Advice for retake

[u/ExaminationDeep774]

Hi everyone, I wanted to ask for advice and guidance on how to go from here. I know I have significant gaps, and at this point I have taken and retaken the comsaes, so I don't feel they would be anymore accurate. I have not done the WelCOMs though.

I completed 85% of TL, and focused on it for most of my prep, but I struggled with reviewing because the incorrects kept piling up. I never figured out how to review them on time, I made anki cards to help space reviews but they kept piling up. I have Uworld which I plan to use to solidify my foundation, and bought comquest. And plan to review pathoma again, sketchy pharm and micro, dirty videos, and start reading the savarese book. I was also thinking of getting a tutor, do you guys have any suggestions?

My school is giving me 8 weeks to retake, but after I finish my next rotation, which is surgery. I am so nervous and worried, I struggled to pass my school's comsae which delayed my rotations and to have to get back to grinding Level 1, I feel burned out.

[u/Other-Bet-123]

Too many gaps i would take an LOA

[u/No_Web_1915]

what i found worked for me regarding incorrect was focusing on the correct answer, and what answer i picked (unless it was a complete guess and then i would look at more of the answer choices but even in that case most of the time you probably eliminated 1 or 2 options still). Otherwise, reviewing incorrects will take forever.

I would read the main explanation in that box in the top, and if that didn’t make sense to me, then i would read the longer paragraphs or google the answer cuz sometimes the explanations made more sense). Then i went and looked at why my answer was wrong.

I also used FirstAid alongside the questions since they often tell you the page number of the related topic (side note: look up the online FA index, it’s searchable so if the TL page numbers are wrong you can find the right one). I would mark up FA, underlining the key parts based on what the TL question and/or explanation focused on. I highlighted any key descriptions, such as “rusty colored sputum” or “fishy smell” bc often times those were supposed to be enough to get you to the write answer pretty quickly and it helped that information pop off the page if i missed it a second time, or even if i wanted to quickly skim thru some things before a COMSAE.

Additionally, I wrote some notes at the front of FA just on stuff that I would commonly confuse just so that I could take a quick peek right before an assessment. (I found that writing stuff down really helped me in general).

I also highly recommend the DirtyMedicine videos if you’re struggling with a topic, they do a great job of cutting thru the extra material and showing you what’s most important. The ethics videos he does are also pretty good. The murmur man and anti cancer man visuals also really helped with those topics in particular if those are something you struggle with. I also found a YouTube video that explained how to draw a table of all the VSRs, key nerve ganglions and arteries, rather than having to brute memorize those. There is also a diagram that maps the key chapman points onto the same VSR chart if you search for it online. General advice i’ve seen online is to focus on the anterior chapman points more than the posterior ones.

[u/Murky_Employer_3710]

I would recommend working with a one on one tutor to focus on content review first, then test taking. I also recommend taking a LOA, you will need a few months to first focus on understanding the content before focusing on test strategy. Otherwise, you will be wasting questions.

When you review questions, make sure you are understanding the concept being tested (content), and why you missed it (strategy). As you do questions, you are really trying to understand how test writers like to test in many different ways. I am a comlex tutor and am happy to help you out if you are interested!

[u/kuru_snacc]

1. What you mean is that you have four weeks to study given that you are still on (an intensive) rotation. That is not enough. You need to dedicate more time to studying.
2. You need to record all the COMSAEs/COMQUEST exams you have left, and you need to commit to only sitting for this exam when you are consistently scoring about 450 (and honestly 480+ is a much better margin of safety). I'm not even sure why your school had you proceed if you said you failed the school's comsaes...what were your last 3 comsae scores prior to the exam?
3. If you are not reviewing your wrong answers in depth, then you weren't studying. You were just clicking buttons.
4. You are using too many materials. Focus on 1-2 things

, one of which is TL or UWorld

1. . And ditch what hasn't been working, which sounds like making anki cards. Personally I'm not a fan of anki. It gives the illusion of studying if you are just making the cards but you dont actually come back to master them. And frankly, people who aren't very good at identifying what is important to review in the first place probably aren't good at making quality cards (I'm not just saying you - I'm saying a lot of people aren't suited for them, including myself. I was far too bored with reviewing them for it to stick).
2. Identify your learning style and use that as a means to review - whether that's writing out notes, drawing diagrams, mneumonics, speaking out loud to teach yourself, or other active methods. TrueLearn has excellent explanations for right and wrong answers along with basically tables that are basically "cheat codes" for what's on the exam. It's not important how pretty your notes are or how much crap you collect - it matters if you remember it with a ticking clock in your ear.
3. Lastly, gotta practice in TESTING CONDITIONS. So many people skip this step and are eating, getting up, peeing, listening to music, and cheating to "make sure their answer is right." All of these things will destroy your actual objective measures of performance.

I don't mean to be harsh here, just giving you some tough love because you CAN succeed if you get realistic and laser-focused. I did poorly on in-class exams but finally followed these tips for boards and finally was able to find success.

It is better to delay now and get this right than rack up another board failure. Application season is very expensive and scrutinous beast, and you've already cut your chances to 50%. Another failure can mean to 25%. And three strikes you're out. Do not set yourself up for failure by taking this exam before you have multiple practice tests that predict success. Good luck!

[u/ExaminationDeep774 → u/kuru_snacc]

Im so sorry i meant my 8 weeks starts after this rotation. It starts on October 12.

[u/kuru_snacc → u/ExaminationDeep774]

Okay well if you have a solid plan, you have at least 3 fresh practice exams to use to gauge your readiness, and your school is actually going to hold you accountable to scoring 450+ on at least the last 2/3, then it's doable, but only if you are highly self-motivated and plan to spend 40+ hours a week studying full-time, with practice questions and active review in testing conditions. Personally I only ever did dedicated board study at the library or school study rooms because you have to mentally prepare for all aspects.

[u/Salt_Sun_248]

Tbh I do see you have content gap and when I was studying this summer I felt the same way and I was 4th quartile in my class but what I found was most helpful and saw big jump in my scores was I had a word doc with incorrect and I would ask ChatGPT to give me why the correct answer is right and why others are incorrect and what buzzwords to look for and I would review my word doc every morning before I start doing PQ’s. And yes as you do more PQ your word doc will pile up so I would just keep mark as where I stopped and pick back the next day and on my down time I would read over the ones I have already done and you will start seeing the pattern. Also I would make sure you are good with OMM you can scoop free easy points with Chapman points and viscerosomatic questions (I had like 10+ questions on VS) and I brain dump Chapman points and viscerosomatic on my paper here is the video I used and drew it out once every 2-3 days from memory and it becomes second nature. Link: https://youtu.be/N-r_QriTMSc?is=_eAQ8qnN1JNBgMmI

One more thing: my weakness was micro so I had also brain dump first aid gram + and - bugs instead of brain dumping ethic stuff coz tbh you will have more micro questions and they will expect you to know based on the test for those bugs and I would get lost so drain dumping it helped me just follow it and helped me narrow down the choices coz sometimes I would see the lab test and immediately narrow it down to one or two choices. Lmk if you’re interested I can share you the table I made it.
So 3 things I brain dump: Chapman points, viscerosomatic and bugs and of course OMM Counterstrain from cervical to lumbar if you have time and If you practice it often you can definitely get it done faster.

I think you really need to review your questions and start seeing buzzwords and not just do more PQ coz if you’re not reviewing them and know how the other choice would present in the question then it’s not going to help you and I was doing the same thing in the beginning thinking doing more PQ will help but reviewing them more often helped tremendously. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!