COMLEX Step II Feedback

[Richie Truxillo]

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Hey gang,

Just got back from taking COMLEX II so here's my feedback:

Lots of OMM:
Know your crainial bones and dysfunctions
Treatment positions for ME and Jones Counterstrain
Sacral Dx
Of course, your Chapman points and viscerosomatic levels
(Green Book for the win)

The medical jurisprudence stuff was mostly common sense but there were some curve ball questions about policies and which acts they fell under.

Ask for the medicine stuff:

Lots of neuro
Know most common bugs and their first line treatments
Know your OBGYN cold
Know your pediatrics cold
Know your EKGs well also.

Rest of it was random knowledge for the most part. It wasn't too bad though they could have given us lab values instead of history.


Overall it wasn't a horrible experience but it wasn't stellar either. My best preparation was from reading USMLE Step II Secrets. That book is gold.

Doing USMLEWorld questions were ok for learning/reviewing concepts but I feel that it puts you too much on the defensive for trickery. I'd say it's more geared toward the USMLE.

Oh and I forgot, I had to calculate a relative risk ratio from the little 2x2 square thing today.

Best of luck to all of you taking this test coming up. I know yours will be different but maybe this will put you at ease a bit. If that is the case, I hope you find solace in this post.

-Richie

 

[indymed]

So would you say don't look for tricks on the COMLEX. USMLEworld tries very hard to throw you off the path by giving varying lab values, history, terms that noone has heard of etc. Does the COMLEX do the same? Or do we dumb down our approach.

Two weeks left!!! Feel like I have been studying for this forever.
(and I am happy to say the USMLEworld score is finally going up and is much more consistent).

 

[Richie Truxillo]

I'd say dumb down the approach. It's pretty straightforward. Will write more after this lap colon resection.

-Richie

 

[Richie Truxillo]

Ok, back for a couple minutes. Anesthesia just getting started.

The USMLEWorld questions are great as a learning tool. It refreshed alot of things that I had forgotten and taught me a few concepts to boot. The COMLEX questions are nowhere near as involved as USMLEWorld.

A couple other tips:

Know your most common bugs.

Ex: S. Aureus as your MCC of osteomyelitis 👍

Know your most common drug side effects

Ex: Lady on antipsychotic meds presents with milky discharge from the breasts. Know that prolactin is elevated due to Dopamine blockade. 👍

If the COMLEX wants you to interpret a lab value for the answer, they only give you what you need and nothing else for the most part.

Good luck on the test Indymed!

-Richie

 

[AbuJadenDO]

just finished comlex II and i wanted all of you that haven't taken it yet to calm down because over all it really wasn't that bad...

The time is definitely not an issue so I don't want ANYONE here to be concerned with that part of their test prep...i finished in less than 4 hours and that's not because i'm god's gift to osteopathic medicine but rather because the question stems are short and either you know em or you don't so there's no need to sit there debating which answer is the best.

i only had 1 cranial question, a handful of omm positioning and the majority of omm related questions were psoas, sacrum, viscerosomatic related.

i just didnt think it was that bad but who knows...once i'll get my score i'll be able to give better advice i guess...haha

good luck to all

 

[jk00]

Can you elaborate on which sources are best to study for COMLEX II. I have started studying Goljan step II notes but i'm not sure which are the best sources. I'm planning to take COMLEX II in 1-2 months.........thanks

 

[AbuJadenDO]

👍Can't tell you what's the best because I haven't tried everything but here's what I used and it worked out pretty well for me.

Step up to Step 2 (couple times)
Secrets for step 2 (couple times)
Kaplan Qbook (all of it)
Uworld (half of it)...saving the other half for usmle
Savarese green book for omm

FA seemed to be too much fluff...crush is the same words verbatim as secrets...i heard deja review is good but i haven't seen it myself

good luck

 

[Kry]

Can you elaborate on which sources are best to study for COMLEX II. I have started studying Goljan step II notes but i'm not sure which are the best sources. I'm planning to take COMLEX II in 1-2 months.........thanks

I didn't know there were Goljan step II notes out there. Where did you find them?

 

[RickKane]

Summary of the story is this...the questions where either so easy it was ridiculous or so ambiguous they were impossible. Either way it made for a quick test. Don't sweat it to much. It wasn't bad at all.

 

[jk00]

I was talking about Goljan audio lectures for step2, accidently wrote notes.... sorry for causing any confusion

 

[AbuJadenDO]

Summary of the story is this...the questions where either so easy it was ridiculous or so ambiguous they were impossible. Either way it made for a quick test. Don't sweat it to much. It wasn't bad at all.

100% truth

 

[DocBethy]

Ok, so there are definitely quite a few different exams out there.

I would say that 30% of my test was GI
30% OB/Gyne mix
10% Cardio
10% Peds
20% Neuro, Endo, etc

-I had at least 45 diarrhea questions. amusing b/c that is what most of us have been dealing with while studying for this exam, lol
-Almost all of my cardio questions were about identifying murmurs, and they did not give you the area that the murmur was appreciated, only the sound of it😱
-Quite a few BRCA questions for Gyne
-Quite a few newborn pulm questions

Hope this helps. good luck.

 

[indymed]

I think I had the same test as you. Same breakdown exactly. So many diarrhea questions. Any one else have this form? What did you think of it? Honestly I don't know how I did, but I wouldn't change how I studied. I honestly don't know what I would have done extra. The questions were unlike any question bank out there. Well its finally over. Thanks for all the advice people. Hopefully I got through it. It bugs me that I didn't feel great coming out of it. I hate the uncertainty of these exams. I did alot of USMLEworld questions and they are always trying to trick you. So I was having some trouble distinguishing the tricks on the actual exam today. But oh well, hoepfully it worked out.

 

[JPR22]

I think I wrote the same exam yesterday too. I kinda liked all the GI questions, they were good confidence builders. The legal/ethical questions werent too bad although some went way beyond what a 4th yr ms should know. I had a few EKGs, one with the leads on wrong, and one hyperkalemia. I think UW was a pretty good tool along with kaplan.

 

[raidermedic]

Just took mine today, wasn't like any of the ones posted so far. Lots of OB, lots of ID, TONS of OMM mostly rib dysfunctions and viscerosomatic reflexes. And of course the typical NBOME "Pt is sick, has fever, don't feel good. Whats the dx?" question.
Also I had kind of a scare at the end of the third block. Went back to check an answer on a whim and found it was left blank. Then I found out that if you click on the answer text it will unselect your answer and leave it blank 😱Yeah I know it gives you a warning at the end that some have yet to be completed but being the computer snob I am I didn't read most of the prompts for the first two sections. Hopefully I didn't screw up and leave a lot of questions blank.

If I had to do it all over again I would not have used UW at least for the COMLEX. I would of spent all that time rereading Simmons and Secrets. COMLEX is pure medical trivia in straightforward (although a lot of the times horrendously written) questions. I found myself at times dissecting a question too much. For instance they would give me a classic presentation then found myself arguing against the obvious answer because I was sure they were trying to trick me.

Also great display of assoteric language today. Some answer choices I had never even heard of. I'm really hoping they made some of those words up. 😡

Oh well I'm just hoping to pass I could really care less about my step II score.

 

[Fin-Nor]

took mine today as well.

1.) loads of OB/GYN
2.) loads of GI
3.) many OMM like the previous poster re: ribs/visceral points

i got a question like "a lady has HTN, what is the cause?" - choices were renal, cardiac, etc... i'd say about 10-20 of them required the magic eight ball to be answerable.

all i want is a Pass 😀

 

[allendo]

Just took mine today, wasn't like any of the ones posted so far. Lots of OB, lots of ID, TONS of OMM mostly rib dysfunctions and viscerosomatic reflexes. And of course the typical NBOME "Pt is sick, has fever, don't feel good. Whats the dx?" question.
Also I had kind of a scare at the end of the third block. Went back to check an answer on a whim and found it was left blank. Then I found out that if you click on the answer text it will unselect your answer and leave it blank 😱Yeah I know it gives you a warning at the end that some have yet to be completed but being the computer snob I am I didn't read most of the prompts for the first two sections. Hopefully I didn't screw up and leave a lot of questions blank.

If I had to do it all over again I would not have used UW at least for the COMLEX. I would of spent all that time rereading Simmons and Secrets. COMLEX is pure medical trivia in straightforward (although a lot of the times horrendously written) questions. I found myself at times dissecting a question too much. For instance they would give me a classic presentation then found myself arguing against the obvious answer because I was sure they were trying to trick me.

Also great display of assoteric language today. Some answer choices I had never even heard of. I'm really hoping they made some of those words up. 😡

Oh well I'm just hoping to pass I could really care less about my step II score.

what is the simmons book?

 

[NSUMedman]

Just finished today, gotta tell you, I felt like it was a huge waste of time. Couldn't have answered a lot of the questions had I studied for another 6 months. How many more calories should a pregnant woman eat? 300, 400, 500, 600, or 700. If a doctor does a lumbar puncture on a patient without consent, he will be sued for assault, battery, or malpractice? HA! Sad. There are volumes of information from which to extract great questions (i.e. USMLE), but yet the folks heading up our profession seem to just crash and burn. I'm no genius, but I was feeling good goin' into it knowing OB/GYN wasn't great for me, but medicine, psych, surg, there was no way they were gonna get me. Enter COMLEX Step II with all it's 8-pixel imagery and vague "Let's see if you are a magician and can come up with the right answer" type questions. Aww, whatever, I'll get the scores in several months from now, whenever they get around to it. (P.S. Yes, I'm bitter and a crybaby, thanks.) 👎 👎

 

[raidermedic]

(P.S. Yes, I'm bitter and a crybaby, thanks.) 👎 👎

Dude I was livid when I left the exam. Glad I'm not the only one.

 

[DOctorJay]

so what do you guys recommend for question source? clearly most of you think UW is overkill for COMLEX II, I am using Board Busters right now. add in Qbook or is there something else out there for level II that I should be looking at?

thanks!

 

[raidermedic]

what is the simmons book?

Simmons is a OMM review book. If you google simmons and "cram pages" you can find the super high yield cram pages he recommends. Watch out though it doesn't go into too much detail about ribs. Good thing I had a strange urge to study ribs OMT on monday or I would of been hosed. Takes about a day to read. I used it for step 1, 2 and will use it again for 3.

 

[PMR2008]

Took the exam on Monday. I am glad i read some of the reviews on SDN cause it really helped. This is what i recall and I hope it helps

1) Lots of GI questions (50-60). I had alteast 20 diarrhea questions and possibly 20 or so hemoptysis questions. I had a few EGD visuals. The quality of the visuals was horrible but you sould still make out the pathology.
2) Ton of OB/GYN (60-70). I would say atleast 60 or so questions were OB/GYN related. I had a lot of amenorrhea, dymenorrhea and discharge questions. Like everyone has said before, I felt like not enough information was given and the questions were phrased like they would be on a game show.
3) Little neuro(10 q's). Mostly questions on subdurals and epidurals. I had a few images.
4) ID was very basic and so was the pharm(15-20 q's). No immunology. 5-8 questions on CF. 5 questions on HIV and HIV infections.
5) I had a fair amount of OMM (30-40 q's). 5 questions on sacrum, some rib dysfxn, crainal, fibular head, . Basic stuff that can be learned from savress or the high yield print outs. You obviously need to know visecrosomatic reflex and chapman reflex points. I prepared by reading savress once and just made my own high yield notes which i reviewed a few days before the exam. I had some positioning questions that were a little complicated but over all OMM is a freebie.
6) About 15-20 questions on ethics. I had a question on EMTALA. I read up on it at http://www.emtala.com/. 5 questions on concent. 5 on abuse and rape.
7) Cardiology- I had 4-5 ekg stips. Mostly basic stuff. Just know ur basic HTN, CHF and make sure you know your murmurs. I had alteast 10 question on murmurs. I must have read cresendo-decresendo 5 times during the exam.
I read though the lists at http://www.doctorslounge.com/studlounge/downdirty/murmurs.htm. Unfortunately COMLEX is still a lot about buzz words. I had a few WPW questions.
8) Didnt have much pulmonolgy, renal or rheum.
9) Lot more ortho than i expected. I had alteast 20 questions on fractures, nerve damages etc.
10) The rest 10-15 were bogus questions. Either not enough information was given or I strongly felt like there were 2 right answers. They used some words I had never even heard of before.

To study I used UW. I feel like it is obvioulsy helpful for knowledge but not much for the COMLEX. The comlex questions are not tricky. They are just not worded right. I read the FA while making notes in secrets so I didnt miss any tested material. Then i read through secrets twice and OB/GYN and Peds an extra time. I felt like i was well prepared and the questions i might have out right guessed on I couldnt have gotten right even if i studied for another month. I prepared 10-12 hours a days for 20 days. I really hope I did better then the step 1 but then again who knows. Now comes the waiting part. Good luck. 🙂

 

[BklynWill]

Simmons stuff: http://pages.prodigy.net/stn1/Downloads.htm

 

[DOctorJay]

so what do you guys recommend for question source? clearly most of you think UW is overkill for COMLEX II, I am using Board Busters right now. add in Qbook or is there something else out there for level II that I should be looking at?

thanks!

bump

 

[raidermedic]

so what do you guys recommend for question source? clearly most of you think UW is overkill for COMLEX II, I am using Board Busters right now. add in Qbook or is there something else out there for level II that I should be looking at?

thanks!

The only bank I used was UW so I can't really comment on the others. If Kaplan is easier you may want to go with that. Basically for USMLE you want a Qbank that will make you dissect questions and look for hidden details. For COMLEX you a Qbank that has relatively shallow questions and covers a wide variety of topics.

That said I did learn a lot from UW as far as actual medicine goes. Not good prep for COMLEX but definately learned a lot.

 

[Yoga]

Hi all,
I am scheduled to take COMLEX in mid sept...I have heard all these stories about medical-legal/ethics questions. What's a good source to prepare from??
Thanks a lot!!!

 

[Xanderain]

Well, from the slightly less than 100 questions I got to finish before the power-flickering on and off (5 times) made them cancel the test (and cause another long story), I got a bunch of diarrhea/GI questions (with many crappy pictures made worse by a dimly-lit, fuzzy, 15-year old monitor). Anybody ever had to take it over, for any reason, and get the same version again??? I'm guessing it's unlikely, but by how badly screwed up Prometric and NBOME are, it is a distinct possibility in my mind.


Oh the joys of being a medical student...

 

[schrute]

ditto what most everyone else said.

I took USMLE2 a month ago and COMLEX2 last week. The COMLEX was a JOKE compared to the USMLE. Maybe it's because I didn't have time off to study, maybe it was because I wasn't prepared enough, but USMLE2 was the hardest test I've taken yet. It had 3rd/4th order questions, long question stems, and required thinking in order to put pieces of a puzzle together.
COMLEX2 required no thinking, and simply asked you to regurgitate the random factoids you've amassed over the past few years.
The questions were either SUPER easy or so ******edly vague/random that no amount of studying would have helped. You could have memorized FA, StepUp, B&W, Secrets, etc...and still had no clue.
Know buzzwords.
And be prepared for repitition; there were several areas emphasized and others entirely missed.

My study materials: First Aid, CRUSH/Secrets, USMLEworld (2 months), and Blueprints. I passed USMLE, nothing stellar, below avg probably, but passed. I'm not concerned I dind't pass COMLEX; I almost laughed out loud in the first 2 or 3 sections from some of the questions.
BTW--the PE exam is also a joke. Not that everyone doesn't already know that, but what a waste of $1000.