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 for the April sessions are available 5 weeks after the session’s last day. For other sessions, results are available 4 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 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.
A new pass score for the MCCQE Part I was established through a rigorous standard-setting exercise that took place in July 2025. During this exercise, a panel of physicians from across Canada was guided through best practice methods to recommend a pass score that was presented to the EOC for review and approval. The new pass score and new score scale approved by the EOC apply to the 2025, and subsequent exam sessions.
For all MCQs, each correct answer is scored 1 point and each incorrect answer is scored 0 (raw scores). 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 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 300 to 600 with a mean of 450 and a standard deviation of 30. The mean and standard deviation were set using the results from the April 2025 session. Results from the April 2025 and subsequent sessions will be reported using this scale, allowing you to compare candidate performance across sessions beginning with the April 2025 session.
On this new scale, the pass score that was recommended and approved is 439. This pass score will remain in place until the next standard-setting exercise.
Prior to 2025, the MCCQE Part I score was reported on a different scale. The scale ranged 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.
Over the past few years, the MCC has been working on several grant-funded projects aimed at improving accessibility to its assessments and services for Canadian medical graduates, as well as for international medical graduates and internationally educated physicians. One of these priority projects focused on improving the delivery and candidate experience of the MCCQE Part I. After several months of research, data collection, expert consultation, and operational considerations, a new MCCQE Part I assessment model was defined and implemented as of April 2025. Key adjustments implemented on the exam include: removal of the short-menu and short-answer write-in questions (critical medical knowledge and decision-making skills continue to be assessed through multiple-choice questions), more time for candidates to answer each question, and shortened overall length of exam appointment time.
Because the exam format changed in 2025, scores from before 2025 cannot be directly compared to scores from 2025 and later.
Every few years, the MCC brings together a panel of physicians to define an acceptable level of performance and establish the pass score for the MCCQE Part I through a standard-setting exercise.
In July 2025, the MCC completed a rigorous standard-setting exercise based on expert judgments from a panel of 23 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 439 on a reporting scale of 300 to 600, which was approved by the Exam Oversight Committee (EOC). The EOC is composed of physicians and medical educators from across the country and is responsible for awarding results to MCCQE Part I candidates. For more information on the MCCQE Part I standard-setting exercise, see the Technical Reports on this topic.
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