ABRET Pass Rates: A Look Back

For those of us working in the field we have two Primary Goals:

• Excellent Patient Care and
• To become Registered in the testing modality that we perform.

To help you meet the 2nd goal – Let’s take a look back at the Pass Rate for the EEG board exam.

The hope is that if we better understand how others have done we will in turn help those that have not yet taken it.

Learning from others is always the best way to move ourselves forward.

A point to note – in 2018 ABRET started with the current 1 part exam:

2018 – 79%

2019 – 85%

2020 – 86%

2021 – 71%

2022 – 77%

2023 – 49%

2024 – 53%

2025 – 56%

The exact values vary slightly by pathway and reporting format, but the overall trend is very clear.

Some Key Insights & Trends

1) Two distinct eras: pre-2022 vs post-2022

• 2018–2021: relatively stable and high pass rates (71–86%)
• 2023–2025: major drop 

This is not gradual—it’s a sharp and persistent decline.

2) Sharp drop between 2022 → 2023

• ABRET itself notes a ~27 percentage point drop in one year
• That’s unusually large for certification exams

3) Current “new normal” ≈ ~50–56% pass rate

• 2025 sits at 56% overall
• This suggests the drop is persistent, not a one-year anomaly

4) The exam itself didn’t change

• Same exam forms used across 2022–2025
• Statistically comparable exams

 So the drop is likely due to:

• Candidate preparation differences
• Training variability
• Testing conditions (see next point)

5) Testing location impact (*this is important)

• Higher pass rates at in-person Prometric centers
• Lower with remote proctoring

This suggests:

• Environment, stress, or technical issues may affect outcomes

6) Content difficulty

Lowest-performing areas:

• Data integrity
• Analysis

 This suggests:

• The exam is more cognitively demanding than procedural
• Weakness is in interpretation, not setup skills

What All this means?

For candidates:

• Passing requires strong interpretation skills, not just technical EEG setup
• Formal education pathways can have a measurable advantage
• Testing environment choice matters

So now that we know we can move forward to improve:

• There are now more free resources available to candidates than ever before – this site in particular!
• Be sure not to take the exam before you have performed VERY WELL on practice tests
• Utilizing tutoring for weaker areas that require more understanding
• And remember:  Testing environment matters!  
• Test at a Testing Center

For more Tips and Resources – Search thru the more than 6 years worth of posts on this site and don’t forget to visit the Marketplace for study guides and notecards.

Let’s Stay Curious and Grow What We Know

Resources: ABRET