Exam scoring
The social work licensing exams measure minimum competence in social work practice.
Pass/Fail
In any pass/fail exam, there is a pass point, the number of questions a candidate must answer correctly to pass the exam. All jurisdictions that use the ASWB exams recognize the same pass point.
Passing scores
Because of the adjustments needed to correctly score different versions, or forms, of the exam, ASWB cannot provide a fixed number of correct answers required to pass. Generally, pass points range from 90 to 107 correct answers of the 150 scored questions.
Because the social work exams are used in the United States and Canada, a pass result in one state or province is a pass result in all states or provinces that use that category of the social work licensing exams.
Reminder: There are 150 scored questions on the exams. Each exam has 20 pretest questions that are not scored and do not affect your results.
Equating
ASWB has multiple versions — called forms — of each exam. The reason for having more than one form is to increase exam security; test-takers who retake an exam typically receive a different form with different questions.
Because multiple forms are in use, statistical analyses of the difficulty of individual questions are performed. The number of correct answers required to pass each exam form is based on that analysis.
This process, equating, ensures the overall ability required to pass the exam remains the same regardless of the version a test-taker receives.
No one receives an advantage or disadvantage because of the exam form received.