Flash Facts: USMLE Flashcard Resource Reviews

The Best and Worst Flashcard Resources for USMLE Studies: USMLE Rx Flash Facts

There are quite a few USMLE Step 1 study resources out there and sometimes choosing the right resources can be tricky. We’ve sent some of our most experienced tutors to test out different flashcard sites and let you know how effective they actually are. For our final review in our best and worst flashcard resources series, today we are reviewing USMLE Rx Flash Facts! Here’s what we think!

USMLE Rx Flash Facts

Cost: $199 for 3 months, $329 for 6 months, $399 for 12 months,

$449 for 24 months

Our Grading:

Overall: A-

Thoroughness: A

Fun: B

Efficiency: A-

Customizability: A

Pros:

• It is made by the same company that produces First Aid, so ties directly into the book! This includes shots of the book’s charts and diagrams
• The subdivisions of decks exactly match UWorld question subdivisions, which makes it very easy to match this resource with your studying
• Can make your own decks customized by topic area (so more general or more specific)

Cons:

• Appears not to randomize order when you click through a deck, so you pass through all the “embryology” questions before getting to “pathology,” for instance. This also means that some questions are grouped thematically in a way that gives hints to what the answer might be
• A few technical faults with the website; clicks sometimes don’t register, images occasionally don’t appear (note from 2018, has not been updated when editing this blog post in 2023)
• The large blocks of information that appear with each card can be overwhelming, making this feel like more of a general review session rather than a faster-paced flashcard session

Where do I find it?

You can visit the USMLE Rx website.

Our Opinion on USMLE Rx Flash Facts

We often talk about the two undebatable pillars of Step 1 studying: First Aid and the UWorld Step 1 qbank. The former organizes the considerable amount of material you’ll find on the test into discrete, manageable blocks. It gives a skeleton on which to build all the rest of your studying. The latter is a powerful question-based resource that allows you to organize your questions by topic and subject area.

Flash Facts is an excellent resource not just because it’s a well-built repository of flashcard information, but because it positions itself directly between the two study pillars. It is made by the same company that produces First Aid and includes diagrams and information taken directly from the book to directly reinforce your learning. What’s more, the information is organized through the same structure as UWorld question banks: You can see below that with this app you can go through exactly the same footsteps as your questions, which makes matching flashcard-ing with the rest of your studying a piece of cake.

The cards themselves contain a lot of information – sometimes too much. The upsides are that it includes helpful diagrams of the pathology being tested along with associated syndromes and mnemonics. This is great! The flip-side of this coin, though, is that it will be easy to get bogged down in all of this information: the point of flashcard sessions is to broadly reinforce your learning relatively rapidly, and if you spend the time to go through every piece of information on this card your pacing will be more similar to question bank time than flashcard time.

Overall, despite these small inconveniences, Flash Facts is an excellent resource if only because it positions itself perfectly between your two mainstays of Step 1 studying. Using this service makes it effortless to match your flashcard learning with the rest of your studying – as long as you can exert the self-control not to get bogged down in each card’s extensive explanations.

For additional questions on Flash Facts for your Step 1 and Step 2 studies, feel free to contact one of our experienced USMLE tutors.

This blog was originally posted on May 3rd 2018, prices and plans were updated on June 8th, 2023.