Has anyone failed a comsae but passed level 1?

[bravenugget21]

Just wondering if the comsae scoring is still harsh.

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[Alienman52]

Yes. I was particularly bad with reasoning out COMSAE questions and the question style in general.
My school cutoff was 480. I had to take it four times to meet this cutoff.

103 - 422
105 - 433
103 - 440

From this point I didn't care anymore and just memorized answers from 105 from my previous take
105 - 543 (not accurate since i memorized answers).

Real deal was a 525. Was nearly 100 pts off for me. I personally think they're terribly written exams - perhaps some of the worst I've ever had the displeasure of taking, and were nothing like COMLEX in the slightest.

 

[bravenugget21]

Yes. I was particularly bad with reasoning out COMSAE questions and the question style in general.
My school cutoff was 480. I had to take it four times to meet this cutoff.

103 - 422
105 - 433
103 - 440

From this point I didn't care anymore and just memorized answers from 105 from my previous take
105 - 543 (not accurate since i memorized answers).

Real deal was a 525. Was nearly 100 pts off for me. I personally think they're terribly written exams - perhaps some of the worst I've ever had the displeasure of taking, and were nothing like COMLEX in the slightest.

Congrats on a great score! Did you feel the comlex was more like comquest or other qbanks? Why did you feel the comsae was not representative..was it the stem or the question style?

 

[Alienman52]

Congrats on a great score! Did you feel the comlex was more like comquest or other qbanks? Why did you feel the comsae was not representative..was it the stem or the question style?

COMSAE wasn't a good representation because of question stem length. Most that I remember were no longer than three lines, many even with 1-2 lines. Many (if not all) questions on COMLEX were at least 5-6 lines. Many extended to the point of having to scroll. Time is a serious issue. The ambiguity of COMSAE questions (IMO) was 2x the ambiguity of COMLEX questions as well. Multiple answers correct on some questions etc.

I never did comquest. Combank was 1.5-2x easier most of the time I would say. UW was harder.

Maybe I'm just an outlier but from what I've seen online they tend to underpredict by a good deal. Don't go crazy if you arent scoring well. I'd say to be safe, your true score is your COMSAE + 40-50.

 

[bravenugget21]

COMSAE wasn't a good representation because of question stem length. Most that I remember were no longer than three lines, many even with 1-2 lines. Many (if not all) questions on COMLEX were at least 5-6 lines. Many extended to the point of having to scroll. Time is a serious issue. The ambiguity of COMSAE questions (IMO) was 2x the ambiguity of COMLEX questions as well. Multiple answers correct on some questions etc.

I never did comquest. Combank was 1.5-2x easier most of the time I would say. UW was harder.

Maybe I'm just an outlier but from what I've seen online they tend to underpredict by a good deal. Don't go crazy if you arent scoring well. I'd say to be safe, your true score is your COMSAE + 40-50.

Thanks for your input.

 

[OverlyRomantic]

I thought the COMSAEs were a good representation of the question stem length, and I also felt that the COMSAEs had lots of similar questions to the actual COMLEX. However, keep in mind that this was my experience on my particular form. I failed the first COMSAE I took (got a 368 on form 103) 1.5 months before my exam. I took 3 other COMSAES, and they all gave me scores around 450. I got a 543 on the real deal. So while I found the COMSAEs to be representative of the actual exam, their curve was also much harsher.

TL;DR - COMSAEs underscored by around 100 points for me.

 

[bravenugget21]

I thought the COMSAEs were a good representation of the question stem length, and I also felt that the COMSAEs had lots of similar questions to the actual COMLEX. However, keep in mind that this was my experience on my particular form. I failed the first COMSAE I took (got a 368 on form 103) 1.5 months before my exam. I took 3 other COMSAES, and they all gave me scores around 450. I got a 543 on the real deal. So while I found the COMSAEs to be representative of the actual exam, their curve was also much harsher.

TL;DR - COMSAEs underscored by around 100 points for me.

Congrats on a great score! What did you do between your first comsae and the others cuz that’s almost a 100 pt jump within 1.5 months? My issue definitely is timing so it worries me to see the comsae stems be so short then get uworld length steps on the comlex.

 

[OverlyRomantic]

Congrats on a great score! What did you do between your first comsae and the others cuz that’s almost a 100 pt jump within 1.5 months? My issue definitely is timing so it worries me to see the comsae stems be so short then get uworld length steps on the comlex.

Thanks! I would do 2-3 blocks of questions a day, and then do anki cards on all of the topics which I found I was week on that day. I just searched for the topics in the lightyear deck. I did not keep up with the reviews, however. Timing is definitely something to be on top of, and here is my recommendation that worked for me: If you read a question and do not know the answer in 20 seconds, skip it and come back to it. I would have blocks where the majority of my questions were still unanswered after I went through them, but I knew how much time I had left after answering the ones I knew.

 

[bravenugget21]

Thanks! I would do 2-3 blocks of questions a day, and then do anki cards on all of the topics which I found I was week on that day. I just searched for the topics in the lightyear deck. I did not keep up with the reviews, however. Timing is definitely something to be on top of, and here is my recommendation that worked for me: If you read a question and do not know the answer in 20 seconds, skip it and come back to it. I would have blocks where the majority of my questions were still unanswered after I went through them, but I knew how much time I had left after answering the ones I knew.

Which qbank did you use?

 

[OverlyRomantic]

Which qbank did you use?

I did COMBANK once, and UWORLD once! As everyone says, UWORLD > COMBANK

 

[aspdr]

Of course! First comsae I ever took was a 350. Final score after few months of studying 570+


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[bravenugget21]

Which comsae do you guys think was the hardest and more representative? I’m hearing 101 has the harshest curve but not sure if that makes it the hardest one.

The comsaes feel more vague than any of the qbanks out there. Is the comlex as horrible and soul sucking?

 

[lovedaisy]

COMSAE scores mean nothing in a way. The scores fluctuate a lot and no ways to learn from mistakes since we can't review answers. Trust your gut and studyy as much as you can.

 

[austintr]

Which comsae do you guys think was the hardest and more representative? I’m hearing 101 has the harshest curve but not sure if that makes it the hardest one.

The comsaes feel more vague than any of the qbanks out there. Is the comlex as horrible and soul sucking?

No idea on the COMSAEs, a I only took the one my school forced on me.

Level 1 is just as soul sucking, and an order of magnitude higher. The pace is absolutely ludicrous and it's basically a test of reading speed, comprehension, and loose connection making. I felt like I failed it, didn't even read probably 10% of the questions due to time, and know I didn't answer at least 10 questions for the same reason as above.

Scored over average. It's a crapshoot and it sucks.

 

[bravenugget21]

No idea on the COMSAEs, a I only took the one my school forced on me.

Level 1 is just as soul sucking, and an order of magnitude higher. The pace is absolutely ludicrous and it's basically a test of reading speed, comprehension, and loose connection making. I felt like I failed it, didn't even read probably 10% of the questions due to time, and know I didn't answer at least 10 questions for the same reason as above.

Scored over average. It's a crapshoot and it sucks.

How similar is it to the qbanks out there in terms of vagueness/content?

 

[austintr]

The real questions are quite a bit longer on average, but they seemed to circle around to the more common stuff. High yield is high yield for a reason. The real deal was slightly less vague than the COMSAE questions, but I would say that generally the distractors were not as obvious on the real deal either.

Content was obviously a lot broader on the real deal because there were like twice as many questions. The COMSAE I took was good to see the general themes of questions and structures, but outside of that it was pretty worthless. Underpredicted by 90 points as well, so take that into consideration.

 

[bravenugget21]

The real questions are quite a bit longer on average, but they seemed to circle around to the more common stuff. High yield is high yield for a reason. The real deal was slightly less vague than the COMSAE questions, but I would say that generally the distractors were not as obvious on the real deal either.

Content was obviously a lot broader on the real deal because there were like twice as many questions. The COMSAE I took was good to see the general themes of questions and structures, but outside of that it was pretty worthless. Underpredicted by 90 points as well, so take that into consideration.

That’s good to know. There were several questions on the comsae I had to read several times because of how vague they were.

Which comsae did you take? I’ll take the 90 points under prediction haha

 

[Medic741]

COMSAE under predicted me by >100 points (got 680s)

It also over predicted 2 friends by >100-80 points who both ended up failing level 1 so...

 

[bravenugget21]

COMSAE under predicted me by >100 points (got 680s)

It also over predicted 2 friends by >100-80 points who both ended up failing level 1 so...

Grats on your score and sorry to hear about your friends. Which comsae did they take because I’ve heard of the older comsaes over predicting. How were they doing on everything else like uworld and other qbanks?

 

[Medic741]

Grats on your score and sorry to hear about your friends. Which comsae did they take because I’ve heard of the older comsaes over predicting. How were they doing on everything else like uworld and other qbanks?

Thanks! And I'm not sure which COMSAE it was, but whichever one it was it simultaneously over/under predicted me + these 2 friends (yikes) so the spread was >200 points. And honestly not sure on their qbank performance score, sorry!

 

[austintr]

Thanks! And I'm not sure which COMSAE it was, but whichever one it was it simultaneously over/under predicted me + these 2 friends (yikes) so the spread was >200 points. And honestly not sure on their qbank performance score, sorry!

I'm pretty sure we took 105