Just took it today here’s my take. Preface: middle 1/3 student. Very average nbme/UW scores (didn’t do any comlex practice stuff). Had 3 days between usmle and comlex.
Overall: Test was fair I think but def had a lot more wtf moments than step had. But that’s probably expected with 120 extra questions. Timing is brutal. Way more tough than step. You basically have no time to review. Not kidding I think I was able to go back and legit review maybe 10/400 questions. I always finish in time but I never had more than like 4-5 mins. I’d honestly rather take step again than ever take comlex. So exhausting that extra hour and break time spread is so much more brutal. It’s 100% that you will get the same topic more than once. I had 3-4 questions that were exactly the same stem even the same little video but just the last sentence was a different question than last time. Also just had totally different questions but the answer was the same. Step wasn’t like that at all for me.
OMM: total joke. I was really nervous bc I only watched the OMGOMT videos on 2x and took some notes. Didn’t touch the green book or even any anki on omm. Omgomt was plenty. Got me 90% of the questions. Kept reviewing my one page of notes in breaks and it got me a question each block. Very surface level except maybe like 2. 50% of omm was visceosimatica for me so know it. Not a single counter strain, 1 chapman, and 2 cranial. Had a decent amount of rib and sacrum and just like knowing the principle of basic techniques.
Micro: my god know every bug in sketchy and FA like the back of your hand. 25-30% of my exam was micro and/or micro stem but question was about the drug or Moa if drug to treat it. Protozoa,fungi, parasite, zoonotics HY.
Systems path: 80% Very buzzwordy and way easy compared to step. Then 20% was like wtf you gave me one sentence how tf can I diagnose anything?? Lol. Mine has a lot of cardio, GI, respiratory. “Next step” questions pretty tough and way harder than what I saw on step. A few ekgs. Nothing crazy tho but I have had friends who apparently had a ton of wild ekg questions so idk.
Msk: palsies, dermatomes, neuropathies mostly.
Biochem: butthurt bc I thought comlex biochem was harder than step lol. Step was pretty classic UW biochem topics and comlex was to for like 80% but def a few head turner ones.
Neuro: pretty comparable to step maybe a little harder. Had a lot of rule of 4 locate the lesion. Didn’t have any on step surprisingly.
PHYS: Cardio, respiratory galore. Not much endocrine and renal compared to step
Pharm: sketchy good for most but some **** was wtf. Had a MOA of a drug question and I googled it on my break and it said MOA is unknown so that question can suck it lol. Also had a question about a treatment that had (according to FA/sketchy) multiple right answers unless I read the question wrong.
Bioethic: pretty tough. It was a joke on step. But had like 3x as many questions and some scenarios I’ve never seen. No way to prepare just use your instinct lol.
Biostats: Basic equations we all know and know your studybdesigns. suprisingly had way more higher order statistical and research/data protocol type questions than on step and DOs aren’t exactly known for research lol.
Other: genetic was pretty high yeild but emphasized diff things than step. Immuno was very rare in my comlex. Like 2 questions. But in step immuno was one of the heaviest subjects hit. Felt like there was basically no general molecular stuff on there really. Comlex uses a lot more random tests, stains, markers than are not in UfAPs and you’ve never heard of in your life lol. But I think they are mostly irrelevant to actually answer the question. Histo, smears, scans way more abundant on comlex and way less revealing. Half the time I’m like what is this? Lol.
