Comquest vs COMBANK vs UWorld vs USMLERx

[sunnyk123]

Hey all,

So I have gotten very mixed messages after speaking with older students about which qbanks to use for COMLEX. I do not want to get into a debate about the importance of taking USMLE Step 1. If a student was studying for only COMLEX which qbanks would you say are an absolute necessity for the test? My current plan is to try to do as much of USMLERx this semester as I can. I hope to have gone through ~75% of the qbank by the time second semester starts. Then in the Spring semester + during dedicated my plan is to do all of comquest and as much UWorld as I can fit in. So by the time I am sitting for my exam I should have completed approximately: 75% of USMLERx, 100% of Comquest, and how ever much of UWorld as I am able (probably >50%).

Does that sound like a good idea? Some people seem to really favor COMBANK and I am worried that I might be leaving out a valuable resource.

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[getfat]

Rising 2nd year here. Someone that has actually taken the exam please tell me if I'm wrong.

I was under the impression Uworld is the best resource period for both Step 1 and Level 1. Rx is essentially questions pulled straight from first aid. I've heard rumors Comquest has shown a history of poorly preparing students for the real thing. I've heard COMBank is better than COMQuest (I may have it switched) but still is a poor prognosticator.

You definitely want to put in a little bit of time into COMQUEST, COMBANK but your highest priority should be having one full pass of UWORLD.

 

[IntheClouds4ever]

Combank and RX = first semester of 2nd year

Comquest and uworld = 2nd semester of second year with 2x passes of uworld.

 

[Scrubs101]

Rising 2nd year here. Someone that has actually taken the exam please tell me if I'm wrong.

I was under the impression Uworld is the best resource period for both Step 1 and Level 1. Rx is essentially questions pulled straight from first aid. I've heard rumors Comquest has shown a history of poorly preparing students for the real thing. I've heard COMBank is better than COMQuest (I may have it switched) but still is a poor prognosticator.

You definitely want to put in a little bit of time into COMQUEST, COMBANK but your highest priority should be having one full pass of UWORLD.

Consensus on sdn and the n=1 person i know thats even mentioned conquest, is comquest>combank. But ive never used either of them yet so cant comment from personal experience

 

[BorntobeDO?]

Hey all,

So I have gotten very mixed messages after speaking with older students about which qbanks to use for COMLEX. I do not want to get into a debate about the importance of taking USMLE Step 1. If a student was studying for only COMLEX which qbanks would you say are an absolute necessity for the test? My current plan is to try to do as much of USMLERx this semester as I can. I hope to have gone through ~75% of the qbank by the time second semester starts. Then in the Spring semester + during dedicated my plan is to do all of comquest and as much UWorld as I can fit in. So by the time I am sitting for my exam I should have completed approximately: 75% of USMLERx, 100% of Comquest, and how ever much of UWorld as I am able (probably >50%).

Does that sound like a good idea? Some people seem to really favor COMBANK and I am worried that I might be leaving out a valuable resource.

I wouldn't worry about that. I would worry more about wasting too much valuable time on textbook-like passages that COMBANK is pretending are explanations to questions. Just terrible explanations by and large.

 

[shadowlightfox]

Doesn't matter if you're just taking Level 1 or both Level 1 and Step 1. UWorld is the best resource for both exams. Period!

 

[Oh_Gee]

do all of uworld at the very least. put combank on the backburner. just do their omm questions if you want

 

[UnoMas]

I highly recommend PPI prophylaxis in case you decide to go with COMBANK.

 

[shadowlightfox]

do all of uworld at the very least. put combank on the backburner. just do their omm questions if you want

Hell no for COMBANK's OMM. I freaking hate COMBANK. Biggest waste of money I had in spring semester for board studying. I did nearly all the OMM questions from that piece of trash of an excuse of a qubank but it didn't help me for COMLEX whatsoever. I never tried COMQUEST so I can't say anything for that, but for OMM, I honestly think the qbank found at the second half of Savarese book is more than enough for your OMM on COMLEX. There's roughly like 400 questions for OMM anyway in that book so you don't have to feel like your OMM review wasn't enough. The questions Savarese gives are even harder than the questions the COMLEX gives, so you got your bases covered in terms of that, too.

 

[Peach Newport]

As someone who did pretty well on step 1, the answer is exactly as SDN says. Uworld is a must. I disagree with people who say it should be done twice - IMO it should be done however many times it takes you to learn all the material in it (the answer explanations). Do not start it too early - you want that material fresh when you take the test

COMBANK is an excellent resource for OMM questions and for getting a feel for how comlex is structured. Your school should provide you a qbank subscription, usually combank but sometimes comquest, either one is good for OMM questions, but combank is slightly better.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Related to this post so I'm curious what people think:

My school provides COMBANK for free. My biggest worry is using too many resources. I already have Pathoma, FA, Anki (Zanki) & Sketchy to utilize when necessary, so I just want a QBank to practice from for exams.... Is COMBANK so bad that I should go out of my way to buy USMLERx for board-style questions? Or is it okay to utilize during the fall semester?

My plan for UWorld is to do pass 1 of UWorld starting during winter break & finishing by the time dedicated starts, then doing a second pass for dedicated. Thoughts?

 

[Peach Newport]

Related to this post so I'm curious what people think:

My school provides COMBANK for free. My biggest worry is using too many resources. I already have Pathoma, FA, Anki (Zanki) & Sketchy to utilize when necessary, so I just want a QBank to practice from for exams.... Is COMBANK so bad that I should go out of my way to buy USMLERx for board-style questions? Or is it okay to utilize during the fall semester?

My plan for UWorld is to do pass 1 of UWorld starting during winter break & finishing by the time dedicated starts, then doing a second pass for dedicated. Thoughts?

Personally I really think you should save Uworld for dedicated. It should be one of the last things you do. IMO Winter break is a good time to review FA of weak first-year subjects, like physiology and biochem. Maybe do some pathoma.

Btw, I strongly believe that by the time you take step 1, you should have gone through all of pathoma and sketchy a few times.

Doing Uworld, pathoma, and sketchy during the school year is not a substitute for doing them in dedicated. All of these should be gone through at least once during dedicated.

 

[alprazoslam]

Combank for OMM
Uworld for all
Rx if you want another
First aid sketchy

I didn’t use pathoma but you all should unless you remember most from class. I got 99th/100th%tile or whatever it is on both step and comlex without pathoma and pretty much just with the above (excluding mandantory combank blocks) mostly just bc our school shockingly had good path teachers and uworld has a lot of path.

Otherwise combank is trash

Comquest I been using for uhhhh comats but that’s it (3rd year)

For step 1 you do not need any specific comlex q bank except for some omm practice questions. Not due the content difference but just bc rx snd uworld are so much better than the stuff written for us DOs (trend here)


Also do all the NBMEs since they give u the answers to all questions now and most topics overlap. IE. many usmle questions came from wrong answer choices in nbme so it is good content review even tho no explanations are provided

 

[shadowlightfox]

Personally I really think you should save Uworld for dedicated. It should be one of the last things you do. IMO Winter break is a good time to review FA of weak first-year subjects, like physiology and biochem. Maybe do some pathoma.

Btw, I strongly believe that by the time you take step 1, you should have gone through all of pathoma and sketchy a few times.

Doing Uworld, pathoma, and sketchy during the school year is not a substitute for doing them in dedicated. All of these should be gone through at least once during dedicated.

I disagree with this statement. I feel like by giving this advice you're not taking into account the different ways they run the curriculum at different schools or the fact that you're assuming different schools all run the same way. If your school is not adequately preparing you for boards, it's best to start UWorld some time in second year, and get at least one pass of it before dedicated starts so you can go to your second pass. You're simply not gonna have enough time to play catch up by doing 1 pass of UWorld during dedicated.

At least by doing two passes, you not only learn via first time, but it's a lot easier to improve your test taking skills, see what they expect you to know from common clinical vignettes, and how to be a better test taker, something that I don't think you can acquire by doing UWorld only once.

Of course if your school adequately prepared you for boards, then you might get away with doing only one pass of UWorld.

 

[alprazoslam]

I disagree with this statement. I feel like by giving this advice you're not taking into account the different ways they run the curriculum at different schools or the fact that you're assuming different schools all run the same way. If your school is not adequately preparing you for boards, it's best to start UWorld some time in second year, and get at least one pass of it before dedicated starts so you can go to your second pass. If your school is not prepping you well enough for boards, you're simply not gonna have enough time to play catch up by doing 1 pass of UWorld during dedicated.

At least by doing two passes, you not only learn via first time, but it's a lot easier to improve your test taking skills, see what they expect you to know from common clinical vignettes, and how to be a better test taker, something that I don't think you can acquire by doing UWorld only once.

Of course if your school adequately prepared you for boards, then you might get away with doing only one pass of UWorld.

i take the middle ground of doing it once then doing your marked and wrong ones again, but i dont see a point in doing the ones you easily new the answer to and the explanations were not new information

i only diid it once though and used the notes and flashcard feature which one can also do, feels sort of like a waste doing it completely twice but also one overestimates their ability to retain information by only doing it once (unless you take notes or make flashcards.


half the battle of studying is figure out what you do and do not know

 

[Neopolymath]

Is it commonplace for other schools to make their students go through sections of their ****ty Qbank scoring 80% by certain dates for certain sections? My school has essentially decided it will force me to do COMbank which is irritating because they all ****ing know that we all use UWorld (like every student in the nation).

If someone asked me what the biggest issue with my school is, and it sounds like DO schools in general, I would say that it teaches to the absolute lowest common denominator which is a big issue when the bottom of your class probably shouldn't be in medical school. I feel like most of the policies I don't like come from this mindset. It just wastes my time from doing more useful things like better prep or seeing my family.

 

[alprazoslam]

Is it commonplace for other schools to make their students go through sections of their ****ty Qbank scoring 80% by certain dates for certain sections? My school has essentially decided it will force me to do COMbank which is irritating because they all ****ing know that we all use UWorld (like every student in the nation).

If someone asked me what the biggest issue with my school is, and it sounds like DO schools in general, I would say that it teaches to the absolute lowest common denominator which is a big issue when the bottom of your class probably shouldn't be in medical school. I feel like most of the policies I don't like come from this mindset. It just wastes my time from doing more useful things like better prep or seeing my family.

Well yeah they lose money when people fail boards. But they don’t lose or gain money when people pass with flying colors

 

[BorntobeDO?]

Is it commonplace for other schools to make their students go through sections of their ****ty Qbank scoring 80% by certain dates for certain sections? My school has essentially decided it will force me to do COMbank which is irritating because they all ****ing know that we all use UWorld (like every student in the nation).

If someone asked me what the biggest issue with my school is, and it sounds like DO schools in general, I would say that it teaches to the absolute lowest common denominator which is a big issue when the bottom of your class probably shouldn't be in medical school. I feel like most of the policies I don't like come from this mindset. It just wastes my time from doing more useful things like better prep or seeing my family.

I don't have this specific requirement, but I feel your pain. COMBANK sucks and isn't a good study tool IMO. Just churn and burn, then get the answers and redo it. The explanations will rarely be helpful anyway, most of them aren't related to question at all anyway (i.e. no strategy, just a straight emedicine or harrisons description of the disease process that was the correct answer).

I feel like any COM using combank is doing it purely to save money, if they even made the faculty sit and take even 50 questions on random and read the answers/explanations vs any other bank they would see that basically any other bank is better.

 

[Black Coffee 24/7]

Is it commonplace for other schools to make their students go through sections of their ****ty Qbank scoring 80% by certain dates for certain sections? My school has essentially decided it will force me to do COMbank which is irritating because they all ****ing know that we all use UWorld (like every student in the nation).

If someone asked me what the biggest issue with my school is, and it sounds like DO schools in general, I would say that it teaches to the absolute lowest common denominator which is a big issue when the bottom of your class probably shouldn't be in medical school. I feel like most of the policies I don't like come from this mindset. It just wastes my time from doing more useful things like better prep or seeing my family.

COMAT through Combank is legit. Don’t bother w/ the garbage Qbank though.

 

[aspdr]

There is no q bank that is best for COMLEX. Uworld is def the best but use it only as a learning too. Make sure you do atleast 1, 2 round of it going through the explanations thoroughly. for COMLEX, I thought COMQUEST did a much better job in being more similiar to the quesions that I actually saw on my COMLEX ( you will see longer stems on your COMLEX). Combank is a good too but their problem is that their stem is just short. Def use COMQUEST too if you are taking the COMLEX.

 

[alprazoslam]

if one is taking usmle and comlex I would not waste time on anything besides some OMM from combank or quest. dont sacrifice usmle for comlol points