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What is the success rate of passing the PTCB ?

by Gilbert
(Denton)

I was wondering if the success rate of passing pharmacy tech test has gone up or has sunk since the major changes were made? One such being required to achieve a minimum score of 88 on the test meaning I can only miss at most about 14 questions otherwise I fail the test.

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Where do you get those numbers?
by: Jerry

It would indeed be interesting to know if the passing rate has dropped, or not. But, I wonder where you got your numbers about the scoring? The first thing to know is that some questions are worth more points than others. And so, there is no definitive number of how many you can get wrong and pass. There are also experimental questions that don't even count against you if you miss.
passing the PTCB
by: SufficientGrace

This is from the PTCB website:

"The PTCE is a two-hour, multiple-choice, exam that contains 90 questions (80 scored questions and 10 unscored questions). Each question is shown with four possible answers, only one of which is the correct or best answer. Unscored questions are not identified and are randomly distributed throughout the exam. A candidate’s exam score is based on the responses to the 80 scored questions. One hour and 50 minutes are allotted for answering the exam questions and 10 minutes for a tutorial and post-exam survey."

https://www.ptcb.org/get-certified/exam/scoring

"The passing scaled score for the update PTCE is 1400, with a range of possible scores of 1000 to 1600."

This means the passing score is about 88% just as you stated. That seems crazy high to me and I'm now worried about passing.
Where I got my numbers from
by: Anonymous

I'm reviewing for my PTCB exam using the "PTCB EXAM SIMPLIFIED, 2nd Edition" by David Heckman, PharmD. He is also the one responsible for writing the questions on the exam according to my Pharmacology teacher. Inside the book it gives all the information about the test though they were not updated with the new changes. My Pharmacy teacher is the one who gave us the information about the new passing grade and questions on the test. She even did the calculations as to how many questions you could miss till deemed a failure. But another question is why did they decide to change the policy this year? And why did they raise the passing mark so high at once? They should have raised it slowly year after year to guarantee newly graduated students from high school jobs with also the understanding that the test will be a little tougher than the previous year.
^^^^Above Comment^^^^^^^
by: Anonymous

One person alone does not write all of the questions for the PTCB. There is a group of contributors who author questions, and then a board votes to select the ones that will be used, and how much weight each will have, etc. Some contributors may only have 1-2 of their questions chosen and used.

David Heckman, PharmD may be a contributor, and may have written a decent book to help prepare for the PTCB. But, please don't try to make people think that buying his overpriced book($55 for 275 pages of 6" x 9" paper) will give them some kind of extra edge. It won't. There are other books that cost about half that which are just as good and may even be stronger in explaining Math.

PTCB students: Check the library and the internet, there's lots of inexpensive options.
question
by: Anonymous

I didn't actually buy the book. Our teacher bought them for her classes and I didn't suggest buying the book either. The book is just the only one that I'm aware of that I personally use to study. Otherwise, the question that I still need answered is why the test passing mark was changed drastically high in just one year instead of slowly increasing it?
scoring
by: Anonymous

the scoring range is 1000 to 1600. If you get it all wrong you still have 1000. So I like to think it as 0-600 with 400 being the passing score. 400/600 is 67%.
Updateded PTCB ?
by: Anonymous

when was the 80 questions and 88% test score updated, I though it was 110 questions of 70% score to pass
Superviosr in a Mail Order Pharmacy/OTC
by: Anonymous

Ive never worked in this field before, nor do I have any hands on experience at all. The last time I attended school was back in the late 80's. I'm currently studying at home with a book called "Pharmacy Technician Certification Quick-Study Guide 4th Edition". I guess my only question is : Will this book help me pass the PTCB?
The passing rate has plummeted
by: Anonymous

By the numbers, the averaging passing rate before they re-wrote the PTCB was 75.4%, and it's dropped to 56.7% since the new test was introduced in Nov 2013.

It's right on their website to see for yourself:
(paste this URL into your browser)
https://www.ptcb.org/who-we-serve/pharmacy-technicians/statistics#.V5kD3aKYLSg
SMH
by: Anonymous

I took a Pharmacy Tech course and even got an A. Yet, when I took the PTCB I failed. A lot of the questions were nothing I ever studied.

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