Commonly Asked Questions About USMLE/COMLEX
When should I start studying for my COMLEX and/or USMLE exams?
If you are looking for a simple answer, then you should start shifting your attention to board study the January before you plan to take your exam. Now some students may need more time to ensure they pass on the first attempt, so lets take a more in depth look at when to start studying. It would be near impossible to start studying for your board exams one week before and pass because that is simply not enough time to adequately look over and memorize all of the information that will be tested.
So, what is the right amount of time?
Most students will start reviewing material from their first year of medical school during December of their OMS-2 year. This allows you about 6 months to study material you have already been taught in your first year of medical school while still learning new material. Most schools also have a dedicated time for board study once all classes have concluded and therefore all concepts have been taught. However this brings a key point to light. The closer you get to your exam date, the less time you will have to review that material, therefore all new concepts taught from December of your second year until your testing date should be learned and memorized the first time around without dumping the information as you will likely not have enough time to relearn it in your dedicated study period.
Let me show you what I mean with an example. If you were taught immunology in your first block of your OMS-1 year, by the time you get to the end of your OMS-2 year you will likely have forgotten most of the information taught. Because of this you will need to start reviewing immunology as well as all of the other courses taught during your OMS-1 year alongside the courses in your OMS-2 year. To add to this, if you were taught dermatology in the last block of your OMS-2 year you will not be able to re-learn all of dermatology again in the few weeks of dedicated you have before your exam, so you will need to maintain that knowledge and not immediately dump it. This is why we recommend that you make a strong effort to thoroughly learn, memorize, and commit to long term memory all of the information taught from December of your OMS-2 year and onward, as this will save you many headaches during your dedicated study period.
When should I start studying OMM?
For students who are taking both COMLEX and USMLE, studying OMM tends to be put on the backburner until right before your exam. Despite what most people may say at osteopathic schools, this is not a bad approach. OMM, when compared with general medicine, is a very small portion of your board exams and therefore should receive less attention than all of the medicine components like cardiology, neurology, anatomy, etc. Where some students go wrong is by not studying OMM early enough or at all. The old logic if you were taking both Comlex & USMLE was to study for USMLE and them cram OMM in the time between your two exams. This method is not as effective as it used to be for several reasons.
First, exam writers have caught on to this approach and have started to ask more complex osteopathic medicine questions that would typically be looked over, or unable to be mastered in a few days. Second, while students plan to study in the time between their two exams, most are so mentally exhausted after taking their first exam that minimal, if any, studying for OMM gets done. Because of this students should be incorporating some OMM concepts earlier on in their board study. This allows you adequate time to commit this information to long term memory and lessens the burden of information that you must review closer to your test date. I want to mention that incorporating OMM study early on in your dedicated period does not need to take a significant amount of time away from your study of general medicine. Here at TheOMMedicine we have tried to keep the majority of our videos to under 15 minutes to allow you to review all of the high yield information in a short period of time. In addition our free, custom made, video-by-video Anki deck is an easy way to passively review OMM while also doing cards for your traditional medicine studies. We also offer a FREE 6 month and 1 week pure OMM study guide to ensure you have reviewed all of the most commonly tested concepts before your test day.
What resources should I use to study?
The preferences for different study resources will vary by individual, however each student should have a resource that covers each of the following areas:
a resource that provides general medicine questions
a resource that provides osteopathic medicine questions
a resource that covers general medicine concepts
a resource that covers osteopathic medicine concepts (we recommend TheOMMedicine!)
Anki – with your preferred general medicine and OMM decks
A resource for full or half length tests (COMSAEs, for example)
Use of all of these resources may be intimidating at first, but this approach has been used by thousands of students and has proven to be very effective at passing the COMLEX & USMLE exams on the first attempt.
How do I know when to study each topic?
Staying organized and having a plan is just as important as learning the information itself, as without a specific plan it can be very easy to forget to study certain topics. During the December before you plan to take your exam, you should spend time forming a month by month study plan that includes the specific topic to be reviewed, number of questions to do and review, anki cards to be done, and any other items you may need to review before your test day. Make the study guide as specific as possible, as this will allow you to wake up and already know what you need to study rather than waste time and brain power deciding what topic to review that day. Also, make sure to build in time for your school class work, exercise, and breaks as studying all day, every day will quickly lead you to be burnt out. We currently offer two pre-set study guides for review of the OMM portions of your exams. The one week plan was designed for students who prefer to review only the most high yield concepts in the week before their exam. The 6 month plan is a comprehensive review of all of the concepts in osteopathic medicine that will ensure you have see all topics that may appear on your test day. Use of the 6 month plan is suggested and more likely to help you score higher, although we understand it may not be helpful for everyone. Check out these two study guides on the resource page on our website now.
When should I take my first full length exam?
Taking a full length exam is a valuable way to prepare for your real test day. Taking the test under real testing conditions, meaning that you should not use more than the allotted time for your questions blocks and breaks, not use outside resources, and take the exam outside of your home will prepare you for the mental fatigue that comes with answering a few hundred questions in a short period of time. If you start studying during the December of your OMS-2 year then we suggest taking your first full length exam about 2 months into your study, or sometime in February/March. Taking a full length exam this early is beneficial for two reasons. First, it helps to determine a baseline score that you will use to track your progress on the next full length exam you take. Second it will
How should I approach reviewing my question blocks?
Reviewing your blocks of questions is arguably more important than answering the questions themselves. We suggest you answer questions in a random and timed manner as this will be the closest way to imitate your actual test day. Only once you have completed a whole block of questions should you begin your review. While reviewing questions, like most aspects of board study, will vary from person to person we suggest that your review at least include a few key components. First start off by re-reading the question and the answer choices to remind yourself of the question and why you chose your answer. Once you have done this you should read the explanation for why your answer was either correct or incorrect, followed by the explanation for why the other answer choices were incorrect or correct as well. From here it is important to be honest with yourself in evaluating why you got the answer correct or incorrect. Lets go through a few of the common scenarios for answering questions and how to properly review them now.
If you got the answer correct because you knew the concept well, and can explain why the other answer choices were incorrect in detail then you likely have mastered the topic in the question and can move on to your next question to review.
If you were stuck deciding between two answer choices and chose wrong, or chose correctly but are not sure why then it is important to spend some time reviewing the differences between the two possible answer choices.
How do I know when I have studied enough?
This question can be hard to answer as there is no definitive way to guarantee you have done enough to pass your exams. Scores on your question blocks and practice tests/comsaes in the month before your exam will be the best indicators of how you will do on your real test day. So, if you are happy with your practice test scores you can expect a similar result when you take your official COMLEX exam.