SomewhereinNY
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- Nov 24, 2020
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I haven't seen a post like this, so here goes-
As a DO student, you have to pass COMLEX. Your step score (USMLE) is in general more important than your COMLEX score (if you take both), because residency programs tend to value your USMLE score more- at least that is what I've seen, for the most part. That being said, you have to pass COMLEX to graduate, and plenty of people only take COMLEX- so that's where this post comes in. I was given the advice that to study for COMLEX, I should just study Step 1 resources and I would be fine- but then I was bombing COMSAEs and doing really well on practice USMLEs- so I think it's really important that DO students use COMLEX specific resources, especially if you aren't happy with your COMSAEs. If you are acing COMSAEs, obviously you are doing fine- if not, here's what I did-
1. Textbook: Savarese is the gold standard for general OMT review
2. Memorize Chapman's points and viscerosomatic reflexes
3. Use a COMLEX specific question bank.
I used a few different ones, but my favorite was COMBANK from TRUELEARN, which is basically UWorld for COMLEX, IMO. It's a question bank with explanations, but it was the closest question bank that I could find to COMSAE questions. I did the entire bank twice and ended up increasing my score on the COMSAE by 200 points, and I did pretty well on the COMLEX. Kaplan has a COMLEX question bank too, and it wasn't bad- but Truelearn Combank was closer to the actual COMLEX questions and I liked the explanations more- short but detailed enough that I didn't have to go looking for more information on the topic to do a thorough review.
As a DO student, you have to pass COMLEX. Your step score (USMLE) is in general more important than your COMLEX score (if you take both), because residency programs tend to value your USMLE score more- at least that is what I've seen, for the most part. That being said, you have to pass COMLEX to graduate, and plenty of people only take COMLEX- so that's where this post comes in. I was given the advice that to study for COMLEX, I should just study Step 1 resources and I would be fine- but then I was bombing COMSAEs and doing really well on practice USMLEs- so I think it's really important that DO students use COMLEX specific resources, especially if you aren't happy with your COMSAEs. If you are acing COMSAEs, obviously you are doing fine- if not, here's what I did-
1. Textbook: Savarese is the gold standard for general OMT review
2. Memorize Chapman's points and viscerosomatic reflexes
3. Use a COMLEX specific question bank.
I used a few different ones, but my favorite was COMBANK from TRUELEARN, which is basically UWorld for COMLEX, IMO. It's a question bank with explanations, but it was the closest question bank that I could find to COMSAE questions. I did the entire bank twice and ended up increasing my score on the COMSAE by 200 points, and I did pretty well on the COMLEX. Kaplan has a COMLEX question bank too, and it wasn't bad- but Truelearn Combank was closer to the actual COMLEX questions and I liked the explanations more- short but detailed enough that I didn't have to go looking for more information on the topic to do a thorough review.
