Tag: comlex

My Scores

Okay.

So this is normally very private information. And people don’t like sharing their scores or their downfalls. In medicine especially, it is a very dog-eat-dog ideology. It can be cut throat (which makes no sense truthfully because you should be competing with yourself more and betting yourself) but stupid and immature people think cutting others down or their “competition” is they way to get ahead.

Dumbasses.

Anywho, I am sharing my COMAT or shelf scores with you. I am also going to share my board scores with you. I want you to realize that yes, these exams are important BUT THEY WILL NOT MAKE OR BREAK YOU.

Only you have the power to do that. Obviously, the better you do the easier it may be for you. However, you can have amazeballs scores and still not match. That’s right, I said it. A good or even a great score will not guarantee you match somewhere. Just as a poor score won’t prevent you from matching. The difference may be is a poor score (like in my case) may limit your opportunities, or at least make you work harder to find different opportunities.

So, here it is.

COMATs/SHELF

I will list each shelf that I took and the score report associated with my test. You can see the topics they test and how they score. It does not however give you any more information such as the types of questions or not. Since I am a DO, again, using COMQUEST is a very good practice test/resource. It gives you very similar questions if not the same questions and a simulated score. Use this if you are taking DO COMATs. I did not do this, because I’m dumb. But a lot of my classmates did. This is one thing I will continue to truly recommend to you.

The lowest passing score is an 82. Honors is I don’t remember. But the NBOME’s honors and KCU’s honors differ. And that is a can of angry worms I won’t open up.

Pediatrics: Score of 100. Score report.

Internal Medicine: Score of 103. Score report.

Surgery: Score of 98. Score report. This one was hard. Lots of fluids questions and had no idea how to answer them properly.

Family Medicine: Score of 105. Score report.

OPP/Osteopathic Medicine: Score of 102. Score report. Did not really study for this one, at all. I think I looked up ribs and sacrum, viscerosomatics. I did look up cranial but had like 2 questions.

Psychiatry: Score of 108. Score report.

Emergency Med: Score of 97. Score report. I did not study for this exam at all.

Ob/Gyn: Score of 98. Score report. First COMAT. Hella nervous for this one.

BOARDS:

COMLEX level 1. Don’t ask me how I did so well on this one. I have no idea.

COMLEX level 2. This was not so good. Notoriously not a ton of people did well on this one. I honestly think it was a bad exam.

STEP 1. I thought I did better on this exam than my level 1. Jokes on me.

STEP 2. Honestly thought I didn’t pass. I mean, I barely did but I truthfully thought I didn’t pass.

Additionally, I am writing this before Match day 2022. I have already interviewed. It is up to the universe now. I am hopeful that despite crappy scores, I interviewed at 2/3 places I did my sub-I’s. I showed who I was as a person in person. But this is in the past and I cannot change anything. I am hoping to be in a better headspace next time around when I take my level 3 boards at the end of my intern year. And despite whether I match or SOAP, I will find a way into the specialty of my choice.

Again, a score is only one part of you. Well not even a part of you, one part of your application. When you are a physician your scores won’t matter. A better score will open more doors for you, but will not guarantee you anything. What else you do (volunteering, extracurriculars, personal statement, LOR’s, etc) is what will help you.

Cheers and good luck!

Medical Boards: What to Expect the Day of

Okay.

You’ve finally studied your heart out.

You’ve accepted that you will never be ready to fully take this exam but you are going to anyways.

Exam day has finally arrived.

Boards and dedicated are stressful. Ask any medical student! But there are some things that can help calm you down or help you familiarize yourself with for test day. Whether that be step 1 or level 1, there are few things to keep in mind and a few things to be prepared for.

Step 1:

The test in total looks something like this:

  1. 15 minute beginning tutorial
  2. 7 blocks total of questions. Each block is 40 questions and you have a max of 1 hour per block.
  3. 45 minutes of break time for the day.

When you arrive to Prometric, step 1 usually requires a piece of paper for you to print and bring with you. There is an ID # that they will have you write on your sheet of scratch paper. You will need this ID # to log into the exam every single time you come back from a break. Don’t bother memorizing this #. It will be written there for you.

Uworld is set up very similarly to step 1. It has the running questions on the sidebar, the same blue bar up top and gray background. It has the forward and backward buttons, calculator button, and labs. It also has a timer (although if I remember correctly the timer is on the bottom of the real exam). There are a few extra buttons on Uworld that are not on Step 1, but if you are someone who is anxious about navigating the exam on test day, look at Uworld set up to get an idea.

Then you have the check-in (which is very similar to the MCAT). You sign your name, they wand you, they fingerprint you, they time stamp your in and out, take a photo of you, and ask to see your empty pockets, up your sleeves, etc. For mine, we eliminated the fingerprint and wanding because of COVID. We also didn’t sign in/out for every break, but we did sign in at the start and end of the exam. You will have a locker which you can access during your breaks.

So after going through check-in you are sat in your assigned seat. I brought foam earplugs because I had a feeling some nervous ticks of other test takers would be loud; and my goodness were there some loud and annoying ones.

You login with that ID # and click that you are you and blah blah and then you start at the home screen.

For step, you decide how many blocks you do at a time and when to take your breaks. If you finish early on any testing block, they recycle that time into your break time. After an hour passes for each block, you have to submit that block of questions and move on. You get no more time for that particular block.

So you can choose to do the 15 minute tutorial or have this time recycled into your break time. I chose to quickly go through it to see if there were any additional functions that I was unaware of that differed from Uworld. I ended up with about 10 minutes extra.

I’m really annoyed that there isn’t a good screenshot of how that main test screen looks. This would have saved me a lot of anxiety as I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Below is my “attempt” at what I remember for how it looks.

Sample screen for Step 1

As the exam continues on, the timing will change. Again, if you do not use the full allotted time for each section it will recycle and add to your break time. Below is how I ended up taking my exam:

I used the rollover time to add to my break times so I could take more of a breather. It was a long day of testing and I needed the time to reset. Plus, I knew I had extra time so I wasn’t pressed to keep watching my phone for the time on my break. I could just enjoy my break, eat, look up something if I wanted to, stretch, or just enjoy the sunshine.

During your breaks (at least at my site) you were allowed to use the restroom, get into your locker, go outside the building, get in your car, etc. They had only asked us to not go near crowds of people. Most of us if we went outside either sat on the sidewalk right out front of the building or sat in our cars in the parking lot. Others just stayed in the building.

At the end of the day we signed our name out, got a print out that was notarized, and we were done!

Level 1:

Okay, the set up for this exam is a bit different. I tested at the same Prometric site a few days later, so the process of getting into the exam was the same, and the rules were basically the same about breaks. The only difference is there was no ID # to log into with and I didn’t need a printed out sheet of paper with me.

This exam has LESS freedom to decide how you want to test. The exam is longer and more rigid in the schedule compared to step 1. Here is the following break down:

  1. 10-15 minute tutorial
  2. 2 blocks of 50 questions
  3. 10 minute break
  4. 2 blocks of 50 questions
  5. 40 minute break
  6. 2 blocks of 50 questions
  7. 10 minute break
  8. 2 blocks of 50 questions
  9. Survey

The timing is set up into two 4 hour blocks. This means that you get a 4 hour block before lunch and a 4 hour block after lunch. Within that 4 hours, it is recommended that you try to complete each block within an hour. But unlike step 1, the clock doesn’t stop ticking. This means that you need to constantly be watching your time. At around 1 hour you should be hitting submit for your block and moving on to the next one. What this does mean, is if you finish a block early, it rolls into the next testing block (as long as it is within either the first or second 4 hour block). You do not get any extra break time however.

So that means let say the following happens:

block 11 hour
block 21 hour
block 350 minutes
block 470 minutes
End of first half of examno time rolls over after submitting block 4

Once you submit a block you cannot go back. If you take more than the allotted time for your 10 minute break, it will pull from your overall 4 hours of testing time (or whatever is left).

After lunch you repeat the same process. You need to watch your time and try to submit each block within an hour. If you finish quicker, again that time will roll over for other blocks, but not be added to any break time.

Truelearn is a very similar set up to the exam interface on the level 1. Again, there are a few less buttons, but overall the set up and how you work it is pretty much the same. It looks the same as well.

Hope that was helpful! Cheers.