Official 2016 COMLEX Level 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Here it is. Comlex level 1.

Anyone take the exam in February?
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TheBDP said:
5am to 10pm will do more harm than good. Emphasize quality over quantity.
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True. But I do have a break around 11 AM to work out for an hour and have lunch after. It's been crazy. But I think I really want to do well so u have to earn it. But since im having trouble sleeping now. I'll prob wake up 7 smh.


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Got my scores back finally! Didn't take any comsaes and just prepared for it with UFAP and saverese. Felt horrible just like anyone else and just wanted to pass since I was so focus on the USMLE. Came out with a 570 which I'm completely happy with. Wish there was really a correlation between comlex and usmle. Was expecting a USMLE closer to my nbme average but hit the 21*s . I know ACGME look more into usmle than comlex scores so will have to work harder for step 2. Congrats to everyone !
 
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For those who are freaking out about their Step score because their COMLEX was proportionately low, you might end up being an outlier like me so don't worry just yet.

I got a 606 on COMLEX and thought I was going to end up tanking my Step into the 220s and 230s, but I ended up with a 246. So obviously, a very different scenario for me. I guess I just mentally checked out during the COMLEX because I knew I wasn't going to match AOA programs.
 
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recycledpaper said:
For those who are freaking out about their Step score because their COMLEX was proportionately low, you might end up being an outlier like me so don't worry just yet.

I got a 606 on COMLEX and thought I was going to end up tanking my Step into the 220s and 230s, but I ended up with a 246. So obviously, a very different scenario for me. I guess I just mentally checked out during the COMLEX because I knew I wasn't going to match AOA programs.
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Never heard a 606 described as a low score before. Congrats!

I was a little below average on USMLE and way above average on COMLEX so I think it can go either way.
 
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ortnakas said:
Never heard a 606 described as a low score before. Congrats!

I was a little below average on USMLE and way above average on COMLEX so I think it can go either way.
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Yeah worded it wrong, I meant more like it was lower for what I ended up getting on my Step 1 because it seemed like a lot of people who got low 600s got 220s and 230s.
 
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Hey, guys.. .wondering if parasites/viruses were high yield on COMLEX? I take it on Wednesday and was wondering how much time to dedicate to review that portion on Sketchy (didn't know if it was fairly worth it or not) or if should focus on bacteria more and other subjects in general. Thanks!
 
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Acc1989 said:
Hey, guys.. .wondering if parasites/viruses were high yield on COMLEX? I take it on Wednesday and was wondering how much time to dedicate to review that portion on Sketchy (didn't know if it was fairly worth it or not) or if should focus on bacteria more and other subjects in general. Thanks!
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Don't remember any on mine (which I'm sure isn't true. But definitely not enough to be memorable). Took it a few weeks ago.
 
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Acc1989 said:
Hey, guys.. .wondering if parasites/viruses were high yield on COMLEX? I take it on Wednesday and was wondering how much time to dedicate to review that portion on Sketchy (didn't know if it was fairly worth it or not) or if should focus on bacteria more and other subjects in general. Thanks!
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I had 4 or 5 parasite questions that sketchy helped a ton with.

COMLEX also has a bioterrorism fetish that i don't understand...i had 4 or 5 bioterrorism questions. I just read clinical microbiology made ridiculously simple for bioterrorism stuff.
 
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LivingOnAPrayer123 said:
I had 4 or 5 parasite questions that sketchy helped a ton with.

COMLEX also has a bioterrorism fetish that i don't understand...i had 4 or 5 bioterrorism questions. I just read clinical microbiology made ridiculously simple for bioterrorism stuff.
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+1 for bioterrorism. Prof sent out like 10 micro ppts over the past few months as mini reviews and I didn't read any except the bioterrorism ppt the night before and it snagged me 2-3 questions that weren't covered in sketchy :p
 
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230 USMLE but 492 COMLEX. I have no idea what happened with COMLEX, I never once got below a 500 on any COMSAEs, my chart distribution looks fairly similar for both exams. Mostly deviated to the right. USMLE pretty consistent with my NBMEs.. Don't see how I can hit national average on one exam and not the other ...If I apply ACGME (don't know what I want to do yet, Anesthesia might be the most competitive thing I'm considering and that's only "if" I even decide on that, other than that I don't have anything uber competitive in mind )... would my COMLEX even matter?
 
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Daily_Grind said:
230 USMLE but 492 COMLEX. I have no idea what happened with COMLEX, I never once got below a 500 on any COMSAEs, my chart distribution looks fairly similar for both exams. Mostly deviated to the right. USMLE pretty consistent with my NBMEs.. Don't see how I can hit national average on one exam and not the other ...If I apply ACGME (don't know what I want to do yet, Anesthesia might be the most competitive thing I'm considering and that's only "if" I even decide on that, other than that I don't have anything uber competitive in mind )... would my COMLEX even matter?
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I'm betting with a usmle 230 that they can compare apples to apples with MD applicants, they won't bother to look at a COMLEX score they have to convert and probably don't really trust.


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Any suggestions on what to cram last minute for OMM? Any section more high yield than another? (Beyond Viscerosomatics and Chapman's)
 
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Acc1989 said:
Any suggestions on what to cram last minute for OMM? Any section more high yield than another? (Beyond Viscerosomatics and Chapman's)
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Other than what you've already mentioned, just knowing when to use what techniques. Besides VSR's, there wasn't much else worth spending too much time on
 
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Hey just took mine today. Not sure it matters since it's so late from the standard test taking time but perhaps it will help future Level1 takers who lurk these pages.

Anyways it was pretty fair exam. Obviously there were hard questions or wtf kind of questions but from reading SDN i was expecting the worst.

I had a lot of GI and cardio/Pulm. Pretty standard questions

Not a lot of neuro and repro but the ones I had were fair game.

Not a lot of micro either. Some were vague and others just stupid but mostly fair game as well.
Bioterrorisim yes, but you can figure it out form the question.

Pharm was what got me. They really asked nit picky side effects or MOA. But there's so many drugs we had to know no way to know them all with the detail comlex wanted. Definitely feel iffy about the pharm and I thought I was confident about it.

Anatomy... Random obscure low yield was expected but the other high yield stuff was on there. Know your innervations and muscles etc.

OMM... Easy! I was expecting the worst but it ended up being my best section (hope I don't jinx myself).

As far as the longer stems... I only had 1 block that was full of long question stems and I was really pressed for time. But the other 7 blocks were about same length as combank I'd say 3-7 sentences.
Definitely repeat questions from comsae and combank!

Feel free to PM me. Good luck to those who haven't taken it yet!
 
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Acc1989 said:
Any suggestions on what to cram last minute for OMM? Any section more high yield than another? (Beyond Viscerosomatics and Chapman's)
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I had a bunch of treatments, ie what position would you put the patient in using SCS.

Random FYI: I also had a ~10 OMM videos in my first section that were about 1.5min long. Don't let that throw you off like it did me.
 
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Daily_Grind said:
Does anyone's score report not align very well with their 3 digit score? I'm thankful I passed, but if one were to look at my bar graph/chart thing, one would think that my score is actually higher than it really is... weird... I'm bummed about it cause I deviated downward from my COMSAEs...but it's over I guess, that was a dark time in my life...
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I feel the same way! Have you considered submitting for a rescore? I have been thinking about it.
 
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jsh89 said:
I feel the same way! Have you considered submitting for a rescore? I have been thinking about it.
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In the exact same boat too. Let me know if either of you do a re-score. My bar graph looks like I killed the test.


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KP2AZ said:
In the exact same boat too. Let me know if either of you do a re-score. My bar graph looks like I killed the test.


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I haven't bit the bullet to pay the 50 bucks quite yet. Doubt it would change. Maybe worth a try? The fact that I'm not the only one makes it seem like NBOME just throws darts on what your score is going to be. I didn't feel great walking out of the exam but I certainly didn't think I'd dip drastically
 
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KP2AZ said:
In the exact same boat too. Let me know if either of you do a re-score. My bar graph looks like I killed the test.


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I submitted for a rescore. If the 3 of us feel that way, I can guarantee we aren't the only ones. We are just the only ones speaking up. It's only $50 in the scheme of things. And it will settle my mind whether or not it changes. I don't want to have any regrets so I submitted just to make sure. Let me know what you guys do.
 
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hey friends, I've been perusing for a while (so long that I forgot what username/email I used prior to starting med school) and am super stressed about upcoming comlex. I've postponed it to the end of August but am still really worried. I took a comsae a few weeks ago and failed it. I can't seem to get the number of questions I'm getting right above 50% and am stuck in the 40s (using Uworld and comquest). I did BBC, FA, Sketchy, and supplement where I need to with pathoma videos. So just looking for advice from anyone willing to give it... Should I just keep hammering out questions? I'm worried about not being efficient. I feel like I'm learning but am worried since I'm not seeing any improvement. :(
 
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just another name said:
hey friends, I've been perusing for a while (so long that I forgot what username/email I used prior to starting med school) and am super stressed about upcoming comlex. I've postponed it to the end of August but am still really worried. I took a comsae a few weeks ago and failed it. I can't seem to get the number of questions I'm getting right above 50% and am stuck in the 40s (using Uworld and comquest). I did BBC, FA, Sketchy, and supplement where I need to with pathoma videos. So just looking for advice from anyone willing to give it... Should I just keep hammering out questions? I'm worried about not being efficient. I feel like I'm learning but am worried since I'm not seeing any improvement. :(
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Hi just another name. I can understand what you're going through is very stressful. I was exactly where you were a few months ago and there were a few things that helped me catch up in scores. First you've incorporated all the resources that will lead to success! That's an accomplishment in itself. Repetition & the rote memorization for you I think is the key (it was for me). That's what started getting my numbers in the 50s to 60s on the Q-banks (not an SDN genius here haha, average guy). 1 hour of SketchyMicro a day was mandatory (not just finishing it once) and I finished Pathoma taking notes on topics Sattar said were high-yield and copying his helpful illustrations as memory hooks. I also made Quizlets of all the Chapman's Points & Viscerosomatics and did them once every day until they were hammered home. Made Quizlets with other topics too such as: (auto-antibodies, brachial plexus nerves/muscles/functions, translocations of the WBC disorders, characteristics for the brain tumors, and a pathology image bank such as auer rod, smudge cell, you get the point). This sounds like a lot but with Google Images and Quizlet it honestly took me one day. I would rinse & repeat until I had these topics memorized + keeping up with questions (50 or 44 a day depending if you're on COMQUEST or UWorld) + 1 hour of SketchyMicro + finishing Pathoma. Overall it sounds like a lot and it is but I know you can do it. I'm sure others will chime in but this is just my experience & advice. Hopefully you found this helpful!
 
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quikmax3 said:
Hi just another name. I can understand what you're going through is very stressful. I was exactly where you were a few months ago and there were a few things that helped me catch up in scores. First you've incorporated all the resources that will lead to success! That's an accomplishment in itself. Repetition & the rote memorization for you I think is the key (it was for me). That's what started getting my numbers in the 50s to 60s on the Q-banks (not an SDN genius here haha, average guy). 1 hour of SketchyMicro a day was mandatory (not just finishing it once) and I finished Pathoma taking notes on topics Sattar said were high-yield and copying his helpful illustrations as memory hooks. I also made Quizlets of all the Chapman's Points & Viscerosomatics and did them once every day until they were hammered home. Made Quizlets with other topics too such as: (auto-antibodies, brachial plexus nerves/muscles/functions, translocations of the WBC disorders, characteristics for the brain tumors, and a pathology image bank such as auer rod, smudge cell, you get the point). This sounds like a lot but with Google Images and Quizlet it honestly took me one day. I would rinse & repeat until I had these topics memorized + keeping up with questions (50 or 44 a day depending if you're on COMQUEST or UWorld) + 1 hour of SketchyMicro + finishing Pathoma. Overall it sounds like a lot and it is but I know you can do it. I'm sure others will chime in but this is just my experience & advice. Hopefully you found this helpful!
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Thank you! I really appreciate your feedback and encouragement!
 
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dedicated2be said:
Thank you so much! I am short on time the next few weeks and feel like I would rather focus on the high yield points for OMM. Thanks again.
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If you have to triage, I'd prioritize viscerosomatics for sure. Don't remember any more details than that, and would be scared to break confidentiality and say more than that anyway.
 
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ortnakas said:
If you have to triage, I'd prioritize viscerosomatics for sure. Don't remember any more details than that, and would be scared to break confidentiality and say more than that anyway.
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No confidentiality broken there - those topics I listed were the most heavily tested in COMBANK (so I thought) and were not picked based on my actual exam.
 
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My bet is Thursday - I'm pretty sure that's been the trend thus far is scores released on the tail end of the range.


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Somebody said you find out if you passed comlex before scores are released? How would we know? I read it somewhere but can't remember
 
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Chillywilly said:
Somebody said you find out if you passed comlex before scores are released? How would we know? I read it somewhere but can't remember
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Someone said you log into nbome's website and check exam status. Just did mine and there are no updates as of yet.
 
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I'm pretty sure they are slow to release the scores because they are scratching their heads looking at mine saying something along the lines of, "Certainly he couldn't have missed ALL of the questions..."

As a side note, I had an anatomy professor before med school who offered any student in the class a 100% if they missed every question on the written exam. Her rationale was that in order to miss everything, you would have to know most if not all of the right answers. If you got even one question right, you would get the score that you "earned".

She had tough questions with good distractors, and no one ever took her up on the offer.

When I submitted my COMLEX I honestly thought, "This could be a 100, or this could be an 800."

Horrible feeling to walk out of a test I studied pretty hard for with that impression! Best of luck everyone! I hope we all hit a home run!
 
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Why not just state the range as weds or thurs? It would be interesting to know if they've ever been released on the first day of a given range.


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FistLength said:
Time for me to give back to SDN land.

For my exam:
I felt the questions were less like COMBANK and more like NBME/UWorld.
Micro: Sketchy helped tremendously, about 2 times it did not. 1 you could get from q banks, 1 you just had to reason (which if you had passing knowledge of the microbe, you could get). Some questions were difficult because not only was the question vague, but the answer choices are vague as well. Similar to a hard UWorld micro question.

Pharm: Sketchy also helped tremendously. The information to answer 1-2 questions are not listed in any Qbank/FA. Not worth it hunting for obscure info. Use process of elimination and move on.

Path (in general): UFAP will mostly do the job nicely. Neuro I felt like you could not study for. You had your obvious questions that Q banks adequately cover, then you had deep anatomy/pathophys I don't recall seeing in FA/Qbanks, but were perhaps covered in coursework. If I had to go back and study for this exam, I do not know how I would prepare for neuro. Path section is also unfair. You will see 1 concept tested many, many times throughout the exam. I had 1 lesion tested about 5 times, quite literally. If you did not know this lesion, you were really going to have a crappy testing day. It's pretty ridiculous how often this happens.

I actually did study lightly during my 40 minute break and it paid off because I saw the same question type again with a slight twist, and I was able to answer it (I was seeing the trend of repeat questions...)

You will have to be able to answer questions based on images. I think that for the most part you can make an educated guess, but it came down to 50/50 and the image clinched it. I feel that in the NBME world images are trash and confuse you, but on the COMLEX it seemed legitimately necessary to see what was going on.
Biochem: Barely anything overtly biochem like.

You must know pathophys, the kind that NBME/UWorld go into. I was actually impressed by how they were asking questions. Felt very NBME like. Some information is not in UFAP that I overtly recall, you would have to reason your way. I used Boards and Beyond for some systems, he goes over pathophys well so I was not absolutely side swiped. I would not get boards and beyond at this point in your studying, but I am mentioning so I can give credit where credit is due.

Stats: Know FA, nothing special

Phys: I don't feel there were many straight phys, it was mostly pathophys that I remember.

OMM: I hate OMM with the exception of muscle energy/ sub occ release and a few things here and there. Studying for this section made me angry, having to memorize hallucinated "nodules"/cranial. I am mentioning it because this section is not my strong point. Before the exam I would get about 70% on OMM in COMBANK, rarely above that. My test was pretty hard OMM. One section was an absolute nightmare. Huge stems, and you can't properly skim unfortunately, becomes an absolute time sink. Again, I wouldn't know how to prepare for OMM on my exam. The easy layups were not the norm, but maybe because it is my weak subject I felt that way.

Time: You will definitely be pressed for time. The OMM questions will probably drag you down. Perhaps because COMBANK does not adequately mirror the stems my exam had, you cannot learn to beat these questions quickly. I would recommend not going over the 1 hour limit per section, you do not know what you may need the next section. Some sections I finished with 5-10 minutes left, one I was down 5-10 minutes (my absurdly difficult OMM section, only had 1 of those thankfully). Most sections I finished right on time, and I am a fast test taker. If you are slow, you really have to figure out a way to speed things up for this exam.

Breaks: don't take the optional 10 minute break. Amazing...it actually counts against your overall time. Someone at the NBOME was very dim when they thought of this idea. I went 8 hours taking only a 20 minute break instead of the optional 40 minute break. Just went for a walk outside and reviewed some info (and got 1 q right because of it).

Overall: I honestly felt like test writers knew of FA and tested concepts from FA in a UWorld/NBME style. I didn't think the test was horribly written. There were so many questions testing the same pathology it was shocking, not how I think a board exam should be written. If you see a pathology, you will probably be asked about it multiple times. It was not an easy exam. UFAP is your best bet, if you only did combank you were going to get hurt. I remember some questions that were not anywhere in any text that I have ever seen. You can mostly get down to 50/50.

I am almost 100% sure I passed, beyond that I don't know. So many neuro I guessed on, and OMM murdered me. Made educated guesses on a lot of questions. You are reading a synopsis of someone who scored about 510-520 on Comsae C 1 month ago, so you can figure the ballpark of my knowledge...its pretty average. Hope it helps.
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Scores are up. Around 6 benjamins. Somehow OMM was inbetween borderline and high performance, which was a miracle. Everyone must have struggled on OMM and they threw some questions out or something...

Comsae D 500-510 Late April
Comsae C 505-515 Late May
COMLEX 595-605 Early July
 
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USMLE: >255
COMLEX: >800

Stoked!

Edit: COMSAE E was >800 for those looking for a correlation. My full post was made on the step 1 thread so I left the details out here :)
 
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COMSAE E 5/27: 495
COMSAE C 6/27: 498
COMLEX 7/14: 524

NBME 18 6/28: 330
USMLE: TBD

My distribution on COMLEX was just as schizophrenic as it was on the COMSAE's. Somehow "Diagnostic Technologies" and "Behavioral Science" were my worst and "Health Promotion and Disease Management" literally spanned all three categories.
 
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