Comlex Level 3 Experience

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sammyOMM

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Hi,
I am wondering if anyone felt like they did poorly on CDM cases on level 3 but still ended up passing the exam. I recently took it - MC were like previous exams but CDM cases I felt like I missed the diagnosis or ordered invasive tests. Anyone else have similar experience?

Thank you
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hckyplyr said:
Comquest only. Plus it’s much cheaper than combank. Felt like crap after both days, mostly CDM day. Score >760. Took it before intern year started, studied 2 weeks after I graduated. Sucked at the time, but will be reaping the benefits intern year. My co-interns are already stressed about how/when to study for step/comlex.
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How did you take it before intern year? Did you get a PD attestation as outlined by the NBOME below? Or is that policy not as strict as they make it seem..

"Beginning with the 2018-2019 test cycle for the two-day COMLEX-USA Level 3, eligibility will require an attestation from an American Osteopathic Association (AOA) or Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited graduate medical education program director that the Level 3 resident/exam candidate is in “good academic and professional standing” meeting the professional requirements of the residency program and is eligible to continue as a resident in the program."
 
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Dr. Rafiki said:
How did you take it before intern year? Did you get a PD attestation as outlined by the NBOME below? Or is that policy not as strict as they make it seem..

"Beginning with the 2018-2019 test cycle for the two-day COMLEX-USA Level 3, eligibility will require an attestation from an American Osteopathic Association (AOA) or Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited graduate medical education program director that the Level 3 resident/exam candidate is in “good academic and professional standing” meeting the professional requirements of the residency program and is eligible to continue as a resident in the program."
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There are PDs out there who will attest before you start. I have several classmates from med school who were able to schedule ahead of actually starting residency. None of the actually took it before starting since they couldn't schedule that soon, but I imagine some people could.
 
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anyone else waiting for scores to be released, hopefully, tomorrow for exams taken 9/4, 9/5?
 
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annabelle17 said:
anyone else waiting for scores to be released, hopefully, tomorrow for exams taken 9/4, 9/5?
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I think the website says persons in this date range will get the score back first week of November? But please tell me I’m wrong because I’m in that range lol.
 
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I will say I felt pretty terrible after the second day with the CDM cases. Totally missed a couple easy diagnoses. Ended up getting the highest score of any comlex

Edit: I did Combank all the way through, that’s it
 
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Comlex level III taking it to a whole nother level of trash with CDM. But if I pass I forgive all. See you in February.
 
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Signed up for April. Activated 3 month comquest today.

Is anyone doing anything special for OMM like re-reading Savarese? Or is comquest alone sufficient?

Would it be super low-yield to rewatch sketchy micro/pharm at this point? One of my comquest q's today was a parasite question that had some cobwebs on it in my brain. Not sure if I should do anything else besides comquest.

Good luck everyone
 
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Roxas said:
Signed up for April. Activated 3 month comquest today.

Is anyone doing anything special for OMM like re-reading Savarese? Or is comquest alone sufficient?

Would it be super low-yield to rewatch sketchy micro/pharm at this point? One of my comquest q's today was a parasite question that had some cobwebs on it in my brain. Not sure if I should do anything else besides comquest.

Good luck everyone
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I'm sure if you did Savarese it would be more than enough. I reviewed chapman's points, viscero-somatic reflexes, and prinicples of techniques including setup and direction of forces which was more than enough. I will say that I was a good OMM student back in med school and retained a lot at baseline, so judge yourself accordingly.

I think rewatching sketchy would be a waste of time unless you feel exceptionally weak on that area. I just did combank and watched my weaker areas on OME, and that's it. Felt terrible after the test, was sure I failed, ended up doing well. CDM cases suck.

Good luck!
 
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Roxas said:
Signed up for April. Activated 3 month comquest today.

Is anyone doing anything special for OMM like re-reading Savarese? Or is comquest alone sufficient?

Would it be super low-yield to rewatch sketchy micro/pharm at this point? One of my comquest q's today was a parasite question that had some cobwebs on it in my brain. Not sure if I should do anything else besides comquest.

Good luck everyone
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I reread parts of saverse that I was having issues with as well as doing combank. I didn’t do particularly well in the omm section of the test but I passed, so yay?

Don’t do sketchy, v low yield. Just do COMQUEST, saverse and the nbome sample cdm questions.
 
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Took part 1 today and I feel like I bombed it. Most questions I was able to narrow it down to 2 choices that I would probably order in the real world or just I would have zero clue what in the world they were talking about. Really hoping I do well on the cases to boost the **** show score from day 1.

Or hope there is a significant curve
 
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just finished day 2 and genuinely feel like i failed. missed most of the CDM cases, even some of the easier ones. hoping for a pass...
 
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DrPatriot said:
Took part 1 today and I feel like I bombed it. Most questions I was able to narrow it down to 2 choices that I would probably order in the real world or just I would have zero clue what in the world they were talking about. Really hoping I do well on the cases to boost the **** show score from day 1.

Or hope there is a significant curve
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Well Day 2 was definitely better.

Found out today I passed this damn thing. Did about average but honestly I was just wanting to pass so I beat that by a large margin.

Peace out OMM and NBOME✌️
 
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Anyone else take Comlex recently. Just finished 2nd day today, felt like MC were harder day two. Seriously some of the vaguest questions I have encountered. CDM cases were actually not bad at all. I did UWORLD beginning of intern year and then Comquest. I think Comquest is quite good, but the real test is so much more convoluted. I felt like I was picking 50/50 answers half the time ugh. I am hoping to god I passed. How was everybody else experiences, for those that recently haven taken exam?
 
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Classic nbome took this damn test feb 26/March 4 with score release date May 4-6. May 6th at 4:20 and no score release...
 
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Hey Fam, took test April 1. Got results scored 517. I used UWORLD and Comquest Q banks. I thought both helped, but Comquest helped more. Test definitely felt like Comquest, but more vague. CDM cases were actually quite easy. I think I was estimated scoring 600 based off Comquest scoring. For reference have not been a good test taker, scored 465 Comlex Level 1 and 430 Comlex Level 2, so take that for what it is.
 
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Neopolymath said:
2 months to release scores versus 3ish weeks for USMLE. As usual, NBOME being the dumb annoying brother to the nbme
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There are 16-20k US MDs in any given year, plus FMGs and IMGs taking USMLE every year. Compare with 6-7k US DOs taking COMLEX. The time delay isn’t for anything other than needing an adequate sample size on which to base the score and standard deviation.

The only thing truly obnoxious regarding score release is the 2-3 day window without a specified time.
 
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MusicDOc124 said:
There are 16-20k US MDs in any given year, plus FMGs and IMGs taking USMLE every year. Compare with 6-7k US DOs taking COMLEX. The time delay isn’t for anything other than needing an adequate sample size on which to base the score and standard deviation.

The only thing truly obnoxious regarding score release is the 2-3 day window without a specified time.
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That would be a perfectly reasonable explanation if I actually believed that the NBOME put the exam through any kind of regular/updating rigorous statistical analysis and it wasn't an exam built on random half-assed questions to take your money one last time lol. I appreciate the devil's advocate optimism though.

To their credit, they did remove the window and now list a single day.
 
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Been a while since the exam. Scored below average but not too bad

I think the best strategy is do all COMQUEST in 20 days (80 questions daily) while studying dirtyOMM, 5 days repeat incorrect, 3 days CDM cases then take the test
 
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MusicDOc124 said:
There are 16-20k US MDs in any given year, plus FMGs and IMGs taking USMLE every year. Compare with 6-7k US DOs taking COMLEX. The time delay isn’t for anything other than needing an adequate sample size on which to base the score and standard deviation.

The only thing truly obnoxious regarding score release is the 2-3 day window without a specified time.
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Always assume it is the last minute of the last day. That is how all of my exams went.
 
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Took it May 20th/21st. Bought a 30 day TrueLearn subscription...did 200ish questions and felt pretty good about my projected scores so I quit prepping at that point. Didn't bother to review any OMM. On the test I had a fair amount of OMM which I totally guessed on. Got an 885. So glad I'll never have to study/learn OMM ever again.
 
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Just felt like chiming in that I took day 1 yesterday (lazily studying some this morning for day 2) and it was probably more full of ridiculous crap than the other two… which is why I feel confident I’ll do absolutely fine. There was a bunch of stuff that I was literally never taught, and never saw anywhere (from Sketchy to Pathoma to DIT to OME to UpToDate to my classes). There’s no way anyone else is going to get those questions right either, so the standardization on this one is going to be very generous.

Lots of peds, obscure tropical illnesses, bioterrorism, and a ton of stuff that’s not related to direct patient care like quality/safety/billing/insurance/admin/legal stuff. The latter category I would estimate was at least 25% of day 1.

There were lots of questions that bothered me and I looked up a few after - one had nothing about it on UpToDate and googling got me mixed results, so 15+ minutes of actually working on it on the internet got me nowhere so even if Comlex was open internet I’d probably still miss it, and for another I found that state laws on it vary, so it shouldn’t be tested on a national exam because people may answer based on what they know about the local laws where their residency program is located.

Comlex ftw.
 
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calivianya said:
Lots of peds, obscure tropical illnesses, bioterrorism, and a ton of stuff that’s not related to direct patient care like quality/safety/billing/insurance/admin/legal stuff. The latter category I would estimate was at least 25% of day 1.
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I had a lot of the latter

You’ll enjoy day 2. You’ll be done couple of hours early :) honestly the least painful comlex for me. It was comforting knowing that a 350 is enough and I didn’t even have to drop $$$ on uworld
 
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