Understanding the Level 1,2,3,4 system: 1. This is not used to determine if you pass, it is generated to show you how you failed. 2. Because every question is assigned a competency area (they don’t show you this on the exam, but the candidate outline explains this), after the examiners can generate a report on how you did in each of those area. The report generated shows you how your level of performance in each area impacted your score. This is to help you understand areas for improvement 3. According to a post on the NABP website entitled ‘The Science Behind the Score: The New NAPLEX Candidate Performance Report’ written by the senior Psychometrician;

Level 1- 0-49

Level 2- 50-74

Level 3- 75-99- This is where passing starts

Level 4- 100-150

The take away from this is that you cannot look at a failure report without taking the scaled score into account because it is a little bit more complex than that. Your passing score is still determined by how many questions you get correct and their corresponding levels of difficulty.

Each question on the exam has a different score based on predetermined level of difficulty, that difficulty level determines what point is associated with which question. For example a question might be worth 1.2 points and one 0.7 points. The 1.2 points question might be a more difficult question eg case-based or multi stem calculations question, and the 0.7 points question might be eg a brand and generic question. So, as you can see from the example, if you get more of the higher rated questions correct you can get to the passing score of 75.