Scoring of the NBPME

[cliftonjr]

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Does anyone understand from the NBPME when they say below minimal competency in a particular subject area? For an example, I was below minimial competency in Physiology, Pharmacology and Pathology and I received a scaled score of 74. I am wondering if I missed passing by one question two questions or 10 questions?

Does anyone know or understand b/c NBPME could not give me a straight answer.

 

[krabmas]

Does anyone understand from the NBPME when they say below minimal competency in a particular subject area? For an example, I was below minimial competency in Physiology, Pharmacology and Pathology and I received a scaled score of 74. I am wondering if I missed passing by one question two questions or 10 questions?

Does anyone know or understand b/c NBPME could not give me a straight answer.

this means tht yes you failed by one question/point.

SO averaging all the questions you got one more than you needed wrong.

The competency parts is taking the total pharm questions and averaging them you got more than 25% wrong. and this goes for each other section listed as well.

The reason you can be deficient in more than one area and only fail by one question is because the sections are not evenly distributed.

LE anatomy is 22% and the other sections are all less than that I think.

So if you got most of the LE question correct this would be why you'd almost passed but not quite.

Study the important stuff and don't change your answers on the test. Your first impression/guess is usually right.

Good Luck.

 

[Dr_Feelgood]

this means tht yes you failed by one question/point.

SO averaging all the questions you got one more than you needed wrong.

The competency parts is taking the total pharm questions and averaging them you got more than 25% wrong. and this goes for each other section listed as well.

The reason you can be deficient in more than one area and only fail by one question is because the sections are not evenly distributed.

LE anatomy is 22% and the other sections are all less than that I think.

So if you got most of the LE question correct this would be why you'd almost passed but not quite.

Study the important stuff and don't change your answers on the test. Your first impression/guess is usually right.

Good Luck.

I might be incorrect but you missed it by one point. That does not mean one question. All of the sections are curved so you could have missed it by more than 1 b/c each question maybe weighted differently.

 

[krabmas]

I might be incorrect but you missed it by one point. That does not mean one question. All of the sections are curved so you could have missed it by more than 1 b/c each question maybe weighted differently.

true that one point does not equal one question but the only way to get at least one more point is to get a full question right.

There is no partial credit.


As fas as I know the questions are weighted the same. So to pass the test without a curve you need 75% and there is 150 questions on the test so you need 112.5 points to pass so really 113 questions right. which amounts to one question being worth 0.6667 or 2/3 of a point.

but remember there is a curve which this past year worked out to about 55% correct to pass. I do not know this for absolutely sure but it is a pretty educated guess that passing was dependent on 55% correct. so when that is considered you only needed 82.5 questions correct. to get the curved grade of 75% so each question is really worth about 1.36.