All Krok 1, Krok 2, Krok 3, Krok M and Krok B exams consist of 150 questions each. Students are given 1 minute per questions. Additional time is given to the foreign students, who are non-native speakers of Ukrainian or Russian. Students can submit their filled test papers at any moment before the scheduled time of exam completion.

To process the data we use modern high-quality hardware and software, which allows distinguishing up to 16 shades of black. Therefore, if you have indeed erased the answers, but there are still some traces left, the software will take into account only the darkest mark. If the software is unable to make a decision, the Testing Board will be notified of it. Then the answer sheet will be revised (verified) manually. If there are two answer option marked, none will be taken into account and this question will be considered unanswered.

Exam results are assessed as follows: each correct answer equals 1 point, each incorrect – 0 points. Students are not “penalized” for incorrect answers. Therefore, the Testing Board advices the students to try and answer ALL the questions, even if the student is unsure whether his/her answers are correct.

Passing or failing the Exam is determined based on the student’s total score for the test. Therefore, even if a student does not have a passing score in a certain subtest, but the total score is passing, the student passes the Exam.

The results of the Exams (MLE) are presented on three scales. Conversion of the test results from scale to scale is a universal practice. Initially the result is presented as a percentage of correct answers (from 0% to 100%) in the whole test, as well as in its constituent subtests (content components of a test). It is this result that is sent back to the schools after the exam. To make standardization and comparison of various exam results possible, this percentage is then converted into the unified standardized MLE scale. This result is the one that is entered into the certificate. The conversion occurs according to the following formula:

MLE score = 200 + 20*(X – m)/σ,

Where:

200 is the MLE scale average;

20 is the MLE scale standard deviation;

X is the student’s initial score;

m is the national average of the students’ results in a certain Exam;

σ is the standard deviation of the initial scores in the same Exam.

The MLE scale remains the same for all the Exams. Beginning from 2010/2011 academic year, the Exam results are being converted into ECTS as well. Brief explanation of different scales used in pedagogical and psychological testing can be read at the website: http://psystat.at.ua/publ/1-1-0-20 (“Pedagogical and psychological statistics”).

If a student is ill or starts feeling unwell on the day of the exam, he/she does not have to take exam on that exact day. It should be stressed, however, that to confirm the health-related absence, a student should receive a relevant health certificate from a doctor, notify the dean’s office, and within 3 days present this health certificate (registered with the school) to the Testing Board. Upon recovery, such student will have to take the Exam in Kyiv at the time and place determined by the Testing Board.

If the health certificate is unavailable or invalid, it is considered that the student failed to attend the exam without a reasonable excuse. In this case, the student receives the “0” score (fail), with no additional attempts to pass the exam granted to the student.

It should be also kept in mind, that during Krok 2 exams that are a part of graduation examination, the Testing Board representatives upon prior agreement can hold the exam on the premises of a hospital or maternity clinic. The possibility of individual testing should be agreed upon in advance with the school and the Testing Board on the condition that reasonable grounds are presented, and necessary documents are available.

The Testing Board agrees that certain health issues require special conditions to be created during the test and will consider individually each case. Common cases include: visually impaired persons, for whom the Testing Board can make individual booklets with enlarged font size; insulin-dependent persons, who can pause their test to eat something or to make an insulin injection, etc. Separately are considered hospitalized persons, who cannot attend a common classroom, and for whom a Testing Board representative can administer the test on the hospital premises. To ensure that the special requirements are met the school should contact the Testing Board in advance, explain the situation, and present the relevant documents.

The test items are designed by the faculty members of Ukrainian medical schools. Upon creation the test items are entered into the primary (“unrefined”) database and undergo a multilevel expert assessment. The first level ensures that each task meets the branch standards of higher education; the second level ensures that all tasks are designed according to the test requirements; finally, the tasks are revised by a committee of experts, who determine whether each task is up-to-date, correctly phrased, consistent, etc.

Considering that the Exam objective is to determine whether professional competence of examinees meets a certain minimal level, the test items present typical situations that require standard knowledge to be solved.

It is impossible to guess the correct letter. Task answers are shuffled randomly by the software. If you choose a particular letter and continually select it as an answer in each task, you will obtain from 15% to 25% of correct answers, which is not enough to pass the test.

Yes, according to the approved method of test design, the tests must reuse a certain portion of tasks from the previous booklets. Only the test items with good psychometrics can be reused. They are called anchor test items.

A student can file an Appeal against his/her test score. Therefore, a student, who lacks a few points to get a passing score, has the right to file an Appeal. On the other hand, a student, who was suspended from taking the exam due to a violation of exam regulations, cannot file an Appeal. The Appeal Procedure is described in the relevant section of the website.

Before deciding to submit an Appeal, consider, please, the following information. The Appeal Procedure consists of comparing the answer sheet of the Examinee with its processing protocol that is the basis of the exam result calculation. All forms with negative results are the subject to obligatory verification, that is, the Testing Board computer technician checks the quality of answer sheet scanning. This way, the probability of a mistake during scanning (however miniscule it may be) is reduced to zero, and the Testing Board assures that all the answers from the answer sheet are correctly and completely transferred to the software application that processes the data.

In all the time of Appeal submitting there was not a single instance of discrepancy between the answer sheet and its processing protocol. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the students with negative test results have any chance of improving their test score by filing an Appeal.