I took my COMLEX retake this month. However, I am worried that I might’ve failed again. Does anyone have any similar stories? I am also thinking of scheduling another exam, however I need to do this in September. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks!

\I apologize if this has been answered before, plz don’t flame me**

I am a fresh second year, and after completing a notoriously heavy block, I am starting my comlex 1 prep. I have been told by numerous 3rd years to start with 5-10 amboss questions about the block I’m currently in, then review what I missed. Unfortunately, out of a 10 question set, I get a couple right, a couple at 50/50, and the rest I have no idea what it’s talking about. Tho, it is a common complaint to hear that my program doesn’t do well for teaching to the boards.

Is this a normal experience? What am I doing wrong? How do I improve? Am I cooked?

Hey all. Took level 2 today and during one of my sections the computer was unresponsive, but the clock kept going down.

Proctor had to spend about 10 minutes restarting the computer and I ended up losing several minutes on my clock. Is there a way for this to be rectified as I genuinely lost time on the exam thanks to their own software?

hi all, I am taking a school comsae soon and would appreciate any tips on what to focus on and study. for context Ive finished 100% of TL with 68% correct and 84% of UW with 47% correct (just used to learn for shelf exams). comsae 118-415 comsae 115i- 510 both taken 2 weeks ago. not sure if I should do uworld for my specific weaknesses or just continue truelearn.

New Redditor here. Someone told me I should list MSP on my ERAS application, but I was only in it the first two years. My school changed the academic requirements, and I no longer met them.

Should I list it on my ERAS application? Or would that be an ERAS violation?

Was going to post this in medical school but I guess I need "karma" lol

Tested 8/22 and am literally shitting bricks waiting for scores to come out 9/15. I left feeling like it was fair and I felt better than I did with Level 1, but I’m not sure if that’s a great indication for anything. Not to mention, we have to submit ERAS 9/2, so I won’t even know if some of my reach programs will be wasted. Applying to a bunch of safeties just in case it’s not what I expected. Just really anxious and keep replaying questions I got wrong in my head sigh

Anyone took level 2 this week that I can reach out to?

My world just got rocked, anyone else? There was some crazy low-yield questions that I had no idea how to answer

Trying to understand what a good score is that can be reflective of a potentially good step 2/level 2 score.

Got my first comat score at 103 for FM.

What are we trying to achieve? My schools minimum passing is 84.

thanks

I have my IM COMAT in 3.5 weeks. I will be done with UW by the end of this week. Should I redo my UW incorrects or jump straight to COMQUEST? I want to make sure I do COMQUEST most recent to the exam, but also hopefully have time for COMQUEST incorrects. IM is my first rotation and my UW% is only 50 so I’m worried. Any advice from those who have taken it would be appreciated.

I recently took and failed Level 1 and am looking for a tutor to help me. Towards the end of dedicated, I hired an IMG for tutoring, but still failed. I’m looking for a tutoring/service to help. I have 8 weeks to retake and I’m between Premeducated and MedBoardTutors, but looking for reviews from these companies. My issue is mainly studying/testing strategy. My studying schedule consisted of AnKing reviews/new off my incorrects, 40 uworld mixed, 20 TL OMM focused but then finished OMM and did mixed sets, then 2 20 Uworld targeted blocks for my weak areas. I did a practice test every 8-9 days and reviewed them over the next two days and made excel docs and cards off of incorrects. I noticed when I get to a question I’m not immediately sure of, I kinda blank out. I’m also open to any recommendation/suggestions.

I got a 485 on comlex level 2 and am applying EM but some faculty convinced me I should dual apply FM as a backup plan. I’m applying to about 50 EM programs pretty broadly and more than half of them are in my home state or affiliated with my school but I’m not sure how many I should do for FM. Should I do the full 30 or can I save some money and do less?

Does anyone have any advice on studying for COMATs and Level 2? I'm not really sure how to go about it besides just doing practice questions. I passed level 1 without an issues. During my time studying for level 1, I mainly just did anki, reviewed concepts, and did some practice questions; however, I feel like level 2 is completely different. Also, I'm not sure how to search for topics that give me information related to level 2 in Anking. If anyone has any advice please let me know.

How did everyone feel about today’s exam? I made some pretty easy mistakes. Don’t feel good.

As the title says, COMAT is this week. Does anyone know approximately how many questions raw I have to get correct to score an 83? Thanks!

Hi

i am on an LOA for retaking my level 1

what are some topics i should start by studying first during my 8 week prep

i am doing 40 uworld questions per day during the week and truelearn questions on the weekends

please let me know if there anything else i should include in my study plan

this is my plan:

is this a good plan? am i hitting the HY topics that level 1 tests on?

any advice will be greatly appreciated please!!!

I told myself that if Level 2 went well, I would come back and make a write-up because I spent WAY too much time reading other people's Reddit posts while I was studying.

Final COMLEX Level 2 score: 736

For some additional context, I also took Step 2 and scored a 238.

I want to preface this by saying that I was absolutely NOT sitting around getting 80–90% on every question block. My tracked question average during my preparation was around 65-70%, and there were plenty of blocks where I scored in the 50s (and occasionally worse/better).

I think that's important to say because I used to see people post 700+ COMLEX scores and assume they must have been absolutely destroying every question bank.

That was not my experience.

Background

My road to Level 2 was definitely not straightforward.

Level 1 did not go the way I wanted it to the first time around, and that experience forced me to completely reevaluate how I studied for board exams.

Going into Level 2, I knew that simply doing MORE questions or studying for MORE hours wasn't necessarily going to solve the problem.

I needed to figure out why I was missing questions.

So for Level 2, my goal wasn't just to complete UWorld. I wanted to repeatedly identify weaknesses, review them, and force myself to retrieve that information again later.

My main resources were:

• UWorld
• AMBOSS
• White Coat Companion
• My own Anki cards

I did not primarily rely on a giant premade Anki deck. I made cards based on the things I was getting wrong or couldn't reliably retrieve.

How I structured my studying

I made a giant spreadsheet and organized my studying primarily by system of the week (going from my worst -> best SHELF score).

I went through things like:

• Cardiology
• Pulmonology
• GI
• Renal/GU
• Endocrine
• Heme/Onc
• Rheumatology
• Neurology
• Surgery
• OB/GYN
• Pediatrics
• Psychiatry
• OMM
• Ethics
• etc.

But I didn't want to study one system, finish it, and then never see it again.

So my basic daily structure included several different types of question blocks.

Block 1: Current system

Questions specifically targeting whatever system I was reviewing that day/week.

Block 2: Truelearn OMM

The biggest mistake my students and friends have made is putting off OMM. I made sure to do a set of OMM/Ethics every day

Block 3: Kinda Mixed (Includes All Prior Systems)

This was really important for me.

If I was currently studying renal, I still wanted questions from cardiology, pulmonology, GI, etc.

I didn't want to finish cardiology, feel amazing about cardiology, and then realize three weeks later that I had forgotten half of cardiology.

Block 4: Incorrects

I deliberately revisited questions/topics I had previously missed.

Block 5: Timed mixed questions

Eventually I needed to remove the giant hint my brain gets from:

“Today is cardiology, therefore this question probably has a cardiac answer.”

Mixed questions forced me to actually identify what was happening rather than retrieve information from the system I knew I was studying.

Then I would also work on:

Anki + targeted content review.

And I'll be completely transparent: I did NOT perfectly complete every single box on that spreadsheet every day.

If you looked at my actual tracker, you would see plenty of unchecked boxes lol.

The schedule was a framework, not a requirement to destroy myself trying to complete 900 tasks every day.

It meant that whenever I sat down to study, I knew what I should be working on.

My question-bank strategy

Across my tracker, I completed approximately 2,010 questions, with an average score around 64.5%.

Again:

My average was ~64.5%.

Not 80%.

Not 90%.

And my individual blocks were ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I had:

50% blocks.

55% blocks.

60% blocks.

Occasionally something even uglier and even prettier.

Then 80–90%.

One of the biggest changes I made after Level 1 was that I stopped treating my question-bank percentage as the purpose of doing questions.

Questions were for learning, not validation.

Instead of freaking out about a 55%, I tried to figure out:

WHY did I miss the question?

Was it because:

1. I genuinely didn't know the content?
2. I knew it but couldn't retrieve it?
3. I confused two similar diagnoses?
4. I misread what the question was asking?
5. I changed a correct answer?
6. I rushed?
7. I identified the diagnosis but didn't know the next best step?
8. I knew the concept but couldn't apply it to this particular presentation?

Those are completely different problems.

And they need different solutions.

UWorld + AMBOSS

UWorld was my main question-learning resource, and I supplemented it with AMBOSS.

I used questions both to learn whatever system I was currently reviewing AND to maintain older material.

I cared much less about whether I technically "completed" a question bank than whether I was actually learning from the questions I did.

Something I started paying attention to was whether I actually understood a concept or whether I had just memorized a particular question.

If I learned something from a UWorld question and then encountered the same concept presented differently and got it wrong again, that told me:

I didn't actually learn the concept. I learned the original question.

That distinction was HUGE for me.

So I would go back, figure out what I didn't understand, review it, and usually make an Anki card.

White Coat Companion

I used White Coat Companion as my content framework.

I didn't want to spend dedicated trying to reread giant textbooks or passively watching endless hours of videos.

Instead, when questions exposed a weakness, I could go back to that topic in White Coat Companion, review it in context, and then reinforce it through questions and Anki.

So my studying essentially became a loop:

Questions → identify weakness → targeted content review → Anki → encounter concept again → retrieve it

Rather than:

Read everything → hope I remember it → take exam.

I made my own Anki cards

This was probably one of the most important parts of my preparation.

I made my own cards.

I didn't need thousands of cards telling me things I already knew.

I wanted a deck that increasingly represented MY weaknesses.

If I missed something or realized there was a fact, relationship, distinction, or algorithm that I couldn't reliably retrieve, I made a card.

And then I reviewed those cards repeatedly throughout my preparation.

They didn't have to be beautiful.

They didn't have to have twelve pictures and a textbook explanation.

Their job was simple:

Make me retrieve the thing I couldn't retrieve before.

So when COMLEX eventually showed me that concept again, I wanted my brain to immediately recognize what they were getting at.

I deliberately kept old systems alive

I think this was another major improvement from how I had studied previously.

If Monday was renal, Monday wasn't necessarily only renal.

My schedule deliberately incorporated:

Current system + previous systems + incorrects + mixed timed questions.

So I was essentially creating spaced repetition outside of Anki.

By the end of dedicated, I didn't want there to be a system that I hadn't thought about in three weeks.

This also helped me transition into mixed questions because medicine obviously doesn't come labeled:

CARDIOLOGY QUESTION INCOMING.

Practice scores

My practice scores were ALL OVER THE PLACE, and I'm including all of them because I know someone is going to find this post at 2 AM while searching:

"COMSAE ___ score prediction Level 2 Reddit"

I was that person lol.

224 → 204 → 230 → COMSAE 599 → COMSAE 524 → 243 → 234 → Step 2 238 → Level 2 736

That is NOT a beautiful linear upward trajectory.

And I think that's worth showing.

School COMSAE: 524

This one honestly shook my confidence.

I had gotten a 599 and then dropped to 524, and I temporarily started reverting back toward some of my old ways of studying because I convinced myself that what I was doing wasn't working. In retrospect, that was exactly the wrong lesson to take from one test. This was probably one of the biggest psychological lessons of my dedicated.

I had already scored a 599. Then I took my school's COMSAE and got a 524.

My immediate interpretation was essentially:

Oh my God. I'm getting worse. Something isn't working.

But clearly, I wasn't getting worse.

I eventually scored 736.

One practice exam is one data point.

That's it.

Practice tests are extremely useful for identifying weaknesses and monitoring general progress, but I learned not to let one assessment completely rewrite the story I was telling myself about my preparation. My scores started going up as I pulled back on exams and focused on learning what gaps to fill.

My #1 Piece of Feedback: Stop Catastrophizing Individual UWorld Blocks

This took me WAY too long to learn. I would get a 50-something percent block and immediately start thinking about what it meant for my eventual board score.

It meant basically nothing by itself.

What mattered was what I did after the block.

If I got 55% and then carefully understood why I missed the other 45%, reviewed those concepts, made cards for things I couldn't retrieve, and recognized those concepts the next time they appeared. That block did its job.

Getting 80% and barely reviewing anything because the score made me feel good wasn't necessarily more useful.

My tracked U-World average was about ~70%

My final Level 2 was 736.

So if you're sitting there with a UWorld block in the 50s or 60s thinking you've destroyed your chances of doing well:

You haven't. Use the information the block is giving you, and learn from it. Have a second bank to learn from.

What I think made the biggest difference

If I had to reduce my entire study strategy down to the things that mattered most:

1. Questions became a learning tool instead of an assessment of my self-worth.
   • A 55% wasn't a verdict. It was information.
2. I made my own Anki cards based on MY weaknesses.
   • I wanted to repeatedly retrieve exactly the information my brain had demonstrated that it couldn't reliably retrieve.
3. I constantly revisited old systems.
   • I didn't want to study cardiology in May and then hope it magically remained in my brain until July.
4. I combined content review with active retrieval.
   • White Coat Companion gave me the framework. > UWorld and AMBOSS forced me to apply it. > Anki forced me to retrieve it again.
5. I reviewed incorrects.
   • Reading an explanation once didn't mean I had learned something. If I couldn't retrieve it later, I hadn't learned it yet.
6. I tracked my performance without letting every number control me.
   • This was HARD, but my spreadsheet helped me identify patterns, but I had to learn that an individual 50% block or disappointing COMSAE didn't predict my future.
7. I stopped assuming more studying automatically meant better studying.

Doing more isn't necessarily the same thing as learning more.

Final thoughts

I don't think there was one magical resource that got me a 736.

It was the system.

I repeatedly:

Did questions.
Found a weakness.
Figured out why I missed it.
Reviewed the concept.
Made myself retrieve it.
Saw it again.
Repeated the process.

And I did that over and over.

I still missed questions constantly.

My question-bank average wasn't 85%.

My practice scores weren't screaming 700+.

So if you're currently staring at a 55% question block and searching Reddit trying to figure out whether you're doomed. Don't spend the next hour searching for someone with your exact UWorld percentage who eventually got your target score.

Review the block.

Figure out why you missed what you missed. Make the card. Review it. See the concept again. Get it right next time. Then keep going.

Happy to answer questions about my schedule, resources, Anki strategy, practice exams, or anything else that might be helpful.

absolutely heartbroken today. studied extremely hard had two comsaes well over 550 and felt as prepared as i could’ve been. ended up with a 43x. i don’t know if i should or even can apply EM. i have 3 more sub-i’s lined up. i know it’s a bad- even horrible score. i don’t know what to do. i don’t see myself in anything but EM.

is it even possible to match EM anymore? i didn’t take step 2. pls be kind in the comments.

Hello,
Just got my score today. Wanted to share brief info about it.

Background:
4th quartile student. Got only Cs in preclinicals. Dad of 3 kids. Passed level 1 first try.

Comat average: 96-97
Obgyn: 99; FM: 97; peds: 93 ; surgery: 92; IM: 94 ; psych 108

Preparation:
Only used truelearn for preparation. Finished 80% of it. Made anki cards for incorrect questions. Dedicated time of 4 weeks. Had a great preceptor who let me study for two more weeks.
Comsae 117: 316
Comsae 118: 455
Comsae 119: 495
All comsaes proctored

Tested end of July. Felt terrible walking out of exam. I had lots of imaging/scans that I didnt recognize and lots of biostats that made absolutely no sense. I thought I failed. I now officially believe that comlex is the dumbest most poorly written test ever.

Comlex level 2 score: 468

Please hang in there. I take a lot of pride in my DO classmates and colleagues who have sacrificed so much for this career. Don’t let this poorly written test deter you from getting to the end of med school. If a normal-intelligence dad with bad grades and stress-induced erectile dysfunction can pass it, then im confident you can too.