New Comlex standard?

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Dr.TurkandJD

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I heard that COMLEX goes through a re-set every 3-5 years, those of us lucky enough to take it this upcoming May/June fall right into the new comlex standard for passing. From what I heard, the average pass rate drops for 95% to 82-85%. I guess they remove all the "easy" questions and change the passing scale.

Does anyone have any info on this? I would love to learn more!

http://www.nbome.org/standardsetting_passfail.asp?m=boa

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I had never heard of this before... this sounds like bad news for me.
 
Yeah, that happens. Last year they completely messed up the Level 2. People who would have gotten 600s the year before got like 450s. They had to completely revise the scoring and did rescoring for a huge chunk of test takers. Yeah, I guess we'll see what happens.

Just make she you're well above passing before you take it.
 
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They did some psychometric eval stuff this past year I recall. Multiple threads on SDN talk about people who took it, scored MUCH on level 2 than level 1, however once it was re-calibrated and re-scored, most people ended up doing much better.
 
that sounds sketch
 
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Yeah, that happens. Last year they completely messed up the Level 2. People who would have gotten 600s the year before got like 450s. They had to completely revise the scoring and did rescoring for a huge chunk of test takers. Yeah, I guess we'll see what happens.

Just make she you're well above passing before you take it.
Nobody who would have gotten 600s got 450s. The numbers all moved closer to 500. It wouldn't have mattered if they had done it for everyone but there were three distinct groups with wildly different scores. Since this one is happening earlier in the season it should be just fine. Your number doesn't matter until you compare it to everyone else's and if you're all on the same scale it will be fine. A real PITA if you fail under the new cutoff but fine overall as the PDs will know what to look for. Shoot, maybe if you fail with what "would have been" a 420 you get to retake and try for that 500+.
 
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Nobody who would have gotten 600s got 450s. The numbers all moved closer to 500. It wouldn't have mattered if they had done it for everyone but there were three distinct groups with wildly different scores. Since this one is happening earlier in the season it should be just fine. Your number doesn't matter until you compare it to everyone else's and if you're all on the same scale it will be fine. A real PITA if you fail under the new cutoff but fine overall as the PDs will know what to look for. Shoot, maybe if you fail with what "would have been" a 420 you get to retake and try for that 500+.
I suspect that someone who fails COMLEX is not going to score 500+ on the next attempt.
 
Nobody who would have gotten 600s got 450s. The numbers all moved closer to 500. It wouldn't have mattered if they had done it for everyone but there were three distinct groups with wildly different scores. Since this one is happening earlier in the season it should be just fine. Your number doesn't matter until you compare it to everyone else's and if you're all on the same scale it will be fine. A real PITA if you fail under the new cutoff but fine overall as the PDs will know what to look for. Shoot, maybe if you fail with what "would have been" a 420 you get to retake and try for that 500+.

There were people who reported their scores increasing by like 108 points, so someone in the high 400s could've gotten a 600+ score. I exaggerated slightly but it wasn't terribly far off. I think the average increase was closer to 50 points.

The thing is there are some people taking it early-mid May and others taking it in late May. So in other words, in the match there will be people with different scales being compared to each other, but who knows how many people will be involved.

Ultimately, I agree it probably won't be a big deal. It happens every 4-5 yrs, so it's in a way, normal.
 
There were people who reported their scores increasing by like 108 points, so someone in the high 400s could've gotten a 600+ score. I exaggerated slightly but it wasn't terribly far off. I think the average increase was closer to 50 points.

The thing is there are some people taking it early-mid May and others taking it in late May. So in other words, in the match there will be people with different scales being compared to each other, but who knows how many people will be involved.

Ultimately, I agree it probably won't be a big deal. It happens every 4-5 yrs, so it's in a way, normal.


I checked your math, and 400 + 108 does not equal 600.
 
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i do not understand how the osteopathic world perpetually ****s up basic, basic, basic ****.

too few residencies for too many students? let's increase the number of schools and increase admissions.
trend in evidence based medicine? let's push chapman's points and cranial on our board examinations.
excess in primary care residencies year after year after year after year? let's ignore specialties and continue opening FM residencies in obscure locations.

another one of my favorite osteopathic principles is the trend of continuously raising tuition while simultaneously promoting primary care. nothing makes me want to lower my income potential more than an increasing, crippling mountain of debt.

osteopathic leadership continues to promote incompetence. i look forward to the day that i have nothing to do with these individuals.
 
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i do not understand how the osteopathic world perpetually ****s up basic, basic, basic ****.

too few residencies for too many students? let's increase the number of schools and increase admissions.
trend in evidence based medicine? let's push chapman's points and cranial on our board examinations.
excess in primary care residencies year after year after year after year? let's ignore specialties and continue opening FM residencies in obscure locations.

another one of my favorite osteopathic principles is the trend of continuously raising tuition while simultaneously promoting primary care. nothing makes me want to lower my income potential more than an increasing, crippling mountain of debt.

osteopathic leadership continues to promote incompetence. i look forward to the day that i have nothing to do with these individuals.


Of all the griping and complaining about our leadership... This post sums up EXACTLY why I hate them.

Charge me over 50k per year but lets make sure you are focused on primary care b
 
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Read this thread if you are curious how it played out last year: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...x-2-ce-experiences-and-scores-thread.1077080/

COMLEX does this every 3-5 years for each of their exams. The pass rate does adjust year to year sometimes with large shifts after implementing the new standard (seen on pages 27-29 of http://aodme.org/wp-content/uploads/NBOME_COMLEX-USA_Update_2014.pdf ). Here is information about the upcomming standard changes: http://www.nbome.org/standardsetting_passfail.asp

Summary for 2014 COMLEX 2 standard setting: The change happened in June - there were a significant number of students who took COMLEX 2 before the change and got the normal spread of 400-700 scores. After the change, the highest reported score on SDN (notorious for a few 800's) was ~ 620. Maybe 20% took it before the change, and 80% were taking it after. NBOME also said it is not their job to inform PDs about the new change (so applicants pre-change would be seen as more competitive). There was a huge uproar, student governments, school deans and administrators, and students alike all raised a huge enough stink to get them to pull all scores and undo the change. Here is more information on that: http://cosgp.org/this-just-in-nbome-update-sept-2nd-2014/ Essentially NBOME said their primary concern is passing or failing students to "protect the public." They then said "oops, we should probably care about the secondary use of these scores like residency applications!"

Is this for real? What the heck? I can't believe how unfair that is. I'm glad the school administrators got involved. It would have been unthinkable had students been left on their own.
 
another one of my favorite osteopathic principles is the trend of continuously raising tuition while simultaneously promoting primary care. nothing makes me want to lower my income potential more than an increasing, crippling mountain of debt.
I've heard OMM faculty say that OMM is the reason that validates higher tuition at osteopathic medical schools. "We learn more and therefore have a higher earning potential due to our extra skill set". doesn't explain the yearly tuition hike....actually doesn't really explain anything. I just wanted to repeat it because of how absurd it was.
 
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I checked your math, and 400 + 108 does not equal 600.

Did you miss the "high" part of when I said "high 400s"? My original statement was 450s, and since I said it was a slight exaggeration in the jump I'm not sure why you would think I'd make the score even lower.

I've heard OMM faculty say that OMM is the reason that validates higher tuition at osteopathic medical schools. "We learn more and therefore have a higher earning potential due to our extra skill set". doesn't explain the yearly tuition hike....actually doesn't really explain anything. I just wanted to repeat it because of how absurd it was.

That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time. I only gain solice by knowing that the ridiculous things my current OMM professor says coincides with a "reasonable" cost of tuition. If I was paying more than the average MD school, I don't know what I'd do...
 
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Did you miss the "high" part of when I said "high 400s"? My original statement was 450s, and since I said it was a slight exaggeration in the jump I'm not sure why you would think I'd make the score even lower.



That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time. I only gain solice by knowing that the ridiculous things my current OMM professor says coincides with a "reasonable" cost of tuition. If I was paying more than the average MD school, I don't know what I'd do...

You could use your OMM for party favors to make the extra money
 
I was informed about this COMLEX "recalibration" when I interviewed at DMU. I really don't understand it enough to comment, however. Best of luck to those taking it under the new standard.
 
This is news to me, and I write items for them!

1st time pass rates have been consistently at 90-92% for the past several years.

I heard that COMLEX goes through a re-set every 3-5 years, those of us lucky enough to take it this upcoming May/June fall right into the new comlex standard for passing. From what I heard, the average pass rate drops for 95% to 82-85%. I guess they remove all the "easy" questions and change the passing scale.

Does anyone have any info on this? I would love to learn more!

http://www.nbome.org/standardsetting_passfail.asp?m=boa
 
The current schedule for periodic review of the pass/fail standard is as follows:

  • COMLEX-USA Level 1: The standard will be revisited in 2014-2015, and a new standard will likely be implemented with the new testing cycle beginning May 2015.
  • COMLEX-USA Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation: The standard will be revisited in 2013-2014 and a new standard will likely be implemented with the new testing cycle in June 2014.
  • COMLEX-USA Level 2-Performance Evaluation: The standard for the Biomedical/Domain was revisited in 2012-2013 and a new standard will be implemented with the new testing cycle July 2013. The standard for the Humanistic Domain was revisited in 2011-2012 and a new standard was implemented with the new testing cycle in July 2012.
  • COMLEX-USA Level 3: The standard will be revisited in 2014-2015 and a new standard will likely be implemented with the new testing cycle in March 2015

So I'm guessing they will revise the Level 2 PE soon since all the others have been recently changed except PE which has been 2-3 years soon?
 
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i do not understand how the osteopathic world perpetually ****s up basic, basic, basic ****.

too few residencies for too many students? let's increase the number of schools and increase admissions.
trend in evidence based medicine? let's push chapman's points and cranial on our board examinations.
excess in primary care residencies year after year after year after year? let's ignore specialties and continue opening FM residencies in obscure locations.

another one of my favorite osteopathic principles is the trend of continuously raising tuition while simultaneously promoting primary care. nothing makes me want to lower my income potential more than an increasing, crippling mountain of debt.

osteopathic leadership continues to promote incompetence. i look forward to the day that i have nothing to do with these individuals.

That's why it's destined to extinct.
 
I suspect that someone who fails COMLEX is not going to score 500+ on the next attempt.

Not true know two that failed but on their reattempts they got 575 and 680 respectively
 
wow... That's incredible. I wonder what happened.

There is a student in their medical school class who is already a PharmD that offered to tutor them for free. They said he likes to help people who are struggling and evaluated each of their flaws in question approach, thinking, and test taking. He coached them and they killed it. From what they told me, the guy is brilliant and anti-gunner.
 
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