well, i wasn't getting very far here, so i went to the source. i emailed the contact person at the NBOME for questions regarding the scoring of the comlex. here are the replies to my questions:
"Dr. ____,
I sat for COMLEX III in December 2004. I received my scores last week
and I am confused by the 'Standard Score'. In Steps I and II, I
noted there were approximately 200 questions per booklet, resulting in approximately 800 questions per step. My scores for I and II were under 800, which made sense. As expected, step three also had approximately 200 questions per booklet. However, my "Standard Score' was nearly 1000. This doesn't make sense to me. Could you please explain to me how this score was derived and what it means?
Reply from NBOME:
"Standard scores are not number of items you got correctly. So, a
300-item exam can have a standard score of 800. Theoretically, standard score can be as low as negative and as high as
over 1000. Of cause we cannot report negative standard scores."
well, if you can't report negative scores, how can you report falsely elevated positive scores?
This really muddied the waters for me, so i asked a second question:
"Thank you for replying. Your reply did provide a bit of new information,
but I am still confused. Let me ask this: what is the highest score an
examinee may attain? What is a perfect score on step III?"
I assumed that this would allow me some point of reference if i could find out what the maximum was, unfortunately, the reply was unhelpful:
"We really did not compute hypothetical highest score. We just report what
we get. Highest can be over 1000."
Criminy, this surely does not build confidence in this test. how can they number crunch and perform numerical voodoo without knowing the range their grading scale encompasses. they create an average, you would think they would know the upper and lower limits of their score ranges. if they were using some complicated calculation, all they would have to do is use 800/800 for the number correct and churn out the maximum standard score. why the hell did they not calculate the maximum if they have guys whose entire work day is spent trying to make the comlex scores somehow relevant to academic performance. consequently, i have no idea what my score means. it is essentially worthless to me unless i can discern the absolute number of questions missed.
you know, right before i took step I, i remember a representative from the NBOME telling me that only one person had ever achieved a perfect score on the comlex. hmmmm, i wonder if i can find that info online...
hope this was of some interest to someone.
seefwah
seefwah
