Comlex averages?

[biosynthetic78]

Can someone explain to me how the comlex step 1 average is always 500. I guess what I'm asking is that lets say the time you take it the average of all the students that take the exam is 525. Does that mean everyone loses 25 points to get the average to 500? If that is correct then I guess you wouldn't want to be the guy that got a 424...

I'm sure this is all rumor but I gotta ask. It seems like from what I have heard from many other students that the people who took the exam in the early summer thought it was easier than the people that took it in late July. Hope that its not true that it gets harder with more time to study because I have mine December 15th...

I have looked for awhile on here and couldn't find these answers so any info would be appreciated. Thanks!!

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[bleeker10]

Can someone explain to me how the comlex step 1 average is always 500. I guess what I'm asking is that lets say the time you take it the average of all the students that take the exam is 525. Does that mean everyone loses 25 points to get the average to 500? If that is correct then I guess you wouldn't want to be the guy that got a 424...

I'm sure this is all rumor but I gotta ask. It seems like from what I have heard from many other students that the people who took the exam in the early summer thought it was easier than the people that took it in late July. Hope that its not true that it gets harder with more time to study because I have mine December 15th...

I have looked for awhile on here and couldn't find these answers so any info would be appreciated. Thanks!!

It doesn't work like a standard exam where if you miss 10 out of 100 questions, you get 90%. It's a scaled/curved test based on a bell curve. It seems like they get the number of correct answers for each student taking it that day and come up with an average of those students. The students who hit the average number would be assigned a 500. Then they figure out SD to come up with other scores. It's much more difficult to figure out since the test is 400 questions (supposedly up to 20% of the questions are experimental) but scores can be as high as >800. But this is most likely the basic explanation.

The average was 500 with a SD of 82 for my test. Hope this helps explain it a bit better

 

[biosynthetic78]

So it sounds like if you happen to take it with really strong students that your grade would be lower. I realize that they have to adjust the scores because there is no way they could write an exam that was equal to all the others but it kinda sucks that it seems like you are competing against all the other students that took it on the same day you did. Thanks for the reply Bleeker!

 

[sylvanthus]

I don't think they compare you to the students that take it on the same day. Everyone gets a different test from what I understand. So, they look at the percentage of people historically getting a certain question right and compare how you did to all these people. So, it isn't like you and 30 other people taking it that day all get the same test, and if you suck compared to them then you get a low score. That is too small of a data set.

 

[biosynthetic78]

Thanks for the replies...I really didn't get it till now.

 

[bleeker10]

I've always heard everyone taking it on the same day had the same exam. One of my classmates took it the same day as me and we had a lot of similar questions. Maybe it was just coincidence.