COMLEX Official 2019 Comlex 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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ASGD1983

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It's that time of the year. Anyone took new Comsae recently? Hopefully it's more predicitve than old ones that were all over the place - like +/- 100 points.
Also, interesting to hear if this years comlex is indeed changed? If anyone took it recently - please share your experience. Especially if you can compare it to previous year one.
 
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amyleo said:
HELP! My exam is tomorrow and I don't know how the breaks work. Do we have access to our lockers/notes for the 10min and 40min lunch breaks?? Can we have our phone/notes in our locker then? Can't find this info on prometric or nbome sites.
Thanks!
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You get a 10 min break after 2nd block. Then a 40 min break after 4th block and then another 10 min break after 6th block. During breaks you can access your phone, notes, whatever.
 
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amyleo said:
HELP! My exam is tomorrow and I don't know how the breaks work. Do we have access to our lockers/notes for the 10min and 40min lunch breaks?? Can we have our phone/notes in our locker then? Can't find this info on prometric or nbome sites.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Also, I've heard that 10 min breaks might not be enough time to actually use them going to your locker as it depends on lineup and speed of proctors. If there will be 2 people ahead of you going out - it may take like 5 minutes literally to go through security. Same might happen when going back - which means there's little sense going out, but I'm not sure if it's true and I suspect it depends on prometric location and how fast they can do security checks.
 
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do you recommend reading looking at anything at 10 mins or just use as mental reset

maybe for the 40 mins break -20 mins eat , 10 min strech 10 min cram sheet?

do you get to write your notes during tutorial using a laminated white sheet + thick dry ease marker?
 
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kitkatblue said:
do you recommend reading looking at anything at 10 mins or just use as mental reset

maybe for the 40 mins break -20 mins eat , 10 min strech 10 min cram sheet?

do you get to write your notes during tutorial using a laminated white sheet + thick dry ease marker?
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I think if you'll notice same concepts repeating over and over in the first half - chances are they'll come up in 2nd half too, so like some folks here said it's a good idea to review quickly those concepts at 40min brake + go over cram sheet. However, I'm not sure what is best to do during 10min breaks, if you can do a mental reset or meditation - it might help too. Fatigue and stress is real on that beast.
 
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Yeah, just depends on your testing center and the speed (or lack thereof) of the proctors. My testing center was pretty quick.

I just laid my head on my desk during the 10 minute breaks and had a small mental holiday.
ASGD1983 said:
Also, I've heard that 10 min breaks might not be enough time to actually use them going to your locker as it depends on lineup and speed of proctors. If there will be 2 people ahead of you going out - it may take like 5 minutes literally to go through security. Same might happen when going back - which means there's little sense going out, but I'm not sure if it's true and I suspect it depends on prometric location and how fast they can do security checks.
Click to expand...
 
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kitkatblue said:
do you recommend reading looking at anything at 10 mins or just use as mental reset

maybe for the 40 mins break -20 mins eat , 10 min strech 10 min cram sheet?

do you get to write your notes during tutorial using a laminated white sheet + thick dry ease marker?
Click to expand...

For comlex yeah def bring FA or something. I got soooo much micro that i kept reviewing it in first aid on breaks and def got a few points. Also there’s so many questions in comlex that they do repeat concepts/questions. So if you saw something come up once or twice and you were 100% look it up on break so if it comes up again you got it.
 
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Dr.Bruh said:
For comlex yeah def bring FA or something. I got soooo much micro that i kept reviewing it in first aid on breaks and def got a few points. Also there’s so many questions in comlex that they do repeat concepts/questions. So if you saw something come up once or twice and you were 100% look it up on break so if it comes up again you got it.
Click to expand...

Would help unless you have five questions over pathophys minutiae that's not in FA. Happened to someone I know (me)
 
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austintr said:
I highly encourage everyone to put something about the time in the feedback (respectfully, of course. Or disrespectfully, I don't care). I'm probably top 20% in test taking speed (arbitrary number but still) and I had to do probably about 70 questions based off of simply scanning for buzzwords and going with my gut. Not counting the ones where you read and analyze and still just send it with a gut feeling anyways.
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Agreed. The only feedback I left was “hey guys I didn’t like that my exam crashed in block 2” & “can we please have more break time, maybe at least 10/section?” In a respectful way.
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
Agreed. The only feedback I left was “hey guys I didn’t like that my exam crashed in block 2” & “can we please have more break time, maybe at least 10/section?” In a respectful way.
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My only comment at the end was something like “the time constraint for this exam was unreasonable”.
 
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My comments were:

“There is too much loading time in between questions.

The charts/graphs/gusto images were of higher quality than those of the USMLE.

There is not enough time to take this exam. The time constraints are completely unreasonable. This is made worse by the videos, particularly the omm videos as they seemed to be very simple questions purposely asked in the most time consuming way possible.

I did however think the videos on gait were a novel way to assess our knowledge.”
 
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On the comments section for COMLEX i made a couple suggestions. Mostly because i was just ecstatic board season was over and i had my time back haha.

I mentioned the no breaks b/w every sections was unreasonable and they basically should have a break schedule similar to USMLE (where you could take 5 minute break per 40 minute block or just power through if that was your thing). I could see a 40 minute break being detrimental for some students. They could lose their focus/energy after that long of break.
I mentioned some of the videos were too long. Some of the videos were three minutes but the first minute was basically the doctor introducing himself to the patient. That felt pretty pointless, stop waisting my time with introductions and the nonsense. Just show me the OMM technique you are doing.
 
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Arcanine said:
Took another COMSAE...got 392 with my exam in 9 days. Can’t push it back, and school tells me I gotta join next year’s class otherwise. Dunno, it’s an improvement to my last two scores but just don’t know how much more I can raise it over the next 8 days.
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You decided to go for it or postponed? :wideyed:
 
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im USING COMQUEST but should I do COMBANNK too for the video questions? Since COMQUESt doesn't seem to have vidoes?
Heme
Endo
Reprod this week . Please GOD-LEE i NEED to study OMM for one hour and not waste it by driving, parking, setting up my desk space and so forth.

Tmr @lib:
40Q comquest random mixed
Review uworld infectious diseases
1 hour on OMM
Nuero/MSS review.

i find that breaking up a 6 hour chuck at the lib with diff tasks is helpful.

Before lib:
review Heme + 40 Q heme
Should I read / listen to pathoma if it will help remember/recall ? 2nd pass of pathoma heme
 
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cooldown said:
im USING COMQUEST but should I do COMBANNK too for the video questions? Since COMQUESt doesn't seem to have vidoes?
Heme
Endo
Reprod this week . Please GOD-LEE i NEED to study OMM for one hour and not waste it by driving, parking, setting up my desk space and so forth.

Tmr @lib:
40Q comquest random mixed
Review uworld infectious diseases
1 hour on OMM
Nuero/MSS review.

i find that breaking up a 6 hour chuck at the lib with diff tasks is helpful.

Before lib:
review Heme + 40 Q heme
Should I read / listen to pathoma if it will help remember/recall ? 2nd pass of pathoma heme
Click to expand...
So you are doing 80Q with review a day plus content review by subjects + 1hr OMM?
 
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Were videos on comlex - OMM based or it could be any subject? If OMM - how can you prepare for it? I mean do they just show technique that you have to guess or something else? Trying to keep it general, without too much details. Thank you
 
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Wow...been perusing people's comments for what the exam was like. It was just as miserable as the rumors described...I felt like in terms of the vagueness COMQUEST was as close as you could get. But the issue is that every question bank tests you from a very "classical" perspective. UWorld gives you a lot of pieces, almost all of which you need. COMQUEST might give you 1-2 of the 5 most classical symptoms and have you cross out the least likely from the answer choices.

Meanwhile on the COMLEX it felt like I was looking through binoculars backwards, through a fog, in the middle of a storm, while sinking in mud. It was like they did COMQUEST-style but scattered the stem with a bunch of unnecessary minutiae you'd see in a clinical setting which made picking out the "buzzwords" tricky...especially because if you didn't have an answer picked out the second you finished reading, you were already net negative on time. There were some absolutely hilariously long stems oh my god 🤣....

I might've passed. Also just as likely I could've been absolutely blown away. My brain already greeted me this morning by randomly reminding me of a detail I had forgotten for a question because I was rushed and consequently got wrong lol...I'm gonna have to make sure I keep the beer coming so that doesn't keep happening for the next 3 weeks.

I'm happy doing family medicine, so a retake won't absolutely murder me, but what annoys me is that I don't even know what I would DO to prepare for a second attempt...The only saving grace I can see here is that if even the smartest students are missing easy points due to time, that'll make for a very lenient curve across the board.

@ASGD1983 From what I remember I had videos on OMM, MSK, Neuro, GI...they showed physical exams from you clinical skills class, basically. Honestly, I'll just parrot what everyone else says about OMM: 80% is classic green book OMM, 20% there is NOTHING you can do to prepare, don't even worry about it...I can't describe it because a) I couldn't really make sense of it, b) because I just cut my losses due to the time and switched gears for the next question.
 
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ASGD1983 said:
So you are doing 80Q with review a day plus content review by subjects + 1hr OMM?
Click to expand...


I am struggling with getting up in the morning and laying in bed "thinking" Maybe I need to add an AM run to my routine instead of doing practice questions with a rushed breakfast in between. Get up, do 40Q , and then run in the morning.

My daily plan is 50 content specific questions + 1 hr OMM + 50 COMQUEST questions + 30-1 hr review with studybuddy.
 
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alkaidius said:
I'm happy doing family medicine, so a retake won't absolutely murder me, but what annoys me is that I don't even know what I would DO to prepare for a second attempt...
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I can totally relate to this. I want to do adult primary care, so preferably via a primary care track IM residency, but could live with family medicine. I also absolutely agree that if I had to retake, I wouldn’t even know what to do to prepare. After that exam I told everyone that I hoped I passed less for the career implications at this point and more because I couldn’t muster the strength to take that again.
 
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I know it fluctuates every year, and maybe more so with the new blueprint, but does anyone know either from speakers / their COMs what percentage of questions right translates to like 400, 500, ect?
 
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Osteoguy1994 said:
I know it fluctuates every year, and maybe more so with the new blueprint, but does anyone know either from speakers / their COMs what percentage of questions right translates to like 400, 500, ect?
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No one knows. It's pure speculation but it wouldn't surprise me if it was about 50%= 400, 60%=500, 70%=600, 80%=650+ or something similar to this.

But there is zero data on this so who knows.
 
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Thoughts on whether to cram more omm hard in the next 3 days before my comlex? Took comsae 102 this morning and got a 559 which id be fine with, but not sure how that will translate to the actual test. Have watched omg omt and read through an old Kaplan omt review book an upperclassman gave me awhile ago
 
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RamsFan&FutureDO said:
Thoughts on whether to cram more omm hard in the next 3 days before my comlex? Took comsae 102 this morning and got a 559 which id be fine with, but not sure how that will translate to the actual test. Have watched omg omt and read through an old Kaplan omt review book an upperclassman gave me awhile ago
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Omg omt was sufficient for most, if not all, of what I saw specifically. The rapid review at the end of FA was valuable I felt for tying together loose ends before the real thing
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
No one knows. It's pure speculation but it wouldn't surprise me if it was about 50%= 400, 60%=500, 70%=600, 80%=650+ or something similar to this.

But there is zero data on this so who knows.
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I had heard similar on some past threads. Lol no idea if its accurate but “feels” about right
 
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jets46 said:
With my experience taking it, the first half I was thinking.. “okay, I might be doing well enough to Pass this thing.” To getting to the back half thinking, “ I hope I break a 350 on this thing.” ‍
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Halfway through, i was like, "YEAH, ima get like a 260..." Then i remembered i was taking the COMLEX and not the USMLE... Crap.

 
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Fluffyfatkitt3h said:
Suggestions for how to learn EKGs and any resources for the bizzare micro on comlex???
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Boards and beyond high yield ekg video would’ve got most of them for me. The rhythms aren’t crazy hard, they’re just not the 8-9 that are in first aid. Besides ethics weirdness and timing, the content was pretty reasonable.

You should know sketchy micro cold by now. For the handful of questions (<5 on mine) not covered in sketchy or first aid...eff it. No ones gonna get those anyway so whatever.
 
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Yeah this exam is a crapshoot.
My biggest tips;
1) don’t waste time, this exam isn’t a marathon but an 8hr + sprint.
2) if you’re highlighting, you are wasting time.
3) if you are rewatching those stupid ass videos, you are wasting time.
4) if you are second guessing yourself, you are wasting time.
5) if you are stretching your stuff muscles, brain, bones, or anything else that might make you feel better, you are wasting time.

Moral of the story, don’t waste time, go to an MD school and skip the bull**** that is the Cuntlex level 1.
 
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But for real tips,

I’ve used Combank - not representative (very minimal)

Uworld - best resource there is for medical school. Use it but it’s not representative, only good to learn medical stuff.

Savarese - use it to extract the most highest of high yield facts. Don’t waste time with words in between.

SWEET BABY JESUS watch YouTube videos for VISCEROSOMATICS AND CHAPMANS. I had 0 Chapman’s and about 30 viscerosomatics. YMMV so you’re better off learning how to memorize both.

There was more anatomy questions than strict path on my exam. That being said, the rough distribution for me was;
1) Micro (Jesus they love this ****)
2) OMM (they ask OMM questions in the dumbest ways so read the answer choice first not to waste time)
2.5/3) Anatomy (got plenty of straight anatomy questions like nerves, muscles, olecranons etc,)
4) all the rest (path,biostat,pharm,Biochem,ethics, etc. It’s amazing that these sections were relatively equal in density)

Again these are my experiences so YMMV. I did not take any materials with me to study because I’m not a sociopath.
 
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cooldown said:
Should i Do comBANK for vidoes (not good at vidoes) or comquest is OK ? Does comquest have vidoes or no?
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No videos on comquest.
I thought the COMLEX videos were easy to follow and pretty useless... a time suck.

I don't think you need COMBANK just for the videos.
 
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so just focus on finishing content focused question/review fo heme, endo, reprod Gi while tackling OMM and comquest 40Q and that's it
No need for combank ?
 
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REAL TALK GUYS.

What’s more like the exam, COMBANK or COMQUEST?

I’ve been doing just COMQUEST and it’s been decent ... tried combank today and it was just terrible. Hoping it’s because the questions are crappy and don’t give enough info/ aren’t worded properly and not that combank is somehow harder and more like the exam
 
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Mayanqwe said:
REAL TALK GUYS.

What’s more like the exam, COMBANK or COMQUEST?

I’ve been doing just COMQUEST and it’s been decent ... tried combank today and it was just terrible. Hoping it’s because the questions are crappy and don’t give enough info/ aren’t worded properly and not that combank is somehow harder and more like the exam
Click to expand...

If I had to say...Comquest. But it'd be like asking which of the following is closest to a goose: 1) Hippo, 2) Elephant, 3) Velociraptor. I think everyone has stressed this enough. There is nothing that comes close enough to give an accurate picture. Not even the damn COMSAEs they put out (i'm still reeling about this).

Best I can describe it is: take a typical COMQUEST question, now sprinkle in a paragraph clinical vignette, around it so finding those "buzzwords" becomes more difficult, add in some positive symptoms in other places "tired", "vague pain somewhere unrelated", etcetc then tack on a graph or a bunch (and I'm talking a BUNCH) of objective values. They especially get a kick of going JUST a teeny-weeny bit above or below normal to draw your attention until you ultimately decide how absurd it is that you're wondering whether a 5.6 K+ is a significant enough value to be considered Hyperkalemia. Now rinse and repeat 400 times with a 30s video every now and then. Voila!
 
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