Passing Score

[wvufan1985]

I was reading in the sample questions from 2000 provided by NCESS and they state "To avoid confusion that might arise from the fluctuations in the passing score, scores are converted to a standard scale which adopts 70 as the passing score."

That was my understanding from the beginning. So why do people on here try to figure out what the passing score is? Does anybody other than NCEES actually know the passing score for a given exam?

 

[ikesdsu]

Nope no one but NCEES knows the passing score. Usually people try to figure out the number of questions they need to get right out of the 80 questions to reach that 70%. The problem with that is there is a chance that NCEES will throw out questions so that 56 right answers might go down to 55 or 54 depending on what they find.

Really it is a lesson in futility because you shouldn't study just enough to get those 56 questions right, you should study to get as many as possible right. And to dwell on the number of questions you need to get right after the test just causes you stress. That is why people on here that have already gone through the test harrass people people who only focus on that number.

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

Nope no one but NCEES knows the passing score. Usually people try to figure out the number of questions they need to get right out of the 80 questions to reach that 70%. The problem with that is there is a chance that NCEES will throw out questions so that 56 right answers might go down to 55 or 54 depending on what they find.

Really it is a lesson in futility because you shouldn't study just enough to get those 56 questions right, you should study to get as many as possible right. And to dwell on the number of questions you need to get right after the test just causes you stress. That is why people on here that have already gone through the test harrass people people who only focus on that number.

It doesn't say 70%. Re-read the OP's quote - "adopts 70 as the passing score". They could have said the passing score is 50 or 90. In this case the passing score is always 70 regardless of the raw score required to pass. My understanding is that it's because of the difficulty. If the raw score required to pass is 60 out of 80, they "call" it 70 and scale all the scores accordingly. If the next time it's 50 out of 80, they call the 50 raw score "70" and scale the scores accordingly. Plus it varies from discipline to discipline. So regardless it you're taking the civil transpo or mechanical HVAC a score of 70 (not 70%) is required to pass. But you're right - no one but ncees knows what the raw score to pass is and they're not telling. I'm guessing this is why they went to a simple pass or fail. Just to minimize all of the debate - obviously, that didn't work!

 

[Jonhnny123]

That was my understanding from the beginning. So why do people on here try to figure out what the passing score is?

People try to figure out the score to give themselves hope. It feels like a VERY long wait from when you take the test and get your results.