First Aid for Comlex

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SMC123

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  1. Medical Student
I plan on taking the COMLEX in about 3 months and have not really started preparing. I was wondering for some tips from here. I know that doing pathoma, FA, and combank will gear me towards getting a good score. However, I have heard that COMLEX is a lot of buzzwords and as long as you naildown bugs, drugs, omm, and path obviously, you should be able to do decent. Looking at the FA, it seems like it is more made for the usmle for obvious reasons.

My question was, what subjects are not so important on the COMLEX or what you should focus on last ? Is psych, biochem, embryo, anatomy, (non organ systems), really that important on COMLEX? Trying to see what subject I should start with and focus on most, please let me know, thanks!
 
I'm in the same boat as you and you should definitely invest in MMRS (Micro Made Ridiculously Simple). The COMLEX loves bugs for some reason. As for the other subjects, I'm not 100% sure but I've heard they like repro, musculoskeletal and neuro a lot more than the USMLE.
 
FA for Step 1 is designed towards the USMLE but it is essential for the COMLEX. FA for COMLEX is mostly OMM. There were a lot of buzzwords but COMLEX is moving towards descriptions for buzzwords instead such as a description of epithelial cell covered by organisms versus clue cells for BV.

I focused a lot on micro (using Bug Cards which I added info to along with CMMRS), path (Goljan), OMM (Savarese), drugs (used pharm one liners provided by my school), BRS Phys and FA. Anatomy is big with OMM. Repro and GI were heavy on my exam. Very little biochem, genetics, embryo. Neuro wasn't heavily represented on mine.

I would use FA as your central source to help organize your studying. I modified the Taus method to work for me. I'd start with the basic sciences and then move to organ systems. I didn't touch OMM until about two weeks before my exam.

Go through the COMLEX experiences thread from last year. Plenty of us provided detailed information about our study methods and exam experiences.
 
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