OMG! The sky is falling! ....relax children.
"
National Board Dental Examination Part I Blackout Dates
Testing will not be available from 1/21/2008 to 2/4/2008 for essential system maintenance."*
*
http://www.ada.org/prof/ed/testing/nbde01/index.asp
I mentioned the following on another topic..
The ADA does blackout date during a short period of time every year, it is necessary to perform essential system maintenance and to
revise and
update examination content in response to validity studies for all examination programs conducted by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations and the Council on Dental Education and Licensure. Examinations are unavailable to candidates and examinees during this blackout period.
Also, the ADA conducts a test construction meeting for Part I around this time over the year, every year.
Test construction meetings typically begin with a review of the statistical characteristics of examinations administered since the last meeting. These characteristics include reliability, standard deviation, and mean performance of individual items. Individual item statistics are also reviewed. These statistics include the difficulty of the item, the proportion of candidates
choosing each distractor, and the point biserial correlation coefficient for each response. Items that produce statistics below the standards set by the Joint Commission are reviewed and either kept intact, edited or discarded.
Then, test constructors review the content specification to ensure that discipline areas continue to reflect current teachings in the majority of U.S. dental schools and dental hygiene programs. All revisions to the Dental Examination Specifications are based on practice analyses and are considered and approved by the Joint Commission. The initial step of the meeting process is the first drafting of new examinations. Next, test constructors review and
finalize the draft examinations according to the test specifications. During the final review, before each item is read aloud for approval, committee members are asked to "take" the exam as though they were students.
Whether any changes will be made based on response to Released/Unreleased exams, that is unknown at this time (at least on ADA's part).
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