How many forms of tests do you think the boards have?

[rabbitsfeet777]

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So is it a total mystery or is there some speculation on how the boards setup/scale our tests? Like are there a set number of forms of exams given on a particular day, where no form is ever repeated after that date? Just wondering if u guys had any vague idea how this works.

 

[MedLover25]

So is it a total mystery or is there some speculation on how the boards setup/scale our tests? Like are there a set number of forms of exams given on a particular day, where no form is ever repeated after that date? Just wondering if u guys had any vague idea how this works.

This sounds more like: "I wonder how many forms there are so me and my buddies can cheat our way through"

They most definitely DO change things around so people can't do this (and if they do, they'll get the question wrong).

 

[leahmaria]

I don't know, I think it's a fair thing to wonder about. When I took the MCAT, it was only offered on a few days of the year, and everyone took it at the same time--so they were protecting the integrity of the test, and they only had so many different versions each year. With Step 1 offered on so many different days, you just wonder how they do it. I'm sure most of us are just curious people, without any sort of intention to cheat.

 

[MedLover25]

I'm sure most of us are just curious people, without any sort of intention to cheat.

You'd be surprised....

 

[Richspiders07]

Maybe it's set up like the UW/Q bank. For instance: they have 10,000 questions and each test is randomly generated from those questions.. with very little chance of 2 people having the exact same test.

 

[rabbitsfeet777]

Seriously...Get a life Med lover, it would be virtually impossible and stupid to even think about cheating on this test, your point is null.

I'm just awed by how many thousands of questions they have to develop (with images) and get tested under experimental mode, and then standardize them to score so that each test have comparable scores. Just seems like so many variables especially when you can take it all year. Not to mention medicine changes so fast, so their bank has to be continuously updated....maybe that's why it costs $500 to take it.

 

[Depakote]

Maybe it's set up like the UW/Q bank. For instance: they have 10,000 questions and each test is randomly generated from those questions.. with very little chance of 2 people having the exact same test.

I figured it was something like this since it was CBT

 

[sebsvenmdc]

How is this cheating? Seriously, you could claim that doing UW or Kaplan Qbank is cheating since those questions are supposed to represent board-style questions. I think it's a completely reasonable question. If you can get ahold of every single question, understand, and remember the answers, you deserve to ace the test...this is probably near impossible though, and it's much more likely that you'd do better just studying. My friends and I have talked about the volume of the Board Bank if you will. I'm hoping it's not more than about 60,000 questions. Obviously, it's growing and shrinking...they're adding new and removing old. Hopefully, if one does 3,000 questions from banks, that's 5% of their bank. Now, I'm also hoping that the 5% of question numbers actually represents about 2/3 of the big concepts tested. There are probably a lot of similar questions from moderately different angles.

 

[leahmaria]

Even in the Q banks we buy access to, there several questions covering the same concept. Also, you'd have to think that when/if they somewhat randomly pull each exam together from a large question bank that they have to make it adequately test a broad range of topics.

 

[rabbitsfeet777]

It just seems complex how eveyone takes a different test, but get a score that correlates. I guess this is why it takes about 3-5 weeks for them to run the numbers. Just like our qbanks, they probably have each question with a X% got this question correct. And then through some statistical magic are able to come up with the score. Probably also why we have a 2 and 3 digit score.

One of our third years said that he got 2 repeat questions with in the test. Like a question in block 2 reappeared in block 6...which he found to be quite strange. Another had the idea the test is progressive in terms of blocks. So if u bomb the third block, the next is a easier one...ahhh who knows.

 

[pohma]

My friends and I have talked about the volume of the Board Bank if you will. I'm hoping it's not more than about 60,000 questions.

I remember reading somewhere, probably on one of these threads, that the bank was in the range of 150,000 q's. But I have nothing to back this up.

It just seems complex how eveyone takes a different test, but get a score that correlates. I guess this is why it takes about 3-5 weeks for them to run the numbers. Just like our qbanks, they probably have each question with a X% got this question correct. And then through some statistical magic are able to come up with the score.

I think each question on the exam is weighted individually based on difficulty level (ie. at one point each question was experimental, whether easy or hard, to formulate its difficulty based on % correct answers) to create a final score.

 

[kookaiDO]

Another had the idea the test is progressive in terms of blocks. So if u bomb the third block, the next is a easier one...ahhh who knows.

I actually read somewhere (pretty sure it was on the usmle website) that this is not how it is done. This is how the GRE's work though. I guess it makes the exam shorter, but personally it would creep me out if I knew they were judging me while I was taking it. I prefer the judgement hold out till I'm done 🙄

 

[doc20]

one way they do it is when they ask people to prepare questions for the steps, they are required to submit multiple forms of questions with different answer choices, that way they ask the same concept but they might have 20 different versions of it and voila they have thousands of questions to choose from

 

[RxnMan]

So is it a total mystery or is there some speculation on how the boards setup/scale our tests? Like are there a set number of forms of exams given on a particular day, where no form is ever repeated after that date? Just wondering if u guys had any vague idea how this works.

I expect there are N!/(n!(N-n)!) tests, where N = total number of questions and n = 350 (or however many q's on are the exams these days). It's probably all randomly chosen out of their banks, adjusted to have a mean difficulty for the question set or for the entire exam (difficulty based on % of test-takers who answered the question correctly).