Failed Peds Shelf Help

[deleted815127]

I failed my Peds shelf exam. This is the first shelf exam I failed. I don’t know what happened. I worked hardest on this one exam, compared to the rest. When I was done, I was sure I did so great on it.

I finished Kaptest, combank all three comat, USMLE and COMLEX Level 2. I did pretest, finished all of Case files cases.

I got 66, need an 84. At this point I am thinking it’s a computer issue, because nothing else could have made me fail that comat!

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[NeurologyHopeful2018]

what is the passing grade? why do you *need* an 84? that is an honors level performance

 

[deleted815127]

what is the passing grade? why do you *need* an 84? that is an honors level performance

Our school requires 84 or above only.

 

[Merely]

Our school requires 84 or above only.

84 to pass? More than half your class should be failing if that’s the case...84 is a very high score and is probably in the 85th percentile so to require that to pass is just foolish...

 

[CherryRedDracul]

84 to pass? More than half your class should be failing if that’s the case...84 is a very high score and is probably in the 85th percentile so to require that to pass is just foolish...

84 is an excellent score for the NBME shelf exams, but it sounds like OP took a COMAT subject exam. For those--correct me if I'm wrong--the mean is 100 with the standard deviation being 10. If OP scored a 66, than would put him in the 0.03th percentile. That means if 3333 DO students took that COMAT shelf exam, OP would have been the lowest scorer. And there are only approximately 5000 DO students in the country, and about 1/4 of them in their 3rd year clerkships, sooo ...

This all sounds very suspect. For all that preparation, I would not expect OP to be the lowest scorer in the country. Something's up.

 

[deleted815127]

I took the COMAT, sorry, should have specified that in the prior post, not the NBME.

I am feeling very down and to be honest quite anxious. I have never failed a major exam like this in my medical school career and am feeling horrible, does this preclude me from becoming a doctor or getting a residency?

I am thinking about primary care (FM) or psychiatry at this point.

 

[pedspedspeds18]

I took the COMAT, sorry, should have specified that in the prior post, not the NBME.

I am feeling very down and to be honest quite anxious. I have never failed a major exam like this in my medical school career and am feeling horrible, does this preclude me from becoming a doctor or getting a residency?

I am thinking about primary care (FM) or psychiatry at this point.

It does not preclude you from becoming a doctor or getting a residency. Just pass it on the second time. It might make going into pediatrics a bit harder but I would say even that wouldn't be impossible. Identify your weak areas on the combank questions and review those. I distinctly remember the peds COMAT being such a crapshoot in terms of what they asked (but let's be honest, so are all the COMATs).

 

[feeling-dizzy]

COMAT questions are stupid and very confusion. Throw in the OMM questions, and you have a big mess and a crap-shot table. You just simply unlucky to guess these very poorly organized question. Don't feel down, just retake the ped COMAT you will be fine. I suggest do only COMAT styles questions like COMBANK or COMQUEST instead of USMLE (seriously you won't find good USMLE questions in the COMAT anyway)

 

[CherryRedDracul]

I took the COMAT, sorry, should have specified that in the prior post, not the NBME.

I am feeling very down and to be honest quite anxious. I have never failed a major exam like this in my medical school career and am feeling horrible, does this preclude me from becoming a doctor or getting a residency?

I am thinking about primary care (FM) or psychiatry at this point.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my post, but I'm having my doubts that you were the lowest scorer in the country, especially with all that preparation and the fact that you've never failed a major exam in medical school thus far.

I suspect some sort of error in your scoring, but I don't know how you would go about proving that to be the case.