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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Imran100 said:
Are all schools giving COMSAE 105 as their ‘screening’ test?
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That's what it seems like.

My school didn't even really use it to "screen" though & we never got told anything about the class average or what was considered a good/bad score. They had us do 105 in the morning then a COMBANK assessment in the afternoon to simulate the length of a full test. A handful of students just clicked "C" for all of the answers & left as soon as they could lol.
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
That's what it seems like.

My school didn't even really use it to "screen" though & we never got told anything about the class average or what was considered a good/bad score. They had us do 105 in the morning then a COMBANK assessment in the afternoon to simulate the length of a full test. A handful of students just clicked "C" for all of the answers & left as soon as they could lol.
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Apparently the national average is 430.
 
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Neopolymath said:
I had to do a combank assessment and it was an absolute joke. I was 99% and probably missed the OMM questions lol. You will be 99% I guarantee it.
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Sorry to disappoint, but I fell short of the 99% 😳

I just took the "retail" one that is included wiht the normal combank sub. 96%, predicted score 730ish... Felt similar to my COMSAE in many regards, but I got 200 points more.

If it has any validity I shall retreat to the lakehouse and sun until test day. That being said, believing in Combank is probably on par with cranio sacral dolphin therapy, so I go back to study.
 
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wonko said:
Sorry to disappoint, but I fell short of the 99% 😳

I just took the "retail" one that is included wiht the normal combank sub. 96%, predicted score 730ish... Felt similar to my COMSAE in many regards, but I got 200 points more.

If it has any validity I shall retreat to the lakehouse and sun until test day. That being said, believing in Combank is probably on par with cranio sacral dolphin therapy, so I go back to study.
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This was a wildly SDN stereotypical exchange right here lol.

(COMBANK IS ****)
 
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Neopolymath said:
This was a wildly SDN stereotypical exchange right here lol.

(COMBANK IS ****)
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They made us stay and do it after our COMSAE 103, even though it didn't count as a grade and had no bearing on our progress moving forward. I went through, read the question once, put my initial gut feeling, and still scored above average. I'm super average so me not trying and still getting a decent score shows how trash it is.

I was out of there in an hour when people who actually took it were there for 4.
 
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Is the curve based one test or multiple tests taken within the month/period? Like if you took it on Friday, is your curve different than a friend who took it on Saturday? Curious why it'll take 2 months for the scores to come out for those who took it.
 
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bravenugget21 said:
Is the curve based one test or multiple tests taken within the month/period? Like if you took it on Friday, is your curve different than a friend who took it on Saturday? Curious why it'll take 2 months for the scores to come out for those who took it.
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Could be as simple as they are just accumulating needed minimum threshold of exams taken to analyze and to make decision on a new passing standard. Or it could be that they have several forms and they need time to administer them several times across large number of test takers to access. Or something else.
 
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Taking COMLEX on Thursday. Got 470 on the COMSAE C last week. Normally I'm a cool cat, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. Seems to be mass panic on the streets about this exam (from my classmates, at least).

Studied mostly via COMQUEST.

Whatever happens, there will always be a new day.
 
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saigon. said:
Taking COMLEX on Thursday. Got 470 on the COMSAE C last week. Normally I'm a cool cat, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. Seems to be mass panic on the streets about this exam (from my classmates, at least).

Studied mostly via COMQUEST.

Whatever happens, there will always be a new day.
Click to expand...

You got this!!! Good luck!
 
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saigon. said:
Taking COMLEX on Thursday. Got 470 on the COMSAE C last week. Normally I'm a cool cat, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. Seems to be mass panic on the streets about this exam (from my classmates, at least).

Studied mostly via COMQUEST.

Whatever happens, there will always be a new day.
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There is no Comsae C as of April this year.
 
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saigon. said:
My school made a special order.
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Seems a bad choice, as old comsaes are over-predicting a lot. A lot of people with just under 500 (on old comsae scale) failed. If I were you I would take new comsae and if it's anywhere close to 400 - I'd postpone exam. Failure is much worse than postponing. Just my opinion.
 
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I took another COMSAE and I don't know what the heck even happened, but it didn't go well at all. 355 🙁 I have 25 days to the real exam. Just devastated.

What do you guys think? If the COMSAE is supposed to be underpredicting by 40-60 points and the passing score is still 400, maybe I'll be fine to scrape by with 24 more days of studying. I can't push it back because there's a deadline for my school, so it's either go into it with a lot of anxiety or take a year off, no other options.
 
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Arcanine said:
I took another COMSAE and I don't know what the heck even happened, but it didn't go well at all. 355 🙁 I have 25 days to the real exam. Just devastated.

What do you guys think? If the COMSAE is supposed to be underpredicting by 40-60 points and the passing score is still 400, maybe I'll be fine to scrape by with 24 more days of studying. I can't push it back because there's a deadline for my school, so it's either go into it with a lot of anxiety or take a year off, no other options.
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You still have time to improve and take another comsae before your exam. You can decide after that. However, imho taking a year off isn't a worst choice. It's better than to fail. Also, and this is just my opinion, keep in mind that with that low score - you probably will have issues on shelves too. Rotations will be very hard for you. Sometimes its better to step back, regroup, improve your knowledge and finish clinical years strong, rather than set your self to a disaster. It's not a 100m sprint, why rush? If tactical retreat and regrouping will help you win the war in the end - why not?
 
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NecFasc92 said:
You’re wrong. All the old comsaes under-predicted for me and literally everyone I know irl
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Hey man, just in my school 3 people failed. 1 of them is my roommate. You might not know anyone who failed, but it doesn't mean it's not true. If you have read previous year threads - there are a lot of people who failed after getting 430-480 on old comsae. Some failed by only 8 points, some by 150. I think there are many reasons why that was happening. Comsae scores were reported for the majority before dedicated - hence they had enough time to improve. However, many people who were forced to retake comsae to be allowed to sit for comlex, they took comsae last minute - like days before exam and it almost always over-predicted. Also, comlex is twice as long compared to comsae and a lot more stress. Maybe that's why for many people scores were lower on comlex than on comsae. I'm also guessing this is more the case with bottom 25% of people. For that category it's much more harder to perform on exam properly for many reasons like anxiety, fatigue etc. Moreover, compare this years average with previous year average for comsae and you can see a drop. It's a fact. Old comsae was either easier or curved easier. New comsaes are probably going to be much closer to real thing, or at least not over predict anymore. Just my opinion.
P.S. If you passed your comlex already and your scores were better than your comsae - good job, but it wasn't the case for everyone.
 
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ASGD1983 said:
Seems a bad choice, as old comsaes are over-predicting a lot. A lot of people with just under 500 (on old comsae scale) failed. If I were you I would take new comsae and if it's anywhere close to 400 - I'd postpone exam. Failure is much worse than postponing. Just my opinion.
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I appreciate the warning. I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.
 
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What’s a good average to be aiming on combank/uworld to have a good chance of passing, assuming you do qbanks on random without looking stuff up?
 
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ASGD1983 said:
You still have time to improve and take another comsae before your exam. You can decide after that. However, imho taking a year off isn't a worst choice. It's better than to fail. Also, and this is just my opinion, keep in mind that with that low score - you probably will have issues on shelves too. Rotations will be very hard for you. Sometimes its better to step back, regroup, improve your knowledge and finish clinical years strong, rather than set your self to a disaster. It's not a 100m sprint, why rush? If tactical retreat and regrouping will help you win the war in the end - why not?
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Oh I definitely wouldn't mind taking it, but the only reason why I don't want to do that is for the red flag (even if I'm going into primary care most likely), but I guess if I have no choice it can't be helped. I guess I will keep studying and take another one 3 or 4 days before the real one and see where I'm at. It just so frustrating not knowing if a sub 400 score is going to be a sub 400 and failing score on the real deal, or if this is underpredicting, especially when the national average is only 430 on these COMSAEs.
 
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Arcanine said:
Oh I definitely wouldn't mind taking it, but the only reason why I don't want to do that is for the red flag (even if I'm going into primary care most likely), but I guess if I have no choice it can't be helped. I guess I will keep studying and take another one 3 or 4 days before the real one and see where I'm at. It just so frustrating not knowing if a sub 400 score is going to be a sub 400 and failing score on the real deal, or if this is underpredicting, especially when the national average is only 430 on these COMSAEs.
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How much worse is a red flag for loa than for failing or even barely passing with 400?
 
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bravenugget21 said:
How much worse is a red flag for loa than for failing or even barely passing with 400?
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IMHO worst is failure. Next worst thing is low score. And only then loa. In my opinion first thing Program Directors will do is look for better/higher score on comlex/usmle and only then at other things like loa etc. This is just my opinion.
 
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bravenugget21 said:
What’s a good average to be aiming on combank/uworld to have a good chance of passing, assuming you do qbanks on random without looking stuff up?
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I average 80% on combank. that put me at a comfortable comsae (531) pretty early on. My studdy buddy averages high 60s on combank and also sits at a level where I don't worry about him passing comlex.
 
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I just want to put one thing out here again:

WE DO NOT KNOW THE VALIDITY OF CURRENT COMSAEs!

average is lower, sure, maybe that means something? But incoming reports from our bone wizards on the other side of comlex are really mixed towards how close comlex and comsae are. We literally throw darts in the dark
 
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Arcanine said:
I took another COMSAE and I don't know what the heck even happened, but it didn't go well at all. 355 🙁 I have 25 days to the real exam. Just devastated.

What do you guys think? If the COMSAE is supposed to be underpredicting by 40-60 points and the passing score is still 400, maybe I'll be fine to scrape by with 24 more days of studying. I can't push it back because there's a deadline for my school, so it's either go into it with a lot of anxiety or take a year off, no other options.
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Def. recommend delaying. I really recommend at least be in the 480.... (probably higher) range just to pass... But of course higher the better. To be safe, I rec. a 500.
 
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bravenugget21 said:
What’s a good average to be aiming on combank/uworld to have a good chance of passing, assuming you do qbanks on random without looking stuff up?
Click to expand...
Honestly, I wouldn't place heavy weight on the percentages.. (Yes there are mixed opinions on this and this is mine, feel free to agree/disagree). I recommend them TO LEARN. I scored about 55% UWORLD and 75-80% COMBANK, not sure whether its because UWORLD is harder or has 'different' material than COMBANK. But that doesn't mean I'll get a 55% on the USMLE or 75-80% on the COMLEX. I went to a DO school (as most people did on this COMLEX related forum) and really we were prepped for the COMLEX, so maybe thats why I did better on the COMBANK Qs.
But just use them to learn... the better estimates of your COMLEX and USMLE scores are the NEW (Not old) COMSAE and NBMEs/UWORLD SIM respectively.
 
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phagocytosis41 said:
Def. recommend delaying. I really recommend at least be in the 480.... (probably higher) range just to pass... But of course higher the better. To be safe, I rec. a 500.
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With the new comsaes, isn’t getting 500 pretty difficult? What are other ways to measure readiness? From what I read on here, comsaes were under predicting by a lot.
 
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Arcanine said:
The reported national average this year for the COMSAE was a 430. The 50th percentile for COMLEX last year was 525.
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While it's true, I just wanted to remind that comsae average is mainly based on April exams (most schools take it about that time) while comlex average is reported mainly for June/July exam dates (vast majority of students take it during those 2 months). So naturally you can expect some improvement over dedicated period. I still think you are right and new comsae average is still too low and it's kinda telling something.
 
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bravenugget21 said:
With the new comsaes, isn’t getting 500 pretty difficult? What are other ways to measure readiness? From what I read on here, comsaes were under predicting by a lot.
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I got a 524 on the new comsae... so its not totally difficult if you work hard, obviously... as cliche as that sounds. My school prepares us pretty well for the COMLEX and I basically did tons of FA and did all of UWORLD. I sure hope comsae underpredicts lol.... Hoping for a 550+
 
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wonko said:
average is lower, sure, maybe that means something? But incoming reports from our bone wizards on the other side of comlex are really mixed towards how close comlex and comsae are. We literally throw darts in the dark
Click to expand...

Eh they absolutely have to underpredict by a decent amount or legit 40% of my class is going to fail COMLEX. I do agree we can't use these COMSAEs for pretty much anything useful.
phagocytosis41 said:
Def. recommend delaying. I really recommend at least be in the 480.... (probably higher) range just to pass... But of course higher the better. To be safe, I rec. a 500.
Click to expand...
phagocytosis41 said:
I got a 524 on the new comsae... so its not totally difficult if you work hard, obviously... as cliche as that sounds. My school prepares us pretty well for the COMLEX and I basically did tons of FA and did all of UWORLD. I sure hope comsae underpredicts lol.... Hoping for a 550+
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A 500 was 90th percentile at my school. I don't know how realistic that is for a lot of people honestly. A 450+ is probably a good goal to shoot for.
 
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Well, that was fun. You mustn't dally, for there were many times I felt like Indiana Jones escaping the giant boulder with seconds left to go in a section.

To quote a wise man: Gotta go fast.

Didn't feel terrible... but it didn't feel great either. I have no idea how it went. Here's to hoping it was enough to pass.
 
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saigon. said:
Well, that was fun. You mustn't dally, for there were many times I felt like Indiana Jones escaping the giant boulder with seconds left to go in a section.

To quote a wise man: Gotta go fast.

Didn't feel terrible... but it didn't feel great either. I have no idea how it went. Here's to hoping it was enough to pass.
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Congrats on finishing! Were there a lot of third order questions and were they as difficult as combank/uworld? And if you've taken one of the new comsaes, was it similar to that?
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
Eh they absolutely have to underpredict by a decent amount or legit 40% of my class is going to fail COMLEX. I do agree we can't use these COMSAEs for pretty much anything useful.
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Majority of my class are scoring below 450 on the COMSAE. What score on a COMSAE do you think literally translates to minimally passing (400 last year) on the COMLEX?
 
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bravenugget21 said:
Congrats on finishing! Were there a lot of third order questions and were they as difficult as combank/uworld? And if you've taken one of the new comsaes, was it similar to that?
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I used COMQUEST and felt sort-of prepared. Don't know about the COMSAEs. According to OP, I took the old ones. Neither seemed to fully encapsulate this new strain of test.
Just be efficient.
 
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bravenugget21 said:
Was it timing or content that you had issues with?
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Personally, I was alright with the timing, although I like to think I'm unusually speedy, sometimes to my own detriment!
If I could go back and modify how I studied, I would simply do more questions (who knows, I may yet have to go back... time will tell).
 
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Took mine today. Thought it went by so fast. Like stupid fast in the sense that you have an onslaught of questions with little breaks. I felt like I was braindead at one point and questions were just flying by me even on topics I knew.

When you have a 40 second video and you have a little over a minute to answer a question, you need to FLY through the test. Yes you can get away with a good number of questions without reading the full question, but there were also many you had to read it all. The question stems aren't CRAZY long as people were saying (a few were but majority were like UWORLD lengths).

Mine seemed very heavy on OPP and micro. Good number of biochem and stats that were TOUGH and those are some of my stronger subjects.

Also decent stats question that I would just say go with your gut cause they're hard to prep for. OPP was not bad but I feel like my school does a good job preparing us. I relied on my school's teachings and brief Saverese book + viscerosomatics + chapman points stuff. Surprised to have no chapman points on my exam, but I assume that's not always the case. There were some stuff my school taught and it aligned with saverese but the test described it completely different and I had no idea how to even start the question. But it's OPP so yeah... lol.
 
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ddrizzy said:
Took mine today. Thought it went by so fast. Like stupid fast in the sense that you have an onslaught of questions with little breaks. I felt like I was braindead at one point and questions were just flying by me even on topics I knew.

When you have a 40 second video and you have a little over a minute to answer a question, you need to FLY through the test. Yes you can get away with a good number of questions without reading the full question, but there were also many you had to read it all. The question stems aren't CRAZY long as people were saying (a few were but majority were like UWORLD lengths).

Mine seemed very heavy on OPP and micro. Good number of biochem and stats that were TOUGH and those are some of my stronger subjects.

Also decent stats question that I would just say go with your gut cause they're hard to prep for. OPP was not bad but I feel like my school does a good job preparing us. I relied on my school's teachings and brief Saverese book + viscerosomatics + chapman points stuff. Surprised to have no chapman points on my exam, but I assume that's not always the case. There were some stuff my school taught and it aligned with saverese but the test described it completely different and I had no idea how to even start the question. But it's OPP so yeah... lol.
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I took it too yesterday, although I thought it was kind of tough. Some easy questions but some very hard ones. Time was definitely an issue of mine.
 
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HelpMeGeneralKenobi said:
Majority of my class are scoring below 450 on the COMSAE. What score on a COMSAE do you think literally translates to minimally passing (400 last year) on the COMLEX?
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I'd say passing score on multiple of the new COMSAEs is adequate. You don't need to be slam dunking them. I believe the exams are skewed in terms of content between each of them. For example, I thought form 105 had very little neuro, while form 103 was neuro heavy. For reference, My score jumped 100 points between form 103 and 105 in the span of 2 weeks, just because form 105 tested my stronger subjects. So naturally there is going to be some variation between your scores on each of the new COMSAEs depending on your strong areas.
 
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For the record, i thought that yesteday comlex was hard. I scored a 473 today comsae 103 to just boost my confidence albeit my brain is fried...not sure how that will correlate anyone know how predictive 103 is?
 
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USAFMDO said:
Lol wait. You took 103 today AFTER you took COMLEX?
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Yeah the day after...lol. i was feeling not great about it and wanted to see where i stood. All i did was Uworld 1.6 times Comquest 500 Questions and about 200 Combank questions. So i never really got the feel of Comlex/a predictive score on the new comsaes
 
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tdap201827 said:
Yeah the day after...lol. i was feeling not great about it and wanted to see where i stood. All i did was Uworld 1.6 times Comquest 500 Questions and about 200 Combank questions. So i never really got the feel of Comlex/a predictive score on the new comsaes
Click to expand...
Are you ok???
 
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tdap201827 said:
For the record, i thought that yesteday comlex was hard. I scored a 473 today comsae 103 to just boost my confidence albeit my brain is fried...not sure how that will correlate anyone know how predictive 103 is?
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Congrats on finishing! Hard in what sense..was it just a lot of low yield content? How did you feel about the real thing vs the comsae?
 
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