Gunner Training?

[hope2bpaindoc]

A

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[cage92]

hey what is the firecracker?

 

[jhamaican]

microbiology is starting for me as a second year and GT/Firecracker has yet to give us the option to review all the cards/questions in a single subcategory. Very disappointing. Something so simple that people have been asking for for months. One of the main reasons I bought GT.

I guess I will have to resort to the stupid trial account trick

 

[doctoritis]

For those of us doing GT along with M2, what is the consensus for a question bank to also do alongside M2? This is assuming that Uworld will be done during the dedicated study time.

Kaplan, UsmleRx, or Uworld with a second run through during dedicated study time?

 

[Alvarez13]

RAWR!

Where is my GT step 2 material?!

 

[secants]

The last shall I got from Nick said that they have the material ready but are just finishing up writing the questions.

Sent from my DROID SPYDER using Tapatalk 2

 

[Alvarez13]

The last shall I got from Nick said that they have the material ready but are just finishing up writing the questions.

Sent from my DROID SPYDER using Tapatalk 2

Tell him to release what they have next time you guys are out at lunch. I want to start banking before 3rd yr is over. Even if there's missing sections, I'm on fam med and this would be a good time to start learning new stuff.

 

[StephenMaturin]

"A 32-year-old research scientist is attempting to understand apoptosis. She understands that apoptosis can be induced by external events. Which of the following is not related to pathologic apoptosis?"

Holy crap the questions on GT are getting annoying. Who is in charge of product development over there, George Lucas? You're ruining a good thing! No one is going to use GT as a replacement q bank!

Just give me the part in bold. I wish we could rescue them from themselves somehow.

 

[MedicalStudent5]

"A 32-year-old research scientist is attempting to understand apoptosis. She understands that apoptosis can be induced by external events. Which of the following is not related to pathologic apoptosis?"

Holy crap the questions on GT are getting annoying. Who is in charge of product development over there, George Lucas? You're ruining a good thing! No one is going to use GT as a replacement q bank!

Just give me the part in bold. I wish we could rescue them from themselves somehow.

Lol, I like to check in from time to time on this thread. Very happy I moved on from this program. Anki is like a billion times better. I don't think I'll ramp up Anki until 6 months out of the exam (i.e. go for mastery in all subjects), but I really don't think you need more than that. Especially if 100% of your questions are single sentences or FAST questions. I think I'll have twice as many questions as GT but 1/2 the material (only FA + pathoma).

Dear GT,

How you could have made your program 1,000,000x better.

1. Make your questions shorter (hell, you stole this whole idea from supermemo but you didn't even follow their advice). If 1 sentence will do for a question, don't use 3. EDIT RUTHLESSLY... aciton item: don't be lazy, go back through ALL 6000 or 10,000 questions and rewrite everyone of them... ask yourself, could this question be improved or be shorter? Are we asking this quesiton in the fastest/shortest possible way? Are we asking for recall of 10 things on a single quesiton or of 3-4 things? The human mind can't hold 10 things in it! Don't ask for lists of more than a few things.

2. Hire a crappy artist and get images on EVERYTHING. You need images. your lippincott partnership was ok but that's not enough, why don't you hire an artist? You don't need great pictures. Have you gone through a ridiculously simple book? The images are crap BUT they are helpful. You don't need Netter quality art, you just need a decent picture that a college student artist could draw but you need them for ALL the basic concepts, hell even copy them from first aid or Robbins but get some pictures.

3. Keep refining and asking people how to make the program faster, and more malleable. allow people to test on only subtopics or only 1 subtopic or 10 subtopics in 10 different categories. This should have been the #1 objective for a LONG time, not Step 2, not USMLE Q's...

GT has failed the last few years because they haven't got GOOD at what they do. If you have a niche you need to get good in your niche. This is how all companies succeed. GT had a niche and then abandoned it to expand but never really solidified their niche. Now you have an average overall program instead of a great flash card program that could make small enhancements. WHy? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$... That's all i can figure, they wanted profit and a bigger site that was more social media ready. BUT that's NOT GT's niche. It's a fine addition but GT's niche is spaced recall memory and flashcards... you need to get good at what you do and they did NOT. The above quesiton I commented on is a perfect example. The person who wrote that question was trying to be fancy instead of trying to follow what GT should be doing.

Edit: I was thinking about learning theory today, when I made the claim that it wasn't spaced repetition that made GT work so well, but instead it was forcing recall (active) followed by repetition. I think learning is more like sports that we may think. According to a lot of these learning theories, you should learn something on Day 1 and then repeat it just before you forget it and then continue likewise, stretching out the interval each time. I think this is beneficial because of the repetition and the forced recall, the actual spacing of the repetition is more about convenience than it is about strategy. Lets say that some guy learns 100 facts on Monday and it takes him 2 hours... then maybe he will forget the material in a week or something. Well, let's take another guy and instead of working those 100 facts for 2 hours, he repeats them again and again, forcing the recall and strengthening the neural pathways, and instead of just learning them for 2 hours, he spends 10 hours learning them. Do you honestly believe both guys will forget in about a week? Nope. The guy who spent 10 hours maybe got 12-14 repetitions and when he was forcing recall, he was driving the neural pathway down more and more. He would be really good at recalling this info and the other guy would be kind of good. Isn't this how we learn to play sports. For example, when you learn to golf, you don't just get one good stroke and then leave, and then practice the stroke again right before you forget how to do it a week later. Nope, you practice the stroke again and again and you get better each time. The whole idea of trying to TIME when you will forget is kind of dumb, I mean it's only true purpose is to minimize the the time spent training BUT it's always guess work because if you ever forget any question then techincally it took too long... and we all know you guys forget LOTS of questions. So in reality, something like Step 1 doesn't need to be extended over a year to ensure you never forget anything, you can bring up to speed entire subjects in a DAY... that' right, a single day. If you have the flashcards made and have already learned them, then you could review all of biochem in a single day... and pound it in again and again like you are practicing a golf shot. Then you're at 100% mastery in only a day instead of a year. You don't need the year. The brain is much better than all these learning theorists have made it out to be.

I guess another way of looking at it is like we look at severity of disease. There is this whole mistaken idea that knowledge is measured by either knowing something or not... like, oh yeah I can recall this fact at the end of the day so I know it, while if I can't, then I don't know it. Well, that's a simplistic way of looking at learning. What if I gave you 24 hours to learn one thing, and you needed to remember this thing a year from now and you would get $100,000. Well, I'm sure you could learn how to remember that one thing so that you never forgot it. Now let's take a guy using GT and remembering a fact that he answered correctly, he knows that thing that day but in 365 days he will likely forget it... WHY? because there are levels of learning, measuring if someone knows something or not by their ability to recall it doesn't really mean anyting because you can learn things at even more depth so that you don't forget them (this can happen via forced recall and repetition) - so the idea that a person needs to spread out the reviews isn't really logical, it's that the person needs to improve their process of learning.

 

[tarsuc]

Is there anyone from outside US, Canada who bought GT with a non US/Canada based credit card?
I just tried reactivating my subscription with my credit card.

The billing address in the webpage doesnt accept anything outside USA/Canada.

My credit card details and its billing address are from my home country, and both these should be linked to each other for a card to work. I tried with a different billing address(US), but it doesnt work.

So how do anyone outside US/Canada buy GT, if they dont have a US based credit card?

I tried mailing them in the webpage and in fb, Its been 2 days and noone has responded yet.

Anyone has any ideas?

 

[Chirurg]

Is there anyone from outside US, Canada who bought GT with a non US/Canada based credit card?
I just tried reactivating my subscription with my credit card.

The billing address in the webpage doesnt accept anything outside USA/Canada.

My credit card details and its billing address are from my home country, and both these should be linked to each other for a card to work. I tried with a different billing address(US), but it doesnt work.

So how do anyone outside US/Canada buy GT, if they dont have a US based credit card?

I tried mailing them in the webpage and in fb, Its been 2 days and noone has responded yet.

Anyone has any ideas?

yeah, don't expect them to respond tho this sort of issue. I tried before, they didn't get back to me.
so I was forced to use PayPal.
I like their product, but the way they treat customers outside US/Canada doesn't seem great.

 

[Chirurg]

Dear GT,

How you could have made your program 1,000,000x better.

1. Make your questions shorter (hell, you stole this whole idea from supermemo but you didn't even follow their advice). If 1 sentence will do for a question, don't use 3. EDIT RUTHLESSLY... aciton item: don't be lazy, go back through ALL 6000 or 10,000 questions and rewrite everyone of them... ask yourself, could this question be improved or be shorter? Are we asking this quesiton in the fastest/shortest possible way? Are we asking for recall of 10 things on a single quesiton or of 3-4 things? The human mind can't hold 10 things in it! Don't ask for lists of more than a few things.

This, particularly the part in bold.

 

[loveoforganic2]

1. Make your questions shorter (hell, you stole this whole idea from supermemo but you didn't even follow their advice). If 1 sentence will do for a question, don't use 3. EDIT RUTHLESSLY... aciton item: don't be lazy, go back through ALL 6000 or 10,000 questions and rewrite everyone of them... ask yourself, could this question be improved or be shorter? Are we asking this quesiton in the fastest/shortest possible way? Are we asking for recall of 10 things on a single quesiton or of 3-4 things? The human mind can't hold 10 things in it! Don't ask for lists of more than a few things.

2. Hire a crappy artist and get images on EVERYTHING. You need images. your lippincott partnership was ok but that's not enough, why don't you hire an artist? You don't need great pictures. Have you gone through a ridiculously simple book? The images are crap BUT they are helpful. You don't need Netter quality art, you just need a decent picture that a college student artist could draw but you need them for ALL the basic concepts, hell even copy them from first aid or Robbins but get some pictures.

3. Keep refining and asking people how to make the program faster, and more malleable. allow people to test on only subtopics or only 1 subtopic or 10 subtopics in 10 different categories. This should have been the #1 objective for a LONG time, not Step 2, not USMLE Q's...

Particularly #1

 

[Mednomad]

2. Hire a crappy artist and get images on EVERYTHING. You need images. your lippincott partnership was ok but that's not enough, why don't you hire an artist? You don't need great pictures. Have you gone through a ridiculously simple book? The images are crap BUT they are helpful. You don't need Netter quality art, you just need a decent picture that a college student artist could draw but you need them for ALL the basic concepts, hell even copy them from first aid or Robbins but get some pictures.

Yes, Yes, Yes.

 

[kautionwirez]

I see a lot of overlap between my anatomy class and a lot of the organ system topics.

Do you guys just weave through all of the different topics to see which parts you covered in class and go through them?

Do you guys also use Anki along with GT? Would that be a good or bad idea?

 

[MedicalStudent5]

Yes, Yes, Yes.

You quoted the wrong person!

I've been very critical of this program because #1 I used to love it and #2 I saw so much potential in it. I hope the developers read my posts and I can tell that a lot of the high end users that are BUSY agree with me. I'm sure the developers have read the 20 rules for formatting knowledge from supermemo who created this whole learning system, they should really take those to heart.

I feel like this program isn't ready for primetime just yet, it's VERY good but isn't great. But the potential is there is they stop being lazy and start thinking out of the box for the most important elements. I think my major criticisms are among the most important but sure enough there are many other ways to improve. Which is why my last comment was continually work with high end users and figure out what they are liking or aren't liking. You have the USERS history, you can see who is using the program daily and plowing through 300 Q's a day. Why don't you pay these people in free months to get feedback from them. Make a questionaire, pick their minds. This program could be great in a year or two with the right leadership and focus. It needs to be a full time full effort though. Doing it part time or half ass won't work. You think Uworld has part time focus on their product? You need to really improve the quesiton stems and lengths... People have been complaining about it for 6 months at least (I can remember just on this site) and NOTHING has been done. You need to adapt more. Then you can charge $40 a month and it would actually be worth it. Get to work yo!

 

[crunchymedicine]

You quoted the wrong person!

I've been very critical of this program because #1 I used to love it and #2 I saw so much potential in it. I hope the developers read my posts and I can tell that a lot of the high end users that are BUSY agree with me. I'm sure the developers have read the 20 rules for formatting knowledge from supermemo who created this whole learning system, they should really take those to heart.

I feel like this program isn't ready for primetime just yet, it's VERY good but isn't great. But the potential is there is they stop being lazy and start thinking out of the box for the most important elements. I think my major criticisms are among the most important but sure enough there are many other ways to improve. Which is why my last comment was continually work with high end users and figure out what they are liking or aren't liking. You have the USERS history, you can see who is using the program daily and plowing through 300 Q's a day. Why don't you pay these people in free months to get feedback from them. Make a questionaire, pick their minds. This program could be great in a year or two with the right leadership and focus. It needs to be a full time full effort though. Doing it part time or half ass won't work. You think Uworld has part time focus on their product? You need to really improve the quesiton stems and lengths... People have been complaining about it for 6 months at least (I can remember just on this site) and NOTHING has been done. You need to adapt more. Then you can charge $40 a month and it would actually be worth it. Get to work yo!

 

[loveoforganic2]

ditto

 

[Chirurg]

You quoted the wrong person!

I've been very critical of this program because #1 I used to love it and #2 I saw so much potential in it. I hope the developers read my posts and I can tell that a lot of the high end users that are BUSY agree with me. I'm sure the developers have read the 20 rules for formatting knowledge from supermemo who created this whole learning system, they should really take those to heart.

I feel like this program isn't ready for primetime just yet, it's VERY good but isn't great. But the potential is there is they stop being lazy and start thinking out of the box for the most important elements. I think my major criticisms are among the most important but sure enough there are many other ways to improve. Which is why my last comment was continually work with high end users and figure out what they are liking or aren't liking. You have the USERS history, you can see who is using the program daily and plowing through 300 Q's a day. Why don't you pay these people in free months to get feedback from them. Make a questionaire, pick their minds. This program could be great in a year or two with the right leadership and focus. It needs to be a full time full effort though. Doing it part time or half ass won't work. You think Uworld has part time focus on their product? You need to really improve the quesiton stems and lengths... People have been complaining about it for 6 months at least (I can remember just on this site) and NOTHING has been done. You need to adapt more. Then you can charge $40 a month and it would actually be worth it. Get to work yo!

you know what, I didn't bother reading your long posts and thought you haven't tried GT much and you are just here to diss it.
but reading your last 2 posts, it's like you are reading my mind.
I've been using GT for almost a year and a lof of (the part in bold) what you say, is exactly my thinking. I hope GT people read your last 2 posts.
my impression: clearly you are someone who likes/loves the concept of GT and you left it because nothing was done about some of the feedback that we gave on this forum, particularly the ridiculous MCQs.

 

[withrye]

Edit: I was thinking about learning theory today, when I made the claim that it wasn't spaced repetition that made GT work so well, but instead it was forcing recall (active) followed by repetition. I think learning is more like sports that we may think. According to a lot of these learning theories, you should learn something on Day 1 and then repeat it just before you forget it and then continue likewise, stretching out the interval each time. I think this is beneficial because of the repetition and the forced recall, the actual spacing of the repetition is more about convenience than it is about strategy. Lets say that some guy learns 100 facts on Monday and it takes him 2 hours... then maybe he will forget the material in a week or something. Well, let's take another guy and instead of working those 100 facts for 2 hours, he repeats them again and again, forcing the recall and strengthening the neural pathways, and instead of just learning them for 2 hours, he spends 10 hours learning them. Do you honestly believe both guys will forget in about a week? Nope. The guy who spent 10 hours maybe got 12-14 repetitions and when he was forcing recall, he was driving the neural pathway down more and more. He would be really good at recalling this info and the other guy would be kind of good. Isn't this how we learn to play sports. For example, when you learn to golf, you don't just get one good stroke and then leave, and then practice the stroke again right before you forget how to do it a week later. Nope, you practice the stroke again and again and you get better each time. The whole idea of trying to TIME when you will forget is kind of dumb, I mean it's only true purpose is to minimize the the time spent training BUT it's always guess work because if you ever forget any question then techincally it took too long... and we all know you guys forget LOTS of questions. So in reality, something like Step 1 doesn't need to be extended over a year to ensure you never forget anything, you can bring up to speed entire subjects in a DAY... that' right, a single day. If you have the flashcards made and have already learned them, then you could review all of biochem in a single day... and pound it in again and again like you are practicing a golf shot. Then you're at 100% mastery in only a day instead of a year. You don't need the year. The brain is much better than all these learning theorists have made it out to be.

Spaced repetition is about minimal effective dose. Memory experiments (n.b. not just theorists) have shown that memories reinforced near the threshold of resetting are kept longer than those reinforced at more frequent intervals. Someone studying 100 facts for 10 hours instead of 2 hours will likely have a better grasp of the material the next day. However, if you test them a month later, with no review period in between for either person, they will both bomb it. 100 new facts in one day cannot be kept efficiently for a month whether you studied for 2 or 10 hours that one day a month ago. Besides the nuances of how Anki, GT, and Supermemo differ in their implementation of spaced repetition, it is hypocritical for you to claim to do without the benefits of spaced repetition via GT when you get the same spaced repetition with Anki. Mastering the material now and then zooming through review later IS spaced repetition; the difference is that "mastering" the material implies a very slow decaying forgetting curve, meaning a quick review a year from now is sufficient.

Lastly, the procedural muscle memory used in sports is not analogous to fact-based declarative memory. You can see it by the fact that spaced repetition works for declarative memory, but does not work for procedural memory. The pathways are clearly different (as H.M. has shown us).

 

[MedicalStudent5]

Spaced repetition is about minimal effective dose. Memory experiments (n.b. not just theorists) have shown that memories reinforced near the threshold of resetting are kept longer than those reinforced at more frequent intervals. Someone studying 100 facts for 10 hours instead of 2 hours will likely have a better grasp of the material the next day. However, if you test them a month later, with no review period in between for either person, they will both bomb it. 100 new facts in one day cannot be kept efficiently for a month whether you studied for 2 or 10 hours that one day a month ago. Besides the nuances of how Anki, GT, and Supermemo differ in their implementation of spaced repetition, it is hypocritical for you to claim to do without the benefits of spaced repetition via GT when you get the same spaced repetition with Anki. Mastering the material now and then zooming through review later IS spaced repetition; the difference is that "mastering" the material implies a very slow decaying forgetting curve, meaning a quick review a year from now is sufficient.

Lastly, the procedural muscle memory used in sports is not analogous to fact-based declarative memory. You can see it by the fact that spaced repetition works for declarative memory, but does not work for procedural memory. The pathways are clearly different (as H.M. has shown us).

I guess my argument is more nuanced than you make it out to be. Yes, using anki or whatever else is still spaced repetition, but it's not spaced repetition according to the design of GT (how I learned it), which is the idea that you get a question right, you stretch it out 24 hours later or a week later, whatever. What I'm saying is, there is more to memory than just answering a question correctly (i.e. levels of knowing), which is why I think some people are much smarter than others (I don't claim to be a genius), but I think the people who are genius level are able to make tons of connections to the information very quickly and answer the question correctly, while normal intelligence may just make a few connections and answer correctly. What I'm saying is that a person could artificially think on a genius level by repeating the correct answer beyond just knowing multiple times, making multiple extra connections + quickening the recall. Your hypothetical is exactly what I was talking about, 100 facts in 2 hours or 10 hours, both would bomb in a month. Well, what about 20 hours straight on 100 facts? There is some threshold where enough depth and repetition WOULD be recalled a month from now. The active learning process is much more important than reviewing right before you forget, IMO. I would make the argument that you could go back and take a math class you've taken a year ago and do much better... yet the forgetting curve would say that you should be on equal footing with a person who had never studied the material before.

I agree that spaced repetition is about a minimal effective dose... but that's my whole point, minimally effective isn't a mastery mindset. I like to compare it to sports training, what is the minimally effective way to learn a golf stroke? There is almost always improvement. You may argue that these forms of memory are different (they obviously are), but there are no studies to disprove what I've said. This can be seen in human memory also, there are things that, if you learned in the right way and the right emotion/connections, you could remember a year from now WITHOUT review. If there was a minimally effective dose type of theory, one shouldn't be able to recall something a year or two ago without review. So this only lends to my point that the idea of recalling a simple fact has MANY levels beyond just reciting the fact quickly, which is why depth of repetition can be more useful than just knowing ----> more connections / less necessity of spaced repetition.

I don't doubt that the memory experiments have shown spaced repetition works, but I don't think my theory has been disproven, and if anything, my theory only correlates with what we know about learning in other facets of life. They are taken people who can answer a test question correctly and then seeing if they can answer the test question correctly later. I'm actually saying, what if answering the test question correctly or not is a poor measurement of mastery of knowledge and that possibly, there are multiple levels of knowing beyond this (i.e. # of connections made) which could lead to the reason that some people have better memories than others.

I'm far from hypocritical, I use Anki much more fluidly than a traditional Anki user. It's much more malleable now than ever before. If I study 100 facts 1 day at a time and still have excellent performance, this is much different than any algorithm designed by supermemo/anki/GT or any studies, my problem truly isn't with spaced repetition but more of everyone's idea of spaced repetition (i.e. trying to review RIGHT before you forget and to time that perfectly. There is no need to do that). Simple example: If you get a question right on Anki once or twice, you have GOT it and can push it back 24 hours or 4 days. I'm saying this, what if you studied this one question 45 times in that day, do you honestly believe your forgetting curve is the same as the person who viewed that question once? I.e. Answering a question correctly doesn't really tell us how well you've learned something. Nothing you stated disproves or even disagrees with what I've said other than our differing views on procedural learning being a helpful model for learning facts.

Anywho, my purpose was to help GT by giving it some tough feedback which some people don't always like to hear but I think this program could be very good one day. And part of that would allow the user to test out theories like mine by selecting what topics/subtopics that want to study. This is the single biggest thing that GT could do to make the program TWICE as useful. Until my theories are disproven, I'm rolling with them because the actually explain why GT works but also why other people who don't use GT can score just as well within 5 weeks. If what you were saying was true and the true model of effectiveness is testing right before you forget, then GT would offer a HUGE advantage (especially to a 2 year long user), so huge that any GT user would almost always score higher than others. I really don't believe some of the 240s scores who took 1 year with GT or 5 weeks with FA and Uworld differed that much in intelligence - although it's just an observation of mine (reading their feedback + their idea of their performance in school/Step1) This remains, if it is only the process of active recall that is helpful, that would explain why a person who uses qbanks does well, why a person who uses GT does well and why many others find other ways of doing well... it's NOT actual spaced repetition.

I hope GT makes the right changes and listens to their high end users. They would really clean up $$$$ if they listen to their users and could probably be the #1 prep source other than Uworld (sorry, tough to beat Uworld).

GOOD LUCK! This will be my last post 4'eva!

 

[jhamaican]

Lol, I like to check in from time to time on this thread. Very happy I moved on from this program. Anki is like a billion times better. I don't think I'll ramp up Anki until 6 months out of the exam (i.e. go for mastery in all subjects), but I really don't think you need more than that. Especially if 100% of your questions are single sentences or FAST questions. I think I'll have twice as many questions as GT but 1/2 the material (only FA + pathoma).

Dear GT,

How you could have made your program 1,000,000x better.

1. Make your questions shorter (hell, you stole this whole idea from supermemo but you didn't even follow their advice). If 1 sentence will do for a question, don't use 3. EDIT RUTHLESSLY... aciton item: don't be lazy, go back through ALL 6000 or 10,000 questions and rewrite everyone of them... ask yourself, could this question be improved or be shorter? Are we asking this quesiton in the fastest/shortest possible way? Are we asking for recall of 10 things on a single quesiton or of 3-4 things? The human mind can't hold 10 things in it! Don't ask for lists of more than a few things.

Agree 100%. GT had the perfect niche and then is polluting it up. I honestly do not understand why they are trying to hard to be a one stop resource.

 

[Alvarez13]

Agree 100%. GT had the perfect niche and then is polluting it up. I honestly do not understand why they are trying to hard to be a one stop resource.

 

[Transformers]

bchandler, where you at homey, respond to our needs!

 

[WarriorMD]

I have to agree with most of the above. It's kind of like when a great product comes out and then get's excited and tries to expand too soon before solidifying the original product and then it all goes boom.

I knew about 15 people using GT from my classes and currently I am the last one simply due to the length and wording of some of the Q's.

1) Long wordy questions with unnecessary information only waste our precious time when it comes down to crunch time. GT already requires a huge time commitment so adding more crap into Q's doesn't help.

2) M/C Q's... honestly after seeing the Q for a split second without even reading it, just by recognizing the layout of the Q my brain already knows what answer to chose.. M/C Q's aren't meant for repetition. I get no benefits from these and my brain is not forced to recall anything simply because I can just recognize the answer.

Why not just have simple one sentence quick recall Q's?

The exam is a combo of knowing your facts and making the connections - let GT help us know our facts and lay down a killer foundation and we can use UWorld or a SEPARATE GT/Firecracker question bank to later tie the concepts together and learn to make connections.

3) A lot of the time the wording of the Q's is so odd and hard to understand that I feel like I can't answer the question simply because I don't know what it's asking. However when I look at the answer I knew that information down COLD I just didn't know it was asking that.

GT isn't meant to be twisted, most people use it to retain facts and to get FA down cold.


FINAL COMPLAINT: Doing questions is VERY DRAINING for my brain and I'm sure the same applies to anyone else. Doing 100-300 Q's a day and doing studying/review on top of that is already very draining.
So by making your Q's simple and to the point helps not fatigue the crap out of ones brain. By doing 300 multiple choice, full out brain excercise Q's a day I think my mind would be MUSH after those q's and I would be too mentally drained to study anything else the rest of the day.



IF I OWNED GT:
1) Simplify and solidfy the GT Q bank. Make Q's short and to the point and split all the Q's up so each question requires recall of a couple points and not huge lists.

2) Have the M/C questions as a separate entity for use as an adjunct to GT or as a standalone Qbank. M/C q's suck for spaced learning.

3) The ability to do Q's by subtopics seems to be posted up by EVERYONE asking for features, it seems like this needs to be addressed ASAP.


GT is a great product and I will continue to use it and recommend it to people I know. I think before trying to take down step 2 and Uworld, the focus should be have a product for step 1 (your starting point) that is ready for the mainstream and has addressed all the issues.

If people are not 100% about it for step 1, the odds are they won't use it for step 2 or won't recommend it for step 2. If you can be patient and make a mastered product for step 1 that everyone is raving about it will be a piece of CAKE to enter into the step 2 realm and after it becomes a widespread product it's only a matter of time before UWORLD vs FIRECRACK Qbank questions start popping up on the usmle boards.

I realize you want a product out for step 2 asap, get it out there so people have something to use and then work from the ground up.


Long post, I have a lot more to say, but please just address a couple of these concerns and I can guarantee the results/reviews you see afterwards will be well worth the time invested.

 

[minwoo]

bchandler, where you at homey, respond to our needs!

 

[StephenMaturin]

I have to agree with most of the above. It's kind of like when a great product comes out and then get's excited and tries to expand too soon before solidifying the original product and then it all goes boom.

I knew about 15 people using GT from my classes and currently I am the last one simply due to the length and wording of some of the Q's.

1) Long wordy questions with unnecessary information only waste our precious time when it comes down to crunch time. GT already requires a huge time commitment so adding more crap into Q's doesn't help.

2) M/C Q's... honestly after seeing the Q for a split second without even reading it, just by recognizing the layout of the Q my brain already knows what answer to chose.. M/C Q's aren't meant for repetition. I get no benefits from these and my brain is not forced to recall anything simply because I can just recognize the answer.

Why not just have simple one sentence quick recall Q's?

The exam is a combo of knowing your facts and making the connections - let GT help us know our facts and lay down a killer foundation and we can use UWorld or a SEPARATE GT/Firecracker question bank to later tie the concepts together and learn to make connections.

3) A lot of the time the wording of the Q's is so odd and hard to understand that I feel like I can't answer the question simply because I don't know what it's asking. However when I look at the answer I knew that information down COLD I just didn't know it was asking that.

GT isn't meant to be twisted, most people use it to retain facts and to get FA down cold.


FINAL COMPLAINT: Doing questions is VERY DRAINING for my brain and I'm sure the same applies to anyone else. Doing 100-300 Q's a day and doing studying/review on top of that is already very draining.
So by making your Q's simple and to the point helps not fatigue the crap out of ones brain. By doing 300 multiple choice, full out brain excercise Q's a day I think my mind would be MUSH after those q's and I would be too mentally drained to study anything else the rest of the day.



IF I OWNED GT:
1) Simplify and solidfy the GT Q bank. Make Q's short and to the point and split all the Q's up so each question requires recall of a couple points and not huge lists.

2) Have the M/C questions as a separate entity for use as an adjunct to GT or as a standalone Qbank. M/C q's suck for spaced learning.

3) The ability to do Q's by subtopics seems to be posted up by EVERYONE asking for features, it seems like this needs to be addressed ASAP.


GT is a great product and I will continue to use it and recommend it to people I know. I think before trying to take down step 2 and Uworld, the focus should be have a product for step 1 (your starting point) that is ready for the mainstream and has addressed all the issues.

If people are not 100% about it for step 1, the odds are they won't use it for step 2 or won't recommend it for step 2. If you can be patient and make a mastered product for step 1 that everyone is raving about it will be a piece of CAKE to enter into the step 2 realm and after it becomes a widespread product it's only a matter of time before UWORLD vs FIRECRACK Qbank questions start popping up on the usmle boards.

I realize you want a product out for step 2 asap, get it out there so people have something to use and then work from the ground up.


Long post, I have a lot more to say, but please just address a couple of these concerns and I can guarantee the results/reviews you see afterwards will be well worth the time invested.

Spot on.

 

[crazyozone]

I have to agree with most of the above. It's kind of like when a great product comes out and then get's excited and tries to expand too soon before solidifying the original product and then it all goes boom.

I knew about 15 people using GT from my classes and currently I am the last one simply due to the length and wording of some of the Q's.

1) Long wordy questions with unnecessary information only waste our precious time when it comes down to crunch time. GT already requires a huge time commitment so adding more crap into Q's doesn't help.

2) M/C Q's... honestly after seeing the Q for a split second without even reading it, just by recognizing the layout of the Q my brain already knows what answer to chose.. M/C Q's aren't meant for repetition. I get no benefits from these and my brain is not forced to recall anything simply because I can just recognize the answer.

Why not just have simple one sentence quick recall Q's?

The exam is a combo of knowing your facts and making the connections - let GT help us know our facts and lay down a killer foundation and we can use UWorld or a SEPARATE GT/Firecracker question bank to later tie the concepts together and learn to make connections.

3) A lot of the time the wording of the Q's is so odd and hard to understand that I feel like I can't answer the question simply because I don't know what it's asking. However when I look at the answer I knew that information down COLD I just didn't know it was asking that.

GT isn't meant to be twisted, most people use it to retain facts and to get FA down cold.


FINAL COMPLAINT: Doing questions is VERY DRAINING for my brain and I'm sure the same applies to anyone else. Doing 100-300 Q's a day and doing studying/review on top of that is already very draining.
So by making your Q's simple and to the point helps not fatigue the crap out of ones brain. By doing 300 multiple choice, full out brain excercise Q's a day I think my mind would be MUSH after those q's and I would be too mentally drained to study anything else the rest of the day.



IF I OWNED GT:
1) Simplify and solidfy the GT Q bank. Make Q's short and to the point and split all the Q's up so each question requires recall of a couple points and not huge lists.

2) Have the M/C questions as a separate entity for use as an adjunct to GT or as a standalone Qbank. M/C q's suck for spaced learning.

3) The ability to do Q's by subtopics seems to be posted up by EVERYONE asking for features, it seems like this needs to be addressed ASAP.


GT is a great product and I will continue to use it and recommend it to people I know. I think before trying to take down step 2 and Uworld, the focus should be have a product for step 1 (your starting point) that is ready for the mainstream and has addressed all the issues.

If people are not 100% about it for step 1, the odds are they won't use it for step 2 or won't recommend it for step 2. If you can be patient and make a mastered product for step 1 that everyone is raving about it will be a piece of CAKE to enter into the step 2 realm and after it becomes a widespread product it's only a matter of time before UWORLD vs FIRECRACK Qbank questions start popping up on the usmle boards.

I realize you want a product out for step 2 asap, get it out there so people have something to use and then work from the ground up.


Long post, I have a lot more to say, but please just address a couple of these concerns and I can guarantee the results/reviews you see afterwards will be well worth the time invested.

very well said

 

[lrkoehle]

Damn, I check back in on you guys and it seems the whole program has gone to ****. I guess I'm glad I got in while the gettin' was good, but it sucks to see everyone so frustrated with what was an awesome program. I have decided to drop it for step 2 prep though. I am just going to use a year long UWorld subscription throughout the year and then reset it a few weeks before I take step 2 and re-do it all. Good luck everyone!

 

[Alvarez13]

Damn, I check back in on you guys and it seems the whole program has gone to ****. I guess I'm glad I got in while the gettin' was good, but it sucks to see everyone so frustrated with what was an awesome program. I have decided to drop it for step 2 prep though. I am just going to use a year long UWorld subscription throughout the year and then reset it a few weeks before I take step 2 and re-do it all. Good luck everyone!

Leaning this way too. No clue when step II stuff comes out. It's taking way too long.

How is 3rd year treating you so far?

 

[cetac]

Looks like Firecracker is live.

Edit: First quiz question I encounter:

Q: "Name four types of benign tumors originating from connective tissue."

A: "Mesenchymal tumors: Connective Tissue"

Sigh...

 

[Snuke]

I particularly enjoy how all the answers to the MCQ's are 'A'.

And the banking system is gone. This flagging system is confusing.

 

[MedicalStudent5]

edit: Lol, I had one of my long epic posts but decided to erase.

I think GT did a good job adding new features and hope you all do well!

 

[GTP]

Smh. My migration has been happening for over 1.5 hr. I should have known it wouldn't complete in the half hour they said it would. There goes the time set aside for my daily review questions.

 

[Druggernaut]

Smh. My migration has been happening for over 1.5 hr. I should have known it wouldn't complete in the half hour they said it would. There goes the time set aside for my daily review questions.

Mine's been going for about 5 hours. I sent their customer support a message, but haven't heard anything back yet.

It looks like it's doing something, since the number next to the flag at the top of the screen has changed, but this is pretty ridiculous.

 

[bbaggins]

Yea, mine has been taking about 3 hours now.

 

[Transformers]

For anyone whos done migrating their stuff from GT...one concern i had was some of the annotations in gt in the notes section of each card. Could someone who had notes on a partiular card in GT check to see in FC if their notes on that card had been migrated?

Thanks

 

[TrueAntagonist]

Done migrating but things are pretty glitchy...VERY glitchy.

The new banking is confusing. Can someone explain...? Thanks.

 

[iliketurt1es]

Done migrating but things are pretty glitchy...VERY glitchy.

The new banking is confusing. Can someone explain...? Thanks.

Yeah, mine just migrated I can't even get to the banking part of it, or look at any of the flashcards.

To others: If you are reading this and haven't migrated your GT yet, maybe it would be a good idea to wait.

 

[GTP]

You can't bank? Wtf... My migration has been going on for over 6 hours now.
Does anyone know what will happen if I do my daily review and/or bank in gt while migration is taking place? I don't want to rebank or redo the questions

Thanks

 

[non trad]

It looks like they've taken out both the customize review schedule and the perfect recall options. Does anyone know if they're hidden somewhere or just gone?

I know that there's now the option to unbank a topic, but I don't see any way to take out and/or delay individual questions. This is especially bad now that they've added so many multiple choice and vignette questions that there's little benefit in seeing again.

There's also no way to keep track of whether we've unbanked something because we know it perfectly or because we just don't have the time or memory space to focus on it right now.

 

[piviti]

Yeah my migration has been going on for 6 hours too. I don't think I would bank or do review questions on gunnertraining until it finishes because they supposedly locked us out of gunnertraining (even though I can still sign in).

They should have just waited to fix all the glitches before rushing firecracker out.

 

[loveoforganic2]

Damn, I check back in on you guys and it seems the whole program has gone to ****. I guess I'm glad I got in while the gettin' was good, but it sucks to see everyone so frustrated with what was an awesome program. I have decided to drop it for step 2 prep though. I am just going to use a year long UWorld subscription throughout the year and then reset it a few weeks before I take step 2 and re-do it all. Good luck everyone!

Don't be mislead - it's pretty much the same program it was when you left (at least the gunnertraining/non-firecracker version). It's just the plans the higher ups for GT have announced that didn't sit well with a lot of us that are sparking the negativity (although a fair number of those complaints apply to GT as it currently is as well).


I had a feeling transferring over to firecracker would be rough - sorry for the trouble some of y'all are encountering. Hope it clears up quick.

 

[Suncrusher]

totally predicted this based on their last major update that caused multitudes of complaints. Glad I declined to migrate when the message popped up this morning...

 

[Chirurg]

totally predicted this based on their last major update that caused multitudes of complaints. Glad I declined to migrate when the message popped up this morning...

same here, will wait a few days.
(btw great avatar)

 

[projectlogic]

Damn it.. I should not have migrated.

The site is not functional at all for me now. I can't even view any cards!

EDIT: looks like GT.com is still working. I think i'll just stick to that.

 

[WarriorMD]

I have to admit I'm a bit scared to migrate lol.

I'm gonna stick to GT for a while and open a trial account on firecracker to see if I like it or not.

No "perfect recall" button = I'll be sticking to GT.

 

[GTP]

DO NOT MIGRATE...FML. this really sucks and it's messing up my productivity

 

[WarriorMD]

I owe you guys for warning me ahead of time.

I'm banking micro and was WAY behind schedule and was planning on banking as much as possible tonight since I'm going away for the long weekend so that's 3 more days of no banking.

Had I migrated I would have fallen even more behind.

 

[Brotato]

This is pretty terrible. It took almost like 8-10 hours to finish migrating over to Firecracker. Then when I log in to do my questions I get a "500 Error" page instead.

I thought you guys hired an software engineer or something!

 

[rizan1986]

Yeah, I started my migration around 14 hours ago. I get an error message when I tried to go to the firecracker website. Now i can get into my account, but its STILL migrating AND none of the flags or anything at the top of the screen has changed.

This is putting a big kink in my plans.