2009 Comlex Experiences

[sweetlenovo88]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Have not seen any posts with peoples' experiences this year. What questions did you use and was it helpful? Was it neuro heavy as before?

Waiting to hear some experiences,

Thanks

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

How bad is it if you're getting upper 50s-low 60s on random QBank Qs (timed)?

 

[fergustsi]

How bad is it if you're getting upper 50s-low 60s on random QBank Qs (timed)?

is this kaplan usmle qbank or the comlex qbank?

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

comlex .... im gettin a sick feeling in my stomach, sorta ...

overall 63%, 77% complete.

11 days to go.

 

[whifftester]

i got an email from nbome today saying that they received a report from the prometric center i took the comlex at saying that the biometric fingerprint scanner was down during our exam. They wanted to know if it caused any delays they should know about and to respond to them by friday. it goes on to say other things but what i got from the email is that this is the first time they are looking at my exam. im assuming they are planning on releasing friday again possibly including my date (june 15th), or mine may get pushed till the week after.

I got this same email except I was supposed to respond by Tuesday June 7th. I am hoping I will get my scores today or tomorrow? I can't wait any longer!!!

 

[fergustsi]

I got this same email except I was supposed to respond by Tuesday June 7th. I am hoping I will get my scores today or tomorrow? I can't wait any longer!!!

when did you take your comlex? i took it the 15th. hopefully you took it around 12th since they asked for your response by the 7th?

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

comlex .... im gettin a sick feeling in my stomach, sorta ...

overall 63%, 77% complete.

11 days to go.

Opinions? Or is that bad?

 

[fergustsi]

Opinions? Or is that bad?

Wish I could help ya but I did the usmle kaplan qbank.

 

[whifftester]

when did you take your comlex? i took it the 15th. hopefully you took it around 12th since they asked for your response by the 7th?

I took it on June 8th...I didn't get my score back today..maybe tomorrow! It seems like a lot of people have gotten it back on a Friday so I am hopeful!!

 

[fergustsi]

I took it on June 8th...I didn't get my score back today..maybe tomorrow! It seems like a lot of people have gotten it back on a Friday so I am hopeful!!

Looks like no score for you today

HAHAHAHAHAHA

or for me either

D'OH!!!

 

[whifftester]

Looks like no score for you today

HAHAHAHAHAHA

or for me either

D'OH!!!

😡 I honestly cannot wait any longer for scores. What could possibly be taking comlex so long!?!?! People who took it June 5th got theirs last week, but I took it June 8th and am still waiting! At least I can hopefully count on getting USMLE on wednesday July 15!!! I need feedback asap

 

[fergustsi]

😡 I honestly cannot wait any longer for scores. What could possibly be taking comlex so long!?!?! People who took it June 5th got theirs last week, but I took it June 8th and am still waiting! At least I can hopefully count on getting USMLE on wednesday July 15!!! I need feedback asap

Nbome is giving me an error message when I try to log in tonight. Is this happening to anyone else too?

 

[jp104]

Nbome is giving me an error message when I try to log in tonight. Is this happening to anyone else too?

I get the same error 🙂 Based on last year's thread I gather scores are released every other Friday so I bet it's just a technological hiccup.

 

[snowkhat]

bump

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

I get the same error 🙂 Based on last year's thread I gather scores are released every other Friday so I bet it's just a technological hiccup.

I'm getting it too.

I can't take the comsae b/c of it!!! 😡

 

[deleted272130]

I get the same error 🙂 Based on last year's thread I gather scores are released every other Friday so I bet it's just a technological hiccup.

My step 1 score was released on Tuesday a few weeks ago, just an FYI. 5 weeks to the day.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

So how screwed am I?

1 week out: COMSAE B form: 440.

I thought I had a lot down, and the past few days I've been experiencing memory lapses with info, and some of it showed while taking the exam. Any suggestions? I've been working on Micro and OPP each night. OPP was poor (still, ugh) ... Micro was "Good" ... Pharm and Path acceptable. Physio borderline. The other 2 poors were embryo and health promotion and dz prevention (wtf?!) ... A lot of borderlines and acceptables. The other 2 Good's were in GU/Repro and Circulation/Thermo.

Kaplan Qbank the past 2 weeks I'd been scoring in the 60s and 70s. Overall score is 63% (100% complete).

any advice?

 

[fergustsi]

youre not totally effed. and if you read their internal studies, students score an average of 27 points higher on the real thing if your comsae was timed and i think about 10 points higher if you took the comsae untimed.
It doesnt look like youre going to crush it but you seem to be safely into passing realm. i think your realistic goal has to be to inch closer to the avg. hopefully youre not dead set on a competitive residency, you should pass just fine though.

1 week is plenty of time to pound some drugs into your brain and you could improve from acceptable. OPP, boy there is just so much to cover, i think this might be a loss for you. you can try to get ahold of the simmons manual and try to memorize the cram pages as best you can and hope for the best. There were only a couple of embryo questions and they were easy from what i remember so i might skip that except for a quick review the day before or so. Too bad phys isnt stronger, it might be too big of a topic to try to learn at this stage in the game.
id focus on drugs and cram pages. i dont know what a good comlex qbank avg is so hopefully someone else will chime in on this.

So how screwed am I?

1 week out: COMSAE B form: 440.

I thought I had a lot down, and the past few days I've been experiencing memory lapses with info, and some of it showed while taking the exam. Any suggestions? I've been working on Micro and OPP each night. OPP was poor (still, ugh) ... Micro was "Good" ... Pharm and Path acceptable. Physio borderline. The other 2 poors were embryo and health promotion and dz prevention (wtf?!) ... A lot of borderlines and acceptables. The other 2 Good's were in GU/Repro and Circulation/Thermo.

Kaplan Qbank the past 2 weeks I'd been scoring in the 60s and 70s. Overall score is 63% (100% complete).

any advice?

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

I took it timed, wanted it to be as closer to "testing environment" as possible.

I've read on other threads how it underpredicted their scores by 100; however, I'm sure those are probably the juggernauts who scored 550s on their COMSAEs and ended up with 650s ...

I'd been doing micro and opp each night for the past week and intended on continuing. I had not really covered the cranial stuff yet, and I got a lot of cranial Qs, so I didn't know the answers. Does the COMLEX ask a lot of cranial? I have heard from friends they do ask a good amount. So, I know I need to work on cranial (which actually is supposed to be for tonite's opp session). I'm gonna keep working on micro - I do feel weak in parasites/helminths and decent on viruses (I'm better with analysis (i.e. HBV antigen/AB analysis, etc.) than I am with individual viruses; however, for the big ones I feel good on ... I need to go back and freshen up on bacteria although the ones asked on COMSAE were rather easy to me). I do feel I forgot some drugs that I knew 3-4 days ago, frustrating how I felt so good last week and this weekend and then yesterday and today I felt like I was forgetting stuff and it kinda showed. It took me a long time to remember that allografts are from individuals of the same species but "unrelated" etc ... and that CML led to blast crisis, I knew it, but I kept blanking on the test and while I got it right I believe ... that's not good. CNS drugs, blanked on a few. Drugs of abuse, while I got 'em right, I felt like I was intuitively "guessing" ... I dont know how behavioral was only borderline, but I guess it is what it is. Anatomy borderline as well. I have heard there's not a whole lot of pure physio on the COMLEX, is this true? I guess I just need to work through all of FA in the 1 week I have and hope that this 3rd run through will help re-jog any foggy memories in time for the exam. Any other suggestions?? I'm trying to not freak lol ...

In terms of interest in "competitive" specialties ... I was interested in Anesthesia and IM. I guess I will just be looking for IM then. 😳

 

[jp104]

I took it timed, wanted it to be as closer to "testing environment" as possible.

I've read on other threads how it underpredicted their scores by 100; however, I'm sure those are probably the juggernauts who scored 550s on their COMSAEs and ended up with 650s ...

I'd been doing micro and opp each night for the past week and intended on continuing. I had not really covered the cranial stuff yet, and I got a lot of cranial Qs, so I didn't know the answers. Does the COMLEX ask a lot of cranial? I have heard from friends they do ask a good amount. So, I know I need to work on cranial (which actually is supposed to be for tonite's opp session). I'm gonna keep working on micro - I do feel weak in parasites/helminths and decent on viruses (I'm better with analysis (i.e. HBV antigen/AB analysis, etc.) than I am with individual viruses; however, for the big ones I feel good on ... I need to go back and freshen up on bacteria although the ones asked on COMSAE were rather easy to me). I do feel I forgot some drugs that I knew 3-4 days ago, frustrating how I felt so good last week and this weekend and then yesterday and today I felt like I was forgetting stuff and it kinda showed. It took me a long time to remember that allografts are from individuals of the same species but "unrelated" etc ... and that CML led to blast crisis, I knew it, but I kept blanking on the test and while I got it right I believe ... that's not good. CNS drugs, blanked on a few. Drugs of abuse, while I got 'em right, I felt like I was intuitively "guessing" ... I dont know how behavioral was only borderline, but I guess it is what it is. Anatomy borderline as well. I have heard there's not a whole lot of pure physio on the COMLEX, is this true? I guess I just need to work through all of FA in the 1 week I have and hope that this 3rd run through will help re-jog any foggy memories in time for the exam. Any other suggestions?? I'm trying to not freak lol ...

In terms of interest in "competitive" specialties ... I was interested in Anesthesia and IM. I guess I will just be looking for IM then. 😳

There's a quirk with the COMSAE forms and behavioral. I think everyone fails that portion for whatever reason. Your score isn't too bad, and you can definitely raise it in a week. I'd focus on drugs, bugs and OMM as those are the 3 highest yield items on the test. I didn't have much pure physio or anatomy on my exam. The OMM portion is difficult to predict. I didn't have many cranial or sacral questions, but I have heard that others in my class did. Good luck!

 

[snowkhat]

FYI: I took the COMLEX June 15th and I received an email from NBOME that they plan on releasing scores next week. No date or time given.

 

[jp104]

FYI: I took the COMLEX June 15th and I received an email from NBOME that they plan on releasing scores next week. No date or time given.

Did they say which date range they'd release? Like, up to the 22nd hopfully....

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Thanks for the advice.

With Savarese, what chapters would you say to emphasize? I dunno if I have time to go through everything, so was wondering on what to focus on? Thanks again!

 

[fergustsi]

There's a quirk with the COMSAE forms and behavioral. I think everyone fails that portion for whatever reason. Your score isn't too bad, and you can definitely raise it in a week. I'd focus on drugs, bugs and OMM as those are the 3 highest yield items on the test. I didn't have much pure physio or anatomy on my exam. The OMM portion is difficult to predict. I didn't have many cranial or sacral questions, but I have heard that others in my class did. Good luck!

bugs and drugs are very important as you state but his bugs seem to be good and i think he/she'd be better of working/fine tuning something with a worse score which will be easier to increase in performance.

 

[snowkhat]

No date range. But I'm guessing if they don't release anything this week it will be from June 5th-15th+. Maybe up to the 19th?

 

[MJB]

No date range. But I'm guessing if they don't release anything this week it will be from June 5th-15th+. Maybe up to the 19th?

I got one of those emails about "if you have any concerns" that I had to reply to by yesterday...otherwise, my scores would be released in the usual 4-6 weeks. I got the email on Friday morning...I took the test on 6/20...so it made me wonder if I'd be getting scores this week. I looked at the calendar, and it appears I may still have a while based solely on test date and being 4-6 weeks out.

 

[spicedmanna]

I'd focus on drugs, bugs and OMM as those are the 3 highest yield items on the test. I didn't have much pure physio or anatomy on my exam. The OMM portion is difficult to predict. I didn't have many cranial or sacral questions, but I have heard that others in my class did. Good luck!

I dunno. I think there must be several forms, or something, because my form had hardly any bugs and drugs, and what they did have was almost ridiculously easy. I honestly don't know what people are talking about with regard to there being a lot of bugs and drugs. Maybe I got the exception to the rule, but I had a lot of VERY HARD neuro, MSK, and OMT. The rest was repro, endo, CV, and GI pathology, coupled with smattering of this or that. I thought my test was hard. I must have marked like 15-20 questions per section. I am just praying that I passed. It was a hard-ass form.

Am I the only one who had this experience?

 

[MJB]

I dunno. I think there must be several forms, or something, because my form had hardly any bugs and drugs, and what they did have was almost ridiculously easy. I honestly don't know what people are talking about with regard to there being a lot of bugs and drugs. Maybe I got the exception to the rule, but I had a lot of VERY HARD neuro, MSK, and OMT. The rest was repro, endo, CV, and GI pathology, coupled with smattering of this or that. I thought my test was hard. I must have marked like 15-20 questions per section. I am just praying that I passed. It was a hard-ass form.

Am I the only one who had this experience?

No. I've heard of others as well. I also had quite a bit of neuro and the things you mentioned. I also had tons of bugs and drugs. Mostly psych drugs, which sucked.

 

[spicedmanna]

No. I've heard of others as well. I also had quite a bit of neuro and the things you mentioned. I also had tons of bugs and drugs. Mostly psych drugs, which sucked.

Yuck, I really hate psych drugs. There were so hard to learn. I couldn't keep them straight, even after struggling with them for a long time.

Well, looks like there is a bit of variability in exams. I don't know if you got your score back yet, but I hope you did well.

 

[MJB]

Yuck, I really hate psych drugs. There were so hard to learn. I couldn't keep them straight, even after struggling with them for a long time.

Well, looks like there is a bit of variability in exams. I don't know if you got your score back yet, but I hope you did well.

Nope, still waiting...and I'm with you. At this point, I'd be happy to have passed. COMSAE pretty well freaked me out...and I was still in a USMLE funk when I took the COMLEX. 🙂

Or, at least it felt that way.

 

[imari]

I dunno. I think there must be several forms, or something, because my form had hardly any bugs and drugs, and what they did have was almost ridiculously easy. I honestly don't know what people are talking about with regard to there being a lot of bugs and drugs. Maybe I got the exception to the rule, but I had a lot of VERY HARD neuro, MSK, and OMT. The rest was repro, endo, CV, and GI pathology, coupled with smattering of this or that. I thought my test was hard. I must have marked like 15-20 questions per section. I am just praying that I passed. It was a hard-ass form.

Am I the only one who had this experience?

I took the test yesterday and I didn't have that many micro questions on my test, unfortunately. I really reviewed micro a lot, so I was disappointed. I more behavioral science, genetics and anatomy questions than I was expecting. I'm wondering if the style of the test is changing...who knows.

I'm just disappointed that there aren't more COMLEX specific resources available to use...especially for those of us that aren't taking the USMLE. I know that there is a First Aid for COMLEX out now, but I didn't find out about it in time to use it. There was so much crap that I studied in FA that wasn't even in the test, but at the same time there were topics on there that I wasn't expecting.

Edited to add: I didn't think the test was tricky or poorly written at all. There were only a few questions where I wasn't sure what they were asking. I felt it was very straight forward. There were an awful lot of questions about people with UTIs, car accidents, back pain, etc. There was definitely more of a clinical slant to it.

 

[jp104]

I dunno. I think there must be several forms, or something, because my form had hardly any bugs and drugs, and what they did have was almost ridiculously easy. I honestly don't know what people are talking about with regard to there being a lot of bugs and drugs. Maybe I got the exception to the rule, but I had a lot of VERY HARD neuro, MSK, and OMT. The rest was repro, endo, CV, and GI pathology, coupled with smattering of this or that. I thought my test was hard. I must have marked like 15-20 questions per section. I am just praying that I passed. It was a hard-ass form.

Am I the only one who had this experience?

Wow, you had such a drastically different exam than I did! I'd seriously estimate that my exam was 30% micro. Literally every 3rd question was something about gram stain this or bloody/non-bloody diarrhea that! Lots of psych drugs on my exam as well.

 

[spicedmanna]

I took the test yesterday and I didn't have that many micro questions on my test, unfortunately. I really reviewed micro a lot, so I was disappointed. I more behavioral science, genetics and anatomy questions than I was expecting. I'm wondering if the style of the test is changing...who knows.

Yeah, I thought that, too. I had a completely different expectation based on everything I've been hearing about bugs and drugs. My exam was a bit of a shock and no resource I used was anything like it. The test didn't resemble Kaplan's qbank, USMLEWorld, or even COMBANK, for that matter. The style and content of the questions were quite a shock to me and there was WAY more neuro, MSK, and OMT than I had anticipated. I got caught not being well-prepared, even though I studied in excess of 3 months.

I'm just disappointed that there aren't more COMLEX specific resources available to use...especially for those of us that aren't taking the USMLE. I know that there is a First Aid for COMLEX out now, but I didn't find out about it in time to use it. There was so much crap that I studied in FA that wasn't even in the test, but at the same time there were topics on there that I wasn't expecting.

I am disappointed, too. FA didn't help me that much for the exam that I took. Neither did any of the question banks. It seemed out of left-field. I did thousands of practice questions and very few of them resembled the COMLEX questions in terms of content or style. I wish we had a one-stop resource, like FA, but for the COMLEX. It would be awesome if there was a book that covered exactly the content that would show up.

Edited to add: I didn't think the test was tricky or poorly written at all. There were only a few questions where I wasn't sure what they were asking. I felt it was very straight forward. There were an awful lot of questions about people with UTIs, car accidents, back pain, etc. There was definitely more of a clinical slant to it.

Very definitely a clinical slant. There were even questions that were "step 2" style, asking for the next step in management, etc. I don't think it was poorly written, but I just wasn't prepared properly for it. The questions were mostly of the "either you know it, or you don't" category. My experience with USMLE-style questions is that they are more of the "you can figure it out" type. I think USMLE-style questions tend to tap into reasoning ability and judgment a bit more, but that's just my opinion. I'm not as good with remembering stuff, so perhaps that's another reason I didn't align with COMLEX-style questions.

 

[fergustsi]

Yeah, I thought that, too. I had a completely different expectation based on everything I've been hearing about bugs and drugs. My exam was a bit of a shock and no resource I used was anything like it. The test didn't resemble Kaplan's qbank, USMLEWorld, or even COMBANK, for that matter. The style and content of the questions were quite a shock to me and there was WAY more neuro, MSK, and OMT than I had anticipated. I got caught not being well-prepared, even though I studied in excess of 3 months.



I am disappointed, too. FA didn't help me that much for the exam that I took. Neither did any of the question banks. It seemed out of left-field. I did thousands of practice questions and very few of them resembled the COMLEX questions in terms of content or style. I wish we had a one-stop resource, like FA, but for the COMLEX. It would be awesome if there was a book that covered exactly the content that would show up.



Very definitely a clinical slant. I don't think it was poorly written, but I just wasn't prepared properly for it. The questions were mostly of the "either you know it, or you don't" category. My experience with USMLE-style questions is that they are more of the "you can figure it out" type. I think USMLE-style questions tend to tap into reasoning ability and judgment a bit more, but that's just my opinion. I'm not as good with remembering stuff, so perhaps that's another reason I didn't align with COMLEX-style questions.

What is MSK?
I thought the comlex only resembled the comsae, all other qbanks seemed to be geared towards the usmle. i have to say the comlex was awfully similar to a lot of my school exams.

 

[spicedmanna]

What is MSK?
I thought the comlex only resembled the comsae, all other qbanks seemed to be geared towards the usmle. i have to say the comlex was awfully similar to a lot of my school exams.

MSK = musculoskeletal.

I guess my school didn't really prepare me for the COMLEX, as it didn't really resemble anything of the exams I had in class. Hmm... Something to ponder.

COMBANK was somewhat similar, but still, for a COMLEX-style question bank, it should be more similar that it seemed.

 

[imari]

I am disappointed, too. FA didn't help me that much for the exam that I took. Neither did any of the question banks. It seemed out of left-field. I did thousands of practice questions and very few of them resembled the COMLEX questions in terms of content or style. I wish we had a one-stop resource, like FA, but for the COMLEX. It would be awesome if there was a book that covered exactly the content that would show up.

I agree. I just feel like if you are only taking the COMLEX, FA + Savarese is NOT enough. I used HY gross anatomy and neuroanatomy, and I should've spent more time on them. FA was a good resource, but I feel like my studying could have been more focused. A lot of the things that I really focused on in the last couple days of studying just were not on my exam at all (but I know every form is different). However, I felt like the question style I had was similar to Combank and the COMSAE.

Very glad it's over...now the fun waiting game begins 🙂

 

[imari]

MSK = musculoskeletal.

I guess my school didn't really prepare me for the COMLEX, as it didn't really resemble anything of the exams I had in class. Hmm... Something to ponder.

COMBANK was somewhat similar, but still, for a COMLEX-style question bank, it should be more similar that it seemed.

My school's test questions were similar to the COMLEX as well, in particular the ones where you were presented a clinical case and had to decide what to do next. I don't recall seeing questions like this on the COMBANK, but they didn't freak me out because I've seen them so much at school. Hopefully COMBANK will continue to improve. I know that this is the first year the have offered a Level 1 question bank. I also wonder how much curriculum/testing at each school affects people's testing experience...

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

I took notes on stuff from the COMSAE. As I'm going back to "research" ... I'm finding that it seems to be a lot of "can you eliminate the other choices to get to the right answer" type. Is this true of the COMLEX? If so, this might not be pretty ......

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Also, any validity to this post?

Originally Posted by cyclohexanol
All you need to know for the COMLEX (at least from Savarese) is on page 104, 105, 113, and possibly 159-161. Know those cold, and you will get >75% of the OMM questions correct.

 

[MJB]

Also, any validity to this post?

Originally Posted by cyclohexanol
All you need to know for the COMLEX (at least from Savarese) is on page 104, 105, 113, and possibly 159-161. Know those cold, and you will get >75% of the OMM questions correct.

I'll just say I felt VERY prepared for the OPP stuff on my test, and I didn't even so much as look at anything OPP related in the 2 months leading up to my COMLEX. We have been very well prepared for that stuff...

 

[fergustsi]

Also, any validity to this post?

Originally Posted by cyclohexanol
All you need to know for the COMLEX (at least from Savarese) is on page 104, 105, 113, and possibly 159-161. Know those cold, and you will get >75% of the OMM questions correct.

I only did the simmons cram pages the day before and I felt prepared for all but 2 omm qs. They were both cranial.

 

[wondergirl]

hey i just joined and i have a few things i wanted to be sure about...

are there any biostat calculation questions?
there are no heart sounds/ murmurs right?
did anyone have EM of organelles and such on their exam?
did anyone have specific biochem enzymes or pathway questions?

any hints as to how i should study all the psych drugs and their side effects? i can never keep them straight 😕

 

[jp104]

hey i just joined and i have a few things i wanted to be sure about...

are there any biostat calculation questions?
there are no heart sounds/ murmurs right?
did anyone have EM of organelles and such on their exam?
did anyone have specific biochem enzymes or pathway questions?

any hints as to how i should study all the psyche drugs and their side effects? i can never keep them straight 😕

1) I had one calculation to do, basic sensitivity/specificity/pos pred value/etc formula. They don't have a calculator on the screen
2) No heart sounds, but several EKGs. You can usually answer the q based on the question stem
3) No EMs on my exam. Hardly any histology
4) I had several biochem questions, of which maybe ~10 were pathway or enzyme related. From what I've seen, my test was a bit heavier on biochem than most.

Psych drugs was pure brute memorization for me. I wish there was a good way to remember them.

On another note, NBOME released scores today up to June 13th 🙂

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

I'll just say I felt VERY prepared for the OPP stuff on my test, and I didn't even so much as look at anything OPP related in the 2 months leading up to my COMLEX. We have been very well prepared for that stuff...

You're right ... again, it's just something I feel personally weak in. Maybe I should have worked harder in OPP during class time. However, I read through most of it lastnight and have the spinal levels down, worked through cranial, and now I'm on sacral mechanics and how it relates to back/psoas related issues ... it does look familiar, it's just about re-iteration ... I'm glad OPP worked out well for you as I've heard it did for a good amount of others.

 

[fergustsi]

just got my usmle step 1 score back
231/96
anyone know what to "expect" from the comlex folks in a three digit score?

 

[Redrox]

COMLEX 6/10: 657
USMLE 5/25: 255

Kaplan Qbank: 72
USMLE World: 75
Combank sucks.
NBME 4: 242?
NBME 5: 252?
Biochem shelf: 740
NBME shelf 4/4: 83 or whatever translates to low 240's

School Year:
With each new organ system I would do the following sequence:
Goljan Audio
First Aid Chapter
First Aid Flash Cards
Goljan
Robbins Review of Pathology
USLMERx

Did the Kaplan Qbank in full during the month of April


After School got out:
2 half-assed days of Savarese
USMLEWORLD timed blocks of fifty
First AID
COMLEX 15 days after school was done.

More World and First aid until USMLE.


Advice:
Don't look at Wikipedia, look at books.
Use books, but not too many.
Learn everything well enough to explain to Grandma.
Drink beer and talk to girls.

 

[PistolPete]

Dang, Redrox, those are some solid numbers. So would you say that USMLERx is worth the money (in addition to USMLEworld)?

If you could have done all this jazz again, would you have studied during the year or after classes got out any differently? Looking at your scores, I'm going to guess "probably not."

Did you find anything that worked particularly well for you?

 

[drpriss]

Took COMLEX on Monday.
Here's what I thought and how I prepared.
My exam consisted of lots of anatomy, physiology, immunology, microbiology, and tons of pharm. I would have to say 30% if not more of my exam was pharm. Some of the pharm was drugs I had never heard of and not the most common used to treat a disease. Oh well. I prepared very hard for the exam and did very well during the school year.

I read Goljan and listened to Goljan audio throughout the entire year.
FA several times.
Kaplan review course and all Kaplan lecture books at least twice if not more on a couple of topics.
All of Kaplan Q Bank - Average 70% (always timed new questions)
Kaplan full length practice COMLEX - 69%
COMBANK - Average 75% (always timed new questions)
USMLE World - 68% (only did like 250 questions)
USMLERx Flash facts
Read some other books as well.

Hopefully, I did ok, I'm praying there is a big curve. I heard that 50 questions are totally dropped/not even included. Does anyone know if that is true? And do they curve on how everyone else did on that day or month, etc? It bad as it sounds I have no idea on how the grading is done.

My exam was nothing like what all my friends had in June. It is funny (or possibly it is just my luck) how the exam always seems to know your weakness and tests you on it! I mean you could have thrown all the path and micro and even OPP you wanted at me and I would have done great but instead they threw my weaknesses at me and it ate me alive! Physiology was ridiculous on my exam!!!!! I even had straight forward anatomy questions like what vertebral level does this artery cross at (L1, L2, L3, L4, L5)??? I was like wtf, you are kidding me!!!

 

[Trevelyan]

I took my COMLEX on June 8th, and I received my score back today.

My score ended up being a 632/91. I studied for three weeks or so. My studying consisted of listening to the majority of the Goljan audio files (I think I didn't do GI, cardio, repro, and endocrine) and doing 374 questions of the Kaplan Q bank. I did not use First Aid at all, and from what it seemed like to me comparing myself to my classmates, I am probably the only person who didn't use First Aid. I just didn't care for it.

 

[BodyMechanic]

I had 8 weeks to prepare. I spent ~6hrs. per day the first 6 weeks, and then ~8-10hrs. per week the last two weeks.
(I wish I only spent 6 weeks total, b/c you start forgetting stuff, slacking off, and for me at least, I work better under pressure).

Books:
RR Path, BRS Phys, Road map to USMLE Pharm, Microcards, HY Behavioral, Lange Pharmacology flash cards, and First Aid 2009.

Other Stuff:
Goljan bootleg audio and USMLE World.

I studied subjects first. I started with Phys, Path and Pharm, which are the three most important subjects for boards. For path, I would listen to Goljan and then read the relevant chapter in RR Path.

Then, I did the rest of the subjects and did systems based review.

I used UWorld lightly during the first 4 weeks, then when I was on systems I used it more often.
2 weeks before my exam I had 50% left, and that is when I started to bust out UWorld questions in the last two weeks.

I would review the answers from the Qs, both correct and incorrect.
I felt that I learned a lot from reading the explanations to UWorld questions.

Practice Exams:
NBME 1- 212 (6 weeks before USMLE)
NBME 6- 214 (3 weeks before): This one hurt the team moral with only a 2 point improvement, but my subject knowledge was much better.

UWorld avg. (70% complete)- 63%
Free 150- (2 weeks before USMLE) 75% (MedFriends est. 229)

2 days before exam I was cramming high yield material and micro/pharm (my two weaker areas).
Day before exam I did some light studying in the morning, but I wouldn't recommend more than that. Stopped in the early afternoon, worked out and watched a movie.

Test Day: I'm not a morning person, so I took the 12pm exam on June 9th.
I got to the test center at 11:30AM, and was able to check in quick. Started my exam at 11:40AM.
1st block is always tough for me, b/c I have to focus and get into the groove. Plus I found out that timing was an issue for me. On UWorld I would usually finish early, but on the real deal I was rushed on most blocks.

I had Fred2 software, which is just like the UWorld interface, and I only had one pair of sequential Qs.

From what I remember:

Biochem: I had maybe 6-7Qs on the exam. Surprised me.
Pharm: My exam was pretty heavy on Pharm, and they love Psych drugs.
Micro: 2-3 per block. Only 3 that were parasites.
Immuno: Like biochem, it was lightly tested.
Neuro: I had a bit of neuro on my exam. Couple of CTs and 1MRI.
Path: Most of the test was path/pathophys, which I was expecting.
Anatomy: 10 or so on my exam. A couple of cross section style Qs.
Behavioral: A few Qs on my exam, and ~5 biostats Qs.
Genetics: Light on this subject. I had 1 pedigree.
Phys: most of my phys was graphs and charts stuff, especially endocrine Qs.

I have no idea how I did. Some Qs were pretty easy, some were really tough. Compared to UWorld, the USMLE Qs were more straightforward, mostly 2step Qs. They were the exact style as the NBME exams.

I had 3days to prepare for COMLEX after my USMLE. On the 1st day of my cram session, all I did was COMSAE for A, because I had no clue what to expect from COMLEX questions. I prepared strictly for USMLE Step 1, until this point.
My last two days before the exam I studied the Simmons OMT book, especially Chapter 2 (Sympathetics/Para), which is super High Yield.

Got my scores yesterday.
USMLE: 231/96
COMLEX: 674/94

If you guys have any questions for me, I'll be glad to answer and I'll post scores whenever we get them.

Good Luck to all of you.

 

[nascardoc]

Took my COMLEX on 6/16 and am anxiously awaiting scores. In terms of my exam, it was VERY heavy in neuro, neuro/psych pharm, MSK, and OMT, much like spicedmanna has talked about. The OMT consisted of mainly sympathetic/parasympathetic spinal levels for organs....I would know that page(s) in Saverese COLD. I think I had maybe 2 sacrum questions and 1 innominate question. I didn't have much straight up physio, but of what I did have, it was a lot of endocrine. Again, like many have said, traditionally, micro is hit very hard on the COMLEX, but I didn't have a ton of it, and what I did have I found to be fairly simple (thankfully). FA did a great job covering micro, IMO, especially the Gram +/- flow charts. I was disappointed to not see a fair representation of cardio/pulm physio/path, especially considering how prominent those 2 systems present in "real life," altho I did have quite a few EKG's, about 4. There was slightly more biochem than what I expected, but nothing weird...fairly straight forward. Again, FA was wonderful. I had no biostats. A few more immuno questions than what I was expecting, but nothing that is not covered in FA.

Overall, I thought it was a decently written exam, with a few WTF questions b/c of terribly written questions. Like spiced said, a LOT of you know it or you don't questions, not a lot of reasoning can be used since they were mostly 1-2 line questions/question stems. Again, makes for more than a few WTF moments. The electronic media that was used, i.e. pictures, were pretty good...altho some just sucked. Defintely clinically based as others have posted, more than I was expecting (a few I was honestly surprised to see them asking 2nd year medical students to do what was asked).

I feel that my school, especially being new, adequately prepared us for the exam, ESPECIALLY for OMT. I didn't have to go over much of it at all and I feel that I blew it out of the water. I just wish we had a bit more time to study from the time classes ended to test time.

In terms of qbanks, I think both UW and Kaplan USMLE products are great. I ended up doing over 50% in both and did ok...nothing special. I think Kaplan's COMLEX qbank is a POS and NOT worth the money. I found NUMEROUS errors in answers and found some of the questions to be "out-dated." The only thing, IMO, it is useful for is the OMT questions, and some of those are wrong too.

Books I would highly recommend: FA, RR Path/Goljan audio, BRS physio, Saverese