United States
Hong KongWhat is the NASCLA pass rate?
There is no published pass rate. NASCLA does not publish one and PSI does not release per-examination performance data, so any figure quoted anywhere is an estimate rather than a fact.
Nobody publishes one.
That is the honest answer and it is not the answer most pages give you.
Why there is no figure
NASCLA accredits the examination and does not publish performance statistics. PSI administers it and does not release per-examination data.
So there is no authoritative source, and there is no way for anyone outside those organizations to know.
If a page tells you the NASCLA pass rate is 45 percent, or 60, or any other number, it has been estimated by whoever wrote the page. Some of those estimates may be reasonable. None of them is data, and none is presented as an estimate.
What is published instead
The standard you are marked against: 81 correct of the 115 scored questions.
That is more useful than a pass rate anyway. A pass rate describes other people; the cut describes what you have to do.
How to think about difficulty without one
Look at the structure. Five and a half hours, 125 questions, twelve categories, open book with two dozen references.
The difficulty is navigational and it is largely under your control. A candidate with tabbed books and practiced lookups has a very different experience from one who bought the books the week before.
Why we will not give you a number
Because we do not have one, and inventing one to fill a gap on a page is how the figures you have seen elsewhere came to exist.
Common questions
What is the NASCLA exam pass rate?
There is no published figure. NASCLA does not publish one and PSI does not release per-examination data.
Why do other sites quote a pass rate?
Because they have estimated one. None of those figures comes from an authoritative source.
What is published instead?
The pass mark: 81 correct out of the 115 scored questions.
Is the exam hard?
The difficulty is largely navigational, and it is under your control. Tabbed books and practiced lookups change the experience completely.
Should I trust a quoted pass rate?
Treat it as somebody's guess, and treat the rest of that page with the same caution.