The 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 approximately 8 weeks after the session’s last day.
You will receive a notification by email and a message in your physiciansapply.ca account stating that you can check your final MCCQE Part I result (for example, pass, fail) through your account.
Shortly after you receive this message, two documents will be uploaded to your account:
To prevent fraud and to protect confidentiality, your MCCQE Part I 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.
Your total MCCQE Part I score is calculated by combining the 210 MCQs and 38 CDM cases. It is reported on a scale from 100 to 400 with a pass score of 226.
Your final MCCQE Part I 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 Exam Oversight Committee (EOC), composed of physicians and medical educators from across the country, is responsible for awarding pass/fail results to MCCQE Part I candidates.
For both MCQs and CDM questions, each correct answer is scored 1 point and each incorrect answer is scored 0 (raw scores). Some CDM questions, such as a question whose answer includes multiple correct elements, allow candidates to receive more than 1 point. For example, for a question with four correct elements, you can receive up to 4 points.
While raw scores are necessary, they are insufficient to establish a candidate’s ability level. Simply adding up item scores does not accurately reflect a candidate’s ability since this does not consider the difficulty level of the items encountered in any test form. The total score is calculated using both the questions’ individual scores and their level of difficulty. More information on the MCCQE Part I scoring can be found in the MCCQE Part I Annual Technical Reports.
The MCCQE Part I assesses your performance with exam questions classified across two broad categories, each category with four domains:
MCCQE Part I subscores are presented graphically to indicate your relative strengths and weaknesses in each of the domains.
The exam includes pilot questions, also called pre-test items, which could be included in scoring if they perform well psychometrically or after being reviewed by subject matter experts.
The MCCQE Part I is a criterion-referenced exam for which the pass/fail result is determined by comparing an individual candidate’s score to a standard (as reflected by the pass score), regardless of how others perform.
Passing means that the candidate has demonstrated the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes, as part of a requirement for medical licensure in Canada to enter supervised clinical practice.
Your total score is reported as a scaled score ranging from 100 to 400 with a mean of 250 and a standard deviation of 30. The mean and standard deviation were set using the results from the April 2018 session. Results from the April 2018 and subsequent sessions will be reported using this scale, allowing you to compare candidate performance across sessions beginning with the April 2018 session.
On this new scale, the pass score that was recommended and approved is 226. This pass score will remain in place until the next standard-setting exercise.
Prior to 2018, there was a different blueprint for the MCCQE Part I. The scale ranged from 50 to 950 with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. The mean and standard deviation were set using the results from the spring 2015 session.
Because the exams are different and based on different blueprints, you cannot directly compare scores from before 2018 to those in 2018 (and beyond).
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 MCCQE Part I through a standard-setting exercise.
In June 2018, the MCC completed a rigorous standard-setting exercise based on expert judgments from a panel of 22 physicians from across the country that represented various faculties of medicine, specialties and years of experience supervising students and residents.
The panel recommended a pass score of 226 on a reporting scale of 100 to 400 that was approved by the Central Examination Committee (CEC). The CEC was composed of physicians and medical educators from across the country and responsible for awarding results to MCCQE Part I candidates. In August 2021, the CEC was replaced by the Exam Oversight Committee (EOC), a committee now responsible for oversight of all MCC examinations. For more information on the MCCQE Part I standard-setting exercise, see the Technical Reports on this topic.
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