Kuwait MOH GP Pass Mark: What 60% Means and What Is Not Published

What is stated

The blueprint page lists the General Practitioner exam with a passing score of 60%, 150 questions and 170 minutes including a 10-minute break. It adds that candidates can make up to three attempts with at least six weeks between them. It also says that the blueprint, the percentages and the attempt rules may be revised following review by the department.

That last sentence matters for planning. The percentages in the document are exam-design percentages, and the Ministry reserves the right to change them. Do not treat any figure here as permanent, including the 60%, and re-read the document when you book.

What is not stated

One of the most common rumours on forums is that the Kuwait exam has a pass mark for each section. We found no such statement. Neither is there a statement that it does not. Until the Ministry says otherwise, assume nothing and prepare for all four disciplines, because the total is what the blueprint names.

Turning 60% into a working target

Here is the arithmetic, labelled clearly as arithmetic and not as policy.

Because the second and third rows are possible, a raw target of exactly 90 is risky. We suggest treating 70% on timed mixed practice blocks as the working target. This is editorial advice from MedPass Exams. It is not a Ministry figure. It gives you a margin of ten points over the stated mark, which covers difficulty differences between your practice material and the live paper.

Why practice scores are not the same as exam scores

A question bank is written by people who know the answer key. The live paper is written for a licensing purpose and may be harder or easier in unexpected places. Candidates also tend to score higher on topic blocks, where context gives hints, than on mixed blocks, where each item arrives cold. Judge yourself by the mixed, timed, first-attempt score and ignore repeat attempts on questions you have already seen.

Reading your own practice results

A single number hides the shape of your preparation. Break each mixed block down by discipline and check the pattern.

1. Total score. Is it at or above 70% on the last three timed mixed blocks of 75 questions?
2. Discipline floor. Is every discipline above 60%? A 55% in surgery can be hidden by an 85% in medicine, and you cannot be sure the live paper does not look at disciplines separately.
3. Timing. Do you finish 75 questions in about 85 minutes with 5 minutes to spare?
4. Guess rate. Mark guesses in your log. If you guessed on more than one question in five, your real score is lower than it looks.
5. Stability. Are the last three scores within five points of each other? A wide spread signals unstable knowledge.

Expected item counts by discipline

The official counts help you think about margin by discipline. These are the blueprint figures, and the 60% line applied to each is again arithmetic only.

The point of the table is not that you need 27 in medicine. It is that a weak discipline matters. A candidate who scores 40% in surgery would need to make up 6 items elsewhere. Our blueprint explained guide shows the subsection counts behind these totals.

How multiple-choice licensing exams are commonly scored

This section is general background, not a statement about Kuwait. Large computer-based licensing exams usually take one of three approaches. Some report a simple percentage correct on a fixed form. Some include a share of unscored pretest items, which are new questions being trialled, so the scored total is smaller than the number you see. Some convert raw scores to a scaled score so that candidates who sit different forms are judged against the same standard. Each approach is legitimate, and each changes what "60%" means in practice.

The Kuwait pages do not say which one applies. This is why we avoid telling you to aim for a single raw number. It is also why the best preparation is breadth: if a few of your 150 items are unscored and you do not know which, every item must be treated as if it counts.

Protecting your total across disciplines

A candidate rarely fails because of one hard question. Failure usually comes from a gap in one discipline that repeats across 30 or 40 items. Three habits reduce that risk.

• Set a floor, not just a total. Do not accept a mixed-block score above 70% if one discipline sits below 55%. Fix the weak one first.
• Bank easy marks. Immunisation schedules, drug interactions, ethics principles and screening criteria are factual and repeatable. They are cheap to learn and expensive to miss.
• Do not trade discipline time for perfection in a strong one. Moving from 85% to 90% in medicine gains fewer marks per hour than moving from 55% to 65% in surgery.

Exam-room scoring behaviour

Since the scoring rules are not published, adopt a policy that is safe under any of the plausible rules.

1. Answer every question. No negative marking is stated, so a blank can never help you.
2. Flag and move on. If the software lets you return, flag a question you are unsure of after a sensible attempt. Whether you may go back is not stated, so practise with and without the option.
3. Spend the spare minutes where they pay. In a second pass, revisit flagged items with lengthy stems first. Short fact items rarely improve with extra time.
4. Change an answer only with a reason. Switching on a feeling usually lowers the score.

What not to believe

• "The pass mark is 65% or 70% for GPs." Some sources give higher figures for other Kuwait papers, such as internal medicine at registrar or senior level. The GP paper on the blueprint states 60%. Do not mix the papers.
• "You need exactly 90." Only if the score is a plain percentage of all items, which the blueprint does not say.
• "Everyone scoring above 50 passes." There is no published support for this.
• "The pass mark is lowered if the paper is hard." Equating methods are not described, so nobody outside the Ministry can say.
• "Results arrive on the day." Result timing is not published. Ask, and plan around the answer.

Why we keep repeating the limits

Pass-mark pages attract the most guesswork of any exam topic, and candidates make real decisions from them: when to book, how long to study, whether to retake. A confident but unsourced number can cost you an attempt and six weeks. We would rather tell you plainly that the method is unpublished and give you a practice target with a margin than invent precision the Ministry has not offered.

Questions to put to the Ministry

If you want certainty, ask the Medical Licensing Department in writing. These are the five questions that change your plan the most.

1. Is the 60% applied to the total of all 150 items, or to scored items only?
2. Is there a minimum score in any discipline?
3. How and when are results released, and in what form?
4. How long is a pass valid for licensing purposes?
5. What follows a third unsuccessful attempt?

Keep the replies. If the answers change what we say here, tell us so we can correct the page. For what to do after a result, see the retakes and after-the-exam guide, and for fees and booking see booking and fees.