Hi all! Just trying to gauge my positioning. I was wondering what a good score on the first attempt on the mock exams should be? I constantly review and study topics on the practice exams, retake it and then score 90%'s. My first attempts on the exams aren’t so great though. Any thoughts?
1 Like
Hi @cobotimothy ,
Welcome to the Community! I hope you’ve been finding Black Spectacles useful in your studies so far!
My advice is to take each mock exam in as similar environment to the actual exam as possible in order to get a good gauge on where you stand. So, act like you’re at the test center. Take breaks they same way you would at Prometrics. Follow the time limitations, don’t use scratch paper, and don’t eat or drink while testing. This will allow you to better gauge how you would perform on the actual exam.
Then, I would compare your score taking the exam for the first time to the rough passing percentages that NCARB provides. According to the website below, the minimum percentage has historically ranged between 57-68%
My own experience was that if I scored above 65% on an exam taking it for the first time I passed the actual exam. I scored below 65% on the PPD & PDD practice exams shortly before taking those actual exams and subsequently failed them. I was able to pass these on my second attempt.
HOWEVER, everyone’s experience is different! The way you test at home can be a lot different than how you test at the actual exam even if you try to re-create the experience as much as possible. There’s no real way to account for any test day jitters you may experience that can throw off your score. The exam can always throw curve balls at you.
The practice exams are a great metric to test your preparedness, but may not ultimately reflect how you do on the actual exam. Be sure you are also really reviewing the ARE 5.0 Handbook to make sure you feel confident in the objectives it defines for each section.
Hope this helps!
-Darion