I was looking at the pass rates that NCARB publishes for each section of the ARE, and noticed that the statistics include both first time and repeat candidates. This means that the pass rate for first-time takers is almost certainly lower:
Take PPP, which has a pass rate of 62% according to NCARB. This means that only about 40% pass on the first try given the following scenario...
Person 1 - Pass 1st try
Person 2 - Pass 1st try
Person 3 - Fail 1st try, Pass 2nd try
Person 4 - Fail 1st try, Pass 2nd try
Person 5 - Fail 1st try, Pass 2nd try
This equates to 5 passes & 3 fails, 5/8 = 62.5%. I guess if one person fails multiple times it will really skew the percentage downward, but in any case don't these percentages for first time test takers seem low?