Results
When you can expect your TDM Examination results and how to understand them.
The Medical Council of Canada (MCC) has a highly rigorous scoring system and a robust quality-assurance process in place to ensure that each candidate’s performance is properly assessed. Before final results are released, multiple levels of verification are conducted to ensure they are accurately reported.
Results will be available to the Practice-Ready Assessment (PRA) programs 5 weeks after the examination date. For the January 2026 exam, results will be available to the PRA programs approximately 12 weeks after the exam date due to a standard-setting exercise to establish the new Therapeutics-Decision Making (TDM) Examination pass score. Your results letter will also be uploaded to your physiciansapply.ca account. You will receive a notification by email and a message in your physiciansapply.ca account stating that you can verify your results through your account.
The TDM Examination currently reports only a pass/fail result. Scores are not reported to candidates or PRA programs at this time.
To prevent fraud and to protect confidentiality, your TDM Examination results are only available in physiciansapply.ca and never given over the phone or by email.
Note: The MCC conducts a post exam quality-assessment review and adjusts the scoring framework for an exam if and where the MCC determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, it is necessary and/or appropriate to ensure the validity or integrity of the examination. The MCC’s decisions in this regard are final and are not subject to appeal.
Only your most recent result will be valid regardless of previous pass/fail results.
Results are valid across jurisdictional PRA programs that require the TDM Examination, no matter which province you took the TDM Examination. Candidates are required to declare previous TDM Examination attempts at time of application.
A pass result will be valid for a period of three years. If your result is close to expiring or has reached expiry, you will need to retake the exam to be considered for a PRA program. You are allowed a maximum of two pass results.
Your final TDM Examination result (e.g., pass, fail) is based solely on where your total score falls in relation to the pass score. A total score equal to or greater than the pass score is a pass, and a total score less than the pass score is a fail. This means that you will pass if you meet or exceed the pass score regardless of how well other candidates perform.
The TDM Examination currently reports only a pass/fail result. Scores are not reported to candidates or PRA programs at this time.
The Exam Oversight Committee (EOC), composed of physicians and medical educators from across the country, is responsible for approving pass/fail results for TDM Examination candidates.
The TDM Examination is scored automatically based on an answer key for each question. A candidate’s total score is the sum of their performance across all questions. To ensure fairness over time, scores are placed on a common scale using a statistical process called equating, which links each new exam form to the reference scale that will be established in February 2026.
The scoring is done through two independent but parallel processes using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS®). The results from the two processes are compared and must match before being released to the PRA programs and exam candidates.
The TDM Examination is a criterion-referenced exam. This means that a pass or fail result is determined by comparing your individual performance to a performance standard, but not to the performance of other candidates.
When an exam is criterion-referenced, the only thing that really matters is your performance relative to the passing standard. For the TDM Examination, passing is considered as “acceptably competent.” A passing candidate who scored a few points higher is not necessarily more “acceptably competent” than someone who passed with a few points lower, or vice versa.
Every few years, the MCC brings together a panel of Canadian physicians to define an acceptable level of performance and establish the pass score for the TDM Examination through a standard-setting exercise.
In February 2026, the MCC will conduct a rigorous standard-setting exercise with a panel of family medicine physicians from across the country. During this exercise, the panel will be guided through best practice methods to recommend a pass score that will be presented to the EOC for review and approval. The new pass score approved by the EOC will be applied to the 2026 and subsequent exam sessions.