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- Jan 18, 2012
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I've read various posts over the past few months with some people having raved about Gunner Training. I originally had had no intention of going through GT, but had entertained myself with the free-trial. I realized I had learned some stuff even from just the few questions I had done, so I decided to just bang out the QBank.
Let me make a point clear: GT says on its website that it has 6018 questions, and it uses this as an advertising scheme with regard to comparing itself to UWorld, Kaplan and Rx, which all have 3000 or fewer Qs. I decided to purchase a month of GT on top of the one-month free-trial, and I was surprised to see that the QBank has 2648 questions, not 6018. The additional 3500 questions or so come from their flashcards, which are not USMLE-style questions. When people talk about having "mastered" a % of GT, they're referring to the # of flashcards they've completed, not anything related to the QBank.
That being said, I can tell GT would be a phenomenal platform if one has a considerable amount of time (e.g. an MS1 or early-MS2), but I'm not in that position, so I decided to go through just the 2648 QBank Qs, which I did at ~200 Qs/day x ~2 wks. My performance on the GT QBank was ~85% (85, 94, 84 on USMLE Rx, FA Q&A, Kaplan QBook, respectively).
I found the questions to be very weak compared to USMLE Rx, FA Q&A, Kaplan QBook, Robbins Review of Path and University of Utah Webpath. They tend to be mostly one-step-style without much thinking involving, and in fact, some of the questions were so lame that I was embarrassed to have even been spending time on them. I would say that many of them were only slightly better and longer versions of BRS-style questions. So why did I continue going through them? For every 50-question block I had done, ~35 were cake-easy, ~10 were okay and ~5 taught me something I had either never encountered before or had served to reinforce a detail in FA that I had simply overlooked. The latter was also not incredibly low-yield info either, but in fact very helpful information. The gain of ~5 questions' worth of perspective/info per block somewhat nullified the other lame 45 questions that I had to sift through.
People have given USMLE Rx a reputation of catering to FA; by all means, GT covets FA more than any resource I've seen so far. Although annoying much of the time, I'm glad that it helped to fill in a few pieces of the text that I had not cared to notice in the past. However, USMLE Rx is a much stronger QBank, with many more twists and turns and multi-step questions. I've come out of GT having merely reinforced the basics much better to the extent that many topics have become rapid recall, but I do not feel it has helped me progress substantially in terms of tackling new question formats, trickery or multi-step logic.
The explanations were also very poor, which is why I've had to post so many threads on here for the past couple weeks asking for elaboration on various Qs. Interestingly, the weak explanations that I had encountered via the free-trial were an incentive to go through the QBank because I knew that I'd be able to get through it more quickly. That being said, some of the explanations were also wrong at times or had left out important information that should have most certainly been mentioned. I had also encountered an error in a question at a rate of ~2 or 3 per 50-question block. My lasting impression following many of the blocks was that the question-writers actually didn't know the material that well, which was surprising because the credentials of some of the authors are exemplary. I honestly thought I'd be able to write much better questions, and I haven't even sat the Step yet.
Bottom line: GT QBank tends to focus heavily on the material in FA, thereby providing a good reinforcement of some of the concepts within the text. The questions are not strong, so they should be viewed as a mere adjunct to learning the FA text rather than for purely learning the USMLE-style question format. GT QBank will point out details in FA that you have forgotten/overlooked, so therefore it is beneficial to blast through if you have time. I have likely gained 3-6 additional questions correct on my future USMLE having gone through this QBank. I would not recommend it if you are within 3 months of your exam, however I would if you are > 3-months-out, have already finished USMLE Rx, and are looking for an additional boost before progressing to Kaplan and UWorld QBanks. Definitely do Rx, Kaplan and UWorld before considering GT QBank. Only do GT QBank before one of those big three if you have time to squeeze it in and know you can finish the others before your exam.
Cheers,
Let me make a point clear: GT says on its website that it has 6018 questions, and it uses this as an advertising scheme with regard to comparing itself to UWorld, Kaplan and Rx, which all have 3000 or fewer Qs. I decided to purchase a month of GT on top of the one-month free-trial, and I was surprised to see that the QBank has 2648 questions, not 6018. The additional 3500 questions or so come from their flashcards, which are not USMLE-style questions. When people talk about having "mastered" a % of GT, they're referring to the # of flashcards they've completed, not anything related to the QBank.
That being said, I can tell GT would be a phenomenal platform if one has a considerable amount of time (e.g. an MS1 or early-MS2), but I'm not in that position, so I decided to go through just the 2648 QBank Qs, which I did at ~200 Qs/day x ~2 wks. My performance on the GT QBank was ~85% (85, 94, 84 on USMLE Rx, FA Q&A, Kaplan QBook, respectively).
I found the questions to be very weak compared to USMLE Rx, FA Q&A, Kaplan QBook, Robbins Review of Path and University of Utah Webpath. They tend to be mostly one-step-style without much thinking involving, and in fact, some of the questions were so lame that I was embarrassed to have even been spending time on them. I would say that many of them were only slightly better and longer versions of BRS-style questions. So why did I continue going through them? For every 50-question block I had done, ~35 were cake-easy, ~10 were okay and ~5 taught me something I had either never encountered before or had served to reinforce a detail in FA that I had simply overlooked. The latter was also not incredibly low-yield info either, but in fact very helpful information. The gain of ~5 questions' worth of perspective/info per block somewhat nullified the other lame 45 questions that I had to sift through.
People have given USMLE Rx a reputation of catering to FA; by all means, GT covets FA more than any resource I've seen so far. Although annoying much of the time, I'm glad that it helped to fill in a few pieces of the text that I had not cared to notice in the past. However, USMLE Rx is a much stronger QBank, with many more twists and turns and multi-step questions. I've come out of GT having merely reinforced the basics much better to the extent that many topics have become rapid recall, but I do not feel it has helped me progress substantially in terms of tackling new question formats, trickery or multi-step logic.
The explanations were also very poor, which is why I've had to post so many threads on here for the past couple weeks asking for elaboration on various Qs. Interestingly, the weak explanations that I had encountered via the free-trial were an incentive to go through the QBank because I knew that I'd be able to get through it more quickly. That being said, some of the explanations were also wrong at times or had left out important information that should have most certainly been mentioned. I had also encountered an error in a question at a rate of ~2 or 3 per 50-question block. My lasting impression following many of the blocks was that the question-writers actually didn't know the material that well, which was surprising because the credentials of some of the authors are exemplary. I honestly thought I'd be able to write much better questions, and I haven't even sat the Step yet.
Bottom line: GT QBank tends to focus heavily on the material in FA, thereby providing a good reinforcement of some of the concepts within the text. The questions are not strong, so they should be viewed as a mere adjunct to learning the FA text rather than for purely learning the USMLE-style question format. GT QBank will point out details in FA that you have forgotten/overlooked, so therefore it is beneficial to blast through if you have time. I have likely gained 3-6 additional questions correct on my future USMLE having gone through this QBank. I would not recommend it if you are within 3 months of your exam, however I would if you are > 3-months-out, have already finished USMLE Rx, and are looking for an additional boost before progressing to Kaplan and UWorld QBanks. Definitely do Rx, Kaplan and UWorld before considering GT QBank. Only do GT QBank before one of those big three if you have time to squeeze it in and know you can finish the others before your exam.
Cheers,
. Thanks for the feedback on gt and everything else on the step 1 discussions.
poor pholostoin
