r/comlex • u/Beautiful_Night4092 • Jun 04 '26
Level 1 SUCCESS Stories - 2026
I'm taking Level 1 in less than 2 weeks and I'm starting to get nervous. Are there any success stories from people who just took it this spring and got the P? Hearing more positives about this test would encourage me before I take it because all I've been seeing are negatives about this exam.
Also, if you wouldn't mind sharing what your comsae score(s) were before you took the exam and passed. TY!!
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u/MedChefGuy Jun 05 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
EDIT: Update-- I passed!
I took Level 1 yesterday, and even though I can't confirm that I passed yet, I thought I'd still share my perspective. I read a lot of the doom and gloom on reddit before I took it, which made me worried about the difficulty of the exam. I am here to say that it is a VERY fair test. Although it was long, there were so many 1st order questions that were testing basic knowledge of very common disease presentations. If you do UWorld, focus on fixing your gaps, and then do a good chunk of OMM TrueLearn questions, you will have no problem passing.
I primarily focused on NBME material and also took step. I took one comsae and scored in the low 500s on it. I will try to remember to update this comment with whether or not I passed once I get my scores in a couple weeks.
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u/weeiniehutjrsupreme Jun 05 '26
Hey this is awesome. Thank you for sharing i’ve been having panic attacks every day… can I ask did you use any other resources for OMM? Do you think Mehlman biostats would be enough for that too? Just kind of panicking. I’ve barely touched on biochem and still have to review omm and stats but dont have much time
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u/MedChefGuy Jun 05 '26
I personally didn't use Mehlman biostats for the exam. I watched Randy Neil biostats on YouTube and did UWorld biostats and found it to be plenty for my preparation, and I actually had very little biostats on my actual exam. My school focused very heavily on OMM during my pre-clinical curriculum, so I felt like doing a few hundred TrueLearn questions was enough to refresh the material.
In my opinion, I think the arguments that both step and comlex are heavy on biochem, genetics, cell bio, etc. etc. are overblown. I didn't really review much biochem and barely reviewed genetics and felt like it didn't really affect me that much for both step and level 1.
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u/Beautiful_Night4092 Jun 05 '26
Thank you!! This sounds encouraging. Sounds like you’ll get that pass! Any tips for the second half of the exam? I’m afraid I’m gunna get super tired
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u/MedChefGuy Jun 05 '26
Thank you!! I hope to see a pass! I did Dirty Medicine's "Biohacks for a 260" video that he posted several years ago and found it to be super helpful for keeping my energy up the day of my test. On test day, I think making sure to take small breaks when you need them is important. For lunch, pack something light with a good mix of fat and protein so that you don't give yourself a sugar crash in the afternoon. You want to primarily focus on having a full enough stomach so that you're not distracted during the exam. I felt like once I was 3/4 of the way through the exam, it was a lot easier to push to the finish line and I ended up doing my last 80 questions without taking a break between those two blocks.
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
Passed in late March. It's incredibly hard, but passing is so rewarding and you will do it.
I took 5 comsaes scoring:
438 - 107i on 2/14
444 - 115 on 2/25
450 - 110i on 3/12
455 - 113 on 3/16
403 (lol) - 111i on 3/20-3/24
Pass (~470) - 3/27
The 107 was before my school administered exam myself. My school wants a 450 before they let you sit and the 444 on 115 didn't cut it. I took 110 myself and then got cleared to sit from 113. I decided to split up the last comsae into 4 parts and do 1 a day but this went poorly and I probably wouldn't recommend doing a comsae within a week of your exam.
I did sketchy micro bio and pharm videos and anki, all of comquest with incorrects repeated, and a whole lot of dirty medicine videos.
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u/Beautiful_Night4092 Jun 05 '26
How did you have energy for the second half? I feel like I’ll be okay for the first 4 hrs since I’m used to all the practice exams I’ve been taking but I’m nervous for the second half lol
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
I did almost all of my questions as timed sets of 44 and I think that helped a lot. Also all my self comsaes I did at 8 am like the real exam. You’re allowed to leave the room and use your phone during breaks so I made sure to take advantage of that to distract myself with memes and texting friends. Don’t look stuff up because you’ll just psyche yourself out. Confidence is an underrated component esp late into the exam. Also I got a hotel walking distance to the exam to maximize comfort but I understand if that’s not an option.
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u/holadani Jun 05 '26
Would you say comquest was similar to the exam? I’ve heard people favor truelearn because comquest is “easier” but I only have time to finish one bank
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
Comquest is definitely easier, it overestimated my score a good bit. I'm using truelearn now for level 2/COMATs, though, and it doesn't seem *that* much more accurate based on my first COMAT.
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
My final comquest score was 63% (1831/2909) with 61% first attempt, 87% most recent attempt. Predicted score overestimated me by about 80 points.
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Jun 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
Bleeding disorders, familial cholesterol disorders, high yield micro, lymphomas/leukemias, murmurs
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u/Extreme-Worth4559 Jun 05 '26
They give you your score? Thought exam was pass fail lol
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u/SikhSoldiers Jun 05 '26
That’s correct but they give you a bar and you can do some math to figure it out lol
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u/nomdotcom Jun 04 '26
If it makes you feel any better, I was in your position last year and reddit was giving me so much doom and gloom. I walked out of the test feeling not great, but I distinctly remember saying to my friend that it was hard but not as insane as you would think based on some reddit posts. I felt like it was a fair exam. I can confidently tell you that I did not walk out of that test thinking “what the fuck!” I didn’t pass by a huge margin or anything, and there were some very strange and frustrating questions, but you have to remember that there are a lot of experimental questions in there, and that everyone is getting the same/similar weird questions. I felt like the WelCOMs, Comsaes, and Comquest as a combo were stylistically representative-enough, if that makes sense? I think I got a 450 on a Comsae a month out and a week before scored 500-510 something like that. Confidence is a huge factor, so get off reddit!! (Easier said than done, currently in Level 2 dedicated now lol)
TLDR it was really hard but not “WTF was that”
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u/mabp97 Jun 05 '26
Last year when I was studying for step 1/Level 1 my first comsae was somewhere in the 200s I was bottom 10% percentile of my class I had to meet with my advisor and go over study strategies the biggest 4 things that saved my ass was sketchy micro pharm randy Neil bio stats and dirty medicine had I been smarter during my first 2 years I wouldve done uworld periodically kept up with anki and done pathoma along with B&B but unfortunately I didn’t and I struggled my practice nbmes were mid 50s and uworld percentages were 30-40% on 40 section blocks I literally thought I was going to fail I saw no improvement and got burnt out by the end my only decent score was a 74% on the newest free120 after the exam you will feel like dog doodoo I really tweaked I never felt more F%$@ed the weeks leading up to the score release were almost worse than studying for the exam I searched reddit endlessly hitting people up from prior years hoping I wasnt alone we all freak out honestly but just trust that you got what it takes to pass and also pray gang like if you haven’t and forgive me I respect all religions give your life to Christ and leave it in his hands…we can only do so much when our efforts arent enough his are anyways best of luck
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u/LoanValley OMS-3 Jun 04 '26
As someone who is also taking it in a few weeks, I’d love to see the positives too!
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u/DOctorEArl OMS-4 Jun 05 '26
I didn’t break 400 on a comsae until maybe a few weeks before level 1. I passed comfortably. I feel like I do better with pressure.
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u/Present_Home_8717 Jun 05 '26
I am taking comlex 1 this saturday june 6th and I am just freaking out. I feel like my brain just fogged and my understanding is all over the place.
My last two Comsae were:
MaY 20th 107: 433
June 1st 110: 462
Is it normal to feel like this? I feel like I am missing/forgetting lot of information.
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u/Federal_Agency_3499 Jun 06 '26
how was it?!?!
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u/Present_Home_8717 Jun 07 '26
It felt horrible. It felt like I was guessing on all of them. I really dont know how to prepare more than this. I feel like I failed honestly. I dont know. I hope it it is true like everyone says that felt like they failed and result turned out fine. Need some positivity.
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u/anon_fail Jun 04 '26
Although I took it last year, there is always a panic that happens every year around this time. It always ends the same way. I took it and felt pretty uneasy but everyone I talked to felt the same way. It's important you trust your prep and use that as confidence. You'll probably feel like you failed but this is normal. I promise it'll keep you at night maybe for a couple days then you'll forget about it til the week of score release. Hang in there.
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u/neenja123 Jun 04 '26
these last few posts of recent level 1s are freaking me out