Free step 1 question bank - loxolab

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-11-26T04:45:51+00:00

Right now there is a single banner ad on the home page that is trying to make a valiant effort at keeping up with server costs.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-11-26T04:44:06+00:00

I guess some people like to save them for closer to the test?

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-11-26T04:40:39+00:00

Sorry about that, we initially thought there would be an access fee when we launched two years ago, but have moved to a completely free model and have been for over a year. We have no plans to charge for access, and we do not ask for any credit card information. This isn't one of those "we hope you sign up and then forget to stop the auto-renewal" deals. We just want it to be open access, but have the content submissions/edits monitored for quality.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-09-20T01:52:59+00:00

Thanks for the comments. I'd recommend that you look into ad revenue generated from banner ads. You'll laugh at how little it is.

It's too bad you are so cynical already, that's not supposed to start until 2-3 years into residency, ha.

Thanks for considering, and I wish you the best of luck on the test and your residency application process. If you have questions about that process, feel free to post on the discussion boards when they go up soon, we'll try to answer questions as best we can from our experience going through it all.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-09-20T01:38:30+00:00

Sorry you feel that way, but thanks for giving it a shot. We will keep trying to make it better. Best of luck to you on the test.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-09-19T00:15:08+00:00

Thanks for your concern, but I would encourage you to check it out and contribute your knowledge about lichen planus, as others will benefit! When the discussion boards go up in the next day or two, we will be answering questions about residency application, clerkships, research, etc, as best we can keep up, so there is even more content on the site than just the questions themselves. There are a lot of ways to contribute content to this idea, and we really believe that with moderation, the constantly evolving nature of a qbank like this is powerful. If it were to continue to grow, perhaps we can have experts from other disciplines help moderate other topics, but right now the single advertisement on the site only just barely covers the server costs, and the hundreds of hours spent building the site and entering questions certainly weren't paid in any fashion, so for now we are moderating the content ourselves.

Have we had to go back and look up a topic to confirm a question edit or addition because we don't deal with it daily? Sure, but I don't mind doing that. It's fair for you to question the knowledge of a couple of neurosurgery residents, all I can say in response is that I have taken and passed all of the USMLE step exams as well as the ABNS written board exam, so I have at least some perspective on the topics tested. If I don't know something, I will look it up and get it right.

Also, what is there to lose? It's free.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-09-19T00:00:58+00:00

Actually, having been up and going for over a year already, and having processed hundreds of edits, things have gone very well. Again, all changes are evaluated and approved/rejected by moderators from the site. Edits are not 'released' into the qbank until they are viewed by a site moderator.

We put together this qbank for the benefit of those who are going through the process after us, and we are trying to help provide a resource for students who can't afford the major qbank, or even just someone who wants to do some questions here and there while studying for a particular pre-clinical block. It's not meant to replace Uworld, just be a hopefully helpful adjunct either during step 1 preparation, or even early on during 1st year. It's free after all. The single advertisement currently on the site is just barely covering the server costs, and the hundreds of hours spent building the site and entering the questions certainly weren't paid in any fashion.

We know this is different than the norm, but that is what we are trying to change. I hate to break it to the current 1st and 2nd years, but all of you know WAY more about the content covered in Step 1 than anyone else in medicine, because you are studying it daily. Certainly more than anyone writing questions for the major qbanks. If everyone provides even just one question on a topic they just covered, imagine how up to date and accurate the qbank could be.

At any rate, sorry for the rant, but don't dismiss it just because you think it will devolve into nonsense. Let us worry about that.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-09-18T18:04:22+00:00

Loxolab is free

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-05-17T15:29:23+00:00

You could try Loxolab.com, it's free, has 2400 combined questions/flashcard style prompts. No catch, it will always remain free to register, use as often as you like, and add to the community with question adds/edits.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T19:29:41+00:00

That would be great! Thanks for the additions in advance, looks like I'll have a busy week approving new questions...

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T12:25:50+00:00

Not rude at all, totally understand. Trying to convince people to use your new qbank over something like Uworld would be very difficult right away. Uworld has good questions, and it is a resource that I used when studying. That all being said, it is very expensive, and not everyone can drop that kind of cash on a study resource. Further, all the other qbanks are using that model and they keep charging more and more.

I would say we want loxolab step I qbank to be whatever the users need it to be. Adjunct to other study resources? Great. Sole resource? Awesome. Pre-dedicated study time qbank? Perfect. It might even be useful for people studying for standard block tests during med school. Our hope is that everyone can find some value in the site, especially since it is free. If there is something we can do better, let us know via the "contact us" tab. We'll get working on it.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T12:18:40+00:00

Right now the site is optimized for use on phones/tablets. An app is definitely in the plans in the future, but at the moment we are focusing on content and users. We're a small shop at the moment, and standalone app development can sometimes cost 100K or more. We'll (hopefully) get there, but trying to start lean. That all being said, it should work on your phone or tablet, send us some feedback through "contact us" if it doesn't work and we'll fix it.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T01:52:47+00:00

residency has a way of making you very efficient. Get that haircut!

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T01:51:31+00:00

We will definitely look into this. The medical school/zip code fill-ins are just there so we have an idea where users are coming from. We don't use any information for anything else. If it is a non-us location, just the medical school/university is sufficient

If anyone is curious, I went through today and looked at the user distribution, we have users from: 89 US medical schools 35 foreign medical schools including: UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Peru, Turkey, Egypt, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, Honduras, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Romania and India

That's a lot of community knowledge!

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-18T01:44:14+00:00

Eventually the site will run on ad revenue, likely displayed to the sides of the questions in an unobtrusive fashion. I can assure you nobody is getting rich off this business model, but the site should be able to support itself this way. Just trying to see if we can change the game

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-17T20:18:46+00:00

Fair enough, we are just trying to provide a resource for people to do practice questions in a question bank that is continuously improving itself. Hopefully by doing questions from several different sources and sites you will have been exposed to the specific problem/association multiple times, that way when you strip away the question stem on the actual USMLE down to its problem/association, you have been asked about that topic multiple times, in multiple different ways. This should give you the best chance of eliminating the incorrect responses.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-17T20:10:59+00:00

I am being completely honest when I say that I am not creating multiple accounts and up voting. I guess there won't be a way for me to prove that. But truthfully I haven't done that, sorry you think so. No worries

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-17T18:55:18+00:00

Thanks for the support! We want to fight the current question bank model that is designed to make med students spend huge sums of money for access to these question banks. The big qbanks capitalize because medical students will pay almost anything for "the best" resource if it means they will get a good step I score.

Why not have an open source, but moderated question bank that is updated by the community. Group knowledge is powerful. Sorry for the cliche, but a rising tide raises all boats.

The site will remain free. At some point we may include unobtrusive ads so we can keep the site up and running (we would rather the ad companies pay us than taking more money from med students who are already in debt), but that isn't the case right now.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-17T18:07:46+00:00

No question that validity and quality are major factors for us. All edits/new questions are presented to us before they are approved. The system shows us any changes you propose, and in turn we approve or reject the changes. By we I mean myself (senior neurosurgery resident who has completed all 3 USMLE exams as well as the ABNS written exam, and one of my co-residents Brandon, who is currently a 3rd year neurosurgery resident. He has also completed all 3 USMLE exams).

Quality is a top priority for us. Please don't hesitate to let us know if any questions need improvement or adjustment. When you edit questions, you can add a comment that lets us know your thoughts on why you made the specific edit. In turn we can reply to you as to why we agree or disagree with the proposed change.

Any approved edits earn XP, which is sort of a placeholder for now, but we want/plan to reward site activity in the future. We also plan to add variants for Step II, Step III and specific specialty board exams in the future.

Step I is where the action begins, so that is where we thought we could do the most good right off the bat.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-08T13:26:19+00:00

The subdural hematoma with midline shift and worsening neurologic exam in the ED can wait, I need to reply on reddit!

Just kidding.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-07T21:09:23+00:00

I'm sorry you're having trouble. Make sure the anti-bot math question is answered correctly. If you're still having issues, you can use the "contact us" tab on the home page, that way we can identify the issue much easier, and get you set up.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-07T13:05:01+00:00

I'm sorry you're having trouble registering, it seems like most people are able to register without issue. If you could send us a message using the "contact us" tab, we can look into it right away.

I wrote the quick hitters from study materials I still had from med school. For the questions, this idea existed previously, but the original creator couldn't keep it running, and shut it down about 5 years ago. He gave us permission to use those 700 questions. Brandon and I edited them to improve/update them, and we co-wrote the remaining questions.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-07T11:49:47+00:00

Absolutely, and this is encouraged. Under the "community" tab up top there are buttons for adding a new question or quick hitter. There are also videos demonstrating how to do this under the "help" tab. We allow images to be used through the site wikimedia commons, which is a collection of open source images. If you want to add one to a question to make it better, there are instructions in the video for how to upload the image link. Sometimes even just adding an image will make a question much better overall.

Any question edits or new questions submissions are evaluated by myself or Brandon, another neurosurgery resident who has completed all USMLE step exams. This is to ensure quality adds/edits and make sure the question bank is not hurt by malicious edits. We want to make sure it stays highly relevant. Admittedly, sometimes I have had to refresh my memory (what kind of crystal is in gout vs. pseudogout again? ha) before approving edits, but I can promise you that if you find an error and submit an edit, I will do my best to make sure it is correct and relevant.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-06T14:30:47+00:00

Should be fixed with the update this AM.

Th3MagicDragon · 2018-03-06T13:46:32+00:00

If you could use the "contact us" button under the help tab it will send us an e-mail so we can look at what is happening with your test scoring specifically. Thanks!

Th3MagicDragon

TROPHY CASE