What is the NMC CBT?
If you trained as a nurse or midwife outside the UK and want to join the NMC register, you will usually have to pass the Test of Competence. It comes in two parts. The CBT is the first: a multiple-choice exam you sit at a Pearson VUE test centre, available in most countries. The second part is the OSCE, a practical exam taken in the UK.
You can sit them in either order, though most people take the CBT first. This site is about the CBT only.
One sitting, two separate exams
The CBT is 115 questions and you get 3 hours overall. It is easy to think of that as one long paper, but it is really two, and they are timed and passed separately. Fail one and you only resit that one.
Part A
Numeracy
15 questions in 30 minutes
You type in a number rather than picking an option, and you may need to give the unit too. There is a calculator on screen and an erasable note board on the desk. It covers 6 areas:
- Measuring the correct dose2
- Metric units2
- Oral medications4
- Injections3
- Intravenous infusions3
- Fluid balance1
Part B
Clinical
100 questions in 2 hours 30 minutes
Four options, one right answer, and you are asked for the most correct one rather than the only defensible one. Questions are drawn from the seven platforms in Future nurse plus both annexes:
- Platform 1: Being an accountable professional17
- Platform 2: Promoting health and preventing ill health10
- Platform 3: Assessing needs and planning care14
- Platform 4: Providing and evaluating care15
- Platform 5: Leading and managing nursing care and working in teams10
- Platform 6: Improving safety and quality of care10
- Platform 7: Coordinating care10
- Annexe A: Communication and relationship management skills7
- Annexe B: Nursing procedures7
How it is marked
Every question is worth one mark. There is no partial credit and nothing is taken off for a wrong answer, so there is no reason to leave anything blank. Guess rather than skip.
The NMC sets the pass mark statistically and keeps it steady across versions of the test, so it is not published as a fixed percentage. You are told pass or fail for each part and nothing more: no score, no breakdown of where you went wrong. Results come by email within 48 hours, and appear in your Pearson VUE account.
Your field of practice
The test is written for a specific field, and there is a separate blueprint for each. About nine tenths of the content is shared whichever field you are joining, and roughly a tenth of Part B is specific to yours.
- Adult nursingRN1
- Mental health nursingRN3
- Learning disabilities nursingRN5
- Children's nursingRN8
- Midwifery
If you have to resit
You can sit the CBT up to three times on one application, with at least ten days between attempts, and you get a new version of the paper each time. Only the part you failed needs resitting: 30 minutes for Part A, or 2 hours 30 minutes for Part B.
If you use all three attempts without passing, the application closes and there is a six-month wait before you can sit it again on a new one. That gap is the reason it is worth going in prepared rather than treating the first attempt as a practice run.
On the day
Arrive half an hour early with the passport you registered on your NMC account. Personal belongings go in a locker, including your phone and watch, and you cannot get to them during a break. There is no scheduled break: the three hours are yours to pace, and any break you take comes out of them.
You get an erasable note board and a marker, and you must not write on either until the tutorial has finished. Writing beforehand counts as brain dumping and will put your result on hold.
Where our questions come from
We build to the same published documents this page is based on: the test specification, which sets out how many questions come from each area, and the field blueprints, which map those areas onto the Future nurse standards. Our mocks use the NMC's own numbers, so what you practise is weighted the way the real paper is. We do not have access to real exam questions and nobody legitimately does.
Always check the NMC's own guidance for the current rules. This page is a summary, not the source, and we are not affiliated with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Every section, one page each
The NMC publishes how many questions come from each part of the blueprint, so it is possible to know in advance where the marks are. There is a page for each of the 15 sections, with what it covers, what it is worth, where candidates lose marks, and sample questions.