USMLE vs COMLEX

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members do not see this ad.
For the comlex level 2CE +/- those taking usmle step 2ck :

question about comquest and combank : (excluding the OMM sections of both + vignette style)

I know many will obviously use UW CK and there's no comparison to this having some of the best explanations to learn from.... but between the 2 popular comlex question banks :

Which one has the the best written and most up to date explanations for next step managements/etc ? Comquest only had ~1000 wheras combank had nearly double. Price is about the same for 1 month and the latter has a mobile app. Most of the other threads on the topic are quite old but some said comquest albeit a shorter bank pool, had better explanations?

Can anyone chime in? I don't want to purchase both of them to find out I picked the wrong one - using these as extra practice questions to learn from and not for the comlex vignette writing style 🙂
 
I have read a lot of bad things about CQ on these forums. I used CB but was overall not that impressed with it. I found typos in questions that were three years old that haven't been corrected. Kind of pedantically annoying.
 
babdoc said:
I have read a lot of bad things about CQ on these forums. I used CB but was overall not that impressed with it. I found typos in questions that were three years old that haven't been corrected. Kind of pedantically annoying.
Click to expand...

What were the bad things on CQ? It was really tough to sift through the SDN replies when searching for comquest/combank, mainly because more than half the replies seemed like they were from the companies themselves making accounts... very frustrating to hear better opinions in those regards. Try searching for those keyword topics and you'll see what I mean!

I can't find the post but someone if I recall mentioned, that combank is written by students and reviewed by faculty? (e.g. like usmlerx) and comquest by physicians? Anyways, it's more of the explanatory content I'm interested in hearing more about. Hopefully others can continue with their thoughts on that 🙂 Did any of the two have references to sources like uptodate? The typos I guess are definitely annoying, especially if it's been reported and never corrected, totally agree! But I hope the info/theory is at least fixed... some question banks like kaplan never seem to get updated. At least with UW, there is some reassurance seeing updated month/date/2014/2015.
 
I've heard the explanations in CQ are poor, but I have not used it myself. The explanations in CB seemed reasonably good when I used it. The typos were the most annoying thing to me. I'm sure neither are as good as UWorld. I Think I found the complaints and comparisons between the two in a step three thread when I was trying to decide which to use when taking that exam last December. I would definitely be interested to hear opinions about CQ. Like I said, I wasn't that impressed with CB, not but I have to take anymore COMLEXes (woot)
 
Last edited:
Unless it's been updated (allegedly it was in the works), but the interface for QUEST is pretty terrible.

At any rate, I had heard that BANK is good for Level 1 and QUEST for Level 2.

That's what I used and my scores were fine.

Of course, UW is still the gold standard.
 
meliora27 said:
Unless it's been updated (allegedly it was in the works), but the interface for QUEST is pretty terrible.

At any rate, I had heard that BANK is good for Level 1 and QUEST for Level 2.

That's what I used and my scores were fine.

Of course, UW is still the gold standard.
Click to expand...
Did the explanations in quest Level 2ce go into depth and emphasize why the other answer choices were incorrect ?
 
Spend most of your time on UWorld with the longest subscription you can afford and work through it the most, then get Comquest for the last month and do all of the OMM a few times, then the rest of the q-bank. Comquest definitely has the most questions surprisingly similar to the real ones you see on test day. If you're already doing UW, I don't see COMBANK as necessary unless you happen to catch one of those 50% off days they may still have, then you can do their OMM questions too.

Anyone else want to chime in on this?
 
Wolverines83 said:
Since there are plenty of programs who prefer (require?) USMLE and there's no way you know what you want to do (trust me, you don't), you should take the USMLE to keep your doors open. The money is a drop in the damn bucket compared to all the other expenses and studying for the exams overlaps greatly (except for biochem and OMM).

Truth is, studying for COMLEX will more or less prepare you for 80% of the USMLE. Phys, pharm, path, biostat, are the same regardless of what book you study from.

HOWEVER, THERE ARE TWO IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE:

1) The COMLEX has basically no biochem. The USMLE has plenty. You WILL bomb the USMLE if you don't seriously supplement your biochem knowledge. Fortunately, this is easy as long as you start early enough. People like Rapid Review biochem and the Lange biochem flash cards. Personally, I think USMLE World is plenty to supplement your biochem (in addition to First Aid, obviously). YMMV

2) The questions on the USMLE are VERY different. Who cares what's "better." Point is, they're different so you need to study differently for them. For this it's simple. Get USMLE World and go through it in its entirety with emphasis on items you aren't doing well on. (Personally, this was all the biochem supplementation I needed. I did biochem questions for days on end.) Fortunately, this also prepares you well for the COMLEX, so you don't need another question bank except to practice some OMM questions.

Summary:
1) Take USMLE, would suck to not be able to apply to a program simply because you didn't take their test
2) Study HARD for your first two years, keep first aid by your side and supplement all coursework with that starting the beginning of 2nd year. Don't worry about A's. When in doubt, prioritize board scores over exam scores (sorry faculty!)
3) Memorize first aid
4) Get USMLE world maybe 90 days (120?) before your exam date and go through it 100%, repeating items you don't understand
5) Take NBME exam one month out and another 2 weeks out. Only take USMLE if you're doing well. If not, bail.
6) Take USMLE a couple days before COMLEX. Study OMM during those couple days in between.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything here except item 6.

It's my opinion that if you're really serious about the USMLE you should take it after COMLEX. Use the COMLEX as a warm-up for the real thing. You'll walk out of the test knowing what you should spend the week practicing with, and you'll have one full-length, real testing conditions experience under your belt.

I took COMLEX 7 days before USMLE in both instances and I'm glad I did.
 
My wife got mid 500s for step 1 and step 2. She took the USMLE for both.

She just took her step 3 without USMLE and got a high 700 score. She said the major difference was the focus on COMBANK and not USMLEWORLD as prep. Granted...her prep for COMBANK was minimal.
 
So, having taken both exams, I've got to say the COMLEX has longer question stems, is much less straightforward, and has a good number of wtf questions, such as things that go beyond anything we study in preclinical and things that just are unclear as hell.

USMLE was pretty straightforward. Nothing I saw aside from maybe three or four questions that made me be like wtf- everything I saw I'd been exposed to and any any failings were my own.

@Goro you one told me to get back to you after both exams- yes, the COMLEX is poorly written compared to the USMLE. It feels like an exam that is trying to make you feel stupid by throwing things at you that are either beyond your knowledge base or so vague you have no idea wtf they want from you. The USMLE is not like this- it is a very cut and dry but difficult and broad rest off what you have learned in preclinical. The COMLEX left me irritated by curveballs meant to frustrate that there was no way in hell you could have even known to study for, while the USMLE left me humbled by my flaws and gaps in knowledge, for every question could have been answered if I'd just studied a bit harder.
 
DrDreams said:
I am glad to have read this, i was not going to take USMLE...but I will now.
Click to expand...
The USMLE is a much more difficult exam, for the record. I felt like done of the questions hit a fourth level of abstract thinking lol, but as long as you study hard it is a very doable exam.
 
Mad Jack said:
The USMLE is a much more difficult exam, for the record. I felt like done of the questions hit a fourth level of abstract thinking lol, but as long as you study hard it is a very doable exam.
Click to expand...
Noob question, but...you and I both did well above our class' averages on the MCAT. Are there any comparisons or contrasts you can draw between your preparation for and performance on the MCAT compared to the boards?
 
J Senpai said:
Noob question, but...you and I both did well above our class' averages on the MCAT. Are there any comparisons or contrasts you can draw between your preparation for and performance on the MCAT compared to the boards?
Click to expand...
Won't know until I get my scores how well my test-taking skills carried over.

I will say that the MCAT is more of a critical thinking exercise than the boards. Certain things, like experiment setups, require you to think critically and apply what you know to the experiment at hand to work out what is going on. However, much more often it is about recall. They'll give you, say, a presentation of a patient, then ask you what is, for instance, happening intracellularly during that disease process, which is just simple recall. Or sometimes I've even seen a fourth level of thinking, where they'll ask what drug would reverse the intracellular effect of the disease. So you have to know what disease they have, what pathway it is acting down, what the downstream affects of that pathway are, and what drugs have the opposite effect of the pathway indicated. So you basically need facts on facts on facts for a lot of the questions, which isn't at all like the MCAT. Some questions are straightforward recall though, they're not all that complex. But even the experimental setups usually require you to know two or three underlying facts.

The other big thing is that the tricks that work for selecting appropriate answers on the MCAT are not at all applicable to the USMLE. There are distractors like on the MCAT every now and then, but the big thing is that you'll have some questions that literally have 10 answers- there is no process of elimination happening on a lot of those, it's a "you know it or you don't" situation. Process of elimination comes in, but it's based on raw knowledge rather than little tricks for most questions- you have to rule out which bacteria don't fit the picture you're looking at based on their characteristics, for instance. And often answers will be set up in a way that really throws you- like ALL of the wrong answers point in a strongly different direction than the right one, trying to draw you to not believe it is correct. Basically the USMLE is designed to make sure you know your ****, and turns a lot of the tricks that good MCQ test takers have used to perform well in the past against them.
 
Mad Jack said:
The USMLE is a much more difficult exam, for the record. I felt like done of the questions hit a fourth level of abstract thinking lol, but as long as you study hard it is a very doable exam.
Click to expand...


Any recommendations for what you used to prep for both the exams? I'm considering investing in USMLErx to study off of until my dedicated study period.
 
Drrrrrr. Celty said:
Any recommendations for what you used to prep for both the exams? I'm considering investing in USMLErx to study off of until my dedicated study period.
Click to expand...
USMLERx during the year. UFAP +/- Kaplan for dedicated. Savarese for in between.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
  • Question Question
COMLEX 1
Replies
2
Views
770
picklelittle
P
F
comlex/ usmle in 8 weeks
Replies
7
Views
2K
frightenedmedicalstudent
F
pigsinacloth
Comlex 2 percentile vs Step 2 percentile
Replies
7
Views
6K
DrZoidbergDO
DrZoidbergDO
P
Low Comlex level 2 score , Applying IM In California (Southern)
Replies
2
Views
2K
deleted610572
D
P
Do I have to release my COMLEX scores when ERAS opens?
Replies
1
Views
1K
NotAProgDirector
NotAProgDirector
Top Bottom