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Medical exams, 15 content areas

PANCE exam guide

Study the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination by organ system, task area, and official blueprint weight.

Follows the 2025 PANCE content blueprint, from 1 Jan 2025

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Go deeper with the interactive blueprint navigator.

The blueprint planner shows both PANCE dimensions and turns the official category weights into a weekly time budget.

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Overview

What PANCE covers.

The Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) is the certification exam physician assistant graduates take to become certified. It samples clinical knowledge across fifteen organ-system and professional content areas, each with a published blueprint weight, crossed with task areas such as forming the most likely diagnosis and selecting pharmaceutical therapy.

Because the blueprint publishes exact percentages, the PANCE rewards proportional studying: high-weight systems such as cardiovascular and pulmonary medicine deserve more scheduled review time than low-weight areas. Arcade Academy's blueprint navigator turns those percentages into an exact weekly time allocation, and every content area below links the topics students most often review.

Arcade Academy is an independent study workspace. Use the official NCCPA blueprint as the authoritative statement of exam content, and treat everything here as exam preparation support rather than medical guidance.

At a glance

Questions
300 multiple-choice questions
Structure
5 blocks of 60 questions
Timing
60 minutes per block, 45 minutes of total break time
Delivery
Computer-based at Pearson VUE test centers
Score range
Scaled 200 to 800; passing score 350
Governing body
National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA)
Who takes it
Physician assistant students and graduates preparing for initial NCCPA certification.

Scoring

The PANCE reports a scaled score from 200 to 800, and the passing standard is a scaled score of 350. Only scored questions count toward the result; unscored pilot questions are mixed in without being identified.

Exam structure

Content areas

PANCE covers 15 content areas. Open one for its topics, published weighting, and section-specific study tips.

Study strategies

How to work through this exam.

These strategies follow from the exam's own structure. Adapt them to the time you actually have each week.

  • Allocate weekly study minutes proportionally to blueprint weights; the built-in blueprint navigator computes exact splits for your available time.
  • Cross every content area with the task dimension: for each disease, rehearse the presentation, the diagnostic study, the intervention, and the drug, because the PANCE samples all four.
  • Front-load spaced-repetition flashcards early so intervals lengthen before exam day instead of piling reviews into the final weeks.
  • Use active-recall games for recognition-speed topics such as murmurs, rashes, and ECG patterns.
  • Track below-70% topics in your progress view weekly and route the next day's first session at your weakest system.
  • Simulate full 60-question blocks under time pressure at least a few times to build stamina for the five-block format.

Common questions

PANCE questions students ask.

How is the PANCE structured?

The PANCE contains 300 multiple-choice questions delivered in five blocks of 60 questions, with 60 minutes per block and 45 minutes of total break time to divide between blocks.

What score do I need to pass the PANCE?

The PANCE reports scaled scores from 200 to 800, and the passing standard is 350. The NCCPA publishes current scoring policies, so confirm details there before your exam window.

Which PANCE content areas carry the most weight?

The cardiovascular system is weighted highest at 11%, followed by pulmonary at 9%, with gastrointestinal/nutrition and musculoskeletal at 8% each. Weighting your study time to match the blueprint is one of the highest-leverage planning moves.

How should I split study time across systems?

A proportional plan works well: multiply your weekly available minutes by each content area's blueprint percentage. Arcade Academy's blueprint navigator performs that allocation exactly and updates as your available time changes.

Is Arcade Academy affiliated with the NCCPA?

No. Arcade Academy is an independent educational resource, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NCCPA, and does not provide medical advice. Use official NCCPA publications as the authoritative source on the exam itself.

Before you build the schedule

Exam structures change. Confirm the current format, eligibility, and policies with National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) before you commit to a study plan.

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Guide structure last checked against official sources on August 30, 2026.

Markdown version of this guide for citation, offline reading, and language models.

Study PANCE with a plan you can keep.

Create your Arcade Academy workspace to pair this structure with spaced-repetition flashcards, resources, notes, and progress you can review.

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