the official COMAT shelf thread

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TeamZissou did you find it as horrible as I did?
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MrBeauregard said:
TeamZissou did you find it as horrible as I did?
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Not really. But I honestly didn't do anything to study for it besides read 9 cases out of case files. I was relieved by the lack of OMM questions. Probably less than 10, maybe even only 5sh.

I have no clue how I did though.

I thought the questions were a lot less vague than the COMLEX I took on June 2nd.
 
Just took the surgery COMAT, here are my thoughts:

I used NMS casebook and Boards & Wards (I never hear anyone talk about B&W, but I like it), mainly relied on UWorld for studying. Did Kaplan qbank because our school purchases it, and I did some of the questions from the PreTest Surgery book (ortho, cardiovascular, pre/post op care, and the GI questions).

I thought the shelf was very fair. Some questions mentioned TART findings at different levels, but zero questions that required you know any OMM to get the answer. There were a few where I know in practice you'd do more than one of the answer choices - I guess that's just to be expected. So the qbanks were very important for being able to answer "single best answer" type questions. I had one question that was a straight-up drug question. About 20% were paired/grouped questions.

I only had time to really hit the books hard starting a day before my shelf, but before that I'd done around 300 practice questions and read the surgery chapter in B&W. I felt prepared for the test. I had time to get through all the UWorld and Kaplan qbank surgery questions, and felt like that paid off the most. We'll see how it went in 4-6 weeks... but I left the exam feeling pretty good about it.
 
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Took the OMM COMAT today. Not sure how folks are supposed to get 70%+ on these things. A good 30% or more of the questions were completely from left field. Not sure where we were supposed to have learned that stuff. I read through the green book, memorized the viscersomatics, and chapman points and figured that would be enough.... apparently not.
 
took surgery comat last session - read blueprints throughout the rotation and read through the GI cases in casefiles and got a 70. all of the questions for me were very random.

took obgyn today- read blueprints, read the repro section from step 1, learned the TORCHES/teratogens, actually did the practice qs in time in the back- got 79/100. the previously mentioned prepared me really well in terms of content. there were 2 questions with subject matter that i had never seen, but i marked at least 20 because the question was so vague. just my $0.02. cant gauge how i did, nbome is vague as always. probably should have read some classic literature to prepare.
 
MrBeauregard said:
Just took the FM COMAT.

Impressions: absolutely, positively horrible. No other words will do. Poorly written, vague questions. If you thought the COMLEX was bad this might push you over the edge.

Study CaseFiles a few times; study PreTest a few times; do Blueprints if you'd like; read UptoDate on your patients. At least you'll know what you should for FM.

The COMAT won't test you on hardly any of that. Random geriatrics, crazy behavioral and/or policy questions. Very little evaluation of one's clinical knowledge. Crappy OPP questions that don't test much common knowledge. Management questions that you won't find the correct answer to in any text a third year would use during their rotation.

I could have studied for another two weeks and not gotten any more questions right.
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Final: 82%

I'm not sure what the national average or class average is; we weren't provided with any of that.
 
MrBeauregard said:
Final: 82%

I'm not sure what the national average or class average is; we weren't provided with any of that.
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For those wondering the averages, this is the date I am aware of for national means.

Family Medicine- 70.2
Internal Medicine-65.1
Ob/Gyn- 71.4
OPP-69.3
Pediatrics- 64
Psych- 70.5
Surgery-68.4
 
Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?
 
chet said:
Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?
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I don't recall too many specifics, but I do remember that it wasn't bad at all. I don't think it's necessary to really study it too hard. You'll probably remember most of it from Level I.
 
chet said:
Anyone know how heavy OMM is represented on the IM COMAT?
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IIRC, most questions seemed to have an "OMM" component, which mostly consisted of a segmental or TART change tacked onto the end that had no actual meaning in terms of being able to answer the question. There was only a handful of straight up OMM questions. I didn't review any OMM and ended up with a 71%, which based off of how my school grades the COMATs, it's in the mean to mean +1sd range.
 
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OB/GYN
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, BV, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct OMM questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

PEDS
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however I don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no OMM (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

IM
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky OMM questions that I had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps :)
 
Scissor88 said:
OB/GYN
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, BV, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct OMM questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

PEDS
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however I don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no OMM (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

IM
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky OMM questions that I had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps :)
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I felt similarly about the Peds COMAT, I didn't do much for it aside from a block of UWorld questions. But I thought it was all over the place and studying a lot probably wouldn't have helped me. I will say though I wish I had done some combank/comquest since apparently some of the weird OMM/Ethics/Next step questions were almost identical and they were the ones you read and went wtf is this.

Does the OB/GYN COMAT have similar questions? I ask because I only bought UWorld but if I keep getting burned on these random questions I'll think about picking up combank/comquest.
 
The oby/gyn comat was more focused than peds, but that might just be because it's a more focused discipline. I haven't used combank/comquest this year for studying so I can't comment on how much it will help. I think UWORLD/blueprints/case files served me perfectly well for ob/gyn and I was happy with my grade.
 
Is it just me or does every exam seem to have a question or two completely not at all related to the rotation?
 
C O M 2014 said:
Is it just me or does every exam seem to have a question or two completely not at all related to the rotation?
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Any standardized exam created by the NBOME will be this way. All of them are horrible assessments of clinical knowledge.
 
scissor88 said:
ob/gyn
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, uworld questions
- exam covered a broad range of topics -> phases of delivery, delivery complications, gyn cancers, stds, bv, trich, had some images, don't remember any direct omm questions but dysfunctions were sometimes listed in the stem, a bunch of questions seemed like general med with the pt happening to be pregnant
- got an 83 (raw)

peds
- studied using blueprints, casefiles, su2s2, uworld questions
- exam was all over the place and felt like even what i had used to study didn't prepare me well however i don't know what book/question bank would have prepared any better -> vaccines, only a couple development questions, no omm (honestly kind of blocked out on a lot of the test)
- got a 74 (raw)

im
- studied using step up to medicine, uworld questions (~500), blueprint questions
- again exam was all over the place -> several level 1 type questions (weird bugs, coagulopathies/hormones up/down arrow type questions), couple wacky omm questions that i had no idea what they were talking (not in saverese), questions on management but don't bother memorizing criteria for different disease processes
- still waiting on the score

hope this helps :)
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im - 73
 
Why do you guys take those garbage exams??? Does your school make you? If so I feel very sorry for you guys.
 
Can anyone give any insight into the psych comat? Will take soon. Have just been using FA and lange/pretest for sample qs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
heroes31 said:
Can anyone give any insight into the psych comat? Will take soon. Have just been using FA and lange/pretest for sample qs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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Bump. I'm also so wondering this. I'm surprised there is so little info on these exams still
 
Hello everyone this is my first post and I'm stunned at how little info there is on the COMAT.

That being said, I'm about to start 1st yr rotations and wondering what you guys would suggest as far as question banks.

I'm getting Uworld for sure for the year. Does Comquest help with the COMAT? What about Kaplan? If not I'm just going to get Comquest for six months vs the whole year.
 
This entire past year I dealt with the fact that there is very little information on these exams. The NBOME website does have a blueprint of the distribution of certain topics and principles tested on each respective COMAT exam but I never took the time to look at it except for FM. And the blueprint was way off for my exam.

As for studying for these exams, here is my advice: use the resources all of the MD students use. Grab Case Files, PreTest, Blueprints, NMS books, etc. Get whichever seems to fit your learning style and whichever you mesh with. Definitely get UWorld early and do it throughout third year by specialty.

If you do this and study hard you can do well on these exams. The average for each is 100 and the SD is 10; I've gotten 120+ on all but two of them and those were 115+. I even got a 130+ on the pediatrics exam.

These are strangely written and generally not very reflective but if you study the material as you should you can work your way through them pretty easily.

If anyone has any other questions you can PM me.
 
Just wanted to contribute to this thread and help get this thread moving. Hopefully others will do the same and we can get a really good idea on how to study for these exams.

Score= >110

I pretty much only used "First Aid for the Psych Clerkship" (older used 2nd edition, which was only a couple bucks on amazon). I read the book casually throughout the rotation and really studied hard from it the last 3-4 days. Its a very easy to read text and covered all the material that was on the exam. I also read up on some of the most common psych diseases in uptodate during the rotation but its probably not necessary for the exam. I tried going through Lange Q&A but didn't find it very useful. Haven't purchased UWorld yet so can't comment on it.

As for the exam itself it really wasn't too bad. Like I said, almost everything the was asked on the exam, including drugs, could be found in FA. I would suggest maybe reading more about the different types of psychotherapy as its a little brief in FA. There was very minimal OMM so I wouldn't worry about that. One thing to note is that the exam is long and I believe all the COMATs are now 125 questions. I was getting a little worried towards the middle of the exam that I would run out of time but luckily that didn't happen. So you should keep an eye on your pace.

Overall, I would say stick to FA, make sure that you can distinguish one disorder from the other, know what drugs/therapy you should use for each, and you should be fine.

Now if others can give advice on the other COMATS that would be great! I have surgery next so maybe someone can give an update on that one!!! :love:
 
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Did you use comquest or combank to hep study for the COMAT? Is there any specific website that outlines general topics on what will be included on the COMAT? What kind of OMM questions are there - similar to the ones on the comlex part 1 or are they more advanced?
 
I personally did not purchase an online qbank like comquest/combank/uworld. I am very uncertain which online qbank to purchase for these exams. I think uworld is probably the best of the 3 but maybe combank/quest will be more like the comats. Plus they are so expensive. I am thinking of maybe just trying to use the kaplan step2 ck qbook that you can purchase on amazon. Anyone have any experience with this book for the comats?
As far as OMM it definitely was not a big deal on my exam. You should still know the basics I think, like the viscerosomatics and how to diagnose type 1 and type 2 curves.(things that after 2 years you should know without having to study again). I wouldn't sweat the omm.
The NBOME has this site that outlines the exam contents http://www.nbome.org/COMAT3.asp
 
Review like you normally would, but focus on the viscerosomatics and Chapman's a few days before the test. There are very few OMT-oriented (treatment setups, etc.) questions. A majority of questions will have osteopathic structural findings in the physical exam.
 
BigSib said:
Review like you normally would, but focus on the viscerosomatics and Chapman's a few days before the test. There are very few OMT-oriented (treatment setups, etc.) questions. A majority of questions will have osteopathic structural findings in the physical exam.
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These structural findings will often also be completely useless and unneeded in actually answering the questions fyi.
 
For the IM COMAT did you guys use comquest level I or II?
 
spj said:
For the IM COMAT did you guys use comquest level I or II?
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Neither of the banks have a good setup for IM COMAT review. Both should have surgery, OBGYN, OMM, and Psych categories, but Family, IM, Peds, and EM will be somewhat difficult to study for using the banks because the tests are so comprehensive. If anything Level 2 should be more pertinent because Level 1 mostly surrounds to basic sciences. But you should realize that by studying for these COMATs you are preparing for Level 2 as well.

Also, all of the tests have a good bit of crossover, so if you're using a bank you should not study one specialty at a time. For example, you'll get OBGYN/Peds questions on the Family shelf. There's always a few emergent questions sprinkled in, and OMM is all over the place.
 
Hey I figured I would contribute to this thread as well.
So far I have taken 3 COMATs
IM:
Was the most random collection of questions ever. I mostly used blueprints and felt like there was a lot of really out there items. I did ok on it but so far felt it was the worst COMAT I have seen.

Fam Med:
This one I also mostly used blueprints and I felt the questions from the back of the book were very representative of what I saw on my exam. I scored well above the national average on it.

Psych:
I used blueprints and the Kaplan qbank to study. I felt like it coved most things well, but my test also had a TON of questions of which form of therapy to use. I also had a number of questions on herbals which was a bit bizarre. I scored just above the national average.

I take peds on Friday and will give an update on that as well. I always go to the NBOME website and take their 15 q exam and it seems like a decent place to figure out what they are focused on, on Fam Med I felt it was useful, on psych I didn't feel it was.
Hope this helps people out.
 
Our school does the NBME IM and the NBOME IM shelf (i.e. COMAT) bc we have 2 im rotations.

I did Case Files for the NBME IM shelf and did pretty good. Was planning on doing Kaplan Q bank and Case Files again for the NBOME shelf. But don't know if I should spring for a year long COMBANK Subscription given that I will be getting it eventually.

Thanks in advance.
 
Took the IM COMAT recently and only used COMBANK questions, along with SUTM and Pocket Medicine. I think the questions were fairly representative of the real thing, except with more bioterrorism on the COMAT (aside: why is NBOME obsessed with this topic?) Came out feeling like I failed, ended up doing pretty well. However, I wouldn't go buying a year subscription to COMBANK when Kaplan or UWorld or anything else is probably just as good. Based on my experience with Step / Level 1, COMBANK was inferior in every way... our school just happens to pay for it.
 
Has anyone recently taken the FM COMAT? Any insight on what resources to use - question banks, review books, etc.? Thanks!
 
chilon09 said:
Has anyone recently taken the FM COMAT? Any insight on what resources to use - question banks, review books, etc.? Thanks!
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Questions on the AAFP website were a great learning tool. I also read through case files. Should be plenty
 
Got back my OMM COMAT. I just did two readthroughs of Savarese, once during the rotation and once just before taking the COMAT, though I felt like I knew the book cold as I used it for step1 and during OMS2 for class. I finished the test super early and scored average. If you want to do much better I'd find another resource. Otherwise Savarese alone should get you a pass.
 
Pinkleton said:
Questions on the AAFP website were a great learning tool. I also read through case files. Should be plenty
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I'm currently on my FM rotation and heard about these questions. I signed up for the AAFP and when I went to those questions it was a restricted access. How did you guys get past this??
 
Can anyone comment on how the IM comat differed from the FM comat and what study strategies you would employ differently.
I took the IM comat a while ago, and just started my FM rotation, so just want to get an idea of what I should be doing to prepare.
 
OR4life said:
Can anyone comment on how the IM comat differed from the FM comat and what study strategies you would employ differently.
I took the IM comat a while ago, and just started my FM rotation, so just want to get an idea of what I should be doing to prepare.
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Seriously! BUMP! :)
 
OR4life said:
Can anyone comment on how the IM COMAT differed from the FM COMAT and what study strategies you would employ differently. ...
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Internal Medicine will have more laboratory values (CBC/BMP) in the question stems, while Family Medicine will have more vital signs and screening/prevention-oriented labs. IM will cover all of the IM subspecialties quite evenly, at least as outlined on the blueprint. Family Medicine may contain questions that have to do with Pediatrics and OB/GYN, but these subjects will not be represented on the IM exam. Either way your study strategy should be the same: do all the required coursework, focus on an IM/FM-specific review book, q-bank, etc. You should be reading daily on the topics you've seen throughout the day.
 
For the FM shelf I recommend the AAFP board review questions and the Ambulatory section of SUTM. Both very representative of the content on the exam.
 
What books/qbanks do you all recommend for peds?
 
Anyone have any suggestions on how to study for the OBGYN COMAT? I understand it has changed in recent years so are the past suggestions listed in this thread still valid?
 
Study as you normally would for any others. The test is very history/physical oriented, so you must understand how to diagnose OB-related conditions based upon a history or the signs. In doing this you should focus on understanding the basics: dating, definition/criteria of terms (pre-eclamspia vs. chronic HTN, abortion vs. preterm labor), fetal heart tracings and the various abnormal causes, and being generally aware of the common tests (BPP, NST, etc.). Consider purchasing the COMBANK COMAT (this is new; no reviews yet and I haven't purchased it), review the NBOME's free practice test, and probably look into that OMM study on pregnant ladies before going in there. I'm sure sacral OMT would be high yield. Otherwise there are few COMAT-specific study materials, so any other board review resources are viable.
 
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