The written examination of January 11, 1952 was taken by 462 candidates, a larger number of candidates than on any previous occasion. A sample of the total number was selected for statistical analysis, the sample being made up of the grades earned by 284 candidates who by July 1, 1952 had stood the oral examination and could therefore be classified as having passed or failed the over-all examination. Two additional candidates who appeared for oral examination were given a "condition" in "Growth and Development"; the grades earned by these candidates are not included in the analysis. Of the total of 286 candidates the final results show: passed, 238; failed, 46; conditioned, 2.
The examination was divided into five sections, designated as A, B, C, D and E. Section A was composed of 100 false and true statements. All of these questions had been asked in previous Board examinations and all had been answered correctly by from two-thirds to three-fourths of the candidates. They were so selected to conform with the opinion of the Committee that the purpose of its examination is to discover the poorly qualified candidates and not to assign rank-order preference to the best qualified candidates.
Section B was designed to test the candidate's knowledge of infant feeding. Twenty questions, answerable by "yes" or "no," were presented in connection with three feeding formulas to be assessed by the candidate. The questions of both sections, A and B, offered the candidate only two choices (false or true; yes or no); a correct answer to any question was therefore assigned one-half of a grading point and a perfect score on Sections A and B would have been 60.