Originally posted by monet
Does everyone get the same exam or is it like the MCAT with several versions of one test?
No one really knows except the NBME. The rumor is that there are only a few versions of each exam and that they are updated yearly. So, depending on your school, you get sent a particular exam. Everyone in your class takes the same exam, though.
The NBME is fairly secretive on exactly how the test is scored, and there's no real definitive way of verifying this.
Originally posted by orthoman5000
Does anyone know exactly what the numbers you get back on the NBME tests mean. I got a 72 on the Biochemistry shelf exam a few months ago and the class average was about the same. Anyway, what exactly does the number mean. I'm pretty sure it's not a percentage as I don't think I got that many right, and I know it's not a percentile. Is it just some arbitrary number like an MCAT score? Anyway, I've got to take the Cell Biology and Histology shelf exam this Friday. It may determine whether I even pass the class or not!🙁
Don't worry, a 72 is a good score. The tests are geared so that the national average is 70 (I don't know where I read this before, but I believe the info is out there somewhere... again, the NBME is pretty secretive). Anything above a 70 is, therefore, above the U.S. national average. Most medical schools will only fail you if you get below a 60 (some have even lower fail scores).
As far as it being a percentage, I'm not sure. If personal experience is any guide, it likely is because when I walked out of the Behavioral Science "shelf", I felt like I'd done really well. Before the test was finished, I went back through and tried to figure out the ones that I was fairly certain I'd gotten wrong, as well as the ones that I knew for certain I'd gotten correct, and then calculate my score. It was very close to the actual score I got, which was an 88. Likewise, there are apparently "test" questions in various versions that the NBME rotates in, but don't count towards your score, which are used for statistical/future test purposes to see whether or not students get the material right. (Again, I read this somewhere... I can try to find it if anyone needs for me to try to corroborate this, i.e. don't completely take my word for it because no one except the NBME
really knows how the test is administered and scored.)
You can Google to see what other institutions grading policy is with regards to the "shelf" exams. Some of them actually post their policies on their websites.
The USMLE is a different beast altogether and clearly the 3-point and 2-point scores do not reflect raw or percentage scores, respectively. For example, for any given Step I, you need only get between 55-60% of the questions correct to get the minimum passing score.
