COMPREHENSIVE SUBJECT EXAMS
Assess student learning progress and readiness to take the USMLE® and access national normative data
Overview
Educators use the Comprehensive Subject Exams to assess students' learning progress and readiness to take the USMLE Steps 1 and 2. The exams must be administered securely and are not intended to be used for practice purposes.
In addition to helping you save the time and resources that go into creating your own assessment, the Comprehensive Subject Exams enable you to:
- Access overall and content area scores that can be compared with those of relevant national comparison groups, so you can measure your cohort against students on a national level
- Gain a more thorough understanding of your examinees' readiness for the USMLE Steps 1 and 2
- Provide your students with actionable feedback through in-depth score reports that help them progress on their learning journey
- Ensure quality with questions that are written and reviewed with the same rigor used to create USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 items
Exam Content
Click on each Comprehensive Subject Exam below to view content outlines and sample test questions.
Content Outlines & Sample Items
Administration
The Comprehensive Subject Exams are available for web-based administrations at both your school and Prometric test centers.
Web-Based Examinations at Your School
All Comprehensive Subject Exams are available for administration at your school. Web-based exams must be administered in a secure, proctored setting. NBME provides a web-based utility that checks both hardware and software configurations and downloads a plug-in that secures the browser.
The computer is locked down, preventing the examinee from accessing applications such as e-mail or notepad. It also includes a function designed to detect any recording applications and programs that may be running on workstations or examinees’ personal laptops prior to the start of the exam.
Web-Based Examinations at Prometric Test Centers
The Comprehensive Subject Exams can also be administered at Prometric’s worldwide network of secure test centers.
Prometric testing may be preferred for students serving on clinical rotations in a distributed hospital network or for those located at a site without web-based test delivery capability. It may also be useful for makeup tests. This option requires advance planning to allow students sufficient time to schedule testing appointments.
How to Purchase
The Comprehensive Subject Exams are available to purchase through the online ordering system on the MyNBME® Services Portal.
NBME Executive Chief Proctors at medical schools and those with parallel responsibilities at residency programs or other organizations will have access to this portal.
The following information must be provided in the web-based exam order:
- Test date
- Expected number of examinees
- Number of any examinees who need extra testing time and the corresponding exam length (1.5x or 2x the standard time limit allocated for other examinees)
- Test session start and end times
Score Reports
All scoring feedback, norms, and grading guidelines for the Comprehensive Subject Exams can be accessed through the MyNBME® Services Portal. A brief description and samples of the various types of score reports and associated downloadable text files is provided below.
Examinees can access their results directly through INSIGHTS®, an interactive dashboard that enables learners to better track their performance, identify areas for growth, and target their studies more effectively. It also provides a view of NBME® Self-Assessment, Subject Exam, and Customized Assessment Services (CAS) results in one convenient location.
Score Interpretation Guide
- Provides detailed information about the computation of scores, the contents of each type of score report and the contents of downloadable data files.
- It is included with the Roster Report and can also be accessed separately on the portal under the Score Reports tab.
Roster Report
- Provides the total score for each examinee and descriptive statistics for the administration. A downloadable roster text file includes the total score and content area scores for each examinee.
Content Area Report
- Provides information on the performance of your examinees and a national group of examinees on the major content areas on the exam.
Item Analysis Report
- Provides information on the performance of your group of examinees and a national group of examinees on each item.
- Available for any Subject Exam administration with at least 5 examinees and for which equated scores are available.
- Helpful in determining the extent to which your examinees have learned the content of individual items.
- Provided for institutional use in assessing the performance of examinees. The written authorization of NBME must be obtained prior to any additional use of the data (e.g., in research papers).
Examinee Performance Report
- Available for any Subject Exam administration with at least 5 examinees and for which equated scores are available.
- Provides information about overall performance and performance on major content areas on the exam for each examinee.
- Intended for distribution to examinees as an aid in self-assessment.
View Interactive, Annotated Sample (Basic Science)
Examinee Question-Level Feedback Report
- Provides information on the performance of each examinee and a national group of examinees on each item.
- Intended for distribution to examinees as an aid in self-assessment.
Norm Table
- Provides information enabling you to compare your examinees’ performance with a nationally representative group of examinees from LCME-accredited medical schools at the same stage of training.
- The most recent norms for each exam are included with the score reports and can also be accessed separately on the MyNBME Services Portal along with earlier norms (when available) under the Score Reports tab.
Guidance to Gauge USMLE Readiness
Resources
Visit the links below to learn more about the Subject Exams.
Related NBME Products
Self-Assessment Services
Purchase self-assessment vouchers to support your students practicing and evaluating their readiness for the USMLE® Step 1 or Step 2 CK
Interested in learning more about the Comprehensive Subject Exams or another NBME product?
Complete the consultation request form to get in touch with NBME staff.
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