Gunner Training?

[hope2bpaindoc]

---

Members do not see this ad.

A

 

[Bernoull]

So are you saying that GT basically just hammers home the facts without promoting enough integration of concepts across organ systems? I certainly agree that Step-I will never have a "list the causes of X," but for many things it is good to have a list readily accessible in your mind to then go through as you approach a question. You have to have the foundation of facts before you can start integrating, and for me that integration will be done with qbanks bringing everything together (hopefully). I'm not planning on utilizing GT as the end all be all of my study approach, I would never use only one resource for something this important. That would be like only using FA or DIT or something. However, past users have credited GT with helping give them the foundation upon which to build integrations across systems with qbanks like Kaplan and UWorld.

This.

GT helps with knowledge acquisition & retention; Qbanks teach u how to apply the concepts. The two are very different.

Its shortcomings (as have been pointed out) notwithstanding, I don't know of any other product(s) that come close to doing what GT does, esp. with retention.

 

[iCY]

So are you saying that GT basically just hammers home the facts without promoting enough integration of concepts across organ systems? I certainly agree that Step-I will never have a "list the causes of X," but for many things it is good to have a list readily accessible in your mind to then go through as you approach a question. You have to have the foundation of facts before you can start integrating, and for me that integration will be done with qbanks bringing everything together (hopefully). I'm not planning on utilizing GT as the end all be all of my study approach, I would never use only one resource for something this important. That would be like only using FA or DIT or something. However, past users have credited GT with helping give them the foundation upon which to build integrations across systems with qbanks like Kaplan and UWorld.

Good points. There is definitely a way to make GT work, I just don't think that there is enough time for it in a AMG schedule. If I was an IMG on the other hand & had months to sit home & do nothing but step 1 studying, GT would be $$$.

As for the past GT users that have gotten extraordinary scores using GT, I would be willing to bet that they would have gotten those scores anyway. I don't think that GT is some magical program that will bump you up from a 230 to a 250. I also don't think that people looking for a step 1 study program should invest in a program that requires such a heavy time commitment, based on the testimony of a few users who were probably very smart/hard working to begin with.

There isn't much more that I can say because the program is still new, and not many people have taken step 1 after having used it. I personally am not going to put all my eggs into the GT basket & hope for a magical outcome.

 

[lrkoehle]

Good points. There is definitely a way to make GT work, I just don't think that there is enough time for it in a AMG schedule. If I was an IMG on the other hand & had months to sit home & do nothing but step 1 studying, GT would be $$$.

As for the past GT users that have gotten extraordinary scores using GT, I would be willing to bet that they would have gotten those scores anyway. I don't think that GT is some magical program that will bump you up from a 230 to a 250. I also don't think that people looking for a step 1 study program should invest in a program that requires such a heavy time commitment, based on the testimony of a few users who were probably very smart/hard working to begin with.

There isn't much more that I can say because the program is still new, and not many people have taken step 1 after having used it. I personally am not going to put all my eggs into the GT basket & hope for a magical outcome.

Agreed. I believe JackShephard was saying something similar a couple of weeks ago, which was something to the effect of: if you put in the time required to complete GT with any other program/resources, you'd probably do really good too. At the end of the day, there is no magic bullet for this beast, we all just have to put in the work. Different things work different for different people. I like GT because I know repetition is key for me. Other people I know are doing a DIT program, because watching videos of some guy reading FA to them works for them.

God, I wish I was a FMG sometimes when it comes to studying for step-I early. I can't tell you how often school gets in the way of my studying...🙄

 

[JackShephard MD]

Good points. There is definitely a way to make GT work, I just don't think that there is enough time for it in a AMG schedule. If I was an IMG on the other hand & had months to sit home & do nothing but step 1 studying, GT would be $$$.

Agreed. School is the #1 thing that gets in the way of Step1 prep. Group sessions, PBL, mandatory attendance stuff, clinical stuff, etc. I envy the "one dimensional" education of old, where you just studied the science, then moved to the clinics M3,M4.

Agreed. I believe JackShephard was saying something similar a couple of weeks ago, which was something to the effect of: if you put in the time required to complete GT with any other program/resources, you'd probably do really good too. At the end of the day, there is no magic bullet for this beast, we all just have to put in the work. Different things work different for different people. I like GT because I know repetition is key for me. Other people I know are doing a DIT program, because watching videos of some guy reading FA to them works for them.

God, I wish I was a FMG sometimes when it comes to studying for step-I early. I can't tell you how often school gets in the way of my studying...🙄

There are many paths to success. Some will use GT and others won't. All that matters is that you arrive.

DIT seems like a huge waste of money, btw.

 

[Doctopus]

Agreed. School is the #1 thing that gets in the way of Step1 prep. Group sessions, PBL, mandatory attendance stuff, clinical stuff, etc. I envy the "one dimensional" education of old, where you just studied the science, then moved to the clinics M3,M4.



There are many paths to success. Some will use GT and others won't. All that matters is that you arrive.

DIT seems like a huge waste of money, btw.

Interesting. One of the major advantages for me about GT is that because the questions are relatively fast to do, I can do them during required classes. Thus in a way it allows me to circumvent the required-on-campus time of an AMG school. (Though having a "gunner" logo on my screen probably isn't earning me friends.) Of course, I'm not a true gunner in that I'm going to a P/F preclinical school though, so I don't have to attend to every lecture detail. Early on (I'm an MS1) I tried to do this by studying Kaplan qbank during class lectures, but found that woefully inefficient as the Kaplan ?s were too cognitively demanding to do with a professor talking over me while I was doing them. With GT, that's not as much of a problem and I'm able to get through 30-60 ?s during an hr lecture and pay some attention to the lecture at hand. (I do not take notes; First Aid and other resources are my "notes.")

I do sympathize with what people are saying here w/r/t the negativity toward GT. I hesitate to comment, because I haven't been using GT that long, and I have been changing how I use it as I go. (Earlier in this thread I was touting using lite mode, which I no longer use.) But I'll add my two cents here, bearing in mind that this might not mean much as, again, I haven't been using it for more than a few months, and I've changed my mind a lot as I've gone along:
Currently, I do not use the memory/spaced learning part of GT. Blasphemy, I know. I reset the program all the time. I do this because, like others, I have found the time requirement of doing daily questions to be too much, and actually ends up getting in the way of my learning over all. I suspect this is because, as others have mentioned, GT does not abide by best practices when it comes to spaced learning. The questions should be less "tricky" then they are, easier, faster to do, higher-yield, and more integrative for it to truly be best to tackle them in a spaced learning manner IMO.
That said, I still find GT to be an immensely useful program. As I said above, I like that I can do it during class. I like the fact that I can use my keyboard to get through it very fast vs point-and-click qbanks. I like that it's current and constantly updated; that if it mentions a treatment or protocol that I know it is UpToDate, so to speak, vs other qbanks. I like that there are so many questions vs. other qbanks, and that it tests me on the details that are usually part of an overarching vignette in other qbanks, ensuring that I know each individual detail about, say, bordetella pertussis, not just the overall picture. Finally, I like GT because, like all the other time-tested things out there, it is another resource, with its own strengths (ease of use, comprehensiveness, testing on details, reliableness/up-to-date-ness of the information) and weaknesses, and it attacks the subject matter that is my preclinical education from another angle, further reinforcing this stuff.
Thus I am happy with GT overall, but I have not found it be the panacea some have claimed, and, frankly, what I initially thought it was. It is, however, one of my favorite and most often used resources, in addition to Pathoma, First Aid, and Kaplan/RX qbanks. (No doubt UWorld will be there too when I get near Step1).

 

[894rty]

the biggest drawback that I personally see w/ GT is the inability to personalize it and/or the inability to see personal notes as part of the answer during the quizzes. I hate having to go back to the original card to see if I have any notes, to the point where I actually don't use the 'notes' feature at all. As a result, I'm now looking into and considering using Anki. I just noticed that other ppl have already made Anki flashcards based off of First Aid...so all that I have to do is to alter them to my liking, which shouldn't be too bad. This biggest advantage for me in using Anki would be to integrate and add the stuff that I think is high-yield. So, for it me would be basically a flashcard version of First Aid/Pathoma. I can also add images to Anki and so could easily add stuff into it as I think is best. I'm still playing around with Anki to see how it works though.

 

[JackShephard MD]

Interesting. One of the major advantages for me about GT is that because the questions are relatively fast to do, I can do them during required classes. Thus in a way it allows me to circumvent the required-on-campus time of an AMG school. (Though having a "gunner" logo on my screen probably isn't earning me friends.) Of course, I'm not a true gunner in that I'm going to a P/F preclinical school though, so I don't have to attend to every lecture detail. Early on (I'm an MS1) I tried to do this by studying Kaplan qbank during class lectures, but found that woefully inefficient as the Kaplan ?s were too cognitively demanding to do with a professor talking over me while I was doing them. With GT, that's not as much of a problem and I'm able to get through 30-60 ?s during an hr lecture and pay some attention to the lecture at hand. (I do not take notes; First Aid and other resources are my "notes.")

I do sympathize with what people are saying here w/r/t the negativity toward GT. I hesitate to comment, because I haven't been using GT that long, and I have been changing how I use it as I go. (Earlier in this thread I was touting using lite mode, which I no longer use.) But I'll add my two cents here, bearing in mind that this might not mean much as, again, I haven't been using it for more than a few months, and I've changed my mind a lot as I've gone along:
Currently, I do not use the memory/spaced learning part of GT. Blasphemy, I know. I reset the program all the time. I do this because, like others, I have found the time requirement of doing daily questions to be too much, and actually ends up getting in the way of my learning over all. I suspect this is because, as others have mentioned, GT does not abide by best practices when it comes to spaced learning. The questions should be less "tricky" then they are, easier, faster to do, higher-yield, and more integrative for it to truly be best to tackle them in a spaced learning manner IMO.
That said, I still find GT to be an immensely useful program. As I said above, I like that I can do it during class. I like the fact that I can use my keyboard to get through it very fast vs point-and-click qbanks. I like that it's current and constantly updated; that if it mentions a treatment or protocol that I know it is UpToDate, so to speak, vs other qbanks. I like that there are so many questions vs. other qbanks, and that it tests me on the details that are usually part of an overarching vignette in other qbanks, ensuring that I know each individual detail about, say, bordetella pertussis, not just the overall picture. Finally, I like GT because, like all the other time-tested things out there, it is another resource, with its own strengths (ease of use, comprehensiveness, testing on details, reliableness/up-to-date-ness of the information) and weaknesses, and it attacks the subject matter that is my preclinical education from another angle, further reinforcing this stuff.
Thus I am happy with GT overall, but I have not found it be the panacea some have claimed, and, frankly, what I initially thought it was. It is, however, one of my favorite and most often used resources, in addition to Pathoma, First Aid, and Kaplan/RX qbanks. (No doubt UWorld will be there too when I get near Step1).

Interesting. Since I have a 2 year subscription, I may actually just use it along side the specific block I'm on... nice to hear this. We'll see, I'm definitely in a reassessment phase. Thanks.

the biggest drawback that I personally see w/ GT is the inability to personalize it and/or the inability to see personal notes as part of the answer during the quizzes. I hate having to go back to the original card to see if I have any notes, to the point where I actually don't use the 'notes' feature at all. As a result, I'm now looking into and considering using Anki. I just noticed that other ppl have already made Anki flashcards based off of First Aid...so all that I have to do is to alter them to my liking, which shouldn't be too bad. This biggest advantage for me in using Anki would be to integrate and add the stuff that I think is high-yield. So, for it me would be basically a flashcard version of First Aid/Pathoma. I can also add images to Anki and so could easily add stuff into it as I think is best. I'm still playing around with Anki to see how it works though.

I thought about doing this too, yet I wonder how efficient that would be. Seems like GT would be better.

The process of making flash cards seems like a HUGE time commitment.

 

[894rty]

Interesting. Since I have a 2 year subscription, I may actually just use it along side the specific block I'm on... nice to hear this. We'll see, I'm definitely in a reassessment phase. Thanks.



I thought about doing this too, yet I wonder how efficient that would be. Seems like GT would be better.

The process of making flash cards seems like a HUGE time commitment.

Yes, that was exactly my wast impression. But there seems to be cards that are already made by other students studying First Aid. All it would require is to make minor changes to the cards. Given that I can make adjustments to content later on (as I do USMLEworld and pathoma), I think that it would definitely be worth it. My main concern right now is about how Anki works. I'm looking into it right now to see how it works and if I like it. I can keep come back and post after I've done my research if anyone is interested.

 

[loveoforganic]

I use anki to make and study notecards every block as my primary study means (I read material once and make notecards as I do, do notecards repeatedly until a weekish out from test time, then add on a reread of the material again to make sure everything syncs back up). It's a great program

 

[Doctopus]

Interesting. Since I have a 2 year subscription, I may actually just use it along side the specific block I'm on... nice to hear this. We'll see, I'm definitely in a reassessment phase. Thanks.

That's basically what I do.

 

[JackShephard MD]

I use anki to make and study notecards every block as my primary study means (I read material once and make notecards as I do, do notecards repeatedly until a weekish out from test time, then add on a reread of the material again to make sure everything syncs back up). It's a great program

Interesting approach. I may try this for an exam or two this semester.

 

[loveoforganic]

Expect it to take a little longer than it does for me on your first go (not that you know how long it takes me!). After a few days of doing it though you get the hang of how you need to make the notecards high quality and compatible with the quick quizzing style without thinking about the process too much. I'd say an average block is ~2-3000 notecards, so around test time, you're doing a LOT of reviews, but I can review ~200-250 / hr if I'm trying to go quickly (I'm terribly slower in GT unfortunately, but working on that). One tip I'd give that I've found works for me is to put 3+ quizzable facts on a card whenever possible, but only quiz on one of them per actual card, so you end up integrating the facts a little better as you go, and making the cards is quicker

 

[CielloStelatto]

I definitely think that GT is a really neat innovation with their spaced repetition learning style. Now you have USMLErx also dishing out flash cards based on FA so I definitely think they should really hone down on a good spaced repetition algorithm. In a way, you're paying them to basically do what Anki does but make it look prettier.

Anyway the big issues for me were not getting notified about new cards, what cards people were commenting on, no "pause" button--I don't want to do 200qs before my class exams, not being able to see your notes while doing the respective question and the increasing verbosity they use for the flash cards. Not to mention, one flash card can have 15-20 questions with too many different topics.

They seem to be a receptive company so let's see how they do with their Step 2 program. I've had to scale back on using GT as well due to time issues and I try not to spend more than an hour on review questions

Maybe I'm missing something (I'm new-ish to GT so I don't believe they've added any cards since I started - still at 1064 or whatever it is), but I have noticed that they'll tell you if they add a new question to a topic you've already covered. I just figured they would do the same for new cards entirely; I assume they could do it much in the same way as new questions.

Secondly, about pausing quizzes, it seems just as easy to hit "end review session." Yes, it will give you your results for the questions that you've already finished, but the remaining ones will be waiting there........ OH WAIT, that's not the type of pause you're talking about, is it? Whoops. Then yeah, I guess your only option would be to just clear your daily questions - otherwise it would mess with their algorithm, right?

 

[lrkoehle]

Maybe I'm missing something (I'm new-ish to GT so I don't believe they've added any cards since I started - still at 1064 or whatever it is), but I have noticed that they'll tell you if they add a new question to a topic you've already covered. I just figured they would do the same for new cards entirely; I assume they could do it much in the same way as new questions.

Secondly, about pausing quizzes, it seems just as easy to hit "end review session." Yes, it will give you your results for the questions that you've already finished, but the remaining ones will be waiting there........ OH WAIT, that's not the type of pause you're talking about, is it? Whoops. Then yeah, I guess your only option would be to just clear your daily questions - otherwise it would mess with their algorithm, right?

Yeah, it would mess up their algorithm, but if they put up a big warning before people "paused" their daily questions saying, "WARNING, by pausing your daily questions you WILL push topics out of the predetermined quizzing window. This will negatively impact your Gunner Training experience. If you still wish to proceed with pausing your daily questions, we HIGHLY recommend you do so for no more than a 2-3 days MAXIMUM." That way it is abundantly clear to anyone who pauses what the effects will be, and then we as intelligent individuals can decide if that is worth it. Frankly, I don't think pausing for 2-3 days immediately prior to a school exam would be horrible, so I would probably do that myself, instead of knowing that I have like 700 questions backed up on GT at home waiting for me to do immediately after a block final (which is the last thing in the world that I am wanting to do at that time).

As for adding cards, when I started gunner training they were well under 1000 cards. Now they're up to the 1,064. As others have said, I hope they just stick to the high yield stuff, which is likely already loaded. They don't need to transform this program from a step-I review program into the Gunner Training College of Medicine, complete with all the BS minutiae you hate from your normal PhD professors...

 

[loveoforganic]

^^Your first paragraph's idea sounds great to me. I mean, that's what I do anyway... except I just let the cards pile up and do them the day after the test.

As far as extra info, obscure anatomy details you couldn't possibly have prepared for seems to be an early but common theme from the 2012 step i results thread

 

[lrkoehle]

^^Your first paragraph's idea sounds great to me. I mean, that's what I do anyway... except I just let the cards pile up and do them the day after the test.

As far as extra info, obscure anatomy details you couldn't possibly have prepared for seems to be an early but common theme from the 2012 step i results thread

Yeah, I wouldn't mind if my first paragraph above came true with regard to a pausing function. I also don't usually do my piled up cards until the day after the exam. It just sucks after the exam knowing their there when you just want to relax post-exam...I think you'd have to be a 17th level gunnery master to take a final and do like 700 questions in one day.

I agree. The obscure anatomy thing was popping up mid way through last year's Step-I results thread...maybe GT isn't the excessively detailed thing it has been made out to be? A heavier emphasis on clinically oriented anatomy makes sense to me though, especially for a surgery rotation.

 

[Anamnesis]

Expect it to take a little longer than it does for me on your first go (not that you know how long it takes me!). After a few days of doing it though you get the hang of how you need to make the notecards high quality and compatible with the quick quizzing style without thinking about the process too much. I'd say an average block is ~2-3000 notecards, so around test time, you're doing a LOT of reviews, but I can review ~200-250 / hr if I'm trying to go quickly (I'm terribly slower in GT unfortunately, but working on that). One tip I'd give that I've found works for me is to put 3+ quizzable facts on a card whenever possible, but only quiz on one of them per actual card, so you end up integrating the facts a little better as you go, and making the cards is quicker

Are you using the alpha of Anki 2? The multiple cloze deletion option is a time saver while still making the best practice, question formulation possible.

 

[strive01]

I am just starting GT and as I was going through some immuno this morning, I had my FA open next to me (I want to get familar with where everything is in the book so when it comes time for Uworld, I can annotate without spending too much time flipping for the right page). I noticed that, for example, the card on the spleen has a lot more information compared to the info you get in the sinusoids of spleen section in FA (pg 233).

So I wanted to ask the people that have been using GT for some time now, if they annotate extra info from GT into FA?? or because after a few months, the extra info is cemented into your head, you don't feel the need to annotate into FA?

 

[hrain]

In answer to your question Strive01, I have not been annotating GT into FA. I have a couple reasons for this: 1) I'd really like to keep FA annotations primarily for my Qbanks, because I know it can get really crammed really quickly; 2) It does get into your head pretty securely, and if you ever need to, you can just as easily check out a notecard in GT. That said, I'm also a first year (but I've been doing it for a few months now, throughout all of cardio and the beginning of neuro), so if more advanced students have better advice, listen to them.

And now my own question....for anyone who's done Neuro GT already, and especially those who did it WITH their Neuro module...how'd it compare? When I was doing cardio, it actually covered almost everything I needed to know, and it helped me seriously bump up my module grade (I'm talking like 12 percentage points compared to past modules, plus I didn't ever actually review individual lectures after watching them the first time OR read the book everyone else did). That said, I'm wondering if that was the nature of Cardio and my professor...she wanted us to REALLY understand the fundamentals well, which GT helped me do, because (with cardio), then you can pretty much reason out / think through many of the situations. I know Neuro will be a bit different....a lot more memorization, to start with. Did you guys think that the Neuro GT cards/quizzes were super helpful during your module, or should I focus much more on the lectures and details and less on GT for neuro?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bernoull]

I am just starting GT and as I was going through some immuno this morning, I had my FA open next to me (I want to get familar with where everything is in the book so when it comes time for Uworld, I can annotate without spending too much time flipping for the right page). I noticed that, for example, the card on the spleen has a lot more information compared to the info you get in the sinusoids of spleen section in FA (pg 233).

So I wanted to ask the people that have been using GT for some time now, if they annotate extra info from GT into FA?? or because after a few months, the extra info is cemented into your head, you don't feel the need to annotate into FA?

Are a Gunner or NOT? Make up ur mind!! Gunners annotate GT into their cerebral cortices !!

I stole the line from an earlier poster, but seriously that's the whole point behind GT. If u see if enough times and at the appropriate intervals, it sticks!

I've only annotated some Qbank stuff into FA.

Welcome onboard GT Express!

 

[Bernoull]

BTW, is GT down? I can't connect 😡! Anyone else having an issue?

 

[hrain]

Yeah, it said it'd be down for a little while today and then mine cut out. I'm hoping the quiz questions I was working on actually went through :/

 

[seaotter1]

I am annotating into FA. I don't mind the extra clutter or w/e that other people have mentioned, and if I know it later on during the final review, I'll just ignore it. It's a nice chance for me to review all the cards again. Don't know if it's helping/hurting, but it's what I'm doing.

 

[Doctopus]

Are a Gunner or NOT? Make up ur mind!! Gunners annotate GT into their cerebral cortices !!

Anyone else want to admit to being a *slacker* who uses GT? At least when it comes to learning the minutiae of my preclinical curriculum, anyway... I find GT, used correctly, can make learning the material *faster* than other ways; thus, there is room for slackers to use, GT too. 🙂 (along with other review resources)

 

[hrain]

Oh, I guess I could admit to that, but I'd rather claim to be "efficient" at my studies...maybe?

 

[Bernoull]

Anyone else want to admit to being a *slacker* who uses GT? At least when it comes to learning the minutiae of my preclinical curriculum, anyway... I find GT, used correctly, can make learning the material *faster* than other ways; thus, there is room for slackers to use, GT too. 🙂 (along with other review resources)

I was actually being sarcastic in my previous post, I'm the complete opposite of a gunner (no offense to anyone) 😀. I'm a procrastinator, if anything.. Having said this, I'm not a crammer so I definitely see tremendous utility in GT, in that it helps me review/retain relevant Step 1 material over a period of several months as opposed to 5wks!!

Actually, GT is GREAT for us slackers !!

 

[NightOwly]

Is "customize your review schedule" a new GT function?

There was a new word on a banked question that I wanted to copy to look more into it, and I clicked "control + C" ...which opened up a box that said:

Based on your score, your next review for this material will be on on
MARCH 21 (in 1 Days)
Use the slider to customize your review schedule

I hadn't seen that before. But I don't remember if I had ever clicked control + C before.
I guess Control C means "customize your review schedule." Personally, I'm leaving the default settings.


EDIT:
Nevermind. I just noticed the "Keyboard Shortcuts" link above the card.

 

[bbaggins]

GT is a way efficient way to study, at least for me. I never go to lecture or anything else unless attendance is recorded and factored into our grades. I haven't seen much change in my performance, even though I have stopped studying for specific tests and just take it with the knowledge I have accumulated from GT.

In fact on the biochem shelf I did very little studying. I was going to do more but after 20 min of rapid review questions got bored and decided to not study more. I got a score that correlates with a 90-93 percentile from scores over the last 6 years or so. My only study aside from the RR questions was GT daily reviews with biochem being 100% banked. For comparison, I got in the 75th percentile on the anatomy shelf, on which I did more self-directed study and much less GT since at the time they were constantly adding more cards and I was not banking them very much.

Seriously, GT is a game changer for me. I have a lot more time since I just add cards and do the daily reviews without going to lecture. It's given me more time to start doing research with a few different professors.

 

[loveoforganic]

Are you using the alpha of Anki 2? The multiple cloze deletion option is a time saver while still making the best practice, question formulation possible.

I actually didn't know there was a new anki coming out. What's the feature? I'd be hesitant to try to pick up a drastically different format in the middle of the year

 

[FIREitUP]

any idea if GT is going to start showing your notes on flashcards when you take the test?

 

[lrkoehle]

any idea if GT is going to start showing your notes on flashcards when you take the test?

I don't think this is a matter of if but rather when. Lots of us have been clamoring for the notes feature to be viewable during quiz review, so knowing how responsive GT has typically been in the past, I imagine they will rectify this problem sometime in the future. Will that be before the current year's students take Step-I? I would guess not (just a guess though). As it is, I do not use the notes feature, because it would be pointless as I am not going to go back to the main card for every question just to see if I happened to have added a note.

 

[Shadowmoses]

Hey all, I am a GT user, and love the program, but I am wondering how you guys manage your time with GT and actual q-banks on top of everything else.

In a given week, how do you allocate your time between GT questions, learn new school material, using other outside resources for learning (in my case, I'm subbed to Dr Najeeb also....thats a time sink but I feel its worth it), and then on top of all that keeping up with doing Q-bank questions? In the future I'll get pathoma so thats another thing to add to the list...lol.

To top it off, my classes are mandatory, but I don't pay attention, sit in the back, and just knock out my daily GT questions so its not so bad, but depending on the teacher or if its a small class then it can get in the way. Before lunch time I'm usually done my GT questions for the day though.

I am not giving up GT because when I keep up with it, the rewards really pay off, and I love seeing my percent mastery rise also.

 

[ipizzy]

Is GT down this morning?

 

[Chirurg]

Is GT down this morning?

it was for me.

 

[lrkoehle]

I keep having a crazy idea, and I want to know what you guys think about this. Right now, my goal with GT is to finish banking everything. Earlier in the year, my goal was to add things a a reasonable pace so I could achieve mastery with each concept and THEN add more stuff that I could get to a mastery level, so this way my daily questions never got crazy. However, with time running short, my new idea is to finish GT as quick as possible, so then I can just focus on my daily questions.

So, what I am thinking of doing is banking everything and rating it as a 4, so I won't see it again for 10 days.

Right now, I have 370 cards left to bank. That means if I can bank 40 new cards a day, I will have about 100% banked in 9 days. However, banking 40 cards a day means inevitably adding a bunch of questions to my daily review in 2-3 days. That means in 2-3 days I have a boatload of daily questions to do, which negatively impacts my ability to bank new cards. That's where my above plan comes in. If I am rating everything as a 4, I will not add any new questions to my immediate daily reviews, thus freeing up time to continue banking at ~40 cards per day (note: I am not talking about just rating all of my current daily questions as a 4, just the questions from the new cards I bank). Then at the end of this crazy banking frenzy, I will be able to just focus on doing daily questions. I figure if I am doing nothing but questions and not worrying about banking new crap, I could probably knock out 600-800 daily questions, thereby allowing me to review everything as needed. Unfortunately, right now, I keep banking stuff quickly and then it piles up in my daily questions, and then I can't dedicate as much time to banking new stuff, which just means completing GT goes further and further into April...

I know this seems like an extreme approach, but I am really wanting to finish up banking cards, so I can just focus on daily review questions on GT and then adding in a Qbank/other review books/sources. However, I am not talking about just willy-nilly banking cards and rating them as a 4, I will still take a deliberate approach to when I bank them (i.e. read the whole card, consult wikipedia with questions about the topic, etc.), so that this would just be like a first pass reading of FA where you just quickly review everything.

Anyways, I would never have considered this approach a few months ago, but with the time crunch starting to exert some pressure on me (83 days until I take Step-I!!!!!) I am thinking it may not be so crazy anymore. What do you all think? Should I go for this crazy banking frenzy this next week? I'd be finished with GT by like April 1st if I do...

 

[washingtondc]

This doesn't sound crazy. My advice is to never clear a review day between now and the exam. Do it or let it pile up. Don't rearrange deck chairs...

Also, you'll more likely to get different questions the next time around if you rank everything a 4 at first...

 

[JackShephard MD]

I keep having a crazy idea, and I want to know what you guys think about this. Right now, my goal with GT is to finish banking everything. Earlier in the year, my goal was to add things a a reasonable pace so I could achieve mastery with each concept and THEN add more stuff that I could get to a mastery level, so this way my daily questions never got crazy. However, with time running short, my new idea is to finish GT as quick as possible, so then I can just focus on my daily questions.

So, what I am thinking of doing is banking everything and rating it as a 4, so I won't see it again for 10 days.

Right now, I have 370 cards left to bank. That means if I can bank 40 new cards a day, I will have about 100% banked in 9 days. However, banking 40 cards a day means inevitably adding a bunch of questions to my daily review in 2-3 days. That means in 2-3 days I have a boatload of daily questions to do, which negatively impacts my ability to bank new cards. That's where my above plan comes in. If I am rating everything as a 4, I will not add any new questions to my immediate daily reviews, thus freeing up time to continue banking at ~40 cards per day (note: I am not talking about just rating all of my current daily questions as a 4, just the questions from the new cards I bank). Then at the end of this crazy banking frenzy, I will be able to just focus on doing daily questions. I figure if I am doing nothing but questions and not worrying about banking new crap, I could probably knock out 600-800 daily questions, thereby allowing me to review everything as needed. Unfortunately, right now, I keep banking stuff quickly and then it piles up in my daily questions, and then I can't dedicate as much time to banking new stuff, which just means completing GT goes further and further into April...

I know this seems like an extreme approach, but I am really wanting to finish up banking cards, so I can just focus on daily review questions on GT and then adding in a Qbank/other review books/sources. However, I am not talking about just willy-nilly banking cards and rating them as a 4, I will still take a deliberate approach to when I bank them (i.e. read the whole card, consult wikipedia with questions about the topic, etc.), so that this would just be like a first pass reading of FA where you just quickly review everything.

Anyways, I would never have considered this approach a few months ago, but with the time crunch starting to exert some pressure on me (83 days until I take Step-I!!!!!) I am thinking it may not be so crazy anymore. What do you all think? Should I go for this crazy banking frenzy this next week? I'd be finished with GT by like April 1st if I do...

From the advice I've read, I think you should definitely try this because you want to be working on those Qbanks ASAP. It will be rough adding 40 a day though, and when all those Q's come home to roost, those won't be fun days.

Don't lose focus of Qbanks (UWorld).

 

[lrkoehle]

This doesn't sound crazy. My advice is to never clear a review day between now and the exam. Do it or let it pile up. Don't rearrange deck chairs...

Also, you'll more likely to get different questions the next time around if you rank everything a 4 at first...

From the advice I've read, I think you should definitely try this because you want to be working on those Qbanks ASAP. It will be rough adding 40 a day though, and when all those Q's come home to roost, those won't be fun days.

Don't lose focus of Qbanks (UWorld).

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'd still love to hear from more people, but it's good to hear that I am not totally bat-**** crazy over here.

I know it will be crazy when all those questions that I rate as a 4 hit me, but right now I am getting hit with things that I have been banking and then still trying to bank more. It's like trying to dig a hole with one hand and simultaneously filling it. I hope separating the two will make things flow better.

I have been pretty good about banking lately. I did 36 and 30 cards a couple days ago before only getting 10 done yesterday due to school getting in the way of my learning. I know 40 will be hard, but I think I can do it.

Luckily, my school provided this year's MS-II's with a Kaplan and UWorld subscription (it's kind of a long story why, but they did), so as soon as I can get away from spending hours a day banking new cards, I can start to tackle those. At least that's my plan right now...I also have to try to not fail this last block too, cuz that would REALLY suck.

 

[ipizzy]

lrkoehle - I like the idea 👍

I also ended up ranking questions that I had just banked at around a 4 to deliberately spread out my daily question load when I was banking last semester. The first forced "recall" around 10 days later was almost always full of mental self-kicks and ranking 2's, but I found that I would start retaining better after that. It really worked well for me but I wasn't adding 40 cards/day! Good luck and let us know how it goes 🙂

 

[Chirurg]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'd still love to hear from more people, but it's good to hear that I am not totally bat-**** crazy over here.

I know it will be crazy when all those questions that I rate as a 4 hit me, but right now I am getting hit with things that I have been banking and then still trying to bank more. It's like trying to dig a hole with one hand and simultaneously filling it. I hope separating the two will make things flow better.

I have been pretty good about banking lately. I did 36 and 30 cards a couple days ago before only getting 10 done yesterday due to school getting in the way of my learning. I know 40 will be hard, but I think I can do it.

Luckily, my school provided this year's MS-II's with a Kaplan and UWorld subscription (it's kind of a long story why, but they did), so as soon as I can get away from spending hours a day banking new cards, I can start to tackle those. At least that's my plan right now...I also have to try to not fail this last block too, cuz that would REALLY suck.

It seems I'm in the minority, but it is not a good idea man.
you are saying you got more than 80 days, dude if you bank 10cards/day you will be done in 37 days, that gives you another 6 weeks for those 2 Qbanks.
Don't go crazy with banking, if you don't manage to bank all of it in 37 days, so what? Not all of it is high yield!
you can add 2-3 cards per day during the first 3 weeks of doing Qbanks.

Also, you should be flying through Kaplan Qbank, as I heard before that GT is a big help in that Qbank.

But you are the best judge of your situation.

 

[gravitywave]

It seems I'm in the minority, but it is not a good idea man.
you are saying you got more than 80 days, dude if you bank 10cards/day you will be done in 37 days, that gives you another 6 weeks for those 2 Qbanks.
Don't go crazy with banking, if you don't manage to bank all of it in 37 days, so what? Not all of it is high yield!
you can add 2-3 cards per day during the first 3 weeks of doing Qbanks.

Also, you should be flying through Kaplan Qbank, as I heard before that GT is a big help in that Qbank.

But you are the best judge of your situation.

i second this. you will get slaughtered when the first review comes back around next week. stay the course and do ten cards a day until you are done.

i seriously can't see the point to doing Kaplan if you are really going to commit to GT. why do another qbank just for the sake of getting them all right? i realize it's free but don't let it get in the way of your GT time. I believe the trick to GT is doing it the way they tell you to do it: study the cards, take the quiz, grade yourself fairly and don't fool around with the algorithm.

 

[lrkoehle]

It seems I'm in the minority, but it is not a good idea man.
you are saying you got more than 80 days, dude if you bank 10cards/day you will be done in 37 days, that gives you another 6 weeks for those 2 Qbanks.
Don't go crazy with banking, if you don't manage to bank all of it in 37 days, so what? Not all of it is high yield!
you can add 2-3 cards per day during the first 3 weeks of doing Qbanks.

Also, you should be flying through Kaplan Qbank, as I heard before that GT is a big help in that Qbank.

But you are the best judge of your situation.

i second this. you will get slaughtered when the first review comes back around next week. stay the course and do ten cards a day until you are done.

i seriously can't see the point to doing Kaplan if you are really going to commit to GT. why do another qbank just for the sake of getting them all right? i realize it's free but don't let it get in the way of your GT time. I believe the trick to GT is doing it the way they tell you to do it: study the cards, take the quiz, grade yourself fairly and don't fool around with the algorithm.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm still trying to decide what to do. I don't wanna let the stress of trying to finish banking GT stuff throw me off, but at the same time I don't want to let GT eat into my other time. As it is, I have been banking around 20-30 new cards most days, which is what led me to my thought of just rigging the system so I could blow through the banking part and focus more on the daily questions/reviewing (which is where most of my learning comes anyways).

I'm still not sure how I want to approach it though. I keep battling back and forth between the part of me that wants to not "stress" about banking new cards on GT and the part of me that wants to follow the algorithm as is (two things: I'm not really stressing this, hence the quotes; and I figure I am already messing up the algorithm by trying to do the last 1/3 of GT in like a month anyways, so part of me thinks I may as well go all out).

Like I said, I just don't know what I want to do. I may wait until tomorrow to implement or not implement this approach, so I can sleep on it tonight.

Gravitywave, I was kind of confused about your comments about the Kaplan Qbank, do you not think it is really worth it? Or just that focusing on GT is a better idea than busting out Kaplan?

 

[CielloStelatto]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm still trying to decide what to do. I don't wanna let the stress of trying to finish banking GT stuff throw me off, but at the same time I don't want to let GT eat into my other time. As it is, I have been banking around 20-30 new cards most days, which is what led me to my thought of just rigging the system so I could blow through the banking part and focus more on the daily questions/reviewing (which is where most of my learning comes anyways).

I'm still not sure how I want to approach it though. I keep battling back and forth between the part of me that wants to not "stress" about banking new cards on GT and the part of me that wants to follow the algorithm as is (two things: I'm not really stressing this, hence the quotes; and I figure I am already messing up the algorithm by trying to do the last 1/3 of GT in like a month anyways, so part of me thinks I may as well go all out).

Like I said, I just don't know what I want to do. I may wait until tomorrow to implement or not implement this approach, so I can sleep on it tonight.

Gravitywave, I was kind of confused about your comments about the Kaplan Qbank, do you not think it is really worth it? Or just that focusing on GT is a better idea than busting out Kaplan?

Here's another possibility you could consider (not to add to your decision making, but because I liked how it worked over spring break). Instead of trying to read through 40 cards per day and pretend you got 4s on them all, what about not really reading the cards so long as you have any semblance of a memory of the topic. Then, instead of reading them, just go straight to quiz mode. Take the quiz, but just repeat the 1-2-3s until you get most/all of the answers at least to a 3-4, so they won't all come back at you the next couple of days. The repetition isn't quite as spaced as normal, but for me it was much less tedious than straight up reading the cards, and it forced me to immediately pound in the tidbits I hadn't learned yet (eg lame side effects of drugs from next block).

 

[ipizzy]

Or you could just do 20 cards/day and still be done with banking GT cards in early April? 20 seems very manageable to me.

 

[lrkoehle]

Here's another possibility you could consider (not to add to your decision making, but because I liked how it worked over spring break). Instead of trying to read through 40 cards per day and pretend you got 4s on them all, what about not really reading the cards so long as you have any semblance of a memory of the topic. Then, instead of reading them, just go straight to quiz mode. Take the quiz, but just repeat the 1-2-3s until you get most/all of the answers at least to a 3-4, so they won't all come back at you the next couple of days. The repetition isn't quite as spaced as normal, but for me it was much less tedious than straight up reading the cards, and it forced me to immediately pound in the tidbits I hadn't learned yet (eg lame side effects of drugs from next block).

I think that might wind up dumping the questions I rate low into that 10 day window where I'm trying to not have new questions added. I'll have to look into this though. This may work well.

Or you could just do 20 cards/day and still be done with banking GT cards in early April? 20 seems very manageable to me.

Yeah, I have currently been doing at least 20 most days, so I don't think that would be a pretty easy number to hit.

I think I'm going to do it. I think it's high-risk, high-reward; however, I am thinking the reward of finishing up banking everything will be worth it. Either that or I am totally screwing myself, but I guess there is only one way to find out...

I figure this way, I will get through everything more rapidly, so I can more quickly identify my weak areas and then put in additional time outside of just GT on them. I don't wanna do a slow-steady pace and get towards the end of April when I have my last block final and just then be coming across something that really needs more of my time when I won't have time to give. Really, my last block final is a big factor in my decision too. I want to be done with the banking so I can get back to focusing more on class and because I know that last week to week and a half before that last final I am going to be wanting to make sure I am in a position to pass that thing (something about failing a block immediately before Step-I just doesn't seem like it would be good for my Step-I study time ). Plus, if I do this right now, 4 of those 10 days are weekend days, so it will only put me another week behind in class with all of April to get caught up.

Anyways, I will try to keep you guys updated on my progress in this undertaking, not necessarily because I think you guys care so much about what I'm doing, but mostly to hold myself accountable in some public manner, even if it's just SDN.

Well, here goes nothing...

 

[loveoforganic]

The main issue I see is that a lot of the quiz questions tend to switch from "fact recall" to "apply your knowledge" mode once you rank mastery (although this could just be my own perception). I'm not sure how helpful doing the applied questions without the fact questions down would be

 

[dontFREToverit]

I think you're setting yourself up for a completely unrealistic daily workload and a huge burnout. 600 daily questions seems absurd to me, and what happens when you get half of those 600 daily review questions wrong and the next day you have 900? or 1000? or 1200?

I think you should bank a more rational number of cards and focus on memorization-heavy subjects (i.e. pharmacology, specific tumor subtypes). Remember, people have scored fantastically on this exam using only UW and FA. GT is a tool, not an end in itself.

I've always found that if I add more than 4-5 big cards or 10 little cards a day, the daily workload begins to outpace the rate at which I can assimilate new info into my brain.

 

[lrkoehle]

I think you're setting yourself up for a completely unrealistic daily workload and a huge burnout. 600 daily questions seems absurd to me, and what happens when you get half of those 600 daily review questions wrong and the next day you have 900? or 1000? or 1200?

I think you should bank a more rational number of cards and focus on memorization-heavy subjects (i.e. pharmacology, specific tumor subtypes). Remember, people have scored fantastically on this exam using only UW and FA. GT is a tool, not an end in itself.

I've always found that if I add more than 4-5 big cards or 10 little cards a day, the daily workload begins to outpace the rate at which I can assimilate new info into my brain.

I don't disagree. I am attempting to make a big push right now, but I don't know that I will hit 100% at the end of the 10 days. This may turn out to be really stupid, but I'm giving it a shot. If I can get to 95-97% banked in 10 days, then I can turn my focus to just the repeated beating of information into my brain. Of the ~35 cards I banked yesterday, I'd say around half of the questions were things I would've rated as a 4 anyways, so I'm not assimilating all brand new information, just hammering in the details.

As for 600 questions a day, I will just know that I cannot for any reason let my daily load roll over to the next day and make sure I get it done. At the pace I move at, 600 questions is around 3.5 hours of work, which if I am not focusing on trying to bank new cards is very manageable for me to do in a day.

I appreciate your input, and I really hope you're wrong and I don't end up shooting myself in the foot...

 

[hrain]

For anyone who's done Neuro GT already, and especially those who did it WITH their Neuro module...how'd it compare? When I was doing cardio, it actually covered almost everything I needed to know, and it helped me seriously bump up my module grade (I'm talking like 12 percentage points compared to past modules, plus I didn't ever actually review individual lectures after watching them the first time OR read the book everyone else did. GT really helped me). That said, I'm wondering if that was the nature of Cardio and my professor...she wanted us to REALLY understand the fundamentals well, which GT helped me do, because (with cardio), then you can pretty much reason out / think through many of the situations. I know Neuro will be a bit different....a lot more memorization, to start with. Did you guys think that the Neuro GT cards/quizzes were super helpful during your module, or should I focus much more on the lectures and details and less on GT for neuro?

 

[lrkoehle]

For anyone who's done Neuro GT already, and especially those who did it WITH their Neuro module...how'd it compare? When I was doing cardio, it actually covered almost everything I needed to know, and it helped me seriously bump up my module grade (I'm talking like 12 percentage points compared to past modules, plus I didn't ever actually review individual lectures after watching them the first time OR read the book everyone else did. GT really helped me). That said, I'm wondering if that was the nature of Cardio and my professor...she wanted us to REALLY understand the fundamentals well, which GT helped me do, because (with cardio), then you can pretty much reason out / think through many of the situations. I know Neuro will be a bit different....a lot more memorization, to start with. Did you guys think that the Neuro GT cards/quizzes were super helpful during your module, or should I focus much more on the lectures and details and less on GT for neuro?

I'd always recommend a balance between lecture material and outside sources such as GT. I don't know exactly how it would compare to neuro at your school since they're all different, but my school was pretty heavy on neuroanatomy I felt, but GT seemed weak in that area. However, since I completed the GT neuro section, they have added a bunch of new cards, and I think I saw a neroanatomy card or two in there. I can't attest to the quality of it yet though. If you can podcast lectures at your school at like 2x and do GT, that's probably a pretty good balance. That way you can see if the professors are saying anything that gets missed in GT, so you can spend some extra time outside of GT doing that. If GT and your lectures match up, then just let GT help you beat it into your brain!