What are validation questions and why are they included?
Validation questions are put into an examination for trial purposes only. They are new, untested questions. The questions do not contribute to the candidate’s final score. Initially, all questions are written by trained writers, and are then quality assured for legal accuracy. However, to ensure the questions are a fair test of the syllabus, we ask the candidates to ‘quality assure’ them, by answering them in an examination. This gives the test developers the opportunity to see how many candidates get the question correct, and which candidates are answering the question correctly. We evaluate all of our examination questions against standard criteria which are used throughout the world to show whether questions are of an acceptable standard. Only questions that meet the necessary psychometric criteria are included in future exams. It is worth highlighting that only half of the questions which we validate actually ever make it into the bank of live examination questions.
