What's a Passing Score on the NHRA Nursing Licensing? (And How to Get There)
In short
NHRA's licensure-examination booklet puts the pass mark for nursing at 50%. Prometric's NHRA page still shows 60%. Both are official, both are current, and they disagree. NHRA also publishes no question count, so neither figure converts into a number of answers you can count toward. Prepare to clear 60%, and confirm the mark with NHRA before you sit.
The passing score
NHRA's licensure-examination booklet sets the bar at 50% for nursing, midwifery and allied health professions, and reserves 60% for every other profession. Prometric's NHRA page still carries a blanket 60% for all Bahrain licensure exams. Nobody has reconciled them publicly. So what you need is a range: somewhere between 50% and 60%, depending on which document governs your sitting.
Ten percentage points is a wide gap to be uncertain about, and it only moves in one direction for you. Prepare for 60%. If the 50% figure is the one that applies, you walk in with margin; if it is 60%, you are not caught short. Then remove the uncertainty for your own case. NHRA publishes licensure@nhra.bh and nursing@nhra.bh on its licensure exams page; email either and ask which mark applies to the NHRA nursing licensing exam you are booked for.
The percentage will not tell you how many answers to get right, either. Neither NHRA nor Prometric publishes a question count for this exam, so there is no arithmetic that turns 50% or 60% into "get this many right". Counts between roughly 100 and 150 circulate on prep sites, with no source attached to any of them and no agreement between them.
What that means for how you study
At 60% you can be wrong on two fifths of the paper and still pass, which turns the whole problem into where those two fifths land.
That decision would normally come off an official blueprint. NHRA does not publish one — no content outline, no domain weights. What Only Ever publishes instead is a study-hour allocation across the four domains of the syllabus, built from NHRA's Scope of Nursing and Midwifery Practice and a standard nursing curriculum. It is our estimate of where the work sits, not a statement of how the paper is weighted, and you should read every number below in that light.
| Domain | Topics | Study hours | Hours per topic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult Nursing | 5 | 60 | 12 |
| Maternal-Child Nursing | 5 | 45 | 9 |
| Nursing Fundamentals | 4 | 30 | 7.5 |
| Nursing Management and Leadership | 6 | 15 | 2.5 |
That is 150 hours across 20 topics. Only Ever's plan spreads them over 21 weeks, which comes to roughly seven hours a week. One scheduling trap worth knowing: the NHRA eligibility code you book with is valid for four months, or about 17 weeks, so on a 21-week plan you request it partway through rather than on day one.
Adult Nursing takes 60 of the 150 hours, or 40% of the plan — medical, surgical, critical care, community and mental health nursing between them. If the paper roughly follows the same shape, going blank across Adult Nursing alone would leave you at 60% with every other question correct. That is exactly the higher of the two possible pass marks.
The other end of the table is where the cheap hours are. Nursing Management and Leadership carries six topics on 15 hours, two and a half hours each. That is the thinnest allocation in the plan, and one of those six topics is NHRA's own Nursing Scope of Practice, licensing and professional conduct for Bahrain. It is also the only domain in the plan written specifically around Bahrain.
To turn a practice result into next week's plan:
Sit a full timed set →
score it domain by domain →
multiply each domain's error rate by that domain's share of the plan →
give next week's hours to whichever product comes out largest.
Four questions tell you whether you are near the line without a scored paper in front of you. Can you work out a drug dose without hesitating? Can you say what the common drug classes do once they are in the body? A patient deteriorates after surgery — what do you act on first? Can you talk through pregnancy trimester by trimester, then the stages of labor in order? Any no there tells you which topic to open tonight.
Pick your target off the higher of the two figures and add a margin of your own choosing. We suggest ten points, which puts your practice target at 70% before you book.
Common questions
What is the passing score for the NHRA nursing exam? It depends which official document governs your sitting, and the two do not agree: 50% in NHRA's licensure-examination booklet for nursing, midwifery and allied health, against 60% on Prometric's NHRA page for every Bahrain licensure exam. Work to the higher of the two and get NHRA to confirm yours in writing.
Which figure should I trust, 50% or 60%? Both are official, so neither can be dismissed. The practical answer is to prepare for 60% and get NHRA to confirm your case in writing. The booklet is the source that names nursing specifically; the Prometric page is a blanket figure for all Bahrain licensure exams.
How many questions do I need to get right? There is no way to say. Neither NHRA nor Prometric publishes a question count, so a percentage cannot be converted into a target number of correct answers.
Do the domain percentages come from NHRA? No. NHRA publishes no blueprint and no weights. These four domains and their shares are our own study-hour allocation. We scoped them from a standard nursing curriculum and from NHRA's Scope of Nursing and Midwifery Practice. Use them as a starting point, then weight your hours by where you are shakiest.
How should I allocate my study time? Start from the 150-hour split — 60 hours on Adult Nursing, 45 on Maternal-Child, 30 on Fundamentals, 15 on Management and Leadership — then move hours toward whatever your practice scores say is weak.
What if I do not pass? Four consecutive attempts are allowed. The clock on them runs three years from your first sitting, and a pass, once earned, stays good for five.
Only Ever's practice questions and study guides for this exam are free, including the AI-generated sets other providers charge for. The score you can move week to week is the one your own practice sets give you, broken down by domain. Try the free practice questions, score them by domain, and let the gap between your weakest domain and 70% decide what you open next.