Official 2017 COMLEX Level 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[Roxas]

Alright friends, let's do this.

I'm planning on sitting sometime in late June (COMLEX only). FA 2017 is on the way, starting UWorld in January and Combank around April.

Feel free to share and help keep each other accountable until we slay the beast.

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[Brorthopedic]

COMSAE B - 595 (3 days out)
Level 1 50Q sample - 46/50

I'm taking the test tomorrow, not sure how predictive form B is because it isn't even available anymore but I'm hoping for 600+ on the real thing. I'll let ya'll know how it goes.

 

[jillzhou]

Took the test yesterday, seems like everyone one could agree the bugs/micro pretty much sucked. I had a lot more cardio and resp than I had expected also, the pictures sucked. Such low quality images and the typos jeez. Overall there were easy questions but also a lot of wtf questions. And the thing is sure you could get the pathogenesis of concepts which is what USMLE tests, but this test was more like do you know this little minor detail that probably isn't high yield. Hoping there's a curve or something :/
Oh and also I used UFAPS & COMBANK as my resources (our school gave us 2 assessments through combank, my first was a ~42 percent in January, recently took the second one with 83%). Despite the improvement, I still felt pretty ****ty walking out of comlex. Marked around 15 per block so yeah, not really that happy about it.

 

[yankees527]

Took the test yesterday, seems like everyone one could agree the bugs/micro pretty much sucked. I had a lot more cardio and resp than I had expected also, the pictures sucked. Such low quality images and the typos jeez. Overall there were easy questions but also a lot of wtf questions. And the thing is sure you could get the pathogenesis of concepts which is what USMLE tests, but this test was more like do you know this little minor detail that probably isn't high yield. Hoping there's a curve or something :/
Oh and also I used FA/UWORLD/COMBANK as my resources (our school gave us 2 assessments through combank, my first was a ~42 percent in January, recently took the second one with 83%). Despite the improvement, I still felt pretty ****ty walking out of comlex. Marked around 15 per block so yeah, not really that happy about it.

.

 

[moosheep]

my pharm is ass, am i screwed?

 

[D.O.aenerys]

Same here.. I'm taking the beast this Friday, and I'm trying to go over pharm once more before then. My pharm has always been awful, like just as a whole its sucks - just like the tiny details of which receptor, at which protein, with what freaking second messenger... it just throws me off

 

[MedNation907]

Was COMBANK helpful at all for these topics? Or do you mean you planned to do them, but ended up not and still felt fine during the test?

I just meant those were the topics I chose for question sets, I probably did 4-5 sets of 50 + a few of just OMM, reviewed a few chapters in Kaplan's OMM booklet and helminths out of Sketchy. I felt that was adequate

 

[kptr12]

What is the national first time pass rate for Level 1, for recent years?

 

[diiaa36]

What is the national first time pass rate for Level 1, for recent years?

close to 90%

 

[kenjixshadow]

The quality of the pictures were ridiculously bad

LOL I can't even tell some of the histo/x-ray tha they were showing. I just presumed the answers on the vignette and move on.

 

[Desired Member]

I took it today and based on talking to my friends, everyone's test is different so it's hard to give advice. I did mostly COMBANK questions and some of the comlex questions were almost verbatim from there. Most of the questions were very straightforward. I was so worried about it beforehand and it really was not that bad. I did do about 650 Uworld questions, but honestly the best thing I did was read Savarese and do 1600 COMBANK questions. My advice is, if you didn't know an answer from the first part, look up everything you can about the topic during the lunch break, because you will probably have 5 more questions on that topic later.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I took it today and based on talking to my friends, everyone's test is different so it's hard to give advice. I did mostly COMBANK questions and some of the comlex questions were almost verbatim from there. Most of the questions were very straightforward. I was so worried about it beforehand and it really was not that bad. I did do about 650 Uworld questions, but honestly the best thing I did was read Savarese and do 1600 COMBANK questions. My advice is, if you didn't know an answer from the first part, look up everything you can about the topic during the lunch break, because you will probably have 5 more questions on that topic later.

Good idea. Thanks for the advice

 

[Desired Member]

If you were were to choose between combank, uworld, and old kaplan comlex questions what would you all prefer doing 1 week before exam? And would you specifically only study certain subjects such as HY neuro, msk, micro? Just trying to decide how into how much time i should be doing questions and over what specific question banks. I have 300 ?s left in uworld but can always reset it. thanks for sharing everything about your experiences on here guys, goodluck to everyone taking it in near future!

For my particular test, I would say pharm and micro COMBANK. But everyone's test is different.

 

[Desired Member]

For cranial stuff, do I need to memorize if something is on a transverse, AP or vertical axis? Cause, I can handle "Sphenoid does this, Occiput does this. What is it?" But I can't wrap my head around axes. thanks

I had 1 question on axes, but again everyone's test is different

 

[Event_Horizon]

Can anyone confirm if it alright to write stuff down on the laminated paper during the tutorial or if you can only do so once the exam time actually starts?

 

[yankees527]

Can anyone confirm if it alright to write stuff down on the laminated paper during the tutorial or if you can only do so once the exam time actually starts?

I did during the tutorial Never got questioned about it

 

[Photonic]

For those harder drugs was it like random side effects like which anesthetic cause hepatotoxicity or something like that?

Yes, most of the questions I had on those drugs were related to their side effects.

 

[jgalt]

Um so.... took the step on Monday, and just took comlex today. Is it normal to feel like you did horrible on the comlex after feeling you killed the step? I don't know how this happened. I'm in shock and kind of freaking out right now.

On the step, I marked an avg of 6/40 questions per block, and I had all of those narrowed down to two options. On the comlex, I marked 25/50 on each block and half of those I couldn't narrow down at all.... I feel like I got 250-270 on the step (consistent with my nbmes) and I would be lucky to have done average on the comlex....

Somebody please tell me I'm ok. Or just lay it bare for me.

How would it look for residency if I had a killer step 1 score and an average comlex?

 

[Army guy]

Um so.... took the step on Monday, and just took comlex today. Is it normal to feel like you did horrible on the comlex after feeling you killed the step? I don't know how this happened. I'm in shock and kind of freaking out right now.

On the step, I marked an avg of 6/40 questions per block, and I had all of those narrowed down to two options. On the comlex, I marked 25/50 on each block and half of those I couldn't narrow down at all.... I feel like I got 250-270 on the step (consistent with my nbmes) and I would be lucky to have done average on the comlex....

Somebody please tell me I'm ok. Or just lay it bare for me.

How would it look for residency if I had a killer step 1 score and an average comlex?

I'm sure you did fine. If you're anticipating >250 on step1, you prob got over 600 on COMLEX.
I can't imagine someone doing that well on one and not the other at your scores. More likely if you're averaging 220-240, then maybe I could see someone lucking out on step 1 testing on their strengths. But 250-270? you basically owned med school lol. So don't worry about it.

EDIT: unless you blew off OMM lol

 

[kenjixshadow]

I'm sure you did fine. If you're anticipating >250 on step1, you prob got over 600 on COMLEX.
I can't imagine someone doing that well on one and not the other at your scores. More likely if you're averaging 220-240, then maybe I could see someone lucking out on step 1 testing on their strengths. But 250-270? you basically owned med school lol. So don't worry about it.

EDIT: unless you blew off OMM lol

There's 1 guy at UNECOM got 260 on USMLE and failed COMLEX last year. Jgalt is trying to be the second person to do that. Jk jk.
Jokes aside, you only need 200 questions to pass the exam. I mean even if you mark 25 questions per block, it doesn't mean that you get all of them wrong. You guys will be fine.

 

[jgalt]

I'm sure you did fine. If you're anticipating >250 on step1, you prob got over 600 on COMLEX.
I can't imagine someone doing that well on one and not the other at your scores. More likely if you're averaging 220-240, then maybe I could see someone lucking out on step 1 testing on their strengths. But 250-270? you basically owned med school lol. So don't worry about it.

EDIT: unless you blew off OMM lol

thanks for the reassurance, I'm still uncertain tho. I REALLY blew off OMM lol. But that wasn't even the worst part of the comlex for me. All of the simple recall micro and pharm destroyed me (and a fair amount of the omm haha). The step was well suited toward me as I had mastered Uworld/critical thinking skills and pattern recognition, but most of that wasn't required on the comlex.

anyways, anyone know if you are required to report both step 1 and comlex scores when applying to md residencies, or do you just give your step 1 score and say you passed the comlex? I highly suspect the former, but trying to be as optimistic as possible here lol

 

[jgalt]

There's 1 guy at UNECOM got 260 on USMLE and failed COMLEX last year. Jgalt is trying to be the second person to do that. Jk jk.
Jokes aside, you only need 200 questions to pass the exam. I mean even if you mark 25 questions per block, it doesn't mean that you get all of them wrong. You guys will be fine.

loooool where can I find this soul mate of mine?

EDIT: i spose at UNECOM....

 

[shadowlightfox]

Those of you who took both COMLEX and USMLE, how did you allocate your time to doing both COMBANK and UWorld? How did you even manage to have more than one pass of one of them if possible?

 

[Harvey Harvardson]

Those of you who took both COMLEX and USMLE, how did you allocate your time to doing both COMBANK and UWorld? How did you even manage to have more than one pass of one of them if possible?

I did 2 passes of Uworld and only the COMBANK OMM questions in between exams.

 

[shadowlightfox]

I did 2 passes of Uworld and only the COMBANK OMM questions in between exams.

So you didn't even look at COMBANK before that, not even during dedicated?

 

[jgalt]

Those of you who took both COMLEX and USMLE, how did you allocate your time to doing both COMBANK and UWorld? How did you even manage to have more than one pass of one of them if possible?

I did one pass of Uworld (memorized it tho) and zero combank. see above, step 1 went well and comlex went quite poorly. I don't understand how people have the time to do multiple qbanks, or even 2 passes of one qbank for that matter.

 

[Harvey Harvardson]

So you didn't even look at COMBANK before that, not even during dedicated?

I didn't touch COMBANK at all during dedicated. 2-3 days is enough time to cram all of COMBANK OMM questions and saverese as long as your OMM foundation isn't severely lacking. Although I struggled with some of the OMM questions on the COMLEX, I still found the exam to be overall much easier than USMLE.

 

[Sloosha]

Um so.... took the step on Monday, and just took comlex today. Is it normal to feel like you did horrible on the comlex after feeling you killed the step? I don't know how this happened. I'm in shock and kind of freaking out right now.

Somebody please tell me I'm ok. Or just lay it bare for me.

How would it look for residency if I had a killer step 1 score and an average comlex?

How you feel you did and how you actually did have nothing to do with one another when it comes to the COMLEX, and sometimes the USMLE.

You have the option to selectively release one or the other score or both to the residency programs. That is, if you don't like your COMLEX score you don't have to release them to an institution that accepts both. Obviously, you have to release your COMLEX if you plan to match AOA.

 

[trs88]

I agree. I just took it today and though I have been doing well on comquest and have been studying for months; I feel like the test today didn't represent concept or critical thinking. It seemed like they tried to nit-pick little detail like molecular receptors or low-yield enzyme defiecinecy. I honestly don't think today's test assessed how well I will become a good clinician. Instead, it looked like they just try to mess with us and see how well we can memorize little detail about enzymes, genetic diseases, or pathways that are not high-yield. I marked 10-25 per section too. Just hope I pass. I'm taking USMLE around late July. Hope they curve, man! We both need it.

The good news that I hear quiet a bit (hopefully it's true haha) is that comlex has a 90% 1st time pass rate. So odds are, you did fine. They aren't great/good predictors but did you take any comsaes before comlex? I don't take mine till Wednesday so there's not a ton of advice I can give.

 

[moosheep]

I agree. I just took it today and though I have been doing well on comquest and have been studying for months; I feel like the test today didn't represent concept or critical thinking. It seemed like they tried to nit-pick little detail like molecular receptors or low-yield enzyme defiecinecy. I honestly don't think today's test assessed how well I will become a good clinician. Instead, it looked like they just try to mess with us and see how well we can memorize little detail about enzymes, genetic diseases, or pathways that are not high-yield. I marked 10-25 per section too. Just hope I pass. I'm taking USMLE around late July. Hope they curve, man! We both need it.

THEY HATE US

 

[jgalt]

How you feel you did and how you actually did have nothing to do with one another when it comes to the COMLEX, and sometimes the USMLE.

You have the option to selectively release one or the other score or both to the residency programs. That is, if you don't like your COMLEX score you don't have to release them to an institution that accepts both. Obviously, you have to release your COMLEX if you plan to match AOA.

Thank you so much. That is truly amazing to hear.

 

[jgalt]

The good news that I hear quiet a bit (hopefully it's true haha) is that comlex has a 90% 1st time pass rate. So odds are, you did fine. They aren't great/good predictors but did you take any comsaes before comlex? I don't take mine till Wednesday so there's not a ton of advice I can give.

I got 604 on a school mandated/proctored comsae back in march, well before I started studying. But in retrospect that was a joke compared to the real thing. I felt like I knew my stuff and it went well walking out of that, and my score matched up with my feelings. I feel the real deal went horribly.

 

[kenjixshadow]

I got 604 on a school mandated/proctored comsae back in march, well before I started studying. But in retrospect that was a joke compared to the real thing. I felt like I knew my stuff and it went well walking out of that, and my score matched up with my feelings. I feel the real deal went horribly.

You know what's funny? Lots of ppl feel like that on the USMLE. Hell, I haven't taken it yet and I know I'll feel bad too. (Speaking of which, I'm running for last minute stuffs on FA, do you have any advice on what to look over? Also, I suck at heart sound, biostats, ethics, and basically dealing with expiremental questions on NBME. I would love to hear your advice with them.)

Back to you, you seem like a superstar. You may or may not hit a high target score on COMLEX, but it's very unlikely for you to fail. Look, you can't do anything about it now. Don't stress about what you can't control. Enjoy your time left before rotations, do something fun, or at least distract yourself from thinking about the exam. Even if you do fail, you'll only need to restudy OMM and ace it, but for now, enjoy yourself. You have earned it.

 

[allprayers23]

Does anybody have any hopeful stories for those of us who aren't top students and made "just passing" scores on pre diagnostic exams. Did anybody go in already feeling Like they would barely pass and left feeling like crap but still managed to pass? I took my exam two weeks ago and haven't been able to stop thinking about how bad I felt like I did. I just came here for encouragement or anybody who felt like this and did well. Just wanted to also mention I felt prepared going in but of course after I left there were a lot of should've, could've, would've. Blahhhh

 

[kabead]

Does anybody have any hopeful stories for those of us who aren't top students and made "just passing" scores on pre diagnostic exams. Did anybody go in already feeling Like they would barely pass and left feeling like crap but still managed to pass? I took my exam two weeks ago and haven't been able to stop thinking about how bad I felt like I did. I just came here for encouragement or anybody who felt like this and did well. Just wanted to also mention I felt prepared going in but of course after I left there were a lot of should've, could've, would've. Blahhhh

Unfortunately, most people haven't gotten their scores yet unless they took it in before mid-April
You could read the 2016 comlex thread for people who might have felt the same way you do when they took the exam last year if that helps. Hope this helps!
Good luck to you!

 

[Roxas]

Does anybody have any hopeful stories for those of us who aren't top students and made "just passing" scores on pre diagnostic exams. Did anybody go in already feeling Like they would barely pass and left feeling like crap but still managed to pass? I took my exam two weeks ago and haven't been able to stop thinking about how bad I felt like I did. I just came here for encouragement or anybody who felt like this and did well. Just wanted to also mention I felt prepared going in but of course after I left there were a lot of should've, could've, would've. Blahhhh

Probably not much consolation but at this point I will shed tears of joy for a 400. Sitting for the exam in 2 weeks. Comsaes C and D were 431 and 405 taken ~4 weeks ago. Bottom of the class in terms of rank. I will soon feel your pain.

 

[Event_Horizon]

Took COMLEX today. Seemed like a pretty straightforward exam for 80% of my questions so I do not know how that will turn out with the scale. Absolutely know your Micro/OMM cold like others have been suggesting. Literally half my test was Micro and OMM. The micro was a EVEN mixture of everything between bacteria/viral/fungus/parasites, so do not neglect certain areas. I didn't get any crazy OMM questions and 90% could be answered with the green book, with the rest being something you could reason out. Finally done with both USMLE/COMLEX, so the waiting game begins!

 

[kabead]

Took COMLEX today. Seemed like a pretty straightforward exam for 80% of my questions so I do not know how that will turn out with the scale. Absolutely know your Micro/OMM cold like others have been suggesting. Literally half my test was Micro and OMM. The micro was a EVEN mixture of everything between bacteria/viral/fungus/parasites, so do not neglect certain areas. I didn't get any crazy OMM questions and 90% could be answered with the green book, with the rest being something you could reason out. Finally done with both USMLE/COMLEX, so the waiting game begins!

Congratulations on finishing both!
Did you think the difficulty or style of questions was comparable to any specific qbank/practice test (Eg Comsae, Combank, uworld)?

 

[Event_Horizon]

Congratulations on finishing both!
Did you think the difficulty or style of questions was comparable to any specific qbank/practice test (Eg Comsae, Combank, uworld)?

I would say most similar to COMBANK with a couple of Uworld style questions mixed in every now and then.

 

[Dr.Jekyll75]

I highly recommend people do omt questions in combank, idk how comquest was but omt was very similar to combank questions

 

[GI Guy]

So I took USMLE on tuesday and COMLEX today. Here are just some of my thoughts... First, I thought the USMLE was a much tougher exam in regards to critical thinking. There weren't as many straight forward questions on USMLE as there were on COMLEX. I feel like question writers for the USMLE are trying to play mind games with you and try to make you interpret what they are saying. For the COMLEX, I felt like they just wanted you to know your associations and pathology (i.e., know which bugs are most common for diseases and know the basic microbiology). I also felt like the pharm on COMLEX was straight forward and they weren't trying to confuse you by using strange lingo. Given all this, I feel that doing uworld and brushing up on OMT in savarese is all you have to do. So many people say "get a comlex specific qbank", but I feel that if you know your physio and diseases inside and out, the different wording of questions doesn't make that much of a difference. Also, biostats and ethics makes up a significant portion of USMLE, whereas the COMLEX had relatively few questions on biostats. Last, a lot of the USMLE was scientific experiments, which were aimed at testing your physiology or biochemistry. The COMLEX just used clinical vignettes to test these concepts

 

[MNW_CO2018]

Took COMLEX today.... feeling real terrible about it. Anyone else walk out feeling like they should probably not stop studying??

 

[jgalt]

You know what's funny? Lots of ppl feel like that on the USMLE. Hell, I haven't taken it yet and I know I'll feel bad too. (Speaking of which, I'm running for last minute stuffs on FA, do you have any advice on what to look over? Also, I suck at heart sound, biostats, ethics, and basically dealing with expiremental questions on NBME. I would love to hear your advice with them.)

Back to you, you seem like a superstar. You may or may not hit a high target score on COMLEX, but it's very unlikely for you to fail. Look, you can't do anything about it now. Don't stress about what you can't control. Enjoy your time left before rotations, do something fun, or at least distract yourself from thinking about the exam. Even if you do fail, you'll only need to restudy OMM and ace it, but for now, enjoy yourself. You have earned it.

Thanks for the encouragement! For the USMLE, I would definitely focus on your weakness in biostats, FA is plenty sufficient. Really that entire public health sciences chapter in FA is high yield. Know study designs, bias/study errors, statistical tests (there are only 3 in FA - not hard to learn), etc. EVERYTHING in that chapter is high yield. I wouldn't really worry about the heart sounds, if you know cardio well then I believe all of the heart sounds I got were just supplemental to the stem (ex you could guess the correct answer based off other hints without listening to the heart sounds). I didn't get much ethics but that was probably just my exam, as I heard from many ppl that that has been popping up alot. Stay calm and study on! best of luck!

 

[kbeitz]

Um so.... took the step on Monday, and just took comlex today. Is it normal to feel like you did horrible on the comlex after feeling you killed the step? I don't know how this happened. I'm in shock and kind of freaking out right now.

On the step, I marked an avg of 6/40 questions per block, and I had all of those narrowed down to two options. On the comlex, I marked 25/50 on each block and half of those I couldn't narrow down at all.... I feel like I got 250-270 on the step (consistent with my nbmes) and I would be lucky to have done average on the comlex....

Somebody please tell me I'm ok. Or just lay it bare for me.

How would it look for residency if I had a killer step 1 score and an average comlex?

Took today and felt the same way. My usmle was relatively easy, but doing 50 questions in the same amount of time and having to juggle omm is too much. I had questions on my comlex that could go toe to toe with some of the more challenging UW questions, and at certain parts i wondered if someone accidentally inserted a USMLE into my test. For example, I had a Hardy-Weinberg problem mixed with a genetic tree that took me 5 minutes to figure out, but definitely required knowing parts of a very similar HW question in UW. No idea if i got it right.

I spoke to my friend and they had a completely different form with much easier questions, and several duplicates. I have no idea how they intend on comparing forms. I don't feel that the nbome knows what it's doing with question balancing. That was the most difficult test I've ever taken and it shouldn't have been.

 

[MedicaMagus]

Looking for advice. Is it worth doing all of the "COMLEX" questions in the back of green book, or is it better just to stick to COMBANK OMM?

 

[wxman393]

Looking for advice. Is it worth doing all of the "COMLEX" questions in the back of green book, or is it better just to stick to COMBANK OMM?

I found the Savarese questions at the back to be very helpful, especially for some last-minute OMM review. Took the exam last week. Did not use UWorld but used both COMQUEST and COMBANK.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[TryingToBeADoctor]

Took COMLEX today.... feeling real terrible about it. Anyone else walk out feeling like they should probably not stop studying??

I also took mine Friday and felt terrible walking out. I probably was only thinking about all that i didn't know though, not the amount I took 30 seconds to answer confidently and moved on from because today I don't feel so bad. Hopefully you feel better today

 

[woolsocks90]

Looking for advice. Is it worth doing all of the "COMLEX" questions in the back of green book, or is it better just to stick to COMBANK OMM?

After already taking COMLEX, I would say if you do all of the COMBANK OMM questions and just ready the green book you will be more than fine. All of the OMM questions that I had seemed to be very similar to what I saw in combank. I only read/reviewed the green book and did not do any of the questions in it and felt more than prepared for COMLEX

 

[Army guy]

After already taking COMLEX, I would say if you do all of the COMBANK OMM questions and just ready the green book you will be more than fine. All of the OMM questions that I had seemed to be very similar to what I saw in combank. I only read/reviewed the green book and did not do any of the questions in it and felt more than prepared for COMLEX

The COMBANK treatment position questions are sooo hard though lol. I know what I should focus on, but there's no time ((( test on Monday. Been blasting through COMBANK since Wednesday lol

Edit: also is it me or does COMBANK seem to be filled with low yield stuff. Like the 4 types of osteogenesis imperfecta etc etc. I've done Rx, Kaplan, Uworld. COMBANK seems to be the lowest of low yields of banks imo... Is COMLEX reflective of this "low yieldness"? Seems like a terribly written test if so. Testing on memorization abilities rather than deductive reasoning.

 

[AlteredScale]

The COMBANK treatment position questions are sooo hard though lol. I know what I should focus on, but there's no time ((( test on Monday. Been blasting through COMBANK since Wednesday lol

Edit: also is it me or does COMBANK seem to be filled with low yield stuff. Like the 4 types of osteogenesis imperfecta etc etc. I've done Rx, Kaplan, Uworld. COMBANK seems to be the lowest of low yields of banks imo... Is COMLEX reflective of this "low yieldness"? Seems like a terribly written test if so. Testing on memorization abilities rather than deductive reasoning.

There were some questions on mine that I think many would consider to be a bit low yield but it wasn't a lot. Combank reflected the style of questions though the bank def missed some of the enormous cases I got. I'm talking 10-15 structural findings and sometimes close to 20 labs. The nice thing is that they give you the reference ranges next to it so it saves a lot of time.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Sloosha]

Looking for advice. Is it worth doing all of the "COMLEX" questions in the back of green book, or is it better just to stick to COMBANK OMM?

Stick to COMBANK OMM.