the official COMAT shelf thread

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Originally Posted by teacherman84

12 week rotation? Wow...that's nuts. Ours are only 4, some I wish were 6 or 8 but 12 is a long time.

We just started with them this year as well, they are setting the passing threshold off the national average but waiting until this winter to establish a honors threshold.

Interesting.... I wonder if this means they will just be informing of pass/fail until winter?

TeamZissou did you find it as horrible as I did?

Originally Posted by MrBeauregard

TeamZissou did you find it as horrible as I did?

Not really. But I honestly didn't do anything to study for it besides read 9 cases out of case files. I was relieved by the lack of OMM questions. Probably less than 10, maybe even only 5sh.

I have no clue how I did though.

I thought the questions were a lot less vague than the COMLEX I took on June 2nd.

Just took the surgery COMAT, here are my thoughts:

I used NMS casebook and Boards & Wards (I never hear anyone talk about B&W, but I like it), mainly relied on UWorld for studying. Did Kaplan qbank because our school purchases it, and I did some of the questions from the PreTest Surgery book (ortho, cardiovascular, pre/post op care, and the GI questions).

I thought the shelf was very fair. Some questions mentioned TART findings at different levels, but zero questions that required you know any OMM to get the answer. There were a few where I know in practice you'd do more than one of the answer choices - I guess that's just to be expected. So the qbanks were very important for being able to answer "single best answer" type questions. I had one question that was a straight-up drug question. About 20% were paired/grouped questions.

I only had time to really hit the books hard starting a day before my shelf, but before that I'd done around 300 practice questions and read the surgery chapter in B&W. I felt prepared for the test. I had time to get through all the UWorld and Kaplan qbank surgery questions, and felt like that paid off the most. We'll see how it went in 4-6 weeks... but I left the exam feeling pretty good about it.

Took the OMM COMAT today. Not sure how folks are supposed to get 70%+ on these things. A good 30% or more of the questions were completely from left field. Not sure where we were supposed to have learned that stuff. I read through the green book, memorized the viscersomatics, and chapman points and figured that would be enough.... apparently not.

took surgery comat last session - read blueprints throughout the rotation and read through the GI cases in casefiles and got a 70. all of the questions for me were very random.

took obgyn today- read blueprints, read the repro section from step 1, learned the TORCHES/teratogens, actually did the practice qs in time in the back- got 79/100. the previously mentioned prepared me really well in terms of content. there were 2 questions with subject matter that i had never seen, but i marked at least 20 because the question was so vague. just my $0.02. cant gauge how i did, nbome is vague as always. probably should have read some classic literature to prepare.

Originally Posted by MrBeauregard

Just took the FM COMAT.

Impressions: absolutely, positively horrible. No other words will do. Poorly written, vague questions. If you thought the COMLEX was bad this might push you over the edge.

Study CaseFiles a few times; study PreTest a few times; do Blueprints if you'd like; read UptoDate on your patients. At least you'll know what you should for FM.

The COMAT won't test you on hardly any of that. Random geriatrics, crazy behavioral and/or policy questions. Very little evaluation of one's clinical knowledge. Crappy OPP questions that don't test much common knowledge. Management questions that you won't find the correct answer to in any text a third year would use during their rotation.

I could have studied for another two weeks and not gotten any more questions right.

Final: 82%

I'm not sure what the national average or class average is; we weren't provided with any of that.

Originally Posted by MrBeauregard

Final: 82%

I'm not sure what the national average or class average is; we weren't provided with any of that.

For those wondering the averages, this is the date I am aware of for national means.

Family Medicine- 70.2
Internal Medicine-65.1
Ob/Gyn- 71.4
OPP-69.3
Pediatrics- 64
Psych- 70.5
Surgery-68.4

Are those Raw scores or the ones the school gives after they curve it?

^^ For me it was percent correct.

I believe raw but am not positive.

Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?

Originally Posted by chet

Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?

I don't recall too many specifics, but I do remember that it wasn't bad at all. I don't think it's necessary to really study it too hard. You'll probably remember most of it from Level I.

Originally Posted by chet

Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?

IIRC, most questions seemed to have an "OMM" component, which mostly consisted of a segmental or TART change tacked onto the end that had no actual meaning in terms of being able to answer the question. There was only a handful of straight up OMM questions. I didn't review any OMM and ended up with a 71%, which based off of how my school grades the COMATs, it's in the mean to mean +1sd range.

OB/GYN
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, BV, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct OMM questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

PEDS
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however I don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no OMM (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

IM
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky OMM questions that I had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps

Originally Posted by Scissor88

OB/GYN
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, BV, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct OMM questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

PEDS
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however I don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no OMM (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

IM
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky OMM questions that I had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps

I felt similarly about the Peds COMAT, I didn't do much for it aside from a block of UWorld questions. But I thought it was all over the place and studying a lot probably wouldn't have helped me. I will say though I wish I had done some combank/comquest since apparently some of the weird OMM/Ethics/Next step questions were almost identical and they were the ones you read and went wtf is this.

Does the OB/GYN COMAT have similar questions? I ask because I only bought UWorld but if I keep getting burned on these random questions I'll think about picking up combank/comquest.

The oby/gyn comat was more focused than peds, but that might just be because it's a more focused discipline. I haven't used combank/comquest this year for studying so I can't comment on how much it will help. I think UWORLD/blueprints/case files served me perfectly well for ob/gyn and I was happy with my grade.

Is it just me or does every exam seem to have a question or two completely not at all related to the rotation?

Originally Posted by C O M 2014

Is it just me or does every exam seem to have a question or two completely not at all related to the rotation?

Any standardized exam created by the NBOME will be this way. All of them are horrible assessments of clinical knowledge.

Originally Posted by scissor88

ob/gyn
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, bv, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct omm questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

peds
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however i don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no omm (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

im
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky omm questions that i had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps

im - 73