Virginia July 2015 Bar Exam Hangout Forum

[anon sequitur]

Have you all picked out your suits yet?

j/k. Wanted to start this up to gripe about VA not being a 50% MBE state and maybe trade tips on the VA specific material.

[IamIn]

I have no idea how I am going to manage the VA stuff and essays in general...They test like hundreds of subjects! I still haven't done any of the graded essays; I'm just terrified of them.

[anon sequitur]

me too, I'm just kind of pretending the essays don't exist so far. I know the strategy of killing the MBE for an auto-pass on the essays isn't supposed to work for Virginia since it's 40/60 weighted, but I think I might go for that anyway. Maybe in a couple weeks I'll start to feel differently, but for now, I'm just trying to learn as much MBE material as possible.

[anon sequitur]

Just learned that promissory estoppel is not an acceptable substitute for consideration in Virginia. For some reason this makes me sad.

[IamIn]

Just learned that promissory estoppel is not an acceptable substitute for consideration in Virginia. For some reason this makes me sad.

It is crazy and kind of cruel. Overall, however, I'm happy VA doesn't have its own crazy rules for everything. At least in the law of contracts.

[GULCPerson]

Just learned that promissory estoppel is not an acceptable substitute for consideration in Virginia. For some reason this makes me sad.

It is crazy and kind of cruel. Overall, however, I'm happy VA doesn't have its own crazy rules for everything. At least in the law of contracts.

It's a nice break when we get a subject that doesn't deviate too much from federal. VA evidence distinctions are making my head spin right now.

[IamIn]

Just learned that promissory estoppel is not an acceptable substitute for consideration in Virginia. For some reason this makes me sad.

It is crazy and kind of cruel. Overall, however, I'm happy VA doesn't have its own crazy rules for everything. At least in the law of contracts.

It's a nice break when we get a subject that doesn't deviate too much from federal. VA evidence distinctions are making my head spin right now.

are the evidence lectures (both MBE and VA) any good? I skipped torts, and so far I don't think it affected me too much..

[3|ink]

I haven't seen an independent lecture for VA evidence. My lecture was MBE, but it pointed out VA distinctions.

Are we talking about Barbri?

[3|ink]

Also, I'm not even going to bother with practice essays until late June/early July. I think it's a waste to do them before I have the subjects committed to memory, and it's stupid to memorize shit this early in the game. I think the best strategy right now is to get all of the substantive lectures out of the way and outlined (condensed outlines obviously). But I've never taken the bar before so maybe I'm doing it wrong.

[GULCPerson]

I haven't seen an independent lecture for VA evidence. My lecture was MBE, but it pointed out VA distinctions.

Are we talking about Barbri?

Nah, I think IamIn and I are both doing Themis.

are the evidence lectures (both MBE and VA) any good? I skipped torts, and so far I don't think it affected me too much..

I found the MBE lectures pretty tedious, but the professor was okay, I think it's just the material (and maybe the fact that I took evidence in school). The Distinctions lectures were more helpful, lots of examples explicitly contrasting FRE and VRE, even though the professor isn't as good. But I'm also finding myself to be very lecture dependent, I can only read those outlines for about 5 pages before my eyes glaze over.

[jas31]

Has anyone lost it yet? How are we suppose to remember all this?

[GULCPerson]

Has anyone lost it yet? How are we suppose to remember all this?

Pretty sure I started the process of losing my mind today. Themis assigned me the lightest workload in two weeks, but instead of enjoying an evening off or trying to get ahead (catch back up, really) I stared skeptically at the schedule, watched 10 hours of television, and then went back to sleep. Definitely losing the psychological battle here.

[anon sequitur]

Just "registered" my laptop for the bar exam, I think. That just means you bought their stupid program for $150 and downloaded it? They don't care if you actually do the practice test right now, do they?

[GULCPerson]

Just "registered" my laptop for the bar exam, I think. That just means you bought their stupid program for $150 and downloaded it? They don't care if you actually do the practice test right now, do they?

Nah, the practice test is just for your peace of mind.

[3|ink]

I know you guys are doing themis, but have you gone over Virginia Civil Procedure yet? Good lord.

I had it earlier this week and I just got done making 175 flashcards.

[anon sequitur]

no, haven't, definitely not looking forward to it. This may be dumb, but I'm planning not to do anything except MBE until July.

[3|ink]

no, haven't, definitely not looking forward to it. This may be dumb, but I'm planning not to do anything except MBE until July.

Sounds risky. VA is a 40% MBE/60% essay state, right? Or is it the other way around?

[GULCPerson]

no, haven't, definitely not looking forward to it. This may be dumb, but I'm planning not to do anything except MBE until July.

Sounds risky. VA is a 40% MBE/60% essay state, right? Or is it the other way around?

No, that's right. Definitely seems risky, although if you know the MBE stuff you can probably stumble your way to a reasonable score on any essays that are also on MBE topics (which is a good number of them, there are almost always essays on civ pro, real property, crim, and sales/Ks) even if you knew very little state law.

[BelugaWhale]

Can someone explain how it's graded beyond the 40%MBE and 60% essay? I know 140 is passing score but unclear how they arrive at whatever the final score is. And the VBBE website explanation isn't helping.

[GULCPerson]

Can someone explain how it's graded beyond the 40%MBE and 60% essay? I know 140 is passing score but unclear how they arrive at whatever the final score is. And the VBBE website explanation isn't helping.

The MBE is 200 questions, but only 190 of them are scored. Each is worth 1 point, and then they scale all the scores upward, into a scale that's out of 200. So if you actually answered 120/200 correct (10 of those don't count, but we won't know which 10), your raw score might be something like a 135.4 (that was the July 2012 raw-> scaled rate, according to Themis).

There are 9 essays worth 10 points each, and 10 short answer worth 1 point each, for an Essay total of 100 points. So your raw score is X/100, then again it's scaled to a score of Y/200.

So your scaled essay total (out of 200) is worth 60% of your grade, and your scaled MBE total (out of 200) is worth 40%.

(.40 * MBE) + (.60 * Essay) >= 140

Then you pass. Is that more clear?

[jas31]

Can someone explain how it's graded beyond the 40%MBE and 60% essay? I know 140 is passing score but unclear how they arrive at whatever the final score is. And the VBBE website explanation isn't helping.

The MBE is 200 questions, but only 190 of them are scored. Each is worth 1 point, and then they scale all the scores upward, into a scale that's out of 200. So if you actually answered 120/200 correct (10 of those don't count, but we won't know which 10), your raw score might be something like a 135.4 (that was the July 2012 raw-> scaled rate, according to Themis).

There are 9 essays worth 10 points each, and 10 short answer worth 1 point each, for an Essay total of 100 points. So your raw score is X/100, then again it's scaled to a score of Y/200.

So your scaled essay total (out of 200) is worth 60% of your grade, and your scaled MBE total (out of 200) is worth 40%.

(.40 * MBE) + (.60 * Essay) >= 140

Then you pass. Is that more clear?

So they scale up the essay too to be in line with the MBE, right? So, if you got a 6 on each essay section, that'd be a 120, then scaled up by the MBE curve?

[GULCPerson]

Can someone explain how it's graded beyond the 40%MBE and 60% essay? I know 140 is passing score but unclear how they arrive at whatever the final score is. And the VBBE website explanation isn't helping.

The MBE is 200 questions, but only 190 of them are scored. Each is worth 1 point, and then they scale all the scores upward, into a scale that's out of 200. So if you actually answered 120/200 correct (10 of those don't count, but we won't know which 10), your raw score might be something like a 135.4 (that was the July 2012 raw-> scaled rate, according to Themis).

There are 9 essays worth 10 points each, and 10 short answer worth 1 point each, for an Essay total of 100 points. So your raw score is X/100, then again it's scaled to a score of Y/200.

So your scaled essay total (out of 200) is worth 60% of your grade, and your scaled MBE total (out of 200) is worth 40%.

(.40 * MBE) + (.60 * Essay) >= 140

Then you pass. Is that more clear?

So they scale up the essay too to be in line with the MBE, right? So, if you got a 6 on each essay section, that'd be a 120, then scaled up by the MBE curve?

The essay is scaled so that the average (mean) scaled essay score is equal to the average scaled MBE score. Doesn't necessarily mean they both get the same amount of points added though. (I think. Not 100% sure on this and the math is not my strong suit)

[BelugaWhale]

Ok, thanks for the replies.

1) So is it correct to say the scaled scores for essay +mbe will always be higher than raw scores?

2) And for essay, since it's 100 pts total but scaled to 200 pts, it would be wrong to just double the raw pts right? As in, say I get a 60/100 on essay. My final essay score would not be just 60*2=120 because of scaling right? So a 60/100=120 raw score may be 135 scaled essay right?

3) Also, what's a safe raw score to shoot for on mbe and essay? Is 60% correct on mbe (as in raw correct answers) cutting it close as a goal? And same for essay (that is 60/100)?

[GULCPerson]

Ok, thanks for the replies.

1) So is it correct to say the scaled scores for essay +mbe will always be higher than raw scores?

Yes. (technically if the exam was inappropriately easy I guess scaled scores could be equal to raw scores, but they could never be lower and that isn't going to happen).

2) And for essay, since it's 100 pts total but scaled to 200 pts, it would be wrong to just double the raw pts right? As in, say I get a 60/100 on essay. My final essay score would not be just 60*2=120 because of scaling right? So a 60/100=120 raw score may be 135 scaled essay right?

Correct.

3) Also, what's a safe raw score to shoot for on mbe and essay? Is 60% correct on mbe (as in raw correct answers) cutting it close as a goal? And same for essay (that is 60/100)?

Unclear. Themis states that "You’ll need an average of 7/10 on the essays and an average of 65% on the MBE to reliably pass" but that's not a hard and fast rule. If you got a 70% on each, you would pass regardless of what the scaling is this year, so that's probably the only truly safe number (but also unrealistic and unnecessary, because there is always going to be some scaling)

[3|ink]

Man. I dunno how I'd ever average a 7/10 on these essays. Thank god that's not necessary.

65%+ MBE is probably cake though.