Firecracker MD & DO Reviews

Firecracker

Awesome med school tool

Super helpful. Gives all the key points for exams and clerkships.

Too difficult to build a custom study session by bridging different types of questions. Lacks the customization feature of Kaplan, but the trade off is doing more specific questions compared to their competitors. If you’re stuck between Firecracker and Kaplan, go with Kaplan. If you’re stuck between Boards & Beyond and this, go with Boards.

Needs a lot of improvement

medstudentR

App is always slow. Half the time it won’t load.

I like the app better than the website.

Tippy03

Great app and easy to use: because the website is slow at times.

Effective

oorelientkrocks

Doesn't spend too much data or battery, is easy to use and they respond to questions super fast.

Great study, but pricy!

California Teacher

Firecracker is a good app, and fits well into the short downtime periods between classes or action on rotations. Along with a few good books, it’s served me quite well on Phase 1/Step 1, and I credit it with a solid score on my first Shelf exam, as well. I trust it going forward into Step 2CK. Questions are easily aligned to curriculum using the “study something specific” feature.

Very subpar

Widgeon537190

Lots of glitches on the computer version and iPhone app. Very frustrating especially since this service is quite expensive

Avoid at all costs

usmlestep1

Firecracker would be a great tool... if it worked at all. 99% of your time on this app will be spent trying to make it work. Don’t expect anything useful out of customer support. The website is somehow actually worse to use than the app. Questions don’t sync Highlight doesn’t work properly Progress exams in dedicated mode don’t work right Topics won’t load Review questions won’t load Reviews will randomly reset... even if you are 200 in congrats you’re back at zero Entire app is just slow and poorly formatted. Save yourself the headache and don’t waste your money on this service.

Just get UWORLD

Carlos Sagan

Poor quality questions and glitchy interface make this one of the worst usmle/Med school prep software currently on the market.

Decent, but not sure it’s as good as other resources

D Spiers

Overall, Firecracker is a good resource, but it comes off like someone who just graduated medical school and threw something together. It does have a lot of bugs and the sources aren’t always the best. While the customer service is quick to respond, they always respond with the same advice. They site Wikipedia which is a good resource for students sometimes, but I feel like when studying for a national test, they could and should have better more reliable sources. As a side note, they do put first aid references, but for the flash cards I have found they show Wikipedia/Google more than first aid graphics and diagrams. I do like having access on my phone and iPad, but the bugs are making those difficult. Regarding the flash cards, they often include pictures, but often the pictures included are not entirely related to the answer. Ex) a foreign body is lodged in the piriform recess. This can cause damage to what nerve? A: internal laryngeal nerve. But the diagram shows only muscles of the neck rather than the pathway of the nerve.

Firecracker MD & DO Reviews – Page 10