To Presbytery Committees Charged with Oversight of Candidates and Inquirers:
The Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations for Candidates (PCC) is aware of the results of the Bible Content Examination (BCE) administered on Friday, September 4. Members of the committee have followed closely and take very seriously responses to the official announcement released by Tim Cargal, Assistant Stated Clerk for Preparation for Ministry and staff support person to the PCC, as well as concerns expressed through other means.
Much of the concern seems to revolve around the decision made last March at the annual meeting of the PCC to retire all questions from previously published exams. The reason for this decision was that through research and observation we became concerned that what was being tested was a person’s ability to study old exams, not their general knowledge of the content of the Bible. To bring the Bible Content Exam back to its original purpose, this decision was made and announced through a variety of outlets. The purpose of the announcement was to give the candidates and inquirers who were preparing to take the exam a chance to adjust their preparation.
As we received the results of this administration of the BCE we became concerned by the very low pass rate. For that reason, we took steps to reevaluate the makeup and difficulty of this particular exam and found it to be in line with our standards for previous exams. In fact, the vast majority of the questions (83 of 88) came from previous, but unpublished, Bible Content Exams. With this information, we determined that while the results of this particular exam were not what we expected or were used to seeing, the exam itself was a fair test of a candidate’s knowledge of Biblical content. It is important to keep in mind the BCE is not a standardized test like the SAT, ACT, or GRE. Given the testing population size each year for the BCE, developing a truly “standardized exam” or “standardizing the results” after the administration simply is not possible.
The PCC remains committed to developing Bible Content Exams that include questions from previous administrations as a means of working toward consistency of overall difficulty, even while recognizing that total consistency cannot be achieved. It also remains committed to the previously announced plan to no longer use questions that are publicly available in order to encourage studying the Bible rather than past tests. We believe that as inquirers and candidates adjust their preparation accordingly—as they have adjusted to the many other changes in the exams in recent years—“Satisfactory”-rates on the BCE will return to levels more consistent with past performance. But even more importantly, our candidates for the ministry of Word and Sacrament will be more deeply grounded in the Scriptures that are foundational to our faith and will be able to use that knowledge to guide the churches to which they are called to grow in the grace of our Lord (1 Peter 1).
Because of Christ,
Rev. Steve Ranney, D.Min.
Moderator, Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations for Candidates
