Combank question difficulty compared to COMLEX?

[blahwhatever]

I've come across a lot more straightforward questions on combank compared to uworld, so I was wondering how the combank question difficulty compares to the actual comlex exam?

Just want to make sure I'm not being mislead by combank's level of difficulty into thinking the comlex is easier than it actually is

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[desijigga]

I've come across a lot more straightforward questions on combank compared to uworld, so I was wondering how the combank question difficulty compares to the actual comlex exam?

Just want to make sure I'm not being mislead by combank's level of difficulty into thinking the comlex is easier than it actually is

Actual comlex is much harder than the Combank, take a comsae. I hear they are the most similar to the difficulty of the actual comlex...

 

[DiverDoc]

I've come across a lot more straightforward questions on combank compared to uworld, so I was wondering how the combank question difficulty compares to the actual comlex exam?

Just want to make sure I'm not being mislead by combank's level of difficulty into thinking the comlex is easier than it actually is

IMO a majority of questions were not necessarily easier than combank, but the COMSAE questions were worded better.

 

[Slevin]

A friend of mine took it on friday, said that COMBANK questions were harder than the actual exam

 

[desijigga]

A friend of mine took it on friday, said that COMBANK questions were harder than the actual exam

 

[blahwhatever]

Lots of conflicting experiences.. hmm..

I haven't taken any COMSAE exams, but how do those compare in difficulty to combank?

 

[engineeredout]

Lots of conflicting experiences.. hmm..

I haven't taken any COMSAE exams, but how do those compare in difficulty to combank?

I second this. How are the COMSAE exams compared to the real thing and how predictive are they?

 

[karizma098]

the combank is a joke. there are buzzwords in just about every other question and the path/phys/pharm/micro is standard easy stuff. the comlex was much more difficult - the comsae's are a much better indicator of level of difficulty, but they are still easier. taking all three comsae's is key; i scored within 5 pts of my last one.

 

[willis06]

I am currently going through Kapalan Qs but was going to buy either COMBANK or USMLEWORLD for the month of June.

would COMBANK be enough or would yall buy both?
thanks, (only taking the COMLEX)

 

[bleeker10]

I am currently going through Kapalan Qs but was going to buy either COMBANK or USMLEWORLD for the month of June.

would COMBANK be enough or would yall buy both?
thanks, (only taking the COMLEX)

I bought both and they are very different. COMBANK is more first to second order questions while UW can be up to third order. I thought COMBANK was super easy compared to Kaplan but it was nice to get more OPP questions to practice on. Compared to the COMSAE B I took, it was more similar to Kaplan than COMBANK. UW would be good if you want more questions (over 2000 compared to ~1000 in COMBANK) and a more difficult type of question. I did about half of UW but I'm not gonna finish the rest of it because my confidence level is high right now and I don't want UW to bring it down. I'm going to redo Kaplan questions instead.

Lastly, the interface of COMBANK just plain sucks. I hate that you can't skip a question without answering it. Plus you can't strike anything out either.

 

[Slevin]

I bought both and they are very different. COMBANK is more first to second order questions while UW can be up to third order. I thought COMBANK was super easy compared to Kaplan but it was nice to get more OPP questions to practice on. Compared to the COMSAE B I took, it was more similar to Kaplan than COMBANK. UW would be good if you want more questions (over 2000 compared to ~1000 in COMBANK) and a more difficult type of question. I did about half of UW but I'm not gonna finish the rest of it because my confidence level is high right now and I don't want UW to bring it down. I'm going to redo Kaplan questions instead.

Lastly, the interface of COMBANK just plain sucks. I hate that you can't skip a question without answering it. Plus you can't strike anything out either.

I found the COMBANK questions better for the COMLEX than I did the UWorld, but that's me.

Sigh... back to step 2 studying

 

[DrRoast]

I bought both and they are very different. COMBANK is more first to second order questions while UW can be up to third order. I thought COMBANK was super easy compared to Kaplan but it was nice to get more OPP questions to practice on. Compared to the COMSAE B I took, it was more similar to Kaplan than COMBANK. UW would be good if you want more questions (over 2000 compared to ~1000 in COMBANK) and a more difficult type of question. I did about half of UW but I'm not gonna finish the rest of it because my confidence level is high right now and I don't want UW to bring it down. I'm going to redo Kaplan questions instead.

Lastly, the interface of COMBANK just plain sucks. I hate that you can't skip a question without answering it. Plus you can't strike anything out either.

Are you speaking of Kaplan COMLEX questions or Kaplan USMLE questions? If your speaking of the Comlex q's, are they any good? I've been told they are too easy.

 

[bleeker10]

Are you speaking of Kaplan COMLEX questions or Kaplan USMLE questions? If your speaking of the Comlex q's, are they any good? I've been told they are too easy.

I'm talking about Kaplan COMLEX. I thought COMBANK was much easier than Kaplan COMLEX. That seems to be the consensus with a lot of my friends. I thought the COMSAE was more like Kaplan than COMBANK. I take boards in 9 days so I'll let you know after I take it.

 

[Slevin]

The Kaplan COMLEX questions weren't much like the Real COMLEX questions from what I remember from last year, too easy. Too me about 3 days if that to go through all 1K of them.


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[bleeker10]

The Kaplan COMLEX questions weren't much like the Real COMLEX questions from what I remember from last year, too easy. Too me about 3 days if that to go through all 1K of them.


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So the real COMLEX was harder than Kaplan? How about against COMBANK? Were the mock boards you took through LECOM representative to how you did on the COMLEX?

 

[Slevin]

So the real COMLEX was harder than Kaplan? How about against COMBANK? Were the mock boards you took through LECOM representative to how you did on the COMLEX?

The real COMLEX was harder than the Kaplan COMLEX questions but not as hard as the Kaplan USMLE questions. The LECOM mock boards were a joke and not indicative of anything.

I thought COMBANK was better than the Kaplan COMLEX questions


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[engineeredout]

From what I've seen on COMBANK and on the COMSAEs, in a two part question you can go back to the first question after you've already selected an answer. Can it actually be done on the real comlex?

 

[deleted245139]

hey everyone, I posted this in a different thread as well, but i thought it could do some good here too...

The links are to a blog of someone on SDN here and I thought they were well thought out and fair. The person offers thoughts on COMBANK, COMSAE and then the COMLEX, and offers a retrospective analysis of both resources after taking the test.

Initial Impressions of COMBANK:
http://theparamount.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/combank-review-and-suggestions-for-improvement/
http://theparamount.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/update-on-combank-post-comsae-analysis/
Wrapup Review:
http://theparamount.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/combank-comsae-comlex-post-exam-thoughts/

Happy studying to all! I rock out on the 27th
(May 28th can not come soon enough...)

 

[deleted245139]

Also... I took the practice Full Length COMLEX that Kaplan offers... I highly recommend it. While I can't speak to how it compares to COMLEX, it was right on par with COMSAE B. I thought it was a bit harder in some respects... not in the knowledge level tested, but in how tricky the questions were or how similar the answer choices were. The best part of it was that 1- it's a full 400Q and structured identical to the actual COMLEX (complete with the two 10 min breaks and the full 40min lunch), and 2- you were able to review every single question (as opposed to COMSAE). On top of all that, if you have KAPLAN, it's free. Can't beat that.

 

[Slevin]

From what I've seen on COMBANK and on the COMSAEs, in a two part question you can go back to the first question after you've already selected an answer. Can it actually be done on the real comlex?

Yes, you can go back and change your answer. Some questions on the COMLEX are three and I think I remember one four part question

The first 30ish questions in a block are short answer or paragraph, and the last 15ish are one question multiple questions if that makes sense

 

[linkDO]

Also... I took the practice Full Length COMLEX that Kaplan offers... I highly recommend it. While I can't speak to how it compares to COMLEX, it was right on par with COMSAE B. I thought it was a bit harder in some respects... not in the knowledge level tested, but in how tricky the questions were or how similar the answer choices were. The best part of it was that 1- it's a full 400Q and structured identical to the actual COMLEX (complete with the two 10 min breaks and the full 40min lunch), and 2- you were able to review every single question (as opposed to COMSAE). On top of all that, if you have KAPLAN, it's free. Can't beat that.

Oh so you can't review anything from the COMSAE exams it sounds like. What kind of feedback do they give you and can you look at the questions again afterwards?

Also the correlations between COMSAE and COMBANK can be found here. In initial research from 2008 the average person that took a COMSAE (timed) ended up scoring 26 points higher on the actual COMLEX.

http://www.nbome.org/comsae.asp#results