Your results for the EMT exam are posted in your account on the NREMT website on the same day as your exam or shortly thereafter. How you move forward depends on whether you passed:
If you passed: The NREMT will mail you your registration card and paperwork explaining the renewal process that you’ll need to undertake in two years. You won’t receive any other information about how well you did on the exam.
If you didn’t pass: You’ll get a report that details how you did on each section of the exam. The NREMT uses the statements “above passing,” “near passing,” and “below passing” to indicate your performance. “Above passing” and “below passing” are self-explanatory. The term “near passing” is a bit vague but doesn’t imply satisfactory performance. You can assume that you didn’t do especially well in that area.
Whether you pass or fail in your attempt, NREMT doesn’t provide any specific information about how you did on specific exam questions. Remember that the exam evaluates your knowledge base and ability to think about all things EMT. Your exam selected questions from a very large test bank as it evaluated your performance during the testing.
It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll see the same exact question on your next attempt. In other words, knowing the answer to a specific question is of no benefit.
What if you didn’t pass? Not passing the first time isn’t unusual; NREMT’s own research says that one out of every four students has to retake the exam two or more times. The good news is that the vast majority of students who have to do this pass on the second attempt. There are probably a couple of reasons why this happens:
Taking the test once provides better insight regarding how the questions are asked.
Failed students get a brief report telling them which section(s) they didn’t perform well enough in. That information allows them to focus their studies before retaking the exam, often with better results.
Having to take the exam a second time can be depressing. Don’t let it be. Take a deep breath, relax, and look at the exam results. Focus your studying on the sections that you did poorly on first. Then spend some time reviewing the sections that you passed, just to keep that information fresh. Retake the practice exams and evaluate your performance. Rebuild your confidence and go take the exam.
What happens if you don’t pass the second time? Well, you get a third attempt. If you fail that one, you have to engage in at least 24 hours of remedial training and provide documentation of that remediation to the NREMT before scheduling your fourth attempt. The remedial training may be provided by your program; check with your course instructor for details.
At the end of your remediation, the instructor should provide you with a letter stating that you successfully completed 24 hours of remedial training. You submit that to the NREMT when you register for the exam.
In total, you have six opportunities to pass the exam. If you fail the sixth time, you must complete another EMT course before you can apply again.