Thanks Dragonwell for taking the time to post specific answers to all our questions! I was wondering how you managed your time the last couple weeks before you took the COMLEX. I take mine June 12 and am just wondering how to manage my days.
I think the general idea to go for concepts first and save the last couple weeks for memorization makes sense to me. In my case, I took the COMSAE kind of late - about 10 days before my test - and my performance breakdown took me by surprise. I had to modify my plan of focusing on FA to quickly get up to speed on weaknesses I didn't realize I had. (My final grade in our behavioral science course was a 96, but I got a "poor performance" on COMSAE.) I read BRS behavioral cover to cover, I also did a lot of anatomy. Luckily by the time I realized I had to change my plan, I had already pretty much made it through Goljan and FA at least once and some sections 2 or more times.
My last week I focused on all the mnemonics for micro, memorized equations, did BRS Micro and Pharm Cards a couple times, some packets of HY drug and anatomy "one-liners" put out by our school, all the margin notes in Goljan, hit certain pages I had flagged to memorize in FA, looked at chapman points, CS points, all the eponym orthopedic tests (Wright's test, Adison's test, etc.).
I also looked at slides of bugs and fungi from google and looked at pictures in Goljan and Robbins Path Atlas. Towards the end it was just making passes through material and trying to fill up short term memory. If I came to something I realized I really didn't understand, I might briefly look it up, but at a certain point, I felt like I was just trying to maintain the plateau I had worked up to until I walked in there and regurgitated it all.
Good luck on the USMLE,Dragonwell. You didn't feel that all of the information from Goljan was beneficial for the Comsae, what about the Comlex? Would FA have been enough to answer most of the questions on the Comlex?
Don't get me wrong, it's not that Goljan wasn't beneficial; you absolutely need the info from Goljan or another path source - there was a ton of basic path on my test, and goljan is a great source to learn this stuff. What I mean is that the little things Goljan points out and says "They like this question," or "Always on the test", weren't as highly represented on my COMLEX as they are in UW. My UW score was pegged when I was studying FA, but once I started going through Goljan hardcore, my score jumped 4% consistently and many tests much more. I think the reason was that the stuff Goljan draws your attention to overlaps with a lot of what UW tests, and hopefully from what people say, what the USMLE tests. From my experience, COMLEX seemed to be a little less hardcore about path than UW. Still though, I don't know if I'd say FA would be enough for COMLEX. I had a couple questions that weren't in FA or Goljan. I would say, though, that if it came down to a choice of only knowing Goljan backwards and forwards vs. doing a bit shorter path review and spending some more time on anatomy, behavioral, micro, OMM, and pharm, for COMLEX, I think the latter would be the way to go.
