How is the USMLE Scored?

The USMLE Step 1 exam is a pass/fail exam, and examinees are no longer given a numeric score or percentile ranking. Instead, the performance of each examinee is compared to that of all other examinees who took the exam at the same testing session. Examinees who perform at or above the mean performance of all examinees are considered to have passed the exam. Examinees who perform below the mean are considered to have failed the exam.

USMLE used to provide a “three-digit score” for Step 1, but no longer does as of January 2022. Now Step 2 Clinical Knowledge is scored as a three-digit score. The three-digit score is intended to give examinees, medical schools, and other interested parties a general sense of an examinee’s performance on the exam. The three-digit score is based on the number of questions an examinee answered correctly, but it is not directly proportional to the number of correct answers. The USMLE program does not release specific information about how the three-digit scores are calculated.