Official 2013 COMLEX 1

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chinocochino said:
You are supposed to know them ALL according to comquest's question bank! I had them all pretty well memorized, even obscure ones like tonsils, eyes, and ears. There are about 2.5 times more chapman's points than what is presented in Savarese. It helped me with one question but even if I hadn't studied it, I could have deduced the answer.

But they say that you should know all the Chapman's points, anterior or posterior.
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Great... I didn't have to learn posterior points. Are the posterior points really tested that often?
 
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NeuroLAX said:
Great... I didn't have to learn posterior points. Are the posterior points really tested that often?
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I don't know, since I only took one COMLEX-1 (and I hope it stays that way). But as I've said a couple of times, I had zero Chapman's point questions.

That being said, we spent an entire 4 hours on chapman's points in OMM at my school during OMS1, as a result, I never really learned them. But it took me like 2 hours with a set of flash-cards the day before the exam to get them all memorized really well.

I just made a set of cards on quizlet with the anterior and posterior point on one side of the card, and the corresponding organ on the other side. Then played the matching game 3 or 4 times, I had those points down cold after that.

My point (pun intended) is that this stuff is totally crammable so I wouldn't stress too much about it.
 
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SLC said:
I don't know, since I only took one COMLEX-1 (and I hope it stays that way). But as I've said a couple of times, I had zero Chapman's point questions.

That being said, we spent an entire 4 hours on chapman's points in OMM at my school during OMS1, as a result, I never really learned them. But it took me like 2 hours with a set of flash-cards the day before the exam to get them all memorized really well.

I just made a set of cards on quizlet with the anterior and posterior point on one side of the card, and the corresponding organ on the other side. Then played the matching game 3 or 4 times, I had those points down cold after that.

My point (pun intended) is that this stuff is totally crammable so I wouldn't stress too much about it.
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Please excuse my laziness, do you mind posting your quizlet deck link?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
 
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Does anyone else feel like the comlex is becoming more basic sciences oriented, similar to the USMLE? Our school told us that the comlex was becoming more clinical sciences oriented but after taking comsae form D it doesn't seem like it.
 
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piviti said:
Does anyone else feel like the comlex is becoming more basic sciences oriented, similar to the USMLE? Our school told us that the comlex was becoming more clinical sciences oriented but after taking comsae form D it doesn't seem like it.
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YES. I was rather impressed with the sophistication of some of these questions. Honestly though my USMLE was much better-written.
 
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NeuroLAX said:
Does COMLEX test posterior Chapman's points?
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My omm was nearly all chapman's and autonomics (I didn't have a single sacral question). The chapman's points were pretty obscure ones too - both anterior and posterior. I found a great app for the iphone/ipad called OMM cards that has flashcards for chapmans and autonomics and it included anterior and posterior points (every chapmans point I had was in this app but none of them were in savarese) so I would say you need to use some other resource beyond savarese because those can be easy points!
 
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Hi Everyone - sorry to cause such upset. Yes I did join after my exam (which was on the 6th) because I had been reading this years and last years comlex posts these last 2 years but had nothing to contribute until now. I was hoping to be helpful to other students as this had been for me. And the first question I saw was whether there were posterior chapman's points. I have found it helpful when other students have shared what resources they used for studying so that's all I was trying to do. I specifically said in my post that I would recommend using some other resource (not that they had to use the app I used) for studying chapman's points because for my particular form of the exam the few that were in Savarese did not cover it for me. I promise not to share my resources again if that's upsetting to people. But if anyone really does have any other questions about my exam experiences I would be happy to help!
 
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Haha that is super shady man.

I was wondering if anyone who has taken the COMLEX can comment on the difficulty of that test compared to comquest questions? I find comquest questions to be super easy, and not oh I'm so smart kind of way, just in terms of how direct the questions seem - like there aren't a whole lot of third or fourth order thinking questions as I've encountered on Uworld. Of course I still get a bunch of questions wrong simply based on that I don't know the facts, but I just feel like uworld slaps me in the face whereas this is a gentle pat. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm up against on test day.
 
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studbud said:
Haha that is super shady man.

I was wondering if anyone who has taken the COMLEX can comment on the difficulty of that test compared to comquest questions? I find comquest questions to be super easy, and not oh I'm so smart kind of way, just in terms of how direct the questions seem - like there aren't a whole lot of third or fourth order thinking questions as I've encountered on Uworld. Of course I still get a bunch of questions wrong simply based on that I don't know the facts, but I just feel like uworld slaps me in the face whereas this is a gentle pat. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm up against on test day.
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I took it a week ago and my test had a LOT of 1st order questions. Though they sprinkled enough impossibles to make it seem really tough overall
 
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SLC said:
I took it a week ago and my test had a LOT of 1st order questions. Though they sprinkled enough impossibles to make it seem really tough overall
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I feel like this is comquest in a nutshell. So I guess it's good I'm getting prepped for the beating.


Edit: you know what sucks about comquest? They really have a poor system for reporting your score. For example, Uworld shows you the average score for whatever random test you just took, comquest just shows the average score of all users for every test for everything. You could have 50 random questions that have an average of 90% correct for every question, but the average at the end would still be 64. I know each question shows you the percent correct, but I like to see it in total as well.
 
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Anyone take the COMLEX recently? What'd you think..how similiar to COMQUEST or COMBANK? I mostly used Uworld in the beginning to learn and then moved on to comquest!
 
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I don't know about combank, but I found the questions had less detail than comquest especially for micro (like a lot of my comlex questions were just a description of symptoms and then one fact like it's a gram negative rod and then that would rule out 1 of the 5 choices but you had to know the clinical presentations)

Also I remember in the comquest explanations that they said if there was an image you should already be able to figure out the answer from the question stems, but on the real thing you really needed to use the information from the images.
 
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Atom bum said:
I feel like this is comquest in a nutshell. So I guess it's good I'm getting prepped for the beating.


Edit: you know what sucks about comquest? They really have a poor system for reporting your score. For example, Uworld shows you the average score for whatever random test you just took, comquest just shows the average score of all users for every test for everything. You could have 50 random questions that have an average of 90% correct for every question, but the average at the end would still be 64. I know each question shows you the percent correct, but I like to see it in total as well.
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Yeah, Comquest is easier than Uworld in terms of 1st order thinking. But every now and then I see something that's not in FA or I've never heard of a term before that they use, or it's presented in a way that I've never seen. So in that way I think it might help

And yes , they really should step their game up with their score reporting. Combank's interface is way better in that regard. It shows the percentage of questions that people got right for each question and the average per test, much like Uworld. Additionally, it shows you the overall percentage of your score vs. your peers in timed and untimed modes. Not that any of it really helps because there seems to be no correlation with these banks and Comlex scores anyway lol
 
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I feel like COMQUEST is mostly a learning tool, like UWorld. I wouldn't go by how well you score as in indicator of your performance on the COMLEX. I would use it to learn from. And the explanations for the most part are great.

Anyone know how to best prepare for Ethics questions? I did all of the Ethics in COMQUEST twice, is this enough? Feel like I'm gonna be thrown curveballs that I can't really prepare for..
 
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premedmind said:
I feel like COMQUEST is mostly a learning tool, like UWorld. I wouldn't go by how well you score as in indicator of your performance on the COMLEX. I would use it to learn from. And the explanations for the most part are great.

Anyone know how to best prepare for Ethics questions? I did all of the Ethics in COMQUEST twice, is this enough? Feel like I'm gonna be thrown curveballs that I can't really prepare for..
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I'm looking for my ethics stuff too, but seems hopeless 🙁 What do you think is a good representation of how you will score then? Is getting 70-75% on comquest random timed unused any good indicator?
 
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wvsom2015 said:
I'm looking for my ethics stuff too, but seems hopeless 🙁 What do you think is a good representation of how you will score then? Is getting 70-75% on comquest random timed unused any good indicator?
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Take a COMSAE or two, I think B and C are the two latest ones? That should give you a rough estimate. Emphasis on rough.
 
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premedmind said:
Take a COMSAE or two, I think B and C are the two latest ones? That should give you a rough estimate. Emphasis on rough.
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Ya i've heard they dont have the best correlation and can be confidence-killers! not what any of us need right now so i think ill just keep doing comquest and hopefully go up
 
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oceanillusion42 said:
Took the exam today... zero Chapman points, zero sacrum... was surprised. Lot of really random micro tho.
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So I'm going to spend less time memorizing the chapmans points because of hearing stuff like this and I am guaranteed to have at least 30 questions about them right?
I can see one of them now...
Your patient presents with a smooth, firm, discretely palpable nodule approximately 2.5 mm in diameter near the rib at the level of the Angle of Louis. What is his most likely chief complaint
a. Cough
b. MI
c. sinusitis
d. phayngitis
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Not sure if I'm in the correct forum or even posting this properly because I'm new :/ but I've been following this thread for a while so I figured I'd ask on here.

I've done about half of COMBANK and 80% of COMQUEST and I've noticed that when I get a multi question set for one particular stem stating "each lettered heading may be selected once, more than once or not at all" ... I've only ever seen the same answer used more then once on maybe one occasion. Just wanted to know how this compares to the actual exam? Thanks.
 
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Kbkilla said:
Not sure if I'm in the correct forum or even posting this properly because I'm new :/ but I've been following this thread for a while so I figured I'd ask on here.

I've done about half of COMBANK and 80% of COMQUEST and I've noticed that when I get a multi question set for one particular stem stating "each lettered heading may be selected once, more than once or not at all" ... I've only ever seen the same answer used more then once on maybe one occasion. Just wanted to know how this compares to the actual exam? Thanks.
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I was wondering about this too.
Also, comquest has some problems that I can solve with pencil and paper, but it would take me longer than I would like to admit. Are the math problems on the comlex fairly straight forward? Stuff like you end up with even numbers, not like the .787878 I got for one of my comquest questions?
 
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Atom bum said:
I was wondering about this too.
Also, comquest has some problems that I can solve with pencil and paper, but it would take me longer than I would like to admit. Are the math problems on the comlex fairly straight forward? Stuff like you end up with even numbers, not like the .787878 I got for one of my comquest questions?
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I was wondering this too. I suck at long divison/multiplication lol
 
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premedmind said:
I feel like COMQUEST is mostly a learning tool, like UWorld. I wouldn't go by how well you score as in indicator of your performance on the COMLEX. I would use it to learn from. And the explanations for the most part are great.

Anyone know how to best prepare for Ethics questions? I did all of the Ethics in COMQUEST twice, is this enough? Feel like I'm gonna be thrown curveballs that I can't really prepare for..
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I would like to know this too, I'm doing the medical juresdpencen section repeatedly on Comquest, is this sufficient?

My comsae indicated I was below average on the management questions. Is COMBANK better in this area?

Thanks
 
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Does anyone have recommendations on last minute prep for COMLEX? I have three full days scheduled between my USMLE and COMLEX and want to know what to focus on during those days. I figured I'd go through the OMM and Ethics questions on my comlex qbank, maybe glance over Savarese, and review FA pharm and micro,and maybe look at some of the higher yield pages in FA . I downloaded that OMM card app mentioned above and hope to memorize those cards. Do y'all recommend anything on top of that? Like reading parts of CMMRS, Pathoma, Goljan, etc?
 
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Kevin Baker said:
Does anyone have recommendations on last minute prep for COMLEX? I have three full days scheduled between my USMLE and COMLEX and want to know what to focus on during those days. I figured I'd go through the OMM and Ethics questions on my comlex qbank, maybe glance over Savarese, and review FA pharm and micro,and maybe look at some of the higher yield pages in FA . I downloaded that OMM card app mentioned above and hope to memorize those cards. Do y'all recommend anything on top of that? Like reading parts of CMMRS, Pathoma, Goljan, etc?
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I have three days between mine as well (next week) and I am planning on re-skimming Savarese one more time, reviewing upper and lower extremity anatomy one more time, reviewing chapman's points and sympathetic reflexes one more time, reading the bioterrorism section of Ridiculously simple, re-skimming high-yield neuroanatomy and hitting my 500 BRS pharm and micro cards one last time.
 
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eimaise said:
I have three days between mine as well (next week) and I am planning on re-skimming Savarese one more time, reviewing upper and lower extremity anatomy one more time, reviewing chapman's points and sympathetic reflexes one more time, reading the bioterrorism section of Ridiculously simple, re-skimming high-yield neuroanatomy and hitting my 500 BRS pharm and micro cards one last time.
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What are you using to review upper and lower extremity anatomy?
 
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premedmind said:
What are you using to review upper and lower extremity anatomy?
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Anatomy Atlas for general concepts and orientation of things
BRS Gross anatomy has 2 chapters which are solid.

I actually think First Aid's pages in MSK will probably be sufficient for many of the questions, but there's a bunch of things I want to solidify in my head with more detail (nerves, vasculature, muscles, osteology, and the relationships of these things to another as well as the key lesions)

I'm mainly doing it because it's the COMLEX and both this year's and last year's COMLEX threads said (in general) that extremity anatomy was something fairly heavy on their tests and I don't want to miss those points if I can help it!
 
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eimaise said:
Anatomy Atlas for general concepts and orientation of things
BRS Gross anatomy has 2 chapters which are solid.

I actually think First Aid's pages in MSK will probably be sufficient for many of the questions, but there's a bunch of things I want to solidify in my head with more detail (nerves, vasculature, muscles, osteology, and the relationships of these things to another as well as the key lesions)

I'm mainly doing it because it's the COMLEX and both this year's and last year's COMLEX threads said (in general) that extremity anatomy was something fairly heavy on their tests and I don't want to miss those points if I can help it!
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Right...I don't really have an anatomy source specifically besides atlases....You think BRS Anatomy is worth picking up to skim through quickly?

Was thinking maybe about going through some UWorld Anatomy section...IIRC they had some solid questions and explanations in there. That along with FA MSK should be enough I suppose...Savarese also has a little Anatomy appendix in the back
 
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premedmind said:
Right...I don't really have an anatomy source specifically besides atlases....You think BRS Anatomy is worth picking up to skim through quickly?

Was thinking maybe about going through some UWorld Anatomy section...IIRC they had some solid questions and explanations in there. That along with FA MSK should be enough I suppose...Savarese also has a little Anatomy appendix in the back
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I just use one of the copies from my school library. It's up to you, but I wouldn't go and buy a copy the week before my exam unless I felt like it could dramatically help my score.

With that said, I did just buy a 65 cent copy of High Yield Behavioral Science last week to help improve my score in those areas. But that book is 10 times thinner than BRS anatomy.

I agree, I thought Uworld Anatomy was pretty good, so that could really do you well. It certainly cannot hurt to go through those questions again!
 
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For someone who doesnt have much time before the exam what part of the HY neuroanatomy is the most important. Is it just the pictures/slices of the brain? Does comlex test on random tracts/nucleus, structures that isnt covered in FA?
 
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hopeinternist said:
For someone who doesnt have much time before the exam what part of the HY neuroanatomy is the most important. Is it just the pictures/slices of the brain? Does comlex test on random tracts/nucleus, structures that isnt covered in FA?
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At least on my exam, I don't recall anything that wasn't mentioned in FA's Neuro section.
 
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Just curious... everyone says COMLEX is way harder and different than COMSAE.

Aren't the questions on COMSAE just recycled from previous year COMLEX exams? Would the real exam questions be that drastically different from COMSAE or is it just that people are stressed on the real exam and it feels harder?

I scored a 566 on COMSAE A a few weeks ago and I scored a 642 on COMSAE D last week and felt like 95% of the questions on D were legit, and maybe only 5 to 10 questions were pretty convoluted and confusing (i.e. topics or diagnoses I had never heard of before).

Am I in for a real surprise next week when I sit for the real exam?
 
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eimaise said:
Just curious... everyone says COMLEX is way harder and different than COMSAE.

Aren't the questions on COMSAE just recycled from previous year COMLEX exams? Would the real exam questions be that drastically different from COMSAE or is it just that people are stressed on the real exam and it feels harder?

I scored a 566 on COMSAE A a few weeks ago and I scored a 642 on COMSAE D last week and felt like 95% of the questions on D were legit, and maybe only 5 to 10 questions were pretty convoluted and confusing (i.e. topics or diagnoses I had never heard of before).

Am I in for a real surprise next week when I sit for the real exam?
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I think your on your way to scoring 700+
 
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Regarding drugs tested, were there anything on alternative herbal supplements that was vague? I mean aside from St. John's Wart and Yohimbine etc. thats in first aid.
 
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as90 said:
Regarding drugs tested, were there anything on alternative herbal supplements that was vague? I mean aside from St. John's Wart and Yohimbine etc. thats in first aid.
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I have never encountered a question on herbal remedies of any kind in either Uworld, COMBANK, COMLEX, or USMLE.

That's not to say it isn't possible, but it's almost certainly exceedingly low yield.

I did however come across some 3rd and 4th line meds on COMLEX and was asked some fairly specific questions about them.
 
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Took it yesterday, there was a ton of Neuro and extremities. It was pretty much all of the subjects you don't want plus some freaking rando micro questions.🙁
 
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