Finished up COMLEX. My assessment is that it's pretty similar to what you'll read on here. I would definitely recommend doing the COMSAE's - the interface was identical (this is one place where the NBOME has bested the NBME). The questions seemed to be more clear and better written on the COMLEX than the COMSAE, but that could just be me taking this more seriously. (For comparison sake, I did COMSAE 1B and 1C).
The OMM: not as big a part of the test as I would have expected. The questions were pretty well spread out. If you're cramming OMM in, go through the gray "trigger" boxes in Savarese and you should be okay for most of these questions. You may miss a couple that relate to specific orthopaedic-tests, but maybe you'll remember it from class? It happened to me - I didn't study the ortho tests and there was only one question on it - (I happened to remember that Thomas test was for hip flexion and Thompson was for Achilles. ) There were a couple of other questions that had test names in it, but only to say that they were negative. Maybe that would help you come to the right dx, but it didn't hurt me not knowing it.
You gotta know the autonomics - if you've been resisting learning those two pages in Savarese... go learn it now. It won't take long and these are EASY questions that you can answer quickly and won't have to think about. They're pretty nice about it too - they know that different sources have some overlapping levels, so they generally don't put things close together in the answer choices, so if you have a general idea of what levels are supposed to be involved, you'll get it.
Tip: For me on the COMSAE's time was never an issue. I knew this going into to the COMLEX exam (I finished with 40 minutes to spare) , so when I sat down, during the "tutorial time", I used one side of the sheet I was given and just wrote all the autonomic stuff out - it helped later - I really didn't have to think about it. I Just referenced my page as if it was the page straight out of Savarese and clicked the corresponding answer.
As far as straight up anatomy - of course a few questions on brachial plexus. It described some symptoms and asked where the lesion might be (i.e. posterior cord). Rotator cuff stuff, also knowing dermatome man really helped do the "which level is the disc herniated at" questions. A few gimmes - just knowing that a somatic dysfunction dx is the ease and that motion would be restricted in the opposite planes got me a few questions. The basics are important here to get you those easy points you don't want to miss.
Behavioral: Some weird situations - no studying can really prepare you for. I didn't have any of the HMO/payment stuff that others had seen last week. Mine was more ethical behavioral science. I didn't have to do any math (one of friend of mine said she had to do an anion gap on hers), and there were no biostat questions either. Maybe three or four psych questions total, pretty easy stuff.
Biochem: i honestly don't remember seeing even one biochem question... or a question that was overtly biochem. Maybe they were testing this knowledge through some other wording or subliminally, but I certaintly didn't see any.
Micro: I agree with above, some was really obscure. Others gave bare-boned information. Just reading the last sentence about it's classification (if it was given) like gram pos/nev, lactose fermenter, bacillus/coccus, etc. def helped eliminate choices quickly. That was my strategy for micro - eliminating the ones I knew it couldn't be. The question would describe a "gram - rod" and two of the 5 choices were staph and strep : obviously wrong. For the harder ones, it was a one liner and you just had to know the most common/likely cause based on the age group.
Endo/Repro: The OB/GYN stuff is what really got me. Out of the 400 questions I took, I'd say 100-125 were probably ob/gyn, oral contraceptive, dysfunctional bleeding, menopause, endometrial ca, pregnancy, hormones, or some combination thereof. I really hate that stuff to be honest, and some of the stuff they were asking was way over my head and more clinical than I think even some 4th year students would know off the top of their heads. If you want to do well on this test you really have to know a LOT about this stuff - even beyond what you may have been taught in school.
Renal: little bit of everything from the drugs to the physio and some path. Had two slides, one for clear cell ca and another for transition cell ca.
Genetics: I had maybe a handful of these that asked straighforward inheritance patterns or chance that a child might get it. Of course, some were during the linked portion, so if I picked the wrong disease to begin with then I got these subsequent ones wrong too. Hopefully not though.
In general the linked questions were at max 3. I personally didn't see any that were 4 or 5 like the COMSAE's had, but maybe others can comment further. The majority of linked questions were in pairs, which I appreciated, because I don't like them (I think they should give you new information like USMLE does...)
Pharm: Not too bad for the most part. Big MOAs and ADRs. There were some though,that were one-liners where you had to figure out what the bug was and the drug of choice (linked questions). That wasn't fun because they of course put in the corresponding incorrect answers.
Each section followed pretty much the same format, 1-30/35 were the single questions. 35-45ish linked. The last few were matching.
Cardio: the standard stuff, know simple things like what each of those drugs are doing or when you would use them. I had no EKGs to read, but others have had them. A couple questions with long winded explanations of valve abnormalities or murmurs. These questions particularly gave more information than they needed to, but I won't complain!
Matching: Wasn't too bad. I had two where I reused the same answer - I was hesitant to do so, but did it anyway.
I would say that if you've been studying using USMLE World, you'll be okay. Don't think that those questions and explanations were a waste - because there were concepts from there that were surprinsgly tested on the COMLEX... not in the same way, but I wouldn't have known them without uWorld. I can't comment on COMBANK, I never did that. I'm a big fan of Savarese, First Aid, and uWorld for this exam. And maybe a Step 2 Ob/Gyn book? lol
It is true that you have to do 100 questions at a time. It's weird to me that the 10 minute breaks between blocks 2/3 and 6/7 take away from your time, yet lunch does not. The break time went away fast as you have to do the whole check in and check out procedure (turn your pockets inside out!).
I was allowed to take in my own foam earplugs - the woman at the center made me take them out of the plastic before I walked in. Of course, took my ID in with me (i.e. makeshift sacrum
). I was worried about what I would do if I needed tissues - the proctor woman gave me some before I walked in.
last but not least
if you have time, use the comment button - mark the ones you want to comment on and come back if you think you have the time. I certaintly did it for many of the Ob/gyn & repro stuff that I thought was beyond our scope of knowledge and hopefully others did too.
