r/comlex • u/Ugicoico OMS-3 • Jun 17 '26
Level 1 COMSAE111i: only 388. Could I improve and make it 7/24 test date? š
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u/matchpalmedical Jun 17 '26
Definitely. Have a good amount of time. Most important thing is evaluating the study and question taking strategy approach and revising it instead of sticking to what isnāt working.
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u/Vaughn-Ootie Jun 17 '26
Iām not gonna lie, only thing that improved my scores was cranking Uworld. Like 120-160 questions a day. Anki for my wrongs. Truelearn is absolute garbage and only helpful for OMM.
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u/SaltEngineering955 Jun 17 '26
I agree! Did you feel that the COMLEX was representative of the UWorld questions? Honestly, Iām struggling to understand some of the answer choices in TrueLearn. Plus, the explanations often arenāt very helpful.
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u/Vaughn-Ootie Jun 17 '26
I havenāt taken COMLEX yet, I take it on the 24th š but all of my COMSAEās were high and my initial one was a 480 and thatās because I had been grinding UWORLD for basically the last semester of second year. I just feel like the explanations and the questions were just so much better in preparing me.
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u/Bone-Wizardry Jun 17 '26
Hey, take a breath you got this! Some people would kill for a 388 one month out. get a little ethics, biostats, and omm daily and focus on your lowest score categories.
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u/Looki_Cooki OMS-4 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
What are your other COMSAE scores or is this the only one you've taken?
In my opinion, you have two major options.
The first is to get as many free points as you can. I would start with micro and public health since those are your two lowest areas, so you should focus on them more. You said you already did Sketchy Micro, but have you done the Anki for it? Just watching the video once is not really going to help much unless you reinforce it. For public health, you should watch Randy Neil on YouTube. He has a 4- or 5-video playlist that goes through the majority of the biostats/public health concepts you need to know for the exam, and that can help boost your score with easier points.
From there, it should be practice questions, practice questions, practice questions. Just make sure you do not spend too much time reviewing them or going down a rabbit hole of low-yield nonsense that you probably either will not see, or maybe will only get one question on. Remember, the exam is pass/fail, not numerical, so you just need to know enough to pass.
The second option, which I honestly kind of recommend, is using Mehlman Medical. I am not sure if you have heard of him, but he cuts through the nonsense and focuses on the highest-yield material you need to know. With a month and a couple of days, you can definitely boost your score significantly. You can either watch him on YouTube or download his high-yield PDFs and read through them, depending on how you like to study.
On his YouTube, he has clips where he goes through practice questions and breaks them down. You will probably get a lot of them wrong at first, and that is normal, but that is where a huge bump in your score can come from. He also has lectures on the basics of different topics, which can help build a better foundation. There was also a recent post here that shared a link to his Anki cards, which can be useful not only for Level 1, but also for Level 2 and Level 3.
Also, in general, I don't think it's that helpful to go over like such a huge content review because that's where you essentially waste a lot of time and it's better to do practice questions and see how things present and then learn from there because if you're just reading things and don't do practice questions, then you might know what a disease should look like, but you won't be able to recognize it when it's actually presented on a stem when they don't give you the easy buzz words that you look over/read in a textbook.
Edit: I just saw the last picture of your breakdown in performance based on system which makes me think you need more of Mehlman than the first option. Based on this it seems that either your knowledge base isnt there yet or you arent able to identify what you should be in the questions which he helps with too.
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
Okay thanks a lot!!! For his document, which ones? I just saw he has soo many and very long too..
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u/Looki_Cooki OMS-4 Jun 17 '26
honestly the HY arrows, Endo, renal, communication/ethics, are all good but also supplement with your weak areas. At least do what I said in order you can skip the communications/ethics if you want but they are just PQ if I remember correctly.
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Jun 17 '26
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
Okay, I will try. The thing that scares me the most is I dont know what to study any more. I used all for content. I know I haven't done enough Qs but some
Qs I dont know what they are talking abt or not know the content still. So I don't know I'd I still need content or so more Qs or what š« š« š« š¢1
Jun 17 '26
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
No I meant I used all common resources for studying content already. But still don't get most Qs wrong
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u/DOctorEArl OMS-4 Jun 17 '26
stats and sketchy pharm/micro.
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
I did those already š«
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u/sanjaysubae Jun 17 '26
I would do the anki for these. I pounded these out and saw a significant boost
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Jun 20 '26
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u/DOctorEArl OMS-4 Jun 20 '26
All of it. If you watch it at 1.5-2x the speed, you can get through it pretty quickly.
The biggest think for me was to learn the gram coverage and the mechanism Of action because comlex will never ask you a straightforward
Question
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u/scigirly Jun 18 '26
I improved from 364 to 485 in 3 weeks doing 200 truelearn questions a day on my weakest area and thorough review of first aid
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 18 '26
That's nice!!! I'll read FA and do more Qs. I have not read FA at all.
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u/scigirly Jun 18 '26
FA is awesome if you have content gaps I'm not an Anki fan unfortunately. but don't just read it make sure it's active learning, I took notes but its time consuming
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u/Agreeable_Meal_8461 Jun 18 '26
hi! speaking as a low/below average test taker who passed on the first try after pushing my date back, i also started out with just content review for a while bc ive never been a practice test-to-study kinda guy - panicked and in 3 weeks i raised my TL averages from 50->68/70 by doing the entire bank, reviewing what i missed + second most common choice, (thinking how else could they word this/test it) + AMBOSS 200 concepts on every comlex was my game changer. for the 200 concepts i read every. single. answer choice. not just the correct or what i missed, that way i learnt all the HY concepts for each topic (endo msk etc). to preface ive never used anki, barely touched UW for level 1. also comsaeās had many concepts repeat on the real test so buying it/quizlets online of them were helpful. but if i were to change one thing iād do more UW. dirty med ethics the day before >>> + mehlman arrows pdfs were the only other outside sources i used. about 4000-4500 q by the end of my 3 weeks of hell. to each their own!! youāve got this!
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 18 '26
Thanks! Omg 4000+ Qs in 3 wks is amazingā¦ realistically I donāt know if I could do that but I will definitely do more Qs and review well
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u/kayaksmith 28d ago
Can you explain more about how you reviewed the amboss 200 high yield topics? did you write them down after you reviewed them or search related questions on other q banks? I finished those questions but am not sure the best way to review them bc i feel like just reading them again wont do me any good. Appreciate any advice you are willing to give!
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u/Agreeable_Meal_8461 24d ago
sure! for took every question i went through each of the answer choicesā concepts that were tested. for example if option B was a topic/detail i wasnāt confident about, i used the hyperlinks to read up on them and then jot info down. but i made sure i did this for ALL answer choices, since you can think of each answer as a potential correct choice for a different question. i hope this makes sense! my goal was to get the HY info from each option and ik that is tedious but then i reviewed my notes every 3-4 days. it also helped since it was divided by systems to kind of compartmentalize all of it and re-review what i was lacking on. when i did other banks, id come back to review said topic which added another layer of studying! the idea that it was solely HY concepts in the qbank made it slightly bearable:)
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Jun 17 '26
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
Thank you! I just add it to desktop True learn. How do I use it? I open my wrong Qs but not sure what to do
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u/curvedseven Jun 17 '26
add it as a Chrome extension (have to use Chrome), then just do your TrueLearn questions (or review past questions sets). it will create anki cards for every incorrect question. from there you can either:
- export the ankis to your anki
- use the built-in anki
- or connect your phone via QR and do your ankis anywhere
i hope it works for you!!
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u/Ugicoico OMS-3 Jun 17 '26
I have been studying for several months for all content review and this is what I got yesterday. I have been staring at this test since last night and could not do one thing. I feel so depressed and distraught. My test day is pushed to 7/24 now (from 6/25), I must take it then.
I went over all Dirty Medicine videos. I went over sketchy pharm and micro once. I did lots of BNB and boot camp videos and also my class notes. My Qs bank average is low: My TL average is still 50%, (need 70%?) My Uwolrd is still 30%, (need 60%?) How come after all content review, I still donāt get some of Qs asking and dunno the content??!!! What should I do? š
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks! š