Most people do well on the CCFP. Despite this, there is no doubt that this exam is laden with inherent stress and worry which is why many of our residents ask us:

What predicts a “pass†on the exam?.

The CCFP is pretty hush-hush about the pass rates as well as how the exam is prepared and structured; there are however a few studies that have been published on this topic.

It seems that there are a few things which are more likely to predict a good result on the CCFP based on the CMAJ open journal article. This particular article looked at IMGs writing both the Royal College and the CCFP exam but some clear trends still emerge.

Specifically, younger age seems to be associated with an increased likelihood of passing as well as fluency in English when accounting for other factors. Interestingly, female sex was also associated with a higher likelihood of passing (sorry boys!).

Where you attended medical school, how much MD experience you had prior to, and if you had any publications are also important predictors of good results on the exam.

This is probably not surprising to most of us as with more experience, comes greater responsibility… just joking! With more experience, comes more knowledge and “know-how†not only when it comes to understanding the material but also on how to write exams!

Not to worry though! If English is not your first language, or you’ve been out of the test-taking game for a while, we will help you during our 3-day course by not only going through the 99 objectives in detail but also by demonstrating how to best answer the SAMPs. We will be providing both good and bad examples of answering. Essentially, we will be preparing you on how to best tackle this beast of an exam!

Come join the FMEP community!

Grieson et al. (2017) Predictors of international medical graduate certification success:
A collaborative retrospective review of post-graduate medical education programs in Ontario. CMAJ open: http://cmajopen.ca/content/suppl/2017/11/28/5.4.E785.DC1/2017-0073_Original_submission.pdf.