a closer look at two tech entrepreneurs
Studying for Exams? There’s an App For That
MD/MBA students Dan Nguyen and Gerard D’Onofrio with Testable, their new studying app.
BY TY BALDWIN
D
an Nguyen and Gerard D’Onofrio (MD/MBA candidates, 2018) didn’t matriculate at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) with the intention of becoming tech entrepreneurs. But thanks to the Distinction Program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the mentorship of George Heinrich, MD, and their own hard work, that’s what’s happened. Their app, Testable, which offers students a social, competitive way to study for exams, rolled out on the iOS platform this past spring. “The idea for Testable came from being medical students,” Nguyen says. “Trying to learn all this medical content in a short time forces you to get creative with your study habits. One of the most effective ways for me to review is in groups with my friends. We ask each other questions because we’ve found that being able to explain the correct answers to each other reinforces the material.” Nguyen and D’Onofrio first discussed creating an app in February 2015, when they were preparing for their Step 1 exam. “It’s regarded as the most influential test score that will determine your placement in residency,” D’Onofrio explains. “Like any good medical students, Dan and I were studying ahead of time, constantly going over the review books and doing review questions, and we devel-
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oped a study method where we would throw questions at each other. We recognized pretty quickly that there was a game-like quality to it.” But a funny thing happened en route to the App Store: med school got in the way. “From April to the end of May, Dan and I had to really buckle down and study for the Step 1 exam,” D’Onofrio says. “At the end of May, we started our third year on the floors, which was very time intensive and entirely new to us. It required a lot of acclimation that the classroom setting of the first two years didn’t. So the app got put on the back burner for a while. In December 2015 we started talking about it again.” Nguyen and D’Onofrio wanted their app to recreate the social atmosphere of studying with your friends. “By making it competitive,” Nguyen says, “and allowing students to go head-to-head against other students, and answer real test-like questions, the app not only gives you practice, it also forces you to study actively. We wanted to make it
personal, because when you’re playing against your friends, or other students, you have some skin in the game. Your pride and your ego are involved and you tend to perform better.” Students can use Testable to challenge each other to games of five multiple-choice questions. “If I challenge you,” D’Onofrio explains, “then I complete my five questions on my own time, and you complete your questions on your time. When we’ve both finished, we see who did better. The score, and the winner, is determined first on accuracy and then on time.” Once the game ends, students can review thorough explanations for each of their answer choices. “That’s something that sets us apart,” he adds. “Not only is our content geared toward education, but Testable encourages students to really learn the material. If you get it wrong, you don’t just go to the next game without thinking about it. You have the opportunity to go over each answer until it’s clear.” By early 2016, Nguyen and D’Onofrio had hired a software developer and, with the help of four seniors from the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Capstone Program, they had a viable product ready for the App Store by spring. “The original idea was to K E I T H B . B R AT C H E R , J R .
