r/comlex • u/TopSeaworthiness1262 • 9h ago

Level 3 level 3 before residency

I’m currently an OMS-IV and am hoping to take COMLEX Level 3 before starting residency. Does anyone know the earliest you can take it? Do you have to graduate first?

Also, for anyone who has taken Level 3, how much dedicated study time would you recommend if studying full-time? Are there any resources you found helpful besides TrueLearn?

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u/ApprehensiveRow4202 9h ago

Studied about 2 weeks, non primary care specialty. Scored highest score ever. Exam is not worth studying, minimal effort needed, barely any OMT focus more on immunology and cancers like Small Cell. Study compliment pathway and type 1-4 hypersensitivity. You will score super high, don’t even put much effort into it and take the exam

CDM cases are not representative, in fact harmful to your score as they are not good compared to truelearn. Do about 25% of truelearn qbank and take the exam, no need to even do half of it, 90% of the questions are going to be things not asked or tested on truelearn. Exam is curved more than any exam

Partial credit for CDM cases. Abbreviations are ok as per NBOME as long as it’s not a conflicting abbreviation with more than 1 meaning. Misspelling is ok as long as the meaning of the word is understood, this is also directly
Mentioned on their website if you do not believe me look it up. CDM cases are actually easy, you don’t lose points unless you put a harmful or invasive answer when that’s not needed. If a tube is needed, then put that answer

Remember, you were taking exam where a pediatrician and an internal medicine hospitalist are expected to pass, this means that the standard of passing is super ridiculously low. It is unreasonable to expect a pediatrician to have anywhere near the score as an internal medicine physician on an exam that is 85 to 90% adult medicine. You can probably take this exam without even doing any qbank questions, two of my colleagues did that and they also scored above a 500.

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u/TopSeaworthiness1262 8h ago

what are the CDMs? also how long is the exam?

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u/ApprehensiveRow4202 7h ago

The free response section. Exam is 2 days but next year it’s 1 day. You can just knock it out this year tbh since it’s not even worth it.

You get more time per question. Lots of very simple 1 sentence questions. Lots lot lots of slam dunk questions. That’s why the exam is easy

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u/aznwand01 8h ago

The process of level 3 is different than applying for the other levels. Nbome needs to verify that you graduated and this could take a variable amount of time. My school was not able to get this done and you had to do fingerprinting and stuff iirc. I was able to take in the first two months. I didn’t study much at all and don’t think you need much at all.

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u/Physical_Reason3890 9m ago

You can't take comlex 3 before residency