Reviewing and appealing exams

If you fail an NCA exam, the NCA allows you to review exam materials, free of charge, through the NCA Results Portal, so you can decide if you want to appeal your exam marks. Access to the following documents will be provided to you generally 3-4 weeks after the exam results are released:

  1. Your written exam
  2. The exam questions
  3. Feedback memo from the examiner

You can review them online, at your convenience.

Review

The review session gives you a chance to look at the exam questions and your exam, and then check them against the examiner’s comments in the feedback memo. All examiners re-read failed exams at least twice before giving a failing grade.

You can download the feedback memo from the NCA Results Portal as soon as it becomes available.  Then, when you wish to review the exam questions and your answers and compare them against the feedback memo, click on the link provided in the NCA Results Portal. It will bring you to a proctor who will be with you online as you view your exam questions and answers.  By clicking the link, you agree not to copy, download or share those documents in any way.

You may review your feedback memo from any device.  You do NOT require a secure browser for this review.  However, you will require a second device, such as a cell phone or tablet to communicate with the proctor. This set-up is the same as the one required when you wrote the NCA exam.

Please note: If you decide to appeal your exam result, your appeal must reach the NCA no later than two weeks after your  exam is made available for review.

Appeal

You may appeal the result of your exams only if there are convincing reasons to believe that your failing grade was the result of a major error or injustice.

FEE:  $250.00 CDN, plus taxes, for each NCA exam you are appealing. You must pay in advance. Please review the NCA Refund Policy before you begin.
Deadline: If you want the NCA to re-evaluate your exam, your appeal must reach the NCA within two weeks of your exam being made available to you for review.

How to appeal

  1. From your account in the NCA portal, select the “My Course Info” tab.
  2. Click on the heading “Exam History”.
  3. Select the green “Appeal” button beside the exam you wish to appeal.

Provide evidence
You must submit a separate letter (in PDF format only) where you set out specific facts and evidence that show the examiner made a major error when they gave you a failing grade. If you have documents that support your argument, you should send them to us with the PDF letter. To ensure anonymity, do not include your name in your letter of appeal. Send us only your NCA file number.

What counts as evidence?
As one example, you could say that the examiner made a major error if the failure memo acknowledges you made a certain correct point in one of your answers, but you did not actually receive credit for it. Not all errors deserve a review, and you need to give specifics about the errors that the examiner made. Therefore, it is not enough just to say:

  1. a significant error has occurred
  2. you believe the examiner has not fully justified the grade
  3. you do not understand or are not satisfied with how the grade was determined

Hardship is not evidence
Do not include in your appeal any issues that are not directly related to the fairness of the evaluation itself. Such issues include:

  • being close to a passing grade and deserving or needing additional marks
  • personal or financial hardship in your life

Only your exam answers count
The NCA re-evaluates your exam based on what you wrote at the time of your exam. Do not appeal by outlining your knowledge, giving more explanations beyond what you wrote on your exam, or telling us about your studies and experience. These explanations will not help you in your appeal. If your exam appeal does not meet the NCA’s requirements, or your grounds for appeal are not related to the fairness of the evaluation, we will not accept it.

Process for re-evaluation
If the NCA accepts your appeal, we send the examiner’s original comments and your exam booklets to another examiner for re-evaluation and further comments. This process can take about two to four weeks. The NCA may also send your appeal to the original examiner for his or her opinion.