retaining information when I podcast (lecture halls are way too distracting), so it may work good for me. Reading often times becomes too passive and I start skimming words and then I realize I don't even remember what the page I just read was about...

I'd be careful at getting too many sources. As you approach the end, it's probably best to stick to the core stuff. Especially if you have a daily GT load.

More resources isn't always better. Better to know one quality resource cold than to know 3 good resources pretty well.

Totally agree. Given the time I have left, I'm looking to do more than the bare-bones minimum of just FA and UWorld (plus I've already done all this GT stuff), but I also don't wanna overload myself. Right now it's seeming like my resources will be GT, 2 qbanks, and probably either RR or Pathoma for path. Not sure if I wanna mess with FA (I have FA 2011), and any other books I use will be simply for reviewing a specific topic I miss on a qbank (if Wikipedia doesn't answer the question for me first :rolleyes:). I think with those 3 resources I should be in a pretty good position to have success, assuming I can master them.
 
Yes, basically just used GT + wikipedia as needed to learn it. It was certainly slower and more difficult than banking things I had already seen in class, but since it was only for a two (fairly straightforward) subjects it wasn't too bad. Now that I've banked them on GT, class is soooo much easier.

No matter where you go to school, I figured there is inevitably material on the boards that you haven't seen in class, so at some point we all pretty much have to teach ourselves something :D

That's impressive. I can see maybe doing that over winter break or something, but no way simultaneously with other classes
 
Hey just curious guys...how do you compare GT path with RR path for those who have looked at the material in both areas...do you think GT Pathology + Pathoma videos = cover all of rapid review Path? I was wondering is necessary at that point if GT path tends to have a lot of Path?
 
Another Q - Do y'all bank craploads of stuff then do all the quiz questions? Or bank some, quiz some, bank some, quiz some?
 
Hey just curious guys...how do you compare GT path with RR path for those who have looked at the material in both areas...do you think GT Pathology + Pathoma videos = cover all of rapid review Path? I was wondering is necessary at that point if GT path tends to have a lot of Path?

I can't comment on the Pathoma part, but I have felt that GT has done a good job of hitting all the main pathology points that RR hits on. I will admit though that I haven't used both extensively (more GT than RR), so there may be better people out there to answer this, especially the Pathoma question.

Another Q - Do y'all bank craploads of stuff then do all the quiz questions? Or bank some, quiz some, bank some, quiz some?

I usually like to bank more than 20-29 questions worth of cards (i.e. the recommended amount as signified by the green numbers). I didn't like to go above 60 though if I could avoid it. I just felt like if I was doing my quiz after 20 questions worth of cards, it was like every 2-3 cards I was doing a quiz and things were still too fresh to be doing questions over. Not sure if that really makes sense, but basically, I like to get into the flow of answering questions and with only 20 questions it was too much stop and go for me. Hopefully that makes some sense...I'm a little tired right now.
 
Hey just curious guys...how do you compare GT path with RR path for those who have looked at the material in both areas...do you think GT Pathology + Pathoma videos = cover all of rapid review Path? I was wondering is necessary at that point if GT path tends to have a lot of Path?

RR path covers a lot more than GT (obviously), but of the topics where GT overlaps with RR, the GT cards are often lifted straight from RR path. I haven't done Pathoma (only watched one of their free trial videos), but from what I've seen it's extremely unlikely that GT + Pathoma = RR path. Both GT and (probably) Pathoma are not as in depth as RR.
 
RR path covers a lot more than GT (obviously), but of the topics where GT overlaps with RR, the GT cards are often lifted straight from RR path. I haven't done Pathoma (only watched one of their free trial videos), but from what I've seen it's extremely unlikely that GT + Pathoma = RR path. Both GT and (probably) Pathoma are not as in depth as RR.

Agreed. RR is good stuff but some of it is above and beyond step 1. And that's not necessarily a good thing when you're strapped for time.
 
I really wish GT would implement a feature to skip some Q's and still be able to come back to them later.

In the endorcine section I'm trying to bank the physio component of it, but there's a lot of path mixed in and I don't want to be banking Path until finishing Pathoma since banking it right now just means that I'm memorizing random facts I don't fully understand.

I've ended up skipping a lot of full cards because of this and I feel like I'll end up having like 50% of GT to bank alongside Pathoma when it comes Path time.

Simply being able to omit 1-2 Q's per card and being able to come back to them later would be GOLD!
 
Does it affect your mastery percentage between levels 4 and 5? I thought that above 4 would be "mastered," but I think I've "mastered" almost all of cardio at at least level 4, and it still says I'm at ~70% mastery....Does 4 not raise the percent as much as 5?

Thanks!
 
Does it affect your mastery percentage between levels 4 and 5? I thought that above 4 would be "mastered," but I think I've "mastered" almost all of cardio at at least level 4, and it still says I'm at ~70% mastery....Does 4 not raise the percent as much as 5?

Thanks!

I'm not sure, but I recently went through and banked the last ~30% of GT and rated everything as a 4, but my percent mastery only increased by like 20% instead of the 30+% I was anticipating. I didn't worry about it really, because I knew I would be going back on a second pass of that material and rating it as a 2 or 3, so my percent mastery was sure to drop from that; however, I was confused why the percent mastery increase didn't match the percent of GT that I had banked. Maybe you're on to something here, perhaps a 4 isn't worth a full "point" of mastery?

Also, for those interested, I have been doing pretty good keeping up with my daily questions (usually like 400-600), but I messed up Wednesday. I only got like 25 of 575 done that day...that meant yesterday I wound up with 1024 questions. I got through them, but damn, I am not going to let one day roll over into the next again. That was brutal. Makes my 430ish questions today seem like nothing.
 
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I'm not sure, but I recently went through and banked the last ~30% of GT and rated everything as a 4, but my percent mastery only increased by like 20% instead of the 30+% I was anticipating. I didn't worry about it really, because I knew I would be going back on a second pass of that material and rating it as a 2 or 3, so my percent mastery was sure to drop from that; however, I was confused why the percent mastery increase didn't match the percent of GT that I had banked. Maybe you're on to something here, perhaps a 4 isn't worth a full "point" of mastery?

Also, for those interested, I have been doing pretty good keeping up with my daily questions (usually like 400-600), but I messed up Wednesday. I only got like 25 of 575 done that day...that meant yesterday I wound up with 1024 questions. I got through them, but damn, I am not going to let one day roll over into the next again. That was brutal. Makes my 430ish questions today seem like nothing.

I thought the card average determined your mastery if you went through it more than a couple of times. Do any of those cards have averages of 3.5/3.6? It make take two times through with 4+ ratings to bump it over 4. Anyone else figure it out? This is my unconfirmed suspicion.
 
I thought the card average determined your mastery if you went through it more than a couple of times. Do any of those cards have averages of 3.5/3.6? It make take two times through with 4+ ratings to bump it over 4. Anyone else figure it out? This is my unconfirmed suspicion.

I thought 5 was full mastery, 4 half mastery (as far as your total mastered). Also I thought it was independent of repetitions.
 
I thought the card average determined your mastery if you went through it more than a couple of times. Do any of those cards have averages of 3.5/3.6? It make take two times through with 4+ ratings to bump it over 4. Anyone else figure it out? This is my unconfirmed suspicion.

That does make sense; however, I banked like 30ish% of the cards on GT and ranked them all as a 4 but my % mastery only increased by like 20ish% despite the average rating being a 4 on those cards. I wish I had kept better track of how my % mastery was changing during that week and a half, so I could know more specifically what was going on. Oh well, I'm not too worried about what my % mastery is anyways, I just want to learn the material as best as I possibly can.

Also, I tried to search the GT website for information about a Step 2 version of GT and didn't really find much. It sounded like it was in the works, but no information on a release date or anything. It sounds like they may be working on a feature that allows you to just roll your step I stuff into the Step 2 program, since they cover a lot of the same things. That way we don't have to rebank everything we've already banked once and can just kind of keep growing our GT knowledge base in a continuous fashion. The one thing I really hope to see from a Step 2 GT program is the ability to pause your daily questions. If I have a long day on surgery rotation and I don't get to my questions, I don't want to have that keep piling up. Now if it's family medicine, from what I hear, that shouldn't be an issue.
 
I think CatFactorial may have it right regarding the mastery percentage calculation. Also, I think some of the automatically calculated stats are a little buggy (for instance, my homepage tells me I have banked 1065 out of 1064 flash cards...). So don't get too wound up over mastery percent, it may just be a placebo number :D
 
I thought 5 was full mastery, 4 half mastery (as far as your total mastered). Also I thought it was independent of repetitions.

I'm going to go with something like this.

For example, I went through all of the behavioral sci stuff one day. Then I repeated it all about a week later, and had all but a handful of cards rated as mastered, but set most to a 4 since I remembered them immediately right then, but also knew it was really fresh in my mind so wanted to see them one more time. I recently went through that last time, but my rating of cards didn't change much. So every single card right now is a 4 or 5, but I'm only at 83% mastery - to get full mastery it must need a 5.
 
I think CatFactorial may have it right regarding the mastery percentage calculation. Also, I think some of the automatically calculated stats are a little buggy (for instance, my homepage tells me I have banked 1065 out of 1064 flash cards...). So don't get too wound up over mastery percent, it may just be a placebo number :D

I think there actually is 1065 cards. I still have some heme/onc stuff to bank, but adding up the cards I have completed with the ones I have left puts me at 1065. I thought I was adding wrong or something...

I'm going to go with something like this.

For example, I went through all of the behavioral sci stuff one day. Then I repeated it all about a week later, and had all but a handful of cards rated as mastered, but set most to a 4 since I remembered them immediately right then, but also knew it was really fresh in my mind so wanted to see them one more time. I recently went through that last time, but my rating of cards didn't change much. So every single card right now is a 4 or 5, but I'm only at 83% mastery - to get full mastery it must need a 5.

I'm glad someone else had a similar experience. A while back, I did all the neuro questions and similar to you, most questions I rated as a 4, but my mastery for neuro dropped. I was really confused afterward, cuz I expected it to show a near 100% mastery. If I have to rate things as a 5 to get that 100% mastery, then I guess I won't ever hit 100% because I don't like rating things as a 5. If you rate something as a 5 a couple times, then you don't see it for 3 months (90 days) and that's just seems too long to me. Maybe I'll start rating more things as a 5 if I keep seeing these same things on GT for step-2 (assuming that comes out soon).
 
Supposedly the step 2 program or an upgrade of some kind is imminent. I emailed them a couple of weeks ago about a minor glitch and they said it wasn't worth fixing because the update would be soon.
 
Supposedly the step 2 program or an upgrade of some kind is imminent. I emailed them a couple of weeks ago about a minor glitch and they said it wasn't worth fixing because the update would be soon.
Yah, as 12/21/12 approaches, you'll probably see a lot more of this attitude. We're all pretty much f***ed.
 
I have a new dilemna with gunnertraining haha.

So after going over endocrine and reporoductive physio I decided to take a day to just chill out with first aid open banking the relevant cards since I hadn't banked in a while.

So I quickly realized that EVERY GT section had extra little bits of info that FA didn't have and I ended up spending like 20-30 minutes per card slowly searching through FA to see if the info was elsewhere and then annotating it into FA and it just made me take at least 4 times as long to do my cards. It took me an hour just to bank like 2-3 cards right now.

I'm not sure if this will help me in the long-run... sometimes I feel like these could be the little details that FA is missing and will help my score and other times I feel like learning these new little details everyday will just bog me down and hold me back from knowing my HY info cold and it will cause me to have an extra 50 GT q's a day because it'll take longer to master them.

I'm also worried about annotating too early and filling up FA and then being low on space when it's Uworld time and my FA will just become one big mess that will be hard to sift through.

ARHH I hate these dilemnas, I feel like I have a new one everyday to distract me from getting my days worth of material covered.
 
I would not annotate GT into FA. You will get quizzed on things in GT to help you remember them and you won't need notes on GT to refer to in FA if you plan on keeping up with your daily GT questions. Save FA annotating for qbanks and other book sources that you don't plan on re-reading multiple times.
 
I have a new dilemna with gunnertraining haha.

So after going over endocrine and reporoductive physio I decided to take a day to just chill out with first aid open banking the relevant cards since I hadn't banked in a while.

So I quickly realized that EVERY GT section had extra little bits of info that FA didn't have and I ended up spending like 20-30 minutes per card slowly searching through FA to see if the info was elsewhere and then annotating it into FA and it just made me take at least 4 times as long to do my cards. It took me an hour just to bank like 2-3 cards right now.

I'm not sure if this will help me in the long-run... sometimes I feel like these could be the little details that FA is missing and will help my score and other times I feel like learning these new little details everyday will just bog me down and hold me back from knowing my HY info cold and it will cause me to have an extra 50 GT q's a day because it'll take longer to master them.

I'm also worried about annotating too early and filling up FA and then being low on space when it's Uworld time and my FA will just become one big mess that will be hard to sift through.

ARHH I hate these dilemnas, I feel like I have a new one everyday to distract me from getting my days worth of material covered.

This was one of my problems with GT. I also would advise not annotating, just realize they are giving you background information to help you understand, in the end the FA material will be what you need to know. Definitely do not stress over the details, just try to understand them.

GT should make a FA mode.
 
This was one of my problems with GT. I also would advise not annotating, just realize they are giving you background information to help you understand, in the end the FA material will be what you need to know. Definitely do not stress over the details, just try to understand them.

GT should make a FA mode.

I agree. GT annotates your brain, so you don't need to worry so much about filling up FA as you go. As ipizzy said, you can annotate other sources/qbanks into your FA instead of GT, because you'll be reviewing the GT stuff daily, especially your weak areas (which is kind of the point of GT).

Also, as JackShephard said, don't stress over the tiny details. I know this can be hard sometimes to differentiate between what's truly important and what is just extra background detail, but the super detailed stuff you can cut yourself some slack on if you don't get it 100% perfect (i.e. rate it as a 4 if you mostly get it). Step-I is not a recall exam anyways, so if you can recognize those details, should they pop up on your exam as some of them will, then you should be OK. At least that's my philosophy, but I have NOT take step-I yet, so take it for what it's worth (although it's common knowledge that recognition is easier than straight recall).
 
so this has probably been said a billion times before...does GT basically cover everything in First Aid and by "cover" i mean including some of the flow charts and mneomonics that some people including myself value at times? With this mind...isn't first Aid futile if you can just rely 100% on an online system that hones in your weaknesses and easy to navigate...I actually even like the notion of annotating GT instead of First Aid
 
so this has probably been said a billion times before...does GT basically cover everything in First Aid and by "cover" i mean including some of the flow charts and mneomonics that some people including myself value at times? With this mind...isn't first Aid futile if you can just rely 100% on an online system that hones in your weaknesses and easy to navigate...I actually even like the notion of annotating GT instead of First Aid
No. There are differences in diagrams and flow charts between the two. GT has done a good job adding images to each card, but they're not the same.

For example, I love that FA has a section in Musc/Derm with a picture of all the benign and malignant tumors on a long bone in the right areas. Great bird's eye view. GT does not have something like this, however, the information is in all the words.It also works opposite. Some GT cards have some great images and flow charts that aren't in FA.

I will say that whenever I bank something new, I do it with FA open at the same time to check. From what I've seen, GT has all the info FA does + some extra info with more constantly being added.
 
I think I am going to add Pathoma to supplement my GT studies. I watched a couple of the sample videos and liked what I saw. Plus, sometimes I am not in the mood to do questions or read, so something more passive for a couple hours like watching Pathoma videos should be a nice change of pace. Thanks to those who gave me some feed back on Pathoma.
 
Does anyone use the detailed analytics page or do you just look at your percent mastery on the dashboard? I fall into the latter.
 
What is the general consensus on GT?

Is it essential and/or a very useful tool for Step 1? (Sorry, don't want to read 28 pages)
 
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