Advice for COMLEX III

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DO_Surgeon

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I just registered for COMLEX III next month. I am a general surgery intern, and have had the majority of my non-surgical rotations. I just bought crush step 3 and the NMS q book. Anyone have any advice for studying (length of time, books, important topics, etc) What about the new computer format and how many questions do you need to pass?

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Thanks. What was the OMM breakdown? Not as much viscerosomatics? How much cranial (I hate that stuff..)? What's the highest yield thing I should review between now and wed?

Pete, I took the test today as well. It was all over the place a la COMLEX. I hope I passed that **** as I cannot imagine taking it a second time.
 
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Wow, what a doozie. This test was EXTREMELY BROAD.

You know how Level II was basically obgyn, peds and omm, with a few random q's thrown in? Well, Level III was not that. :/ I'm not even sure how I could have studied differently. Your best bet is to just do a little of everything. I hope I passed... glad the bar is 350.

I had a decent amount of ob/gyn and peds, but I thought it was fairly well balanced among all subspecialties. Quite a bit on heart murmurs. Only 1 or 2 EKGs.

There was pictures and videos, and the quality was quite good.

The OMM stuff was sort of difficult, very few visceromatics... quite a few questions on what techniques would be best for such and such a condition. Very little cranial.

I also had a decent bit of neuro and psych.

I also seemed to have a lot of GI. A lot of people vomiting.

Ugh... seemed like I was guessing on 1/3 of those questions. The wait begins...

I thought that COMQUEST was decent but a little too simple. The real VIGNETTES alternated between short and fairly long.
 
Wow, what a doozie. This test was EXTREMELY BROAD.

You know how Level II was basically obgyn, peds and omm, with a few random q's thrown in? Well, Level III was not that. :/ I'm not even sure how I could have studied differently. Your best bet is to just do a little of everything. I hope I passed... glad the bar is 350.

I had a decent amount of ob/gyn and peds, but I thought it was fairly well balanced among all subspecialties. Quite a bit on heart murmurs. Only 1 or 2 EKGs.

There was pictures and videos, and the quality was quite good.

The OMM stuff was sort of difficult, very few visceromatics... quite a few questions on what techniques would be best for such and such a condition. Very little cranial.

I also had a decent bit of neuro and psych.

I also seemed to have a lot of GI. A lot of people vomiting.

Ugh... seemed like I was guessing on 1/3 of those questions. The wait begins...

I thought that COMQUEST was decent but a little too simple. The real VIGNETTES alternated between short and fairly long.

dude, I think I had the same test, very broad, quite a bit of uro, optho, stuff you would not expect what is up with all those people vomitting? OMM was hard, very clinical and mostly based on treatments. A crapload of hard ethics questions, EMTALA, legal terms, and wtf questions concerning cats, animal shelters, and regulations you have never heard of. good luck, I wonder when the scores come? I am hoping beginning of Oct.
 
I took the test today. As others have said, absolute joke. At least COMLEX is still holding its title for most ambiguous questions and least relavance to real world medicine.

Now that last sentence was partially in jest, but I am serious on this one. I am wondering if they INTENTIONALLY make the test bad. The amount of ambguity in the questions is phenomenal, and the vast majority of the legal/ethical/etc questions have aboslutely no relevance to anything and likely never will to 99.9% of practicing physicians. I wonder if they do that on purpose. I would say on probably half the questions my repsonse was either WHAT are they asking (such short stems with so little information in them) or WHY are they asking them (ie will I ever need to know this while practicing medicine). No real surprise though, as this seems to be the trend on the COMLEX.

As a side note, COMQUEST is terrible. I used COMBANK for steps I and II, and figured Id mix it up for step III. Don't waste your time or money on quest. If you want to actually learn things while studying, get UWorld. If you want to (at least somewhat) simulate the exam get COMBANK. Don't for any reason get COMQUEST (although in fairness I did stop quest about 2/3 of the way through the question bank because I felt it was a waste of time, so maybe the last 1/3 had all the good questions in it!)
 
I took the comlex today as well. It was the most absurd thing I have seen in my life. I felt similarly for step 1 and 2. USMLE is a much better test. I used combank, comquest and did a practice comsae. My breakdowns were 81%, 83% and 709, respectively 1st time thru randomized untimed as time was never really an issue and I have ADHD when it comes to dedicated studying.

Exam had about 30% omm, not many chapmans and viscerosomatics as the first two which sucked. These questions were made for OMM fellows to answer not pgy1 interns. As far as the amiguity, WOW is all I can say. I scored well on my comlex 1 and 2 respectivly, well over 600 on both of them. Needless to say I felt like crap coming out of those exams as well and None of the qbanks I used felt as if it mirrored the test. Heck the comsae didnt' mirror the test, which is sad because nBOMe writes it. I wish the organization was similar to USMLEs where clinically relevant and real world issues are asked and applicable. Comlex isn't a test to see if one is able to be a competent physician, it is more of a test based on how well you can mind read the question writer the day he sat down to think of ways to screw over DOs.

Argh, regardless study because you want to learn medicine and hope that you guess well. The qbanks do get your mind thinking and make certain answer choices second nature, granted my venting was based on the 15-20 questions per section I had marked because I had no idea what they were asking me.

Good Luck, will post real score in 4-6 weeks
I took the test today. As others have said, absolute joke. At least COMLEX is still holding its title for most ambiguous questions and least relavance to real world medicine.

Now that last sentence was partially in jest, but I am serious on this one. I am wondering if they INTENTIONALLY make the test bad. The amount of ambguity in the questions is phenomenal, and the vast majority of the legal/ethical/etc questions have aboslutely no relevance to anything and likely never will to 99.9% of practicing physicians. I wonder if they do that on purpose. I would say on probably half the questions my repsonse was either WHAT are they asking (such short stems with so little information in them) or WHY are they asking them (ie will I ever need to know this while practicing medicine). No real surprise though, as this seems to be the trend on the COMLEX.

As a side note, COMQUEST is terrible. I used COMBANK for steps I and II, and figured Id mix it up for step III. Don't waste your time or money on quest. If you want to actually learn things while studying, get UWorld. If you want to (at least somewhat) simulate the exam get COMBANK. Don't for any reason get COMQUEST (although in fairness I did stop quest about 2/3 of the way through the question bank because I felt it was a waste of time, so maybe the last 1/3 had all the good questions in it!)
 
Just took comsae 3... taking the real test Wednesday. Thought I did GREAT on the Comsae and the score was in the toilet. I feel like a monkey could have gotten a better score on that than I did.

Comsae was off by 150 points on level 2 for me. (I did 150 points better.) I feel frustrated and irritated and am just praying to God that this goes well later this week.

It's hard to know how you do because they don't tell you what you get wrong or provide any explanations whatsoever.

All I need is a 351.

I can't wait to be free of NBOME, hopefully, in six weeks. It has NOT been fun.

Ugh.

Anyone else taken it recently? Thoughts? Even on comsae?
 
Never took COMSAE so can't help you there, sorry. Level 3 was kind of sucky... hopefully yours will go well! Trust in your preparation, and you should do fine. Let us know how it goes, and post here.

pete and everyone who took the exam recently, I just called NBOME, RESULTS COME OUT TOM, ON THE 11TH. My exam was on the 19th of Sep
 
Just took comsae 3... taking the real test Wednesday. Thought I did GREAT on the Comsae and the score was in the toilet. I feel like a monkey could have gotten a better score on that than I did.

Comsae was off by 150 points on level 2 for me. (I did 150 points better.) I feel frustrated and irritated and am just praying to God that this goes well later this week.

It's hard to know how you do because they don't tell you what you get wrong or provide any explanations whatsoever.

All I need is a 351.

I can't wait to be free of NBOME, hopefully, in six weeks. It has NOT been fun.

Ugh.

Anyone else taken it recently? Thoughts? Even on comsae?

I took the COMSAE. Guessed my way to a 540. Had no idea on most of 'em.

Actual exam, I scored even higher, and TRULY had no idea on most of 'em. :laugh:
 
I took the test on 10/10/12, and I have to admit, it was NOTHING like the Comsae. It was far more doable. As usual, a few things you scratch your head at and shrug on, but for the most part - and I'm hoping I'm not jinxing myself saying this - it wasn't that bad. I feel like I passed. I HOPE I passed. I'm trying not to be overconfident, but I am optimistic.

Anyone else take it this month?

Edit: BTW Comquest, Combank, First Aid Step 3, and Savarese were all VERY useful for the exam. That's all I used. I wouldn't recommend the Comsae - it just didn't relate, in my opinion, to the content as well as those resources. Maybe everyone's exam is different?
 
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I took the COMSAE. Guessed my way to a 540. Had no idea on most of 'em.

Actual exam, I scored even higher, and TRULY had no idea on most of 'em. :laugh:

That's awesome - glad for you! Read this last night when I got home and cracked up in that post-comlex state. :laugh:
 
That's awesome - glad for you! Read this last night when I got home and cracked up in that post-comlex state. :laugh:


Passed comlex 3 finally done!
Score 773
Comsae 709

Study materials comquest, combank step 2 secrets (skimmed), savarese, step 2 ck( annotated step up to medicine during step 2 studying, so scanned the ob, peds and went thru best initial test, best diagnostic test) total study time 4 wks, 1-2 hrs a day 5 days a week,
didnt get thru all comquest or combank.
Felt like crap coming out of exam as my post previously, but thats probably because its a poor man's test, and needless to say after all 3 steps my feelings towards comlex hasn't changed. It does not gauge any level of intelligence, very poor indicator of clinical performance unfortunately.
 
Got high 500's. Glad I passed this sucker, thank God I'm done with COMLEX and the NBOME! It was a broad, tough test, overall. I thought toughest of the three, but maybe it's because I had less time to study. Best advice is to do questions everyday over several weeks, and you'll do OK.

Wooooooohoooo!

Wow, what a doozie. This test was EXTREMELY BROAD.

You know how Level II was basically obgyn, peds and omm, with a few random q's thrown in? Well, Level III was not that. :/ I'm not even sure how I could have studied differently. Your best bet is to just do a little of everything. I hope I passed... glad the bar is 350.

I had a decent amount of ob/gyn and peds, but I thought it was fairly well balanced among all subspecialties. Quite a bit on heart murmurs. Only 1 or 2 EKGs.

There was pictures and videos, and the quality was quite good.

The OMM stuff was sort of difficult, very few visceromatics... quite a few questions on what techniques would be best for such and such a condition. Very little cranial.

I also had a decent bit of neuro and psych.

I also seemed to have a lot of GI. A lot of people vomiting.

Ugh... seemed like I was guessing on 1/3 of those questions. The wait begins...

I thought that COMQUEST was decent but a little too simple. The real VIGNETTES alternated between short and fairly long.
 
What are people's opinions on the COMSAE 3? I took the COMSAE 3 the day before my exam and got a 320 which blew my mind because I was going through it and thought I killed it.

I took the exam untimed and would time myself for each section. At the end of the section I would go back and look up the answers for every question so that I could learn from the Comsae too as well as semi gauge myself.

I don't understand what happened and I postponed my exam and paid ~200 bucks ;-(

I passed both COMLEX 1 and 2 around average, first time.. getting in hte high 60's on average in Comquest......
 
Just looked at my scores today....ugggg...failed...

Step 1: 723
Step 2: 712
Step 3: 339...wtf

Came out just like every other test, felt it was very broad and general with lots and lots of bs. Studied using mainly combank n comquest and secrets step 2 for about 2 weeks. was not expecting this score at all....wtf...so stupid...took comsae 3 days before the exam...620

guess i gotta retake it.....stupid.
 
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What are people's opinions on the COMSAE 3? I took the COMSAE 3 the day before my exam and got a 320 which blew my mind because I was going through it and thought I killed it.

I took the exam untimed and would time myself for each section. At the end of the section I would go back and look up the answers for every question so that I could learn from the Comsae too as well as semi gauge myself.

I don't understand what happened and I postponed my exam and paid ~200 bucks ;-(

I passed both COMLEX 1 and 2 around average, first time.. getting in hte high 60's on average in Comquest......

I did worse than you - I was blown away by how bad I did on the Comsae compared to everything else AND the actual exam. I pray I passed the real thing. I felt okay walking out of it, but I'm trying not to be overconfident. I'm praying I passed.
 
Oh man, so sorry to hear that... at least you can take solace and know that no one cares about Level 3. Only negative is that you gotta pony up the money again.

This just goes to show how bad of a test the COMLEX is and how random it can be.

Keep the faith, you will pass it on another attempt.

Just looked at my scores today....ugggg...failed...

Step 1: 723
Step 2: 712
Step 3: 339...wtf

Came out just like every other test, felt it was very broad and general with lots and lots of bs. Studied using mainly combank n comquest and secrets step 2 for about 2 weeks. was not expecting this score at all....wtf...so stupid...took comsae 3 days before the exam...620

guess i gotta retake it.....stupid.
 
If it's any consolation, I scored in the mid-500's on both 1 and 2 and am hoping I'm north of 351 on this one. In the case of the NBOME, cry and the world cries with you. :) :smuggrin::smuggrin::smuggrin:

Update: Passed!

Oh man, so sorry to hear that... at least you can take solace and know that no one cares about Level 3. Only negative is that you gotta pony up the money again.

This just goes to show how bad of a test the COMLEX is and how random it can be.

Keep the faith, you will pass it on another attempt.
 
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Scores are up til Oct 11. Took it Oct 10 (yay!) - passed comfortably. Praise God that's over!

[x] Step 1
[x] Step 2 CE
[x] Step 2 PE
[x] Step 3

GOODBYE NBOME!
 
I recently took Comlex level 3 and I wanted to share my experience. I finished comquest at 78% first time average, combank with 73% average untimed mode. I scored a 230+ (i'll leave it at that) on USMLE step 2 and below 450 on Comlex step 2 with my OMM actually being above average on the score report.

Whenever I finish a 40 question combank or comquest test, I can assure myself of my overall score within 10% almost 99% of the time, meaning I know I would get 30-32/40 correct and that would for the most part be my score every time. However, when I took comlex level 3, I can guarantee myself that there is no possible way I scored above 55% correct on that examination. I wrote a tally at the end of each section of questions I had "marked" and the total was 120, meaning any 1/5 of those answers could have been correct. I could guarantee 100 were correct. That leaves 180 questions where I would give myself no more than 1/2 chance of being correct. Based on this total calculation I got 225/400 at most which comes out to 56.25%. I spent a whole month reading kaplan master the boards, comquest, combank, savarese with all the practice tests in the back and if I took the test again I dont think its possible to score above 60%, unless I was a physician practicing for ten years and took a month off to study.

Test breakdown: 15% cardio, 10% GI, 10% Pulm, 20% peds, 10% ob/gyn, 5% OMM (which comprised of positional questions that you could not reason or you can not find in savarese, with one chapman point, and 3 viscerosomatic reflexes at most) 5% were questions on what the most proper organization to contact first after seeing a patient (CDC, local health authorities, police, etc...) and 25% completely random you will never see in medicine. 5 Questions about hepatitis markers but on combinations you have never seen in your wildest dreams, that do not exist ( I never knew you could be immunized and still have an active infection, you can have +IgG, +IgM, +core antibody, - core antigen, you name it, just draw any combination of markers out of a hat and what's the diagnosis). Unfortunately, there is no logical thinking or reasoning on this examination. For example, let's say you're a gunner and you know a certain dose of a "supplement" is the recommended dose to prevent osteoperosis in post-menopausal women, well guess what, whatever the true number is on UpToDate won't be an answer choice, I'll leave it at that.

Here's my frustration; if Combank states the average is 67% overall for users and comquest is 70% for users, I can guarantee you the average for the COMLEX Level 3 can not be more than 50% overall as compared to those other qbanks!!! If people actually score 70% correct on COMLEX, the comquest and combank true averages should be 90% and I would say a safe passing score on combank should be 85% because you will get 20% less correct on the actual COMLEX THAN ON THOSE qBANKS, I GUARANTEE IT.

But there can be no way that 50% can even be a passing score on a national board exam. Even the COMSAE you could reason 90% of the questions and if you look up the correct answer you can say "oh wow that was easy if I just thought it through." But about 1/3 of the questions on the comlex level iii can not be reasoned.

I would appreciate your guys thoughts and your experiences after the test with your actual scores and how you truly felt compared to doing the qbanks. Anybody here think they even got within 10% of the questions correct on the actaul COMLEX than they did on lets say comquest or combank?? Because I know for sure I did about 25% lower on the actual exam.
 
I also took the exam last month. Still waiting for my result. I used comquest for my q bank and averaged 75%. Totally agree with above breakdown regarding exam content. My issue with the exam lies with omm. Have in the past scored above average with omm on prior examinations. However, I honestly don't think I'll even get near borderline on this exam. Questions were not representative of omm I saw on prior exams. Very few chapmans questions and many questions regarding positions. Really got a kick out of the omm questions with video exhibits. Totally didn't expect that! In regards to other questions I'd say about 25% wtf questions. I do remember the the hep b question series and feel somewhat encouraged I wasn't the only one who thought they were tricky. I definitely made some stupid mistakes on this exam. I thought the pediatrics and obgyn questions were fair. I went into this exam hoping to just pass and my prep was fairly minimal. I wish I spent more time on omm prep but time will tell. In regards to % correct needing to answer to pass this thing I really can't venture a guess.
 
The Standard Deviation is 121 on Comlex level 3, even though a 350 is passing, it's equivalent to a 400 on step 2 because still 10% will fail with a standard deviation of 121. It doesn't matter that the cut off level is 350 because the bottom 10% will fail no matter what. Basically, 10/100 residents will fail this exam, the only way to study for this exam and score above 70% correct is a minimum of 6 months clinical experience in an FM outpatient setting, doing an OMM fellowship, and minimum 6 months of clinical experience each in cardiology, GI, pediatrics (wards and office), and ob/gyn. There is no resource, book, or manual to answer any of the questions.
 
Just looked at my scores today....ugggg...failed...

Step 1: 723
Step 2: 712
Step 3: 339...wtf

Came out just like every other test, felt it was very broad and general with lots and lots of bs. Studied using mainly combank n comquest and secrets step 2 for about 2 weeks. was not expecting this score at all....wtf...so stupid...took comsae 3 days before the exam...620

guess i gotta retake it.....stupid.

Step 3: 609

So ya, spent another 3 weeks studying a littler harder...did comquest again...read step up 2 to step 2 and secrets step 2. The test once again was all over the place.. videos of omm, murmur audios, ect. Heavy on peds, oom, and ob/gyn. I am unsure on what happened during the first exam. Glad this is over. Back to residency.
 
IF anyone needs advice feel free to PM me. Just took it today and have used a ton of resources to study throughout intern year.
 
Step 3: 609

So ya, spent another 3 weeks studying a littler harder...did comquest again...read step up 2 to step 2 and secrets step 2. The test once again was all over the place.. videos of omm, murmur audios, ect. Heavy on peds, oom, and ob/gyn. I am unsure on what happened during the first exam. Glad this is over. Back to residency.

thats funny that you mentioned that because that is exactly what I saw today!!!
 
Hi All,
I am applying this year for FM residencies. I am registered for both DO and MD matches. I want to know if the qbanks are quite different for comlex and USMLE step 3 like they are for the step 2. I got a bit burned by step2 CE because I feel I did not spend enough time studying for it. Now, I would like to buy an annual subscription for a qbank but unsure if I should wait till I figure out which exam (comlex 3 or usmle 3) I will be taking. If the exams are different, I will wait. Any advice will be appreciated.
 
Step I: 505
Step 2: 580s-ish
Step 3: 528 (roughly)
For step 3, studied 3-4 hours per day x 1 month, the week of the exam studied 8 hours per day Mon-Thursday and on Friday took exam (I'm a psych resident with an easy schedule). Studied com bank, conquest, first aid (found step 2 more helpful than step 3), savarese. Took comsae and scored within 20 points of real exam, felt like it was not representative or real exam though (much fewer ambiguous questions than on real thing). Felt like total crap after taking the exam, much less confident than on other two. Good luck! Feel free to pm me with any questions!
 
If you're a DO, there's absolutely no point in taking the USMLE Step 3. Take COMLEX 3 - only 1 day exam vs 2 days with USMLE. The COMLEX series is absolutely horrendous but it's not too tough an exam to pass with a half decent prep. Do COMQUEST, study Savarese, and learn as much as you can during your internship and you'll be fine.
 
Took Comlex III on 12/3/12 and got results today.

Very surprised. 943/99.

Had about 2 weeks to study off and on while I was on elective and jeopardy and went through Comquest once with avg around 75%. Other than that, I studied the books I used for Step 2, mostly peds, ob/gyn (I'm an IM resident). Went through the green book a couple times and redid some of the OMM questions from Comquest. I felt like comquest did a good job of representing the OMM part of the test. Lots of random stuff on the test that didn't seem to be in any books, but some seemed like I had maybe encountered during residency/med school at some point.

So happy to be finished with the NBOME forever.
 
If you're a DO, there's absolutely no point in taking the USMLE Step 3. Take COMLEX 3 - only 1 day exam vs 2 days with USMLE. The COMLEX series is absolutely horrendous but it's not too tough an exam to pass with a half decent prep. Do COMQUEST, study Savarese, and learn as much as you can during your internship and you'll be fine.

Thank you! I contacted my school and they told me the same thing. Got the combank and comquest annual subscriptions today:luck:
 
Didn't know a 900+ score was even possible.

I ended up with a 708. How, I have no idea. I took comsae before studying and barely got a passing grade. Did combank, read my weaker sections of step 2 secrets maybe twice and reviewed some of the stuff in Savarese. My combank score was only 1% above the average, so like 69%.

And like everyone else says, it was an awful test that I really wasn't sure I had even passed.:confused: Very different from comlex 2 that I was sure I passed and ended up getting a little shy of 600 on.

Beginning to think NBOME uses a random number generator for scores.:laugh:
 
I am a 4th year waiting for the match. So, I was always to not to worry about drug dosing in comlex step2. Also heard step3 is where they may ask about dosing. Now I am finding out step3 is a lot like step 2. I bought combank and it is the same as what I used for step2. So, can someone here tell me how step 3 is different from step3? Also, I am thinking about buying the comsae and looking at it to figure out. You think this is a good idea?
 
Passed with the highest score out of 3 Board Exams. Done with COMLEX FOREVER !!!!! Good luck to all. :D
 
how long for scores to be released? Just took step3 yesterday, echo everyone's thoughts as above, totally random material, honestly no point in studying except to brush up on OMM. good luck to everyone
 
It seems like most of you guys only re-used materials for step 2 to prepare for COMLEX Level 3. Do most of you guys think it's sufficient? I have no incentive to buy new books for level 3 except qbank
 
I only did qbank. I do hear people not in internal or family tend to do more extensive review but I thought my intern year in medicine was enough learning and just did the qbank.
 
Me too. That test was awful. Beyond which every dang video exhibit crashed my computer. I rebooted twice and changed machines once. :mad:

I have no clue when it's supposed to come out. I know that last scores were released on a thursday so I'm hoping for this Thursday. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought that test was completely awful. Did you get all of the HIV questions? I swear mine had at least 10 of them.:scared:
 
I have no clue when it's supposed to come out. I know that last scores were released on a thursday so I'm hoping for this Thursday. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought that test was completely awful. Did you get all of the HIV questions? I swear mine had at least 10 of them.:scared:

I didn't have any. :( I had malignant otitis several times, but no HIV. I called NBOME, scores will be out end of next week at the earliest.
 
I didn't have any. :( I had malignant otitis several times, but no HIV. I called NBOME, scores will be out end of next week at the earliest.

Just took it yesterday. The audio/video didn't add anything to the exam and was more annoying. I had at least 10 head trauma questions where I'm assuming they were looking for a head ct as the answer but after the 3/4 one like that I was getting worried. Also had a 5q elimination set run of what's the bug anthrax, salmonella, for trappers, c piscitti and something else.

There were a few like pt is hypotensive with SBP in the 70's/80's what to do? But the choice of giving a fluid bolus wasn't there. One question had an ABG that had pH, pCO2 and pO2 but no HCO3. Like WTF? Is the iStat broken? Lets get another one to get a proper reading. Or better yet images that are never covered for the vast majority of interns like mammograms and interpreting a V/Q scan.

As long as I passed I'll be happy and I can be done with the NBOME and their crappy exams I'll be happy.

But they said scores are due out next week? Wonder if mine will be included in that, it's been almost 2 months since scores have been released for exams b
 
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