Post USMLE Step 1 and COMLEX Level 1 Reflections

    

Post USMLE Step 1 Selfie

USMLE Step 1 and COMLEX Level 1 are officially complete!!!!! It seriously feels so good to finally be finished with the first parts of my medical board exams. I won't know my scores for about three weeks, but right now I am just celebrating the fact that I crossed yet another big milestone on my journey to becoming a physician. Taking two 8-hour exams in less than a week's time span was a truly rough experience, and I am just happy to be done!

Post COMLEX Level 1 selfie

As for the exams, I'l probably have to write up a few posts that compare the two, along with my study strategies, and how I worked my way up to being ready for the marathon. Right now, what pops into my head the most was how vague the COMLEX was. I felt the USMLE gave all the pertinent information so that you had no doubt what they were asking, but the COMLEX gave the absolute bare minimum and you basically had to figure it all out on your own. Overall, outside of OMM material, the exams were very similar...just different. Even with the vagueness and uncertainty, I feel that I did a lot better on the COMLEX than the USMLE though. We'll see what happens when the scores come out, but the week I took the USMLE I felt extremely burnt out and even my assessment exam scores took a serious drop that week, so I'm hoping that didn't negatively impact my score. I walked into the COMLEX feeling a lot more confident, so maybe that's why I feel a lot better about it. 

They say that everyone feels like they failed coming out of the exams, but I honestly am not sure how to feel. Walking out of the USMLE, I know that I had marked maybe 50% of the exam which is probably a really bad sign, but I have no way to gauge how I performed because even after looking up some things I wasn't sure about, I'm still confused lol. As for the COMLEX, I marked a huge amount of the exam as well (if I don't know an answer 100%, I mark it), but for some reason I just feel better about it. Right now, I'm just praying that I passed both exams and that the silly mistakes I usually tend to make were minimal. 

But anyway, be on the lookout for a few board exam posts. I know everyone studies differently, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but hopefully it will help some of you out. And if I performed horribly on the exams (God forbid), then hopefully it will show you all what not to do lol. Either way, I look forward to sharing my experiences with you all, but right now I'm going to celebrate!