PACKRAT® is an objective, comprehensive self-assessment tool for student and curricular evaluation.
PACKRAT® Faculty Guide
The PACKRAT guide and its supplement offer faculty information on the PACKRAT exam, including how its blueprint, guiding principles, topic list, exam items, and core tasks and objectives were created, and the continuous scientific review that occurs with each version.
Detailed
This 225-question exam is built new each year, based on a content blueprint and detailed topic list developed by experienced PA educators and national exam experts, specifically for PA programs.
Peer-Reviewed
All questions are written and evaluated by PA educators as part of a rigorous multi-level peer review process.
Flexible
The exam can be delivered in a proctored or unproctored mode, onsite or remote, with a secure testing window.
PACKRAT Resources
Guiding Principles
Several cross-cutting criteria guide the development and delivery of the PACKRAT exam. The goal of these criteria is to assist the Exam Development team in ensuring that the exam, to the extent a multiple-choice exam can, evaluates a wide breadth of dimensions critical to a PA student’s preparation.
- The PACKRAT blueprint is two-dimensional, meaning that it is organized by task and content area. Each PACKRAT exam is built to blueprint and topic list specifications. Questions included on the exam are considered only a sample and may not reflect all content topics identified in the topic lists.
- Questions developed for PACKRAT reflect the needs of a broad variety of patients whom PAs will be called upon to treat.
- PACKRAT is intended to mark important transition times for PA students, most commonly at the end of the didactic phase and at the end of the clinical phase of training.
- Questions are typically presented in vignette format so the exam can assess problem-solving and critical thinking.
- PACKRAT is a 225-question multiple-choice exam written every year, and every question is scored. The national average is first published after 300 administrations and updates on a rolling basis as more students take the exam throughout the year.
- PACKRAT contains three 75-question sections.
- There are two versions of PACKRAT available at a time. Students are automatically assigned to the most recent version that they have not already taken.
- PACKRAT is a self-assessment and is not intended to be used for grading purposes.
- PACKRAT exams are delivered in the PAEA Assessment Center.
- Items are randomized to ensure exam security.
- PACKRAT may be delivered proctored, unproctored, or with a third-party remote proctoring service, with a set time of 3 hours, 45 minutes with a 10-minute break between sections.
- Student score reports allow students and programs to see where individual students fall compared to other PA students taking the same standardized exam nationwide. The report provides formative feedback, which can be used to develop targeted remediation and study plans.
- Detailed program reports are designed to help programs evaluate trends in knowledge, strengths, and deficits across entire classes of students and may be used along with other data points to inform program-level curricular decision-making.
Pricing
Get more information on all our exams’ pricing.
per exam per student for member programs