How is the Professional Development paper scored?

There are 62 items in the PD paper, 12 of which are pilot items and do not contribute towards your final score.

Around half of the items are ranking items and the other half of the items are multiple choice, there is no negative marking.

SJT items are scored against pre-determined keys that have been derived from consultations with multiple GP Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), so that the scoring of the test is standardised and fair to all candidates.

Ranking items

The items in Part One of the paper require candidates to rank a series of options in response to a given situation. Answers are marked by comparing a candidate’s response to the model response determined by an expert panel (i.e. GP SMEs). The closer the response is to the model response, the more marks are awarded. A perfect match generally receives 20 marks, and a candidate does not need to get every option exactly in the correct order to obtain a good score on an SJT item.

It is important to note that this marking convention means that even if a candidate were to answer a ranking item completely out of order, they would score a minimum of 8 marks for that question. Skipping or missing an item, however, results in a score of 0 marks for that question.

The table and example below illustrate the scoring system in more detail.

Key Rank	Candidate Rank
	1 (C)	2(D)	3 (A)	4 (E)	5 (B)
1 (B)	4	3	2	1	0
2 (C)	3	4	3	2	1
3 (A)	2	3	4	3	2
4 (D)	1	2	3	4	3
5 (E)	0	1	2	3	4

 

Example: Imagine you are answering a ranking SJT question in the MCQ assessment. You are given a list of five actions/options and are then asked to rank in order the following actions in response to this situation (1 = most appropriate; 5 = least appropriate). The predetermined key for this question is BCADE. Option B has thus been predetermined by multiple SMEs to be the ‘most appropriate’ option (and in other words, ranked as 1 out of 5). If you then select Option B as the most appropriate action you would be awarded 4 full marks for this part of the question. Instead, if you select the option that has been predetermined as the second most appropriate action, Option C, you would still be awarded 3 points. If you were to select Option A, you would be awarded 2 points, and if you were to selection Option D you would only be awarded 1 point. You therefore get allocated marks based on the proximity of how you rank each of the possible options in accordance to the pre-determined key. So, for example, if you were to answer this question using the key CDAEB instead, you would get 12 marks (3 + 2 + 4 + 3 + 0 = 12).

Multiple choice items

The items in Part Two of the paper require candidates to select three from a maximum of eight possible responses to a given situation. As with ranking items, answers are marked by comparing the response to the model response determined by an expert panel. Multiple choice items are worth a maximum of 12 marks. Each of the three individual responses is worth 4 marks.