ArticleAdvances in medical education and practice2025
Exam Sequence and Timing as Predictors of COMLEX-USA and USMLE Performance in Osteopathic Medical Students.
Article in Advances in medical education and practice, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: This study examined the impact of exam sequence and timing on the performance of osteopathic medical students on the COMLEX-USA Level 1 and Level 2 and USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 examinations. Methods: Two cohorts were analyzed: 364 osteopathic medical students who completed both COMLEX-USA Level 1 and USMLE Step 1 between 2020 and 2022 (prior to the implementation of pass/fail grading), and 734 osteopathic medical students who completed both COMLEX-USA Level 2 and USMLE Step 2 between 2021 and 2025. Student performance was evaluated based on the sequence of examinations and intervals between them. Because the scores did not follow a normal distribution, as indicated by the Shapiro-Wilk test, the Mann-Whitney Results: Osteopathic medical students who undertook the USMLE examinations first consistently achieved higher scores than those who undertook the COMLEX-USA examinations first across most academic quartiles. Shorter exam intervals (1-7 days) were associated with higher scores, whereas longer intervals (≥8 days) were correlated with significantly lower scores. The effects of exam order and timing varied across performance quartiles, with lower-performing students deriving the greatest benefit from taking the USMLE examinations first and maintaining shorter intervals between the exams. Conclusion: Strategic scheduling of exams may enhance performance on both the COMLEX-USA and USMLE examinations, particularly for lower-performing students. However, individual factors should be considered when implementing these strategies. These findings offer valuable insights for osteopathic medical students and educators in planning exam preparation and scheduling.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.