Realistic COMLEX Practice Exam from Recreating the Test-Taking Experience

Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) practice exams are a valuable tool for both assessing your readiness and improving your performance on the actual exam. They provide a structured way to identify areas of improvement, build confidence, and refine your study strategy, ultimately increasing your chances of success on the COMLEX.

TrueLearn’s new COMLEX interface was designed to mimic the NBOME COMLEX test interface. In order to prepare you for test day, functionality like highlighting, strikethrough, and navigation were closely recreated to make the most realistic practice exam possible. 

And while we understand the new experience is not always the easiest to use, we hope that our new interface helps you learn both the content and the testing functionality so that you aren’t surprised by any unique platform challenges when time matters most.

New Practice Exam Features

When you start your practice exam, one of the first things you’ll see is the Question Toolbar, which is now moved to the top of the screen. And within it are several prominent features you’ll need throughout the exam. 

• Highlighting: Dragging the cursor over the text and clicking the button will add/remove yellow highlights . You can also use Alt + J as a keyboard shortcut for highlighting.
• Strikethrough: Dragging the cursor over an answer choice and clicking the button will add/remove a strikethrough. Alt + W is the keyboard shortcut for strikethrough 
• Calculator: We’ve added square root, %, +/-, as well as memory to give you the same functionality as well as design to recreate what is available on the exam. 
• Notes: Opens modal where you can take notes for later review during this test, or after. Previously entered notes are hidden so you don’t have to see them as you add new content, but you can choose to show at any time. 

Progressing further down the screen into the practice question itself and the footer, you’ll see a few more features available to you.

• Exhibit: Questions may have exhibit(s) which are attached media files for questions. These can be accessed via the Exhibit button that will display when applicable.
• Pause Time: If the assignment you are completing has been set up to allow for pauses, you will see a “Pause Timer” button in the footer.
• End Exam: When you select the “End Exam” button, you will first be brought to a Review Screen which lists all questions where you can see the status of each, if it has been flagged, and if it has Notes associated. You can then choose to Review the questions by status (All, Incomplete, Flagged).
• Navigator: Users can navigate between consecutive questions using the Previous and Next buttons, just like the actual exam.

For a complete list of features that have been added to our new COMLEX practice exam interface, check out our learner guide.

COMLEX Question Breakdown

Besides the interface similarity, our COMLEX practice questions are also worded similarly to what you might encounter on the actual exam. The NBOME currently maintains two common item types. 

1. Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs): These are traditional multiple-choice questions where you select the single best answer from several options. They may cover a wide range of medical topics, including basic sciences, clinical medicine, and osteopathic principles and practices.
2. Clinical Decision-Making (CDM) cases: These are clinical scenarios followed by two- four questions designed to assess your ability to make patient management decisions. The interface is slightly different for these questions, as the clinical scenario is on the left hand side and the associated questions on the right. There is a Lab Panels button as well as an Instructions button that calls out for you what information is applicable to TrueLearn and what may be different on the COMLEX exam. The navigation for these questions is restricted and you must answer them in order. (Note: You won’t encounter these until Level 3.)

These item-types may seem straightforward enough and you may even be encountering them in your courses today. But until you’ve experienced them in a realistic exam setting, you won’t understand the stress of answering them correctly.

Does COMLEX Have Experimental Questions?

A common question, especially from students taking both USMLE and COMLEX. Unlike the USMLE examinations, COMLEX traditionally does not have a designated section for experimental questions.

Creating a COMLEX Practice Exam Using TrueLearn

Our COMLEX question banks provide several different testing modes that allow you to create practice exams: timed, untimed, and tutor mode. 

Most students prefer to start using tutor mode as it is ideal for identifying areas of difficulty and learning the material. Then they go onto untimed and finally to timed, the most stressful exam mode.

And when you think you might be ready for exam day, our Assessments can help you confirm that feeling, which you can add-on when you first subscribe to SmartBanks or later in your studying. Because practice will not only build your confidence, it will improve your performance on the actual exam.

If you would like to practice in an interface designed with usability in mind, we recommend the TrueLearn testing interface. You can select the interface from the Create Test page before you begin, or change between interfaces at any time (Change Interface button while in COMLEX or dropdown while in TrueLearn). This lets you focus on the content instead of the more complicated user interface. As you approach exam day, you can transition into using the COMLEX-style interface so that you are prepared for the added time some of the functionality takes.

Login to TrueLearn to begin taking practice questions from our SmartBanks to prepare for test day.