ECFMG 2012 Information Booklet

Examination Results

Minimum Passing Scores | Scoring | Reporting of Scores | Score Rechecks | USMLE Transcripts | CSA Performance History | Validity of Scores

Score Rechecks

For all Steps and Step Components, a change in your score or in your pass/fail outcome based on a recheck is an extremely remote possibility. However, a request for a recheck will be honored if you submit a Request for Recheck of USMLE^® Step 1, Step 2 CK, or Step 2 CS Score (Form 265) and the fee for this service to ECFMG. Form 265 is available in the Resources section of the ECFMG website and from ECFMG, upon request. Your request must be received at ECFMG no later than 90 days after your score report release date.

For Step 1/Step 2 CK, standard quality assurance procedures ensure that the scores reported for you accurately reflect the responses recorded by the computer. When a request for score recheck is received, your original response record is retrieved and rescored using a system that is outside of the normal processing routine. The rechecked score is then compared with your original score.

For Step 2 CS, score rechecks first involve retrieval of the ratings you received from the standardized patients and from the physician note raters. These values are then resummed and reconverted into final scores in order to confirm that the reported pass/fail outcome was accurate. There is no rerating of your encounters or of your patient notes; videos of encounters are not reviewed. Videos are used for general quality control and for training purposes and are retained only for a limited period of time.

Patient notes are carefully reviewed, in some instances by multiple physicians, before scores are released. As part of the quality control procedures for initial scoring, examinees who fail Step 2 CS solely on the basis of the Integrated Clinical Encounter subcomponent and who are performing at a level that is near the minimum passing point have their patient notes rated by multiple physician note raters. Therefore, patient notes are not reviewed again when a recheck is requested.

Last updated: September 15, 2011

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