Recent COMLEX 3 experience?

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I took it recently and passed. The test is really similar to Comlex 2. I used Crush (a must), Boards and Wards (pretty brief and good), Master the Boards (partially but seemed good), Savarese (a must), and Comquest (a must) for questions. No matter what you use to prepare, there are questions I don't think any preparation can prepare you for. For that reason, you'll walk out of the test feeling like you didn't do as well as you had hoped. I did better than I hoped despite this unsettling feeling. The Comquest explanations are golden and they don't specifically ask a question on it all so I recommend reading through them twice. Crush seemed too basic at first but ended up being really helpful. Its really a matter of being able to choose the best answer from a vague case presentation and answer choices. I think if you have that down you will do well so make sure to do one or both of the comlex qbanks (combank/comquest) rather than USMLE questions. They also seemed to test more as an outpatient general practitioner rather than inpatient internist. Good luck!
 
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Took it 11/20. I was going to wait until my scores came back until I responded but Ill add a little of what I thought.
I felt( and still feel) pretty bad about the test. I felt like I had to use educated guessing alot more on this test than the other 2. Tons of stuff Crush and Combank didnt cover. Not becasue they were bad sources, but just because the comlex picked out really random situations for questions that were not addressed in my study materials and I had never encountered before.
I did well on the first 2 tests, but like I said before, I felt pretty bad and would not be supprised to drop 100pts from my step 2. I just hope I pass.

On the other hand, if I somehow come out with a good score, then Crush+combank+ educated guessing will work..... Ill let everyone know as soon as I find out.
 
First-year resident here....took COMLEX 3 about 2 months ago...passed.....I used Combank (good mainly because it gets you used to the format), Savarese (crucial....esp Chapter 10 in the third edition), First Aid for Step 3 (read it once), and the green Secrets to Step 2 book (a few of the chapters, esp. the high-yield chapter at the end).

The test was not hard. Sure, there were some questions from left field, but also there were a lot of very fair questions. I had about 10 EKGs, no peripheral smears, oh, and a whole section where I listened to heart murmurs (took that section like a man).

In general, I studied for this test in a very similar fashion to how I prepared for Step 2, but didn't put as many hours into it...You'll find that you can fall back on your experience for a lot of questions....good luck.
 
I PASSED! I did much better than I thought I would. Took it 11/20. I really thought I would go down on my scores but some how went up to 735. I only used COMBANK, Crush III, and Savarese. But honestly, I felt both combank and crush did little to really prepare me for this test besides getting me back in the rhythm of answering questions at a good pace and reviewing some of the OMM. From what I remember, they may have added 3-5 questions/block that I would not have got anyway. I did only about 75% of combank and I think my average was about 74%. I read through only the chapters of crush that i felt weaker in like optho, derm, peds, and skiped medicine alltogether.
I really dont know how bad the rescaling will be for everyone after feb. But if it is like the test I took, the best advise I can give is to review with one qbank, one review book and savarese. Do your best, lots of educated guessing and dont worry too much.
 
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