Editorial standards

Where questions come from

• Published syllabi. Questions are written against the conducting body's own syllabus: PMDC for MDCAT, the relevant university for its entry test, the commission's advertised scheme for a job paper.
• Released past papers. Where a question came off a real paper, the page says which paper and which year. That line is only shown when the source is recorded, and it is never inferred.
• Contributing teachers and students. A large part of the bank is sent in by people preparing for or teaching these papers.
• Not from other MCQ sites. We do not scrape competitors. Every question is checked against the whole bank by fingerprint before import, so the same MCQ cannot enter twice under different wording.

Who writes what

We attribute at two levels, and the level shown on a page is decided by what is actually recorded against that question, not chosen by hand.

Written and checked by a named person

The general, computing and engineering subjects are written and checked by Zahid Hussain, MS Computer Science (Virtual University of Pakistan). Chemistry, Physics and Biology are written and checked by Maryam Kashif, M.Phil Chemistry (Bahauddin Zakariya University). Current affairs, Pak Studies, Political Science, International Relations and Sociology are written and checked by Samna Ashraf, Master of Mass Communication (Virtual University of Pakistan). Their names appear at the bottom of those pages, and the page's structured data names them as the author. The byline shows a degree only on the subjects that degree actually covers; elsewhere it credits the same person by role, because writing a question and being qualified in its subject are two different claims.

Submitted by a contributor, published by the editorial team

The MBBS and BDS subjects: Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology and the dental papers. A contributor working in that field sends the question and the explanation; the editorial team checks the format, the duplicate fingerprint and the answer key before publishing. These pages are attributed to TestUstad, not to an individual, because no individual has agreed to stand behind them personally.

We never publish a byline for a person who did not work on the question. An invented author would make every real one worthless.

What we can and cannot claim right now

132,293 questions are published across 43 subjects.All published questions are reviewed by our editorial team for explanations, duplications, and correctness before making them live.

Why the whole bank appeared at once

TestUstad launched with a large question bank already in place rather than growing one in public. That was deliberate. We spent months writing, collecting and checking questions before the site went live, because a preparation site with a handful of MCQs in each subject is of no use to a student sitting a paper in six weeks. They need the whole chapter, not a sample of it.

So the publication dates on these pages record when the bank was released, not how long the work took. The questions existed, and were being checked, well before the domain did.

Every answer has an explanation

A question cannot be published without a written explanation. It is enforced in the database, not by habit. A key tells you that you were wrong; an explanation is the only part that stops the same mistake coming back on the paper.

How we handle current affairs

Current affairs questions go stale in a way that Physics does not. Every question page shows when it was last updated, and that date reflects a real edit. We never bump it to look fresh. If a question has been overtaken by events, report it and we will fix or retire it.

Corrections

Every question page has a Report an error link. A reported wrong answer goes to the front of the queue, ahead of new content.

Send corrections to support@testustad.com or through the contact page. Telling us which question and what the right answer should be gets it fixed fastest.

Independence

TestUstad is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any examination body, university, board or commission. Advertisers have no say in what is published, and no advertiser has ever asked for a change to a question. See the disclaimer for the limits of what anything here is worth.