The OIIQ exam pass mark: there is no fixed number

The most repeated figure about the OIIQ examination is a pass mark. Whichever number you have been told, it is probably wrong — not because the number is false, but because there is no fixed pass mark to know.

The pass mark is set after the exam, not before

The OIIQ determines the pass mark once the examination has taken place. The work is done by a group of around twenty nurses of varied backgrounds, supervised by a specialist in measurement and evaluation. The reason is a question of fairness rather than of secrecy. Two sittings are never exactly equal in difficulty, and a threshold fixed in advance would reward whoever happened to sit the easier one. Setting it afterwards, against the examination actually administered, is what makes results comparable from one session to the next. The practical consequence for a candidate: no number circulating before the exam is authoritative, including the ones on preparation sites.

What recent sittings came to

Published by the OIIQ: March 2026: 65% September 2025: 63% March 2025: 63% These are the results of that process for those sittings. They are not a rule, and nothing guarantees the next one lands in the same range.

Pass rates are a different figure, and often misquoted

Two different rates are published for a single sitting: the overall rate, and the rate among candidates sitting for the first time. The second is always higher, and confusing them is how you end up with two incompatible numbers for the same exam. For March 2026 the OIIQ reported 90% overall and 92% among first-time candidates. For September 2025, 88% overall.

What this means for your preparation

Very little, and that is the point. A pass mark you cannot know in advance is a pass mark you cannot aim at. Targeting "65%" on your practice results is meaningless: your practice scores are not on the same scale as an exam whose threshold is set afterwards. What is worth watching is the shape of your errors, not their count. The blueprint puts 48.7% of the exam on judgement and decision and 35.3% on analysis — barely 17.2% on knowledge. A domain where you fail repeatedly matters more than a percentage that has no fixed threshold to be measured against.

The only authoritative source

For the pass mark and the results of a given sitting, the OIIQ publishes them itself. Any other source, this page included, is reporting at second hand.