Sitting for the exam May 2014 and starting firecracker now.Any Firecracker tips?

[whatdidigetinto]

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I have First aid and pathoma. I just want to some tips on how to effectively use Firecracker.

 

[jekyllish]

Yeah. don't waste your money on it.

Firecracker is a source that helps with long term memory with continued repetition. I think you would get more by allotting that time to more FA reads or UWorld questions.

This is coming from a guy who started Firecracker, but found it was too much of a time drain during my course work and stopped. Brilliant idea, not for me.

 

[John Lannister]

Yeah. don't waste your money on it.

Firecracker is a source that helps with long term memory with continued repetition. I think you would get more by allotting that time to more FA reads or UWorld questions.

This is coming from a guy who started Firecracker, but found it was too much of a time drain during my course work and stopped. Brilliant idea, not for me.

Agreed. This company profits on naive students. Once the real studying hits (final 3-6 months), you'll understand what we're saying. Until then, you can be convinced of anything by anyone.

 

[Nottinghamlace]

I used firecracker for about a year and stopped when my dedicated study time hit so I could focus on questions and first aid. Firecracker is the same as Gunnertraining (they just upgraded their platform to better suit their growing company) which there is a massive thread devoted to, so I suggest you peruse through there for more information. In short though, to get the most out of firecracker bank material you already know and get your card count up to at least ~150 and keep it there all year. Continually bank so it stays there and don't fret over the tiniest of details when it lists 10 causes for something.

 

[bbaggins]

So I think the first few responses misunderstood that the OP is taking the exam in 2014. If you were taking it in May 2013, then yes the answer would be don't bother. If you have over a year to take it, I say go for it. Focus on what you think is currently your weakest area. If after the 1 month trial you think it has helped you, then decide if the amount that it helped you is worth whatever the price ends up being. Firecracker is a great long term tool. Not too sure about short term.

Disclaimer: I used gunnertraining and was/am super enthusiastic about it because of how helpful it was for me. I did very little with firecracker. Same company, but some differences, and maybe those differences are pretty significant.

 

[madchemist89]

Fellow first year here. I've been using GT/FC for about 5-6 months. I have banked about 2500+ questions. It is a difficult program to use along with classes, but I have been crushing NBME miniboard exams with it. I think that it is a great tool, and you should definitely do the free trial. I must warn you that it requires dedication, but if you have the dedication to finish the program, I think you can do very well on Step 1.

 

[loveoforganic2]

I did GT from spring of 1st year to early fall 2nd year and got to about 75% banked. It became overwhelming. I was, however, very focused on grades and wasn't willing to give up honoring classes.

As the program is laid out now, I think your time CAN be spent better elsewhere. Whether or not you actually WILL spend that time elsewhere without the daily job of doing your due cards is another matter (I definitely put far more time into step prep using GT than I would have otherwise).

 

[Nottinghamlace]

I did GT from spring of 1st year to early fall 2nd year and got to about 75% banked. It became overwhelming. I was, however, very focused on grades and wasn't willing to give up honoring classes.

As the program is laid out now, I think your time CAN be spent better elsewhere. Whether or not you actually WILL spend that time elsewhere without the daily job of doing your due cards is another matter (I definitely put far more time into step prep using GT than I would have otherwise).

That's the thing, I know for a fact that the hundreds of hours I put into GT would not be used anywhere else. They would have just been wasted, and not in schoolwork. You're not really paying for any secret new never seen before step1 information with GT, it's just the scheduling and convenience that makes the program so appealing. For me it forced me to do review and prep for things that I would never have done without it.

 

[jekyllish]

So I think the first few responses misunderstood that the OP is taking the exam in 2014. If you were taking it in May 2013, then yes the answer would be don't bother. If you have over a year to take it, I say go for it. Focus on what you think is currently your weakest area. If after the 1 month trial you think it has helped you, then decide if the amount that it helped you is worth whatever the price ends up being. Firecracker is a great long term tool. Not too sure about short term.

Disclaimer: I used gunnertraining and was/am super enthusiastic about it because of how helpful it was for me. I did very little with firecracker. Same company, but some differences, and maybe those differences are pretty significant.

I did indeed mistake it for May 2013. If you have a year, it's worth it. But definitely try the free trial (if they still have it) to see if it for you.

 

[withrye]

The best advice I have for GT/FC is slow, paced banking. You have over a year, so you can do this pretty easily (provided you want to spend the money, please use the full 30 days free trial to see if you actually like it).

Take the sum of the cards, divide by the number of days you have until your dedicated study period (or perhaps a few weeks before), and flag that many cards per day. It should be a nice low number, like 3. You're gonna have days when you flag 3 cards and it gives you 10 new questions. If you want to get ahead of schedule, flag a few more on those days. Conversely, there will be days when 3 cards is 45+ questions. Do them anyway. Keep a rough schedule of how many topics you should have flagged per given time point. I did this day by day on a spreadsheet, but over the course of a year it's probably sufficient to make sure that by the end of the month you've reached the quota (~90 new flagged topics). Start with topics you've already covered in MS1, and when you've exhausted those move on to topics that are mostly pure memorization (micro, pharm). Save for last the topics you haven't yet covered, and hopefully by the time you get to them you'll have seen them in MS2.

I don't know anything about the FC algorithm, but I think if you're gonna work for a year you're gonna have to trust it. A fixed spacing paradigm just isn't flexible enough for a tricky card whose review history keeps moving around between a 2 and a 5 (and back). Also, grade things as you see fit. If you're super strict on getting every side effect of a drug, you might never score it higher than a 2. Conversely, try not to skimp too much on the cytokines and lysosomal storage diseases; you see them often in questions. You're gonna see stuff that you don't understand, or have cards that you can never seem to memorize. Reinforce your memory by looking at other sources (esp. wikipedia). There's more than one way to present the information, and seeing it 4 different ways with 2 different mnemonics can make all the difference.

Lastly, don't let your reviews pile up. Slow banking will go a long way to preventing this, but you're also gonna have days or weeks where you can't do your review because life (or summer) gets in the way (this is a good thing). When you come back and see 1000 questions up for review, don't freak out. If you have 1000 questions lined up, and tomorrow will add 300 more, aim to do at least 300 today. Do at least the "replacement rate" of cards to prevent an even bigger pileup, and on days when you have more motivation do some catching up. Don't become a slave to the reviews, it's ultimately there to serve you and not the other way around.

 

[Blue Spoon]

I have been using GT/FC since I started M1 and I was going to give some advice but withrye covered it all (and better than I could have). I will just repeat bank slowly. It can be tempting to bank lots of cards, but the questions stack up fast and it is easy to get burned out. Good luck.

 

[John Lannister]

That's the thing, I know for a fact that the hundreds of hours I put into GT would not be used anywhere else. They would have just been wasted, and not in schoolwork. You're not really paying for any secret new never seen before step1 information with GT, it's just the scheduling and convenience that makes the program so appealing. For me it forced me to do review and prep for things that I would never have done without it.

If you spent 100 hours on pathoma before M2, you would wreck M2.

I think GT sucks but that's just me.

 

[withrye]

If you spent 100 hours on pathoma before M2, you would wreck M2.

I think GT sucks but that's just me.

You'd certainly wreck the path...

Anatomy? Micro?

 

[John Lannister]

You'd certainly wreck the path...

Anatomy? Micro?

I personally made flashcards out of the microcards (using anki). Anatomy, I think the best way to study anatomy is with an atlas + clinical concepts - personally, I'd say the highest yield study has come from reading RR anatomy clinical boxes and key points (kind of like when people read the blue text in RR path) then usually a great atlas when the anatomy isn't clear.

I think GT works for some people, it just was a huge time commitment for me and I know a dozen things that worked better for me. I found I was memorizing a LOT in GT - while the ratio flipped with pathoma (mostly understanding). You're right though, micro is best done with repetition and some type of flashcard system. I've yet to find a source better than the microcards (especially focusing on their trees, which are awesome).

To each their own. I know the people who go 100% banked have invested a ton of time and will do really well if they finish Uworld on top of that. We all learn differently so different sources appeal.

 

[addy]

Anyone else switch to Anki?

 

[BlaseFaire]

I use Anki all the time to supplement my M1 courses.

Question:

Do any of you have experience annotating First Aid using GT/FC?

 

[whatdidigetinto]

What do all of you mean by banking?

 

[LazerMD]

Banking refers to the process of reading the information on a given card or number of cards in FC for the first time, adding the questions associated with those cards to your review quiz, and then taking the quiz, rating each question accordingly. Once you've taken the quiz and rated each question, that information has now been added to your review schedule and will appear in your review in the near future, depending on how high you rated it

 

[jdj16]

Anyone else switch to Anki?

I used the month trial for fc and then subsequently switched over to anki. Some guy made cards of the entire first aid 2012 and uploaded it onto ankiweb. Ive been doing this plus adding in pathoma onto cards and then random things from question banks. I think anki vs fc is really just a user preference issue. Ive found that i can get through 100 anki cards way faster than 100 review questions on fc. The only downside is that i miss the explanations that come with fc since sometimes they helped to fill in gaps that were left out of first aid and class.

Basically, they both will help you as long as you stick to one routine.

 

[SOML]

repost, sorry. bad internet

 

[SOML]

I use ANKI with Firecracker, FA and anything else in school I see fit. For Firecracker, I create my own questions from each "FC flashcard", and don't even do the questions on FC itself, until I've gone through my own created FC questions on ANKI.

For FA, I've been structuring my questions anyway I see fit for my own learning. For example, I'll have flashcard sets labeled, "FA::Biochem::All Enzymes". For FC cards, I just label them as they are presented in the Firecracker program.

This is how I use ANKI with my stuff, and yea, it takes a lot of time.


EDIT: Worth adding-- There are ready-made flashcards by others, for FA and other stuff.. but I think one big benefit of flashcards is the process of creating them. Asking yourself what questions you could ask your future self to reinforce a topic is a VERY active learning process. Don't miss out on it by "using someone else's notes" so to speak.

 

[SOML]

repost, sorry. Bad internet

 

[BurghStudent]

Didn't want to create another thread, but I had a question about Firecracker. It's appealing to me because in Anki, you have to make all the cards from scratch.

To really make Firecracker work for you, i.e. you're not slogging through hundreds of cards a day, how early should one start using it? I am in my first semester of MS1 right now.

 

[dismorfik]

Didn't want to create another thread, but I had a question about Firecracker. It's appealing to me because in Anki, you have to make all the cards from scratch.

To really make Firecracker work for you, i.e. you're not slogging through hundreds of cards a day, how early should one start using it? I am in my first semester of MS1 right now.

Start yesterday. I've been using it since day 1 of MS1 and banking topics as I learn them in lecture (averaging 1-2 topics and 30-60 minutes per day).

And as was stated above, Anki has plenty of free pre - made decks for download online.

 

[addelmike]

Take the sum of the cards, divide by the number of days you have until your dedicated study period (or perhaps a few weeks before), and flag that many cards per day. It should be a nice low number, like 3. You're gonna have days when you flag 3 cards and it gives you 10 new questions. If you want to get ahead of schedule, flag a few more on those days. Conversely, there will be days when 3 cards is 45+ questions. Do them anyway. Keep a rough schedule of how many topics you should have flagged per given time point. I did this day by day on a spreadsheet, but over the course of a year it's probably sufficient to make sure that by the end of the month you've reached the quota (~90 new flagged topics). Start with topics you've already covered in MS1, and when you've exhausted those move on to topics that are mostly pure memorization (micro, pharm). Save for last the topics you haven't yet covered, and hopefully by the time you get to them you'll have seen them in MS2.

 

[Cmaster]

Hey guys,

I'm a 3rd year. I started using firecracker at the beginning of my second year. I would bank cards related to the topics covered in lecture. I still used pathoma, FA, Uworld, and RX.

I would first go through kaplan videos for embryo --> anatomy --> physiology --> pathology --> then pharm. Then, I would load about 5-6 news cards day on the topics i covered in kaplan. I would spend about 3-4 hours/per day of FC. After that, I would do about 20-30 question on Uworld and annotate my FA. I only used FC and qbanks for annotation of my FA.

At the beginning of my dedicated 6 week study period, I score a 220 on my school administered NBME. then I got a mid-240's on the real thing. I stop doing FC doing my 6 weeks period.

I think FC is a good way to remember things long term. It take a lot of time and dedication, and if you are not all in there is no point in buying it.

 

[HLxDrummer]

If I could have started first year I would have. It would reduce the daily workload dramatically (you wouldn't have to flag ms1 and 2 in a year and you wouldn't ever have to "relearn" ms1 stuff.