How to interpret Shelf Scores

[evilbooyaa]

So just got my first shelf exam score back.

According to my school, passing was a 67 (I don't know if this is percent right, percent after standardization, or percentile)

Well, I know it's not percentile b/c passing for us (based on our school's policy) is 11 percentile and above.

Now the score interpretation guide says that stores are standardized to have a mean of 70 and SD of 8.

I got a 76. Does this mean I did above average?

There is no mention of percent, percentile, etc. etc. where I see my actual score.

Just that 'My shelf score' is a 76. And that 'Minimum Passing Score' is a 67.

I'm extremely confused as to what this score means. The relevance is that my school requires us to get 55 percentile or better on the shelf to be eligible for either honors or high pass on our clerkship grade (mostly depending on how good our clinical evaluations are).

So basically, anyone who has any sort of experience with shelf exams, please enlighten me on what in the world this means.

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[45408]

It's like the USMLE. If you get a 250, that doesn't mean you got a 250% or 250% of the questions right. It's just a 250, with a passing score of 180 or so. The average is a 222 with a standard deviation of 15 or so.

Mean score of the shelf is 70 with a std deviation of 8. They could re-scale it so a mean was a 20 or a 120. So you were around the 70-80th percentile. How that equates to your rotation's grade is entirely up to your school.

 

[FSU2013]

It's like the USMLE. If you get a 250, that doesn't mean you got a 250% or 250% of the questions right. It's just a 250, with a passing score of 180 or so. The average is a 222 with a standard deviation of 15 or so.

Mean score of the shelf is 70 with a std deviation of 8. They could re-scale it so a mean was a 20 or a 120. So you were around the 70-80th percentile. How that equates to your rotation's grade is entirely up to your school.

That's not entirely accurate. The 'mean' isn't actually the mean. It was the mean like 20 years ago. If you read through the fine print, you'll see that they are all scaled (for no apparent reason) to the date when the test was written. Scores have gradually crept up from then. The only number that matters is the actual percentile, which will not be displayed on your score report. This is the number that you will be given by your school. I got a 98 on one (mind you, that would be like a 99.9% or something crazy if it was 70 mean with an SD of 8) but a 93rd percentile on a shelf.