Cram Fighter: USMLE Step 1 Edition review
by Steve Wheelwright
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
-Lao Tzu
For many people, the most difficult part of a big project is simply starting. The question of, “Where do I start?” is almost overwhelming. That’s where “Cram Fighter” comes in.
The basic, ingenious idea of “Cram Fighter” is that it takes all the guess work out of deciding what and when you should study. You don’t have to spend hours looking at all your materials and trying to decide what you’ll study each day. You can spend a few minutes setting up the app and then it arranges it all for you.
The user interface is very simple. Begin by selecting a start date and your exam date. Choose what days of the week and how many hours your can devote to studying each day. It can vary from day to day. You can even put in “off days” to take a much-needed break.
You can then select your study material. Here is where “Cram Fighter” shines. It has a database of the most popular board study materials. It was just updated to include the 2010 edition of First Aid. Here are some examples just to give you an idea:
Inside each study resource, you can select the whole book or select each chapter you would like to study. For example, you can just select the few chapters you need in-depth study on in Rapid Review Path and focus on First Aid for the rest of your Path study. You are in control.
You can also have it schedule time to work on an online question bank. It has the most popular ones already programmed in.
Here’s where the magic happens. Now that you’ve finished setting things up, just push “Balance schedule.” It’s as simple as that. “Cram Fighter” breaks things up day by day, chapter by chapter organizing and focusing your study for you. You can re-arrange the order in which you want to study things to best suit your schedule. It even schedules in “catch-up” days for you! How great is that?
I do have a few things on my “wish list,” like being able to manually add other sources besides those listed and being able to mark something as “partially complete” if you finish half of the assigned study for that day. Overall though, I have been very pleased and impressed with “Cram Fighter” and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to organize their board study quickly more effectively.
Steve Wheelwright
MS2 Midwestern University
Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.
You can find out more about Cram Fighter: USMLE Step 1 Edition for the iPhone/iPod Touch at http://www.cramfighter.com
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About the author, Alan: Alan Teh is a Malaysian Physician who specialises in Hematology-Oncology & Stem cell Transplantation. He has been using Palm PDAs since 1997 and is absolutely reliant on them. His current PDA is a Palm Pre and is a strong advocate of the webOS platform, Palm's latest operating system. Caught the blogging bug in 2004 and has been addicted ever since… |
