do shelf exams have experimental questions?

[bulldog]

---

Members don't see this ad.

so there's 100 questions on typical shelf exam. when u get scores back, i believe it's total/100. does that mean there's no experimental questions?

 

[ziffy 850]

Not sure where to post this, but if we get a raw score of 70, what is the percentile score? Is it 70?

 

[pottsy2]

There are no scores/100. The numerical score doesn't really correspond to anything. The NBME creates an artificial mean of 70, therefore that should be the 50th percentile. They also create a standard deviation of 8 so a 78 would be one standard deviation above the mean. If it were a normal distribution, that would be the 84th percentile, but I dont think it is so it's basically impossible to know what percentile you are in.

 

[bulldog]

There are no scores/100. The numerical score doesn't really correspond to anything. The NBME creates an artificial mean of 70, therefore that should be the 50th percentile. They also create a standard deviation of 8 so a 78 would be one standard deviation above the mean. If it were a normal distribution, that would be the 84th percentile, but I dont think it is so it's basically impossible to know what percentile you are in.

so i've read of people talking about the numerical score and the %tile. so basically what ur're saying is that geeting 70 questions correct might give u a numerical score less than 70 or one greater than 70, depending how it ends up being curved?

 

[pottsy2]

so i've read of people talking about the numerical score and the %tile. so basically what ur're saying is that geeting 70 questions correct might give u a numerical score less than 70 or one greater than 70, depending how it ends up being curved?

Yup, but if I had to guess, I would say getting 70 right would be higher than a computed score of 70, but that's a guess.