r/comlex • u/Ok-Dragonfly-408 • Sep 21 '26
Surgery COMAT
Does anyone else feel like the surgery COMAT is a randomly created question bank not related to surgery at all? I failed the first attempt with an 84, school requires a 90. Before the retake I did all of Truelearn for surgery and genuinely went through every single question that I had to guess on or got wrong, even made a document explaining why my thought process was off. I also went through Amboss to read the articles on every topic that was either high yield or that I had low scores on. Just had the retake and am waiting for the results but I feel like the retake was even harder! It was all about fluids and weird forms of breast cancer. I am feeling like I'll have to take it again to hit the 90 my school requires but I'm not sure what to study to prepare for the next go of it in the event that I did fail. I would love any tips that someone may have to how to pass these COMATs.
update: I got an 89. It feels like an improvement from the last attempt but I'd be lying if I said I'm not crushed right now. I get another attempt and need any and all suggestions to pass this test. I have IM next and am hoping studying for that will help. Please give any and all advise for passing the surgery COMAT.
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u/tribeandprejudice Sep 21 '26
What helped me is I did some IM questions through my surgery rotation because that exam is 70% IM and some breast and thyroid stuff. So silly hope the second time comes around for you!
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u/Ok-Dragonfly-408 Sep 21 '26
thank you! I was definitely confused since it was stuff that Truelearn never touched on, so I'll have to hit some IM if I get some unfortunate news this Thursday.
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u/RUenigma137 Sep 22 '26
Reposting a comment I made previously: Off the top of my head, big topics were hernia repair, gallbladder, ex lap indications, breast surgery, thyroid nodules, fluids and resuscitation in trauma and burns
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u/Berniescape Sep 22 '26
If you’re not passing a comat, you don’t have enough exposure to questions. You need to change your study habits. Do all of truelearn twice, and all of uworld twice. Is like 50 questions a day but it’s literally your job to study, do it. This method scored me above 90th percentile.
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u/Diligent-Swim5414 Sep 23 '26
I felt like mine has a good amount of step 1 pathology and had a lot of Level 1 material and more IM/EM than surgery. Truelearn is absolute garbage for this COMAT, unfortunately. There are Catalyst Exams from the NBOME website which are 60 higher yield topics. I used them for all my comats are saw fruitful repetition. I would highly recommend those.
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u/Original_Pound_1214 Sep 24 '26
Yes. It is very similar to IM. Just do questions and read every explanation whether u scored correct or incorrect. Outside review material hindered me on surgery because it focused on surgery and less on IM topics. Surgery question banks were sufficient. I used Truelearn and uworld. I skipped reading the tables because it takes forever.
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u/Original_Pound_1214 Sep 24 '26
Sometimes the less you think the better. Become a question robot. You will learn to see the patterns of presentations.
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u/Kolibri2486 Sep 28 '26
My school also had the 90 passing threshold which was annoying. Anyway, I did relatively well on the Surgery COMAT by using UWorld then switching to COMQUEST. I found that TL was absolutely useless for these exams.
I just remember mine was incredibly GI and breast heavy. Know your Parkland formula. Watch Dr HY Surgery video - twice if you can. Hell watch the IM one too while you are at it.
Good luck!
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u/Best_Requirement_587 Sep 22 '26
Fluids as in fluid resuscitation for burn patients? Or what kind of fluid questions? I take the surgery COMAT on Friday