Official 2017 COMLEX Level 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Roxas

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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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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.

I had 3 days to study for COMLEX after taking USMLE and it was more than enough time to get through COMBANK OMM. The only thing I did was COMBANK OMM questions (about 150-180 a day) and read saverse to get my viscerosomatics, chapman points (green book doesn't have all of them though), and other OMM weak areas down.

For treatment positions it is a better idea to study and understand the moa/reasoning behind ME, counterstain, HVLA, etc... Most of the positioning type questions give you the dysfunction and ask you to set the patient up for a certain type of treatment. If you know which are direct and which are indirect you don't need to study individual techniques. The only things that require memorization are the weird ones, like some of the posterior cervical counterstains.

I did not do the rest of COMBANK, but I can tell you that I felt pretty confident leaving the testing center about how I performed and I'd say its because I completed UW, Kaplan, and Rx. Haven't gotten my scores back yet but I was hitting 700+ on my COMSAEs. COMLEX is horribly written and I almost found I did better on questions when I starting reading the last sentence first. Half the time the half page HPI that they give you in a question has nothing to do with the actual question. So you read a story about a unicorn herder on candy mountain who is vegetarian, has asthma and a size 13 shoe, a family history of cancer... and then you get asked about the mechanism of action of an antibiotic one of his unicorns accidentally ingested from when he was being treated for TB or how to set up his posterior rotated innominate for muscle energy.
 
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I had 3 days to study for COMLEX after taking USMLE and it was more than enough time to get through COMBANK OMM. The only thing I did was COMBANK OMM questions (about 150-180 a day) and read saverse to get my viscerosomatics, chapman points (green book doesn't have all of them though), and other OMM weak areas down.

For treatment positions it is a better idea to study and understand the moa/reasoning behind ME, counterstain, HVLA, etc... Most of the positioning type questions give you the dysfunction and ask you to set the patient up for a certain type of treatment. If you know which are direct and which are indirect you don't need to study individual techniques. The only things that require memorization are the weird ones, like some of the posterior cervical counterstains.

I did not do the rest of COMBANK, but I can tell you that I felt pretty confident leaving the testing center about how I performed and I'd say its because I completed UW, Kaplan, and Rx. Haven't gotten my scores back yet but I was hitting 700+ on my COMSAEs. COMLEX is horribly written and I almost found I did better on questions when I starting reading the last sentence first. Half the time the half page HPI that they give you in a question has nothing to do with the actual question. So you read a story about a unicorn herder on candy mountain who is vegetarian, has asthma and a size 13 shoe, a family history of cancer... and then you get asked about the mechanism of action of an antibiotic one of his unicorns accidentally ingested from when he was being treated for TB or how to set up his posterior rotated innominate for muscle energy.


greatest description I've heard yet! Any other misc topics that youd suggest reviewing? i have my test on monday as well. Having done too much OMM honestly, but its been one of highest scoring subjects on all comsaes (not that its particularly reflecive of comlex..)
 
greatest description I've heard yet! Any other misc topics that youd suggest reviewing? i have my test on monday as well. Having done too much OMM honestly, but its been one of highest scoring subjects on all comsaes (not that its particularly reflecive of comlex..)

Considering your exam is only a day away I would review any weak areas that you have in OMM, micro, or pharm. The OMM on the exam (at least the one I took) was easy and straightforward and you'll be kicking yourself if you miss a question because you didnt review it. Make sure you have your viscerosomatics and chapman points down because they are by far the easiest questions to miss if you don't have them down, and make sure you know the weird chapman points (nose, sinuses, thyroid, etc..)

My exam felt like it was 50% micro, 30% pharm, 10% path/physiology/anatomoy/all the other subjects that should actually be tested, and 10% omm. So if you feel like you're weak in micro or pharm a quick review wouldn't hurt you
 
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Considering your exam is only a day away I would review any week area that you have in OMM, micro, or pharm. The OMM on the exam (at least the one I took) was easy and straightforward and you'll be kicking yourself if you miss a question because you didnt review it. Make sure you have your viscerosomatics and chapman points down because they are by far the easiest questions to miss if you don't have them down, and make sure you know the weird chapman points (nose, sinuses, thyroid, etc..)

My exam felt like it was 50% micro, 30% pharm, 10% path/physiology/anatomoy/all the other subjects that should actually be tested, and 10% omm. So if you feel like you're weak in micro or pharm a quick review wouldn't hurt you

Good to hear, thank you!!
 
Can anyone comment if the 50 practice questions found here NBOME | COMLEX-USA Level 1, Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation and Level 3 Computer-based Cognitive Examinations (level 1 lol) are similar content wise as the exam? I know the exam question stems are huge and these questions are only 1-2 sentences so I know they aren't that much of a representation. thanks

Mostly I'm just wondering because I did pretty good on these but I just got hit with a ton of non-exam stressors and it's hard to focus :/
 
Can anyone comment if the 50 practice questions found here NBOME | COMLEX-USA Level 1, Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation and Level 3 Computer-based Cognitive Examinations (level 1 lol) are similar content wise as the exam? I know the exam question stems are huge and these questions are only 1-2 sentences so I know they aren't that much of a representation. thanks

Mostly I'm just wondering because I did pretty good on these but I just got hit with a ton of non-exam stressors and it's hard to focus :/

It's similar but def not as straight forward as that practice test.


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Thanks. I knew comlex wasn't going to be that nice but I will take 'similar' haha
Just finished COMLEX. The first 4 blocks felt like the nbome practice questions; really straight forward. I finished it with 40min remaining at the end.
But omg the last 4 blocks felt like step 1 (aka. guessing a lot) lol. OMM wrecked me in those blocks. So much MSK. I guess I should have expected it..... Thought I was killing the test until after lunch. If you have a strong OMM foundation though, I think you'll do fine. I've always been terrible at OMM, even on school exams, I could never spatially make sense of it so I had a tough time.
 
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Ugh, just finished my exam, so many ****ing MSK/OMM questions, god damn! I just hope I passed!
 
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Hey guys, so I just took the test and wanna pay it forward because this sub helped me settle a bunch of nerves.
First Ill mention the exhaustion factor. By question 300 I was tired by 350 I was brain dead. I scored some extra time in block 5 and 6 which saved my ass for 7th and 8th where I was dead. Content wise what everybody has been saying is kinda on point. Good chunk of OPP/Micro/Random vagueness. Testing the same ideas over and over again. The videos are honestly not bad don't know why people complained. Combank is definitely the closest you can come to the Comlex hands down. I read FA/Pathoma several times and there were still plenty of questions which I just had to use my knowledge and infer what the correct answer is due to never reading it there. Let me know what questions y'all have. Ill be paying attention to this post for the next 2 days.
 
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Hey guys, so I just took the test and wanna pay it forward because this sub helped me settle a bunch of nerves.
First Ill mention the exhaustion factor. By question 300 I was tired by 350 I was brain dead. I scored some extra time in block 5 and 6 which saved my ass for 7th and 8th where I was dead. Content wise what everybody has been saying is kinda on point. Good chunk of OPP/Micro/Random vagueness. Testing the same ideas over and over again. The videos are honestly not bad don't know why people complained. Combank is definitely the closest you can come to the Comlex hands down. I read FA/Pathoma several times and there were still plenty of questions which I just had to use my knowledge and infer what the correct answer is due to never reading it there. Let me know what questions y'all have. Ill be paying attention to this post for the next 2 days.

any tips for pharm? i feel like if i end up with too much pharm it could screw bc i'm pretty bad at it.
 
any tips for pharm? i feel like if i end up with too much pharm it could screw bc i'm pretty bad at it.
The pharm wasnt bad. Basic stuff, make sure to know micro pharm well and the rest I am sure you picked up from school/FA.
 
Hey guys, so I just took the test and wanna pay it forward because this sub helped me settle a bunch of nerves.
First Ill mention the exhaustion factor. By question 300 I was tired by 350 I was brain dead. I scored some extra time in block 5 and 6 which saved my ass for 7th and 8th where I was dead. Content wise what everybody has been saying is kinda on point. Good chunk of OPP/Micro/Random vagueness. Testing the same ideas over and over again. The videos are honestly not bad don't know why people complained. Combank is definitely the closest you can come to the Comlex hands down. I read FA/Pathoma several times and there were still plenty of questions which I just had to use my knowledge and infer what the correct answer is due to never reading it there. Let me know what questions y'all have. Ill be paying attention to this post for the next 2 days.

Congrats on being done. Was it heavy on biostatistics and behavioral science?
 
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Took the beast today. Let me say first and foremost the COMSAEs are absolutely nothing like the real deal. Maybe COMSAE E that your school buys you but that's it. The only way to properly describe the COMLEX questions are poorly written COMBANK questions but UWORLD length. The length of the questions were ridiculous and the OMT questions were a huge timesink. For example, they give you 10+ osteopathic findings and then ask the question in a way where A-E could be right so you have to compare A-E to the 10+ findings to rule out each one. I used all of my time and felt a bit rushed in the first block of 200 questions, but on COMSAEs I had a bunch of time to review. What everyone has been saying is true. Micro/Pharm/OMT/Neuro/MSK dominated the 400 questions. Study the obscure, less HY things in sketchymicro across each section. There were some easy micro but at least 50% were on obscure things. Things sketchy mostly could answer but definitely not what would be considered HY. Any biostats was super easy, basic stuff like sensitivity or specificity . Know your tests like ANOVA chisquare, etc. Minimal psych too but they covered things that could be tricky for someone who didn't comb over the slight differences in the FA Psych section.

Any questions let me know
 
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Took the beast today. Let me say first and foremost the COMSAEs are absolutely nothing like the real deal. Maybe COMSAE E that your school buys you but that's it. The only way to properly describe the COMLEX questions are poorly written COMBANK questions but UWORLD length. The length of the questions were ridiculous and the OMT questions were a huge timesink. For example, they give you 10+ osteopathic findings and then ask the question in a way where A-E could be right so you have to compare A-E to the 10+ findings to rule out each one. I used all of my time and felt a bit rushed in the first block of 200 questions, but on COMSAEs I had a bunch of time to review. What everyone has been saying is true. Micro/Pharm/OMT/Neuro/MSK dominated the 400 questions. Study the obscure, less HY things in sketchymicro across each section. There were some easy micro but at least 50% were on obscure things. Things sketchy mostly could answer but definitely not what would be considered HY. Any biostats was super easy, basic stuff like sensitivity or specificity . Know your tests like ANOVA chisquare, etc. Minimal psych too but they covered things that could be tricky for someone who didn't comb over the slight differences in the FA Psych section.

Any questions let me know

I take mine tomorrow, so I only have a few hours of my cram session left, but any suggestions for MSK? Like is it "patient presents with X, what innervation broke?" or is MSK more related to opp where "Patient complains of Y, which is the following treatment positions would be helpful?"

Thanks for your post btw!
 
I take mine tomorrow, so I only have a few hours of my cram session left, but any suggestions for MSK? Like is it "patient presents with X, what innervation broke?" or is MSK more related to opp where "Patient complains of Y, which is the following treatment positions would be helpful?"

Thanks for your post btw!

Know the nerve injuries and tests in the section at the end of the green book
 
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Glad I'm not the only one who felt that time crunch. The whole exam I was looking at the timer like **** , ****, ****. Definitely didn't have that problem with any of my practice tests. I had a whole pacing scheme laid out before I got in there too. Pshhhh. That went out the window about 20 questions into it. Still praying I at least pass. I had a rough time. :(
 
Anyone else expecting scores released in the next few days?? Getting nervous over here

If you took it before June 10th they'll be released tomorrow or Thursday. I'm hoping for tomorrow and expecting Thursday.
 
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Well, I just got out and I have no idea how to feel. I was planning on writing this super awesome post so I can help others like I was helped. But nope! My test was pretty much even in all the topics. Had to know weird parasites, and even with me knowing that going in - there were still things I had never seen before. Had a lot of histo slides and most of those questions were "person has fatigue and this biopsy, what is it?" So no buzz words.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if I failed it. The exam had a good amount of "that's not a fair way to ask that question".

Oh!!! For real! Does anyone know if I can challenge a question? I honestly think I was given a wrong image for one of my questions. The question was "patient has these problems" and based off their problems I knew what they had but when I looked at the image - there was no way it was right. Plus the image was the same one used for a different question and the questions were totally different. Meaning I didn't miss an obvious condition.
 
Well, I just got out and I have no idea how to feel. I was planning on writing this super awesome post so I can help others like I was helped. But nope! My test was pretty much even in all the topics. Had to know weird parasites, and even with me knowing that going in - there were still things I had never seen before. Had a lot of histo slides and most of those questions were "person has fatigue and this biopsy, what is it?" So no buzz words.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if I failed it. The exam had a good amount of "that's not a fair way to ask that question".

Oh!!! For real! Does anyone know if I can challenge a question? I honestly think I was given a wrong image for one of my questions. The question was "patient has these problems" and based off their problems I knew what they had but when I looked at the image - there was no way it was right. Plus the image was the same one used for a different question and the questions were totally different. Meaning I didn't miss an obvious condition.

What probably happened was that you forgot to close out of the image from the previous question, so when you clicked on the image it brought the old image to the front. That happened to me a couple times. It was confusing cause it was the old image and didn't make sence, so I closed it and reopened it and it brought up a new image.
 
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What probably happened was that you forgot to close out of the image from the previous question, so when you clicked on the image it brought the old image to the front. That happened to me a couple times. It was confusing cause it was the old image and didn't make sence, so I closed it and reopened it and it brought up a new image.


Oh cool, glad it was something as simple as that. I'm glad I went with my answer choice instead of trying to make it fit the "image" lol
 
Just let us knoww!! What's the point in giving two days to release a score? Ah...here come flashbacks to the exam o_O
 
I got my step 1 score yesterday around noon... lets see if nbome can follow suit and beat their time of 5pm last year. =) good luck everyone. Keep in mind we are all going to be doctors regardless of the score (99.99%)
 
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I got my step 1 score yesterday around noon... lets see if nbome can follow suit and beat their time of 5pm last year. =) good luck everyone. Keep in mind we are all going to be doctors regardless of the score (99.99%)

Literally can't wait any longer! Just hoping for a damn pass at this point
 
So I took step 1 on Monday, and comlex yesterday. Did anybody else find comlex was waaaay easier? I would consistently have 5-10 minutes left after taking my time going back through all my marked questions, whereas this was definitely not the case during step 1. I would assume the two exams are curved very differently. Well, either that or I bombed step 1 completely, though I had geared pretty much all of my studying towards step 1...
FWIW I'm pretty good at OMM questions though, and pure OMM questions were probably like 10-15% of my exam.
Personally I would take 10 step 1's before I had to take another level 1. Not that is was easier per say but the volume of questions in the comlex caught me off guard.
 
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Been a pretty big lerker on here, took comlex, and now it's my turn to contribute but you all aren't going to like what I have to say-

I wish I could say following this forum was super helpful because you guys are all friggen awesome for helping each other, but moral of the story is everyone's experience was SO different. Reading back at posts, I couldn't believe how different peoples experiences were. Obscure micro and nonesense omm everyone agrees on, but everything else? Nada.

Do the best you can, keep grinding, but be in for a surprise because no one here could prepare you for the crazy stuff they throw atcha! (Hence why I'm more of a fan of step). Good luck err one
 
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Do the best you can, keep grinding, but be in for a surprise because no one here could prepare you for the crazy stuff they throw atcha! (Hence why I'm more of a fan of step). Good luck err one

110% agree with this. This thread warning me to studying for the weird things they could was ridiculously helpful. I wish I could just say what is good to review, but some of the questions are just so awful you just can't prepare for them.

Oh, I got a good number of videos but none were long and none of them messed with my timing. The acting isn't all that great and when they present something serious, it's a little hard not to laugh. I highly recommend reading the last sentence and then the answer choices before reading the question. Doing that helped me out a ton.
 
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Scores are out guys, mine just came in:

USMLE step 1: 260
COMLEX level 1: 719

Thanking everyone on this forum and in general who helped me along the way. Good luck to all!
 
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Step :247
COMLEX: 689

Honestly I just studied hard for step using the holy trinity of Pathoma, First Aid and Uworld ( and of course sketchy), and then did COMBANK the day before and watched some video about viscerosomatics. Honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to working hard your first two years of school and working as hard as you can to actually learn and not just memorize the material. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!
 
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USMLE: 253
COMLEX: 788

I only took COMSAE E administered by my school, and that was 702. My NBMEs were all 250-252 with one minor outlier of 257. So my USMLE is right in line with my practice scores, but I have no idea how the hell I got my COMLEX score. Ecstatic and shocked.
 
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490-500 range. I feel like crap. I expected better of myself. Kind of panicking and wondering whether I should take USMLE now. Is EM or IM still an option for me?
Most def still an option. Shoot for the AOA programs that have initial ACGME accreditation.
 
USMLE Step 1: 239
COMLEX Level 1: 644

Bringing things a bit more down to earth from the 99th percentile people up here on SDN! Haha. But congrats to everyone getting their passing scores, low and high. We all worked our tails off and got through the toughest set of board exams.
 
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USMLE Step 1: 239
COMLEX Level 1: 644

Bringing things a bit more down to earth from the 99th percentile people up here on SDN! Haha. But congrats to everyone getting their passing scores, low and high. We all worked our tails off and got through the toughest set of board exams.
The 100s of others who aren't posting probably didn't score anywhere near that range... so 644 isn't more down to earth. Still killed it dude :highfive:
 
The 100s of others who aren't posting probably didn't score anywhere near that range... so 644 isn't more down to earth. Still killed it dude :highfive:
I’m one of those 100’s, but I just wanted to post my scores here anyway so other students can get an idea of how the COMSAEs may or may not correlate to their final score.

UWORLD: 65% complete, 59% average
COMBANK: 85% complete, 68+% average (don’t remember exactly)

5/18: COMSAE D - 486
5/25: COMSAE A - 524
6/1: COMSAE C - 523
6/8: COMLEX - 505-510

In the end, I scored within 5 points of my COMSAE average. No complaints. Hopefully we can get some more COMSAE scores posted on here to help future students.
 
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The 100s of others who aren't posting probably didn't score anywhere near that range... so 644 isn't more down to earth. Still killed it dude :highfive:
Yes. I am shocked to hear so many super high scores. Congratulations everyone... my guess is more of the people who didn't crush it, will post their scores in the coming weeks. Otherwise the average this year is WAY higher than in the past.
 
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