Shelf exam question

[oldtimer]

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Dumb question: what are shelf exams like? Are they multiple choice or essay?

 

[Al Pacino]

The shelf exams created by NBME are multiple choice questions. Most shelf exam are 100 questions to be done in 2 hours.

Incidentally, I just got my two-digit raw score for the pediatrics shelf exam: 87. This RAW score doesn't mean much to me.

Does anyone know what this raw scare translates to in terms of national percentile?

 

[TulaneKid24]

Originally posted by Al Pacino
The shelf exams created by NBME are multiple choice questions. Most shelf exam are 100 questions to be done in 2 hours.

Incidentally, I just got my two-digit raw score for the pediatrics shelf exam: 87. This RAW score doesn't mean much to me.

Does anyone know what this raw scare translates to in terms of national percentile?

Third year shelf exams have a national mean of 70 with a standard deviation of 8. so, you are 2 SD's above the mean which translates into high 90s% - tile. You are probably like 97% - tile. That is a very good score on the shelf exam. Congrats.

 

[ktat72]

wish i had a score like that on any of my shelf exams

 

[Al Pacino]

Thanks for the information. The course director basically emailed us the class average, which was a raw score of 75. She didn't give the standard deviation so I wasn't sure how well I did exactly...

 

[Al Pacino]

Originally posted by ktat72
wish i had a score like that on any of my shelf exams

I'm not an expert on shelf exams, but the key I think is to read a textbook-- not the big ones, but a medium sized one. For pediatrics, there are several good medium sized textbooks that are written mainly for medical students, such as Rudolph's medium sized book. There is also a good one titled "Pediatrics for Medical Students."

Second, you should work some questions from Pretest.

But the shelf exams, not to minimize the point, are difficult. The questions are much more difficult than the ones I encountered on Step 1, by far.