Read this thread if you are curious how it played out last year:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...x-2-ce-experiences-and-scores-thread.1077080/
COMLEX does this every 3-5 years for each of their exams. The pass rate does adjust year to year sometimes with large shifts after implementing the new standard (seen on pages 27-29 of
http://aodme.org/wp-content/uploads/NBOME_COMLEX-USA_Update_2014.pdf ). Here is information about the upcomming standard changes:
http://www.nbome.org/standardsetting_passfail.asp
Summary for 2014 COMLEX 2 standard setting: The change happened in June - there were a significant number of students who took COMLEX 2 before the change and got the normal spread of 400-700 scores. After the change, the highest reported score on SDN (notorious for a few 800's) was ~ 620. Maybe 20% took it before the change, and 80% were taking it after. NBOME also said it is not their job to inform PDs about the new change (so applicants pre-change would be seen as more competitive). There was a huge uproar,
student governments, school deans and administrators, and students alike all raised a huge enough stink to get them to pull all scores and undo the change. Here is more information on that:
http://cosgp.org/this-just-in-nbome-update-sept-2nd-2014/ Essentially NBOME said their primary concern is passing or failing students to "protect the public." They then said "oops, we should probably care about the secondary use of these scores like residency applications!"