Practice Exams

NCCPA offers Practice Exams to assist PAs in the preparation for PANCE, PANRE and CAQ exams. They help PAs assess their relative strengths and weaknesses, to direct their study efforts and to familiarize themselves with the types of questions they’ll see on the actual examinations.

System Requirements

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 

We recommend using the latest version of one of the supported browsers below.

  • Google Chrome
  • Apple Safari
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Any other modern web browser compatible with HTML5 and CSS3

You will need to temporarily turn off your pop-up blocker to access a Practice Exam. To learn how to do this, click here.

Practice Exam Questions

What you need to know...

How many exams are available to purchase?

  • 2 PANCE
  • 1 PANRE
  • 1 CVTS CAQ
  • 1 Emergency Medicine CAQ
  • 1 Hospital Medicine CAQ
  • 1 Nephrology CAQ
  • 1 Orthopaedic Surgery CAQ
  • 1 Pediatrics CAQ

How many questions are included in each exam?

120 questions per PANCE and PANRE exam
60 questions per CAQ exam

How many times can I purchase each exam?

Unlimited

Cost

$50 per exam (note: can take exam(s) one time per purchase, but can purchase as many times as you want)

How long do I have to complete the exam once I purchase it?

180 days; may repurchase after you complete it or after 180 days lapse.

You have 60 minutes to complete each block of 60 questions, but you can pause the clock while in a block and return and finish it later, as long as it is still within the 180-day time frame.

Can I get a refund if I don’t take it in the 180 day window?

If you are unable to take the practice exam during your scheduled 180-day window and need to reset the window, please contact NCCPA before the 180th day, and you will not be charged. Per NCCPA policy, no refunds will be issued for a Practice Exam.

If I retake the same exam will it always have the same questions?

You may see slight differences when retaking a Practice Exam form, as they are refreshed periodically with the most current information.

Will I receive individual question results?

No, a Performance Profile will be given after the completion of the Practice Exam. This will give you insight related to your relative strengths and weaknesses in the content areas based on the PANCE, PANRE and CAQ content blueprints. Click here to view a sample performance profile for PANCE and PANRE. Click here to view a sample profile for a CAQ exam.

Disclaimer for NCCPA Practice Exams

The NCCPA Practice Exam is provided for educational purposes only. It is not intended to predict your performance on any of our exams, and you should not interpret your results as a prediction of your performance. The results may assist you in identifying possible strengths or weaknesses in the various content areas that make up the exam blueprints.

While the practice exam includes the ability to change the screen color to grayscale and invert the colors, as well as increasing and decreasing the font size, these functions are only available on the practice exams and are not available on the actual PANCE, PANRE or CAQ examinations unless approved for these exam accommodations.

The content blueprint for each specific exam is used as a guideline when items are selected for the Practice Exams.  However, because the Practice Exams have fewer items than the actual exams, the content areas contain a smaller number of items. For example, approximately 3% of the PANCE content blueprint is comprised of hematology questions. Thus, on the 120-question Practice Exam, there would be only 3 to 4 questions in this content area. It is important to keep in mind that performance on a small number of items is less reliable than with a larger number of items. Your performance is based on the limited number of items sampled in the Practice Exam and should not be used as a predictor of actual performance.

The performance feedback provided on the Practice Exam is based on the last time the questions were administered before they were retired. Thus, the feedback may not reflect how the test questions would perform if administered on a current administration of each exam. The yellow area in the overall performance bar provides an indication of a borderline candidate’s performance on the Practice Exam. The horizontal black bar is your performance band on your overall performance on the Practice Exam. Each test question counts equally towards your overall performance. The larger content areas contain more questions and thus contribute more to your overall score on the Practice Exam, as well as on each actual exam.

In the content areas, the overall length of the bar is representative of the percentage of content coverage on the exam blueprint. Thus, in the sample performance profile above, the larger content areas, such as cardiovascular and pulmonary, have longer bars. The vertical black line in each content area represents the mean performance of the test questions when they were last administered on PANCE. The asterisk represents your mean performance on the test questions in each content area.

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