How often do they update the DSSTs?

[clep3705]

I have helped develop many standardized exams. Exams that are given frequently to a large audience are in a perpetual state of development. The standard practice is to introduce a few new questions that aren't graded. After collecting enough statistics on the new questions, they are discarded, revised (which means they have to be revalidated), or added to the test bank as graded items. Once I was working on an old exam and I said that a question had to be removed from the test bank because it was common knowledge. The psychometrician checked and over 90% of the test takers got it right. It was discarded.

Incorrect answers choices are called distractors. The most common approach to standardized testing is to ensure that the distractors are absolutely, positively incorrect. This is how CLEP and DSST exams are done. Another approach is to have distractors that are true but not the best possible answer. That is often the case on the NCLEX.