The new curriculum and syllabus will clearly drive forward the formative usage of the DRCOG in combination with the changes to GP training brought in under the Modernising Medical Careers initiative. Key to this will be ‘blueprinting’ of the examination (Figure 1). This is a method of checking that each examination question is categorised by what it aims to test, and the examination blueprint thus provides an overall picture of the entire examination's coverage. The aim is to ensure that the examination is testing as much of the syllabus as possible, with minimal duplication of testing the same domain of knowledge in the different question types.

Standard setting

Since April 2006, the DRCOG examination has had a pass mark that has been standard set. Standard setting is an acknowledgement that some multiple choice, single best answer (‘best of five’) and extended matching format questions are more difficult than others. Therefore, a different pass mark is used for each examination, depending on the overall difficulty of that examination. Pass marks will thus fluctuate and the RCOG has no fixed or predetermined quota of candidates that it aims to pass or fail. A panel of representative consultants and GPs implements the standard setting procedures for the DRCOG examination.