How many raw points a 65 costs on the Physical Setting: Chemistry Regents

The movement

Physical Setting: Chemistry has held its line

The Physical Setting: Chemistry line is close to flat. The first three sittings on record charged 59.2% of the paper for a 65, the last three 58.8% — a gap of 0.4 points of the exam over 30 sittings. Peak: June 2014, 51/85 (60%). Trough: January 2020, 49/85 (57.6%) — 2.4 points apart. One of the steadier exams in the set. Both extremes are old; recent sittings cluster on the 58.8% median.

The paper has been worth 85 raw points at every sitting, 2014 through 2026, so the raw column below compares directly across the whole record.

Sat in January, June, August: 9 in January, 11 in June, 10 in August. In August 2026 the 65 line sat at 50 and the 85 line at 75: 25 marks apart, 29.4 points of the paper — the stretch an Advanced Regents average is won on. Sharpest single move: June 2014 to June 2015, 1.2 points in one step, in the student’s favour. 0 of the last 6 sat above the 58.8% median — every recent sitting came in under it.

Two chemistry Regents are running at once

Before reading anything else on this page, check which chemistry exam your child is sitting. New York is running Physical Setting: Chemistry alongside its successor, Physical Science: Chemistry, and the State’s implementation schedule sets June 2027 as the last administration of the older one. The two have different papers, different totals and different conversion charts, and the raw score ranges overlap, so nothing rejects a figure entered against the wrong exam — it simply returns a grade that is not your child’s. This series covers the older exam only. It is also one of the most demanding lines on the whole site: a 65 here has always taken well over half the paper, on a paper that has stayed at 85 marks throughout.

The overlap period is not an administrative detail, it is the single largest source of error in anything a family reads about this exam right now. For four administrations the old exam and its successor run side by side, which means search results, tutoring materials and well-meaning advice from a parent a year ahead can all be about the other exam. The check takes a second and it is worth doing every time: the exam title printed on the paper, not the word chemistry.

On the content side, the reason this line sits so high is structural rather than a matter of the questions being unusually cruel. This paper carries a large section that is answered directly from the reference tables every candidate is given, which lifts the raw marks a prepared student can be expected to collect — and the conversion is written against what candidates actually collected. A chart that expects most of a paper is a chart written for an exam where most of the paper is reachable. The practical consequence for revision is that fluency with the reference tables is not a supplementary skill on this subject, it is a large fraction of the available marks.

This exam has an end date already on the books: NYSED's implementation schedule sets the last Physical Setting: Chemistry administration for June 2027, with Physical Science: Chemistry running alongside it until then. The line below is therefore a record of what has been sat so far, not a closed archive — expect one or two more points on it.

Every sitting

The 30 Physical Setting: Chemistry administrations on record

One row per published chart, newest first, with the NYSED file behind each one. Every published sitting carries a 65 line, so none has been dropped. June 2020, August 2020, January 2021, August 2021, January 2022 are absent because no exam was held.

Want the conversion table itself — every raw score against its scale score for Physical Setting: Chemistry? That is a different question and it has its own page: the Physical Setting: Chemistry score calculator converts a raw score you already have. This page answers the one you ask before the exam.

What to do with it

Setting a Physical Setting: Chemistry target for the year ahead

Physical Setting: Chemistry currently asks for the largest share of its paper of the 9 exams here. The line barely moves, so one target holds year to year: about 50 of 85, the recent average of 58.8%. That is a diploma floor, not a goal: 75 marks bought an 85 in August 2026 (88.2%), and that is the line a transcript is read on.

It is a band, not a forecast: across 30 sittings the 65 line on Physical Setting: Chemistry has never left 57.6–60% of the paper, and aiming at the top of that band survives a hard year instead of being surprised by one.

Physical Setting: Chemistry against the other exams

58.8% places Physical Setting: Chemistry 1 of 9. Its immediate neighbours on that scale:

All 9 exams, side by side →