COMLEX Raw Score For Passing?

[MedicineZ0Z]

Plainly out of curiosity, wonder if anyone has any insight into this? For level 1, 2 and 3. I remember few years ago the rumor for level 1 was around 50% (+/- 5%) being equal to a 400.

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[samac]

There’s absolutely no information out there on this. You guess is as good as mine.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

The score is dependent on how the rest of those taking it do. There's no way to predict

 

[MedicineZ0Z]

The score is dependent on how the rest of those taking it do. There's no way to predict

Is this actually confirmed?

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Is this actually confirmed?

Well the test is graded on a curve so yeah it's confirmed in theory. If there is a form that people are doing terrible on, I think you can expect cut off to be lower. 400 is about a 6 percentile meaning as long you do better than 6 percent of test takers you pass.

 

[hallowmann]

Yeah, my understanding was that passing is usually between 45-50% correct, which correlates with the 5-6 percentile. It's technically on a curve, so it varies, but is usually somewhere in that range.

This is mainly for Level 1. I'm not sure about percent correct for Level 2, and Level 3 is anyone's guess with a raw score of 350 and the CDM questions and all.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

50% has been floating around for a while as the passing score needed for Step and Comlex.

I hear that 70% is 50th-60th percentile

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Is this actually confirmed?

It is the way

 

[group_theory]

Actually it's graded on a different type of curve than you're used to. It's graded on how you do with each question (and the difficulty of each question) rather than a cohort of test takers.

It is graded against the standard of a "minimally competent physician" - "would a minimally competent physician get this question correct?". Each question gets a certain value associated with it (i.e. not all questions are scored/counted the same). You need to accumulate a minimum amount of points to "pass". That minimum amount to pass raw score is then converted to the NBOME scores (ie 400 minimum to pass for COMLEX, 194 for USMLE)

So if your bank of questions contain a lot of easy questions, the number of questions needed to pass will be higher than if your bank has a lot of hard questions (easy/hard questions as determined by NBOME/NBME after it goes through psychometric validation). Getting 50% of the questions right may result in a passing score or failing score, depending on the types of questions (and level of difficulty) you get correct.

So it is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to fail. It is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to pass. However they are statistical anomalies and should either event occur (or the results do not fall within statistical prediction), then the NBOME (or NBME) will likely investigate to see if there were any errors in the process.

It's also why it takes so long to get results back - although your raw score is known immediately after you complete the test, it goes through a series of validation to make sure each question you answered was valid. If everyone gets an easy question wrong, it gets evaluate to see why and determine whether to include/exclude that question (and reset the scale if excluded).

Every few years, the passing criteria gets re-evaluated (often called re-centering) - which is why you suddenly see more people failing or passing compare to prior years after re-centering since the criteria for passing changed)

This process is used for NBOME, NBME (USMLE), and even the specialty board examinations (ABMS and their constituent boards)

Scoring Principles - NBOME

Scoring Principles COMLEX-USA Level 3

www.nbome.org

For the COMLEX-USA computer-based cognitive examinations, the number of items answered correctly (the raw score) is converted to a standard score for the purposes of reporting results and providing a pass-fail designation. With the exception of pretest questions, which do not contribute to the scores candidates receive, each test question contributes equally to the candidate’s score. The total reported score is a model-based standard score that takes into account the response to each question and the psychometric properties of the examination. A passing score for all COMLEX-USA Levels is based solely on a candidate’s performance on the total examination, not on a candidate’s performance in individual content areas.

Here's a Wikipedia link on the "science" behind psychometric testing

Psychometrics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Actually it's graded on a different type of curve than you're used to. It's graded on how you do with each question (and the difficulty of each question) rather than a cohort of test takers.

It is graded against the standard of a "minimally competent physician" - "would a minimally competent physician get this question correct?". Each question gets a certain value associated with it (i.e. not all questions are scored/counted the same). You need to accumulate a minimum amount of points to "pass". That minimum amount to pass raw score is then converted to the NBOME scores (ie 400 minimum to pass for COMLEX, 194 for USMLE)

So if your bank of questions contain a lot of easy questions, the number of questions needed to pass will be higher than if your bank has a lot of hard questions (easy/hard questions as determined by NBOME/NBME after it goes through psychometric validation). Getting 50% of the questions right may result in a passing score or failing score, depending on the types of questions (and level of difficulty) you get correct.

So it is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to fail. It is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to pass. However they are statistical anomalies and should either event occur (or the results do not fall within statistical prediction), then the NBOME (or NBME) will likely investigate to see if there were any errors in the process.

It's also why it takes so long to get results back - although your raw score is known immediately after you complete the test, it goes through a series of validation to make sure each question you answered was valid. If everyone gets an easy question wrong, it gets evaluate to see why and determine whether to include/exclude that question (and reset the scale if excluded).

Every few years, the passing criteria gets re-evaluated (often called re-centering) - which is why you suddenly see more people failing or passing compare to prior years after re-centering since the criteria for passing changed)

This process is used for NBOME, NBME (USMLE), and even the specialty board examinations (ABMS and their constituent boards)

Scoring Principles - NBOME

Scoring Principles COMLEX-USA Level 3

www.nbome.org

Here's a Wikipedia link on the "science" behind psychometric testing

Psychometrics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is incredibly interesting. Thank you for this!

 

[MedicineZ0Z]

Actually it's graded on a different type of curve than you're used to. It's graded on how you do with each question (and the difficulty of each question) rather than a cohort of test takers.

It is graded against the standard of a "minimally competent physician" - "would a minimally competent physician get this question correct?". Each question gets a certain value associated with it (i.e. not all questions are scored/counted the same). You need to accumulate a minimum amount of points to "pass". That minimum amount to pass raw score is then converted to the NBOME scores (ie 400 minimum to pass for COMLEX, 194 for USMLE)

So if your bank of questions contain a lot of easy questions, the number of questions needed to pass will be higher than if your bank has a lot of hard questions (easy/hard questions as determined by NBOME/NBME after it goes through psychometric validation). Getting 50% of the questions right may result in a passing score or failing score, depending on the types of questions (and level of difficulty) you get correct.

So it is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to fail. It is theoretically possible for everyone taking the test to pass. However they are statistical anomalies and should either event occur (or the results do not fall within statistical prediction), then the NBOME (or NBME) will likely investigate to see if there were any errors in the process.

It's also why it takes so long to get results back - although your raw score is known immediately after you complete the test, it goes through a series of validation to make sure each question you answered was valid. If everyone gets an easy question wrong, it gets evaluate to see why and determine whether to include/exclude that question (and reset the scale if excluded).

Every few years, the passing criteria gets re-evaluated (often called re-centering) - which is why you suddenly see more people failing or passing compare to prior years after re-centering since the criteria for passing changed)

This process is used for NBOME, NBME (USMLE), and even the specialty board examinations (ABMS and their constituent boards)

Scoring Principles - NBOME

Scoring Principles COMLEX-USA Level 3

www.nbome.org

Here's a Wikipedia link on the "science" behind psychometric testing

Psychometrics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So are the high scores on level 3 because people score relatively lower in terms of raw score since many are far removed from med school material and in specialty residencies? Hence creating a generous curve (based on prior experimental questions).