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Smiddywesson

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Smiddywesson » Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:08 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
Jbeans wrote:
JoeSeperac wrote:
Jbeans wrote:Hi Joe

Really appreciate your insights on this forum. I just found out that I passed the NY UBE on my second attempt with an overall 270 and MBE score of 136.9. While I note that these are not great scores, they are quite a jump from my first attempt in July 2018, where my overall was 232 and MBE score was a pathetic 105.4.

I am a foreign attorney and graduated from an Australian University. I worked at a 9-7 job throughout bar prep and took only a week off work to study full-time before my first attempt and two weeks off before my second attempt. I used Kaplan and supplemented with Emanuel's Strategies & Tactics. Given that I had limited time to study (maybe 2-3 hours on weekdays and 16 hours per weekend max), I actually expected to fail again. Up to 3 days before the MBE, my practice score was 58%-60%, and I was desperately hoping the essays and MPT would save me.

Could you please help me convert my UBE score of 270 and MBE score of 136.9? I really want to know the extent to which the MEE/MPT helped me pass the exam.

Thank you so much!
Jbeans, congratulations on passing! Based on your scaled MBE score of 136.9, your estimated raw MBE score was about 119/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 68% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 50.9% percentile for the MBE. This means that 49.1% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 136.9 (based on national data for the past 7 years). Based on a total score of 270, your written score was 133.1, which would have placed you in the 41.1% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 58.9% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT). You answered 59% correct in practice based on your practice questions, and I estimate you answered 68% correct on the exam. This is a sizeable difference of 9%. Therefore you over-performed on the exam.

I also would have been worried about your odds of passing based on how much you studied, so you did great on the exam. How many Kaplan and S&T questions were you able to answer in total when you studied for F19?
Joe, thanks so much for this! For F19, I finished all the questions in the Kaplan MBE book (around 1,000 questions there incl. the practice exams) and 300 or so questions from S&T. For S&T, I focused on my weaker subjects. I knew I didn't have time to do as many questions as I liked (ideally a minimum of 1,500), so I made sure that I learnt and memorized the law for every question that I got incorrect.

I read on another thread that you think there might be a correlation between a candidate's MPRE and MBE scores. I did the MPRE in 2016 and scored a 99 after studying for 12 hours over 2 days. Do you have any thoughts on how an MPRE score of 99 correlates to an MBE score of 136.9?
Thanks for the follow-up, and yes, there is a correlation (a strong one in your case). Based on your MPRE score of 99, you answered about 67% correct on the MPRE. According to NCBE, there is a moderately high relationship between MPRE scores and MBE scores (correlation of .58). NCBE also states that MBE scores are a surrogate for total bar exam scores since MBE scores are highly related to total bar exam scores. see http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files ... esting.pdf.
Funny thing about that Testing Column article you linked to by Susan Case, "Identifying and Helping At-Risk Students," she can discuss the obvious correlations all she wants, and even print data to prove the obvious, but she can never, EVER mention the real correlation....IQ. THAT can get one into big trouble.

NYattorney25

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by NYattorney25 » Tue Apr 30, 2019 9:22 pm

Joe, what percentile is 1440 on the February 2019 MBE?70th percentile? If someone scored at the 80th or 90th percentile, respectively, what scaled MBE would that be?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by rednamgerry » Fri May 03, 2019 3:57 pm

Hey Joe, can you break down my score? NY Bar first time taker (graduated in May '18 but had to sit out July bar because work wanted me to start immediately, and I didn't get the job until early May so not enough time to work & study simultaneously with moving, etc). Feb '19 score: UBE 325, MBE 159. Thanks for all you do!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Fri May 10, 2019 9:17 am

Smiddywesson wrote: Funny thing about that Testing Column article you linked to by Susan Case, "Identifying and Helping At-Risk Students," she can discuss the obvious correlations all she wants, and even print data to prove the obvious, but she can never, EVER mention the real correlation....IQ. THAT can get one into big trouble.
Smiddy, I'm dying to know your MBE score. I've never heard of someone who studied a year straight and was hitting 90%+ on the MBE. PM me if you want. Also, how long did it take for NCBE to send you the score advisory?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Fri May 10, 2019 9:25 am

NYattorney25 wrote:Joe, what percentile is 1440 on the February 2019 MBE?70th percentile? If someone scored at the 80th or 90th percentile, respectively, what scaled MBE would that be?
A 1440 in F19 is 75th percentile. A 1480 is 80th and 1560 is 90th percentile

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JoeSeperac

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Fri May 10, 2019 9:29 am

rednamgerry wrote:Hey Joe, can you break down my score? NY Bar first time taker (graduated in May '18 but had to sit out July bar because work wanted me to start immediately, and I didn't get the job until early May so not enough time to work & study simultaneously with moving, etc). Feb '19 score: UBE 325, MBE 159. Thanks for all you do!
Congratulations on passing! Based on your scaled MBE score of 159, your estimated raw MBE score was about 150/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 85.7% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 93.5% percentile for the MBE. This means that 6.5% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 159 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 325, your written score was 166, which would have placed you in the 97.9% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 2.1% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 95.7% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 325 (meaning that 4.3% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

What did you find most helpful for your MBE study?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by rednamgerry » Fri May 10, 2019 4:11 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
rednamgerry wrote:Hey Joe, can you break down my score? NY Bar first time taker (graduated in May '18 but had to sit out July bar because work wanted me to start immediately, and I didn't get the job until early May so not enough time to work & study simultaneously with moving, etc). Feb '19 score: UBE 325, MBE 159. Thanks for all you do!
Congratulations on passing! Based on your scaled MBE score of 159, your estimated raw MBE score was about 150/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 85.7% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 93.5% percentile for the MBE. This means that 6.5% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 159 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 325, your written score was 166, which would have placed you in the 97.9% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 2.1% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 95.7% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 325 (meaning that 4.3% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

What did you find most helpful for your MBE study?

Thanks! I used Themis exclusively. I did all of the MBE problem sets and built some of my own in the MBE Quiz Builder function, though there were a lot of repeat questions so I'm not sure how deep their bank of "extra" questions is. I also made flash cards of the concepts in the lecture outlines for every subject, both MBE and MEE (~1000 cards total). Since I was working full-time while studying, I began as soon as the course was released in early November and did a couple to a few hours a day starting out. Took off the last week and a half before the exam to focus on my weakest subjects (CivPro, Contracts). I only started hitting 75-80% correct consistently on the mixed-subject MBE practice sets the week before the exam. I never got 85-86% correct on any problem set or practice exam.

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Help Dissecting Feb. Exam Score (Failed)

Post by joefrank81 » Fri May 10, 2019 9:46 pm

Just got my results from Feb. New Jersey bar...didn't pass, and am trying to dissect my score to see how badly I actually did. Any help anyone can offer on how far away I actually was (other than the obvious, 11 points) would be appreciated - thx.

Essay: 143.7
MBE: 111.4
Combined final score: 255

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Re: Help Dissecting Feb. Exam Score (Failed)

Post by JoeSeperac » Sun May 12, 2019 12:51 am

joefrank81 wrote:Just got my results from Feb. New Jersey bar...didn't pass, and am trying to dissect my score to see how badly I actually did. Any help anyone can offer on how far away I actually was (other than the obvious, 11 points) would be appreciated - thx.

Essay: 143.7
MBE: 111.4
Combined final score: 255
Sorry to hear that you failed the NJ exam. Based on your scaled MBE score of 114.4, your estimated raw MBE score was about 86/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 49.1% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 7.7% percentile for the MBE. This means that 92.3% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 114.4 (based on national data for the past 7 years). The 20 year pass rate for February NJ examinees is 53.7%. You can't expect to pass an exam where you need to be better than about 46.3% of examinees to pass, but on the most objective part of the exam (the MBE), you were better than only 7.7% of examinees nationwide. On the MBE, examinees usually score close to their MBE practice scores, especially if they have done a large number of MBE questions in practice. How many questions did you answer in practice, from what sources (e.g. Barbri, Kaplan, Adaptibar, NCBE) and what was your overall % correct?

Based on a total score of 255, your written score was 143.7, which would have placed you in the 68.2% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that only 31.8% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT). I'm really surprised by the disparity between your written and MBE. For a failing examinee, I've never seen a written score so high as compared to their MBE. Any clue as to why this is the case?

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 38% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 255 (meaning that 62.1% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

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Smiddywesson

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Smiddywesson » Sun May 12, 2019 9:03 am

Smiddywesson wrote: Funny thing about that Testing Column article you linked to by Susan Case, "Identifying and Helping At-Risk Students," she can discuss the obvious correlations all she wants, and even print data to prove the obvious, but she can never, EVER mention the real correlation....IQ. THAT can get one into big trouble.

Smiddy, I'm dying to know your MBE score. I've never heard of someone who studied a year straight and was hitting 90%+ on the MBE. PM me if you want. Also, how long did it take for NCBE to send you the score advisory?[/quote]

I pretty much choked. I got a 154.3, but that was enough to get me far above the cut score. Maybe my problems on Day One did have an effect on my MBE day, because I expected a much higher score, however a win is a win. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have erased as much, questioning my initial answer, and I would have taken 2-3 weeks off to review rather than working up to the last day. My percentiles were backwards, scoring a 96.6 percentile in CivPro, which was my weakest subject, and a 64.4% in Property, one of my favored subjects. The whole experience is a blur. Frankly, I think my IQ saved me, not my memory or preparation (I regard the MBE as one part black letter law, and one part IQ test. You can't pass the test without knowing some law and being somewhat intelligent), because I remember questioning everything I knew about evidence during the test, and that was a strong subject of mine too.

So how many out of 175 did I get wrong? It must be a boatload.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by dwarfstar86 » Sun May 12, 2019 4:46 pm

Smiddywesson wrote:
Smiddywesson wrote: Funny thing about that Testing Column article you linked to by Susan Case, "Identifying and Helping At-Risk Students," she can discuss the obvious correlations all she wants, and even print data to prove the obvious, but she can never, EVER mention the real correlation....IQ. THAT can get one into big trouble.


Smiddy,surely someone as brainy as yourself would realize why mentioning a correlation between bar passage rate and IQ would be futile in a discussion directed at law school administrators? You know, people who only have access to an applicant's LSAT score and UGPA? On that note, I don't think most people even know their IQ... ;)

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Smiddywesson » Mon May 13, 2019 11:34 am

dwarfstar86 wrote:
Smiddywesson wrote:
Smiddywesson wrote: Funny thing about that Testing Column article you linked to by Susan Case, "Identifying and Helping At-Risk Students," she can discuss the obvious correlations all she wants, and even print data to prove the obvious, but she can never, EVER mention the real correlation....IQ. THAT can get one into big trouble.


Smiddy,surely someone as brainy as yourself would realize why mentioning a correlation between bar passage rate and IQ would be futile in a discussion directed at law school administrators? You know, people who only have access to an applicant's LSAT score and UGPA? On that note, I don't think most people even know their IQ... ;)


I've killed quite a few brain cells since I learned I passed, so mine is rapidly diminishing. 8)

My weekend consisted of cleaning out my basement and depleting my store of beer from the man-cave fridge. ALL of my bar materials are stowed away, and that's how I like it.

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Re: Help Dissecting Feb. Exam Score (Failed)

Post by ibelieveicanfly » Thu May 16, 2019 5:39 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
joefrank81 wrote:Just got my results from Feb. New Jersey bar...didn't pass, and am trying to dissect my score to see how badly I actually did. Any help anyone can offer on how far away I actually was (other than the obvious, 11 points) would be appreciated - thx.

I'm really surprised by the disparity between your written and MBE. For a failing examinee, I've never seen a written score so high as compared to their MBE. Any clue as to why this is the case?.
I failed essentially by less than half a point and also had a large disparity in my score for NJ. Was wondering if you had seen this before/how rare this type of score is?

Essay: 116
MBE: 149.3
Combined final score: 265

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Sat May 18, 2019 12:21 pm

Smiddywesson wrote:I pretty much choked. I got a 154.3, but that was enough to get me far above the cut score. Maybe my problems on Day One did have an effect on my MBE day, because I expected a much higher score, however a win is a win. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have erased as much, questioning my initial answer, and I would have taken 2-3 weeks off to review rather than working up to the last day. My percentiles were backwards, scoring a 96.6 percentile in CivPro, which was my weakest subject, and a 64.4% in Property, one of my favored subjects. The whole experience is a blur. Frankly, I think my IQ saved me, not my memory or preparation (I regard the MBE as one part black letter law, and one part IQ test. You can't pass the test without knowing some law and being somewhat intelligent), because I remember questioning everything I knew about evidence during the test, and that was a strong subject of mine too.

So how many out of 175 did I get wrong? It must be a boatload.
A 154 MBE is still a very strong score. Congratulations again on passing the F19 exam. Based on your scaled MBE score of 154.3, your estimated raw MBE score was about 143/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 81.7% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 88.1% percentile for the MBE. This means that 11.9% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 154.3 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

On the MBE, examinees usually score close to their MBE practice scores, especially if they have done a large number of MBE questions in practice. In your case, you answered 81% correct in practice based on 3,800 practice questions, and I estimate you answered 82% correct on the exam. This is a difference of 1%. Therefore, you did almost exactly as expected.

Do you mind posting your MBE subscores for Con Law, Contracts, etc. Your Civ Pro subscore of 96.6 is a unique score I havent seen yet, and knowing the entire range of subscores helps me figure out the MBE scaling for each exam. Alternatively, you can just fill out this form:

https://seperac.com/subscoreform.php

I can then give you some stats on those.

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Re: Help Dissecting Feb. Exam Score (Failed)

Post by JoeSeperac » Sat May 18, 2019 12:33 pm

ibelieveicanfly wrote:
JoeSeperac wrote:
joefrank81 wrote:Just got my results from Feb. New Jersey bar...didn't pass, and am trying to dissect my score to see how badly I actually did. Any help anyone can offer on how far away I actually was (other than the obvious, 11 points) would be appreciated - thx.

I'm really surprised by the disparity between your written and MBE. For a failing examinee, I've never seen a written score so high as compared to their MBE. Any clue as to why this is the case?.
I failed essentially by less than half a point and also had a large disparity in my score for NJ. Was wondering if you had seen this before/how rare this type of score is?

Essay: 116
MBE: 149.3
Combined final score: 265
Sorry to hear that you failed with such a great MBE. How you scored isn't common at all. I just checked about 1,000 failing scores (mostly NY) and only 9 examinees did worse than you in regards to MBE-Written disparity. If you send me your scores, i can tell you whether your bigger problem was the MEE or MPT. I strongly suggest you order your essays to figure out what went wrong and what the graders didnt like about them.

Based on your scaled MBE score of 149.3, your estimated raw MBE score was about 136/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 77.7% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 80.4% percentile for the MBE. This means that 19.6% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 149.3 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 265, your written score was 116, which would have placed you in the 9.4% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 90.6% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT). Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 44.9% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 265 (meaning that 55.1% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

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Re: Help Dissecting Feb. Exam Score (Failed)

Post by FutureLawyer2 » Sun May 19, 2019 7:31 pm

ibelieveicanfly wrote:
JoeSeperac wrote:
joefrank81 wrote:Just got my results from Feb. New Jersey bar...didn't pass, and am trying to dissect my score to see how badly I actually did. Any help anyone can offer on how far away I actually was (other than the obvious, 11 points) would be appreciated - thx.

I'm really surprised by the disparity between your written and MBE. For a failing examinee, I've never seen a written score so high as compared to their MBE. Any clue as to why this is the case?.
I failed essentially by less than half a point and also had a large disparity in my score for NJ. Was wondering if you had seen this before/how rare this type of score is?

Essay: 116
MBE: 149.3
Combined final score: 265
I suggest you to pick up a critical pass mbe flashcards set. It will help pick up your essay score. (Your mbe score was very high, and deserves praise.) For instance instance on the recent bar exam, which I passed, 3/6 of the exam questions were taken from mbe topics.)

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Mdala008 » Sun May 19, 2019 11:52 pm

Hi Joe,

I’m just curious about how my performance stacked up on game day, especially given how nervous I was going into it as a foreign taker.

I ended up with a score of 155.1 in the MBE and a total of 315.

Cheers!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by scarletpiggy » Mon May 20, 2019 9:47 pm

Dear Joe,

Apparently, you are genius. I suck at math and I can't figure it out myself so I need your brain.

I just passed the Feb bar as a first timer. I never actually looked into this scoring system other than just trying to aim at 70 or so over all.
Now that I passed and I learned I will never receive the score, I am dying to know how I did and I requested the advisory score. I thought my essays were horrible and I probably scored high on MBE, but turned out, according to the advisory score, my MBE score was only somewhere between 133-144.

So let's say my MBE score was 137. At minimum, what did I get for my essays and PT? Average 70 or so? I'm surprised as I thought I did better on MBE which would have covered my horrible essays.

Thanks much!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by sleeplessindc » Tue May 21, 2019 3:39 pm

Hi Joe,

I first want to say you're a tremendous resource to this community and thank you for that.

I have two questions for you. First, do you know if each state applies its own scoring scale to the MBE? For instance, would the same number of wrong/accurate answers that received a particular score in UBE jurisdiction State A receive a different score in UBE jurisdiction State B (the scaled score, not just percentile ranking), because the test-taker is competing within a different pool of test-takers? Or is there only one giant pool of all national MBE takers with a single MBE scale? What I've read & heard is conflicting.

Second, do you have a sense of how the pass/fail rates of each state are affected by the number of foreign test-takers whose first language isn't English? I've read speculation that the presence of such applicants contributes to lower rates of passage in states like NY, DC, and CA, but I'd also wonder whether the number of people fitting the profile is big enough to do so.

Thank you!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Tue May 21, 2019 5:47 pm

Mdala008 wrote:Hi Joe,

I’m just curious about how my performance stacked up on game day, especially given how nervous I was going into it as a foreign taker.

I ended up with a score of 155.1 in the MBE and a total of 315.

Cheers!
Congratulations on passing the J19 exam! Based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1, your estimated raw MBE score was about 135/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 77.1% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 78.4% percentile for the MBE. This means that 21.6% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 315, your written score was 159.9, which would have placed you in the 86.4% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 13.6% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 82.4% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 315 (meaning that 17.6% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

How did you study for the exam? Do you remember your MBE % correct in practice?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Tue May 21, 2019 5:55 pm

scarletpiggy wrote:Dear Joe,

Apparently, you are genius. I suck at math and I can't figure it out myself so I need your brain.

I just passed the Feb bar as a first timer. I never actually looked into this scoring system other than just trying to aim at 70 or so over all.
Now that I passed and I learned I will never receive the score, I am dying to know how I did and I requested the advisory score. I thought my essays were horrible and I probably scored high on MBE, but turned out, according to the advisory score, my MBE score was only somewhere between 133-144.

So let's say my MBE score was 137. At minimum, what did I get for my essays and PT? Average 70 or so? I'm surprised as I thought I did better on MBE which would have covered my horrible essays.

Thanks much!
With a 137 MBE, you probably would have needed 65s across the board to pass. I haven't made a CA F19 calculator yet, but if you play with my F18 CA calculator (https://mberules.com/california-bar-exa ... alculator/) you could have squeaked by with 65s for essays 1-4, 60 for essay 5 and 65 for the PT. Based on a scaled MBE score of 137, your estimated raw MBE score was about 119/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 68% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 51.1% percentile for the MBE. This means that 48.9% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 137 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

if you failed and have your MBE subscores, I can give you a breakdown of them if you fill out this form: https://seperac.com/subscoreform.php

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Tue May 21, 2019 5:58 pm

Mdala008 wrote:Hi Joe,

I’m just curious about how my performance stacked up on game day, especially given how nervous I was going into it as a foreign taker.

I ended up with a score of 155.1 in the MBE and a total of 315.

Cheers!
Sorry, the prior statistics mistakenly assumed you passed a July exam. Following are the stats for passing F19:

Based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1, your estimated raw MBE score was about 145/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 82.9% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 89.2% percentile for the MBE. This means that 10.8% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 315, your written score was 159.9, which would have placed you in the 94.4% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 5.6% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 91.8% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 315 (meaning that 8.2% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.

JoeSeperac

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Tue May 21, 2019 6:17 pm

sleeplessindc wrote:Hi Joe,

I first want to say you're a tremendous resource to this community and thank you for that.

I have two questions for you. First, do you know if each state applies its own scoring scale to the MBE? For instance, would the same number of wrong/accurate answers that received a particular score in UBE jurisdiction State A receive a different score in UBE jurisdiction State B (the scaled score, not just percentile ranking), because the test-taker is competing within a different pool of test-takers? Or is there only one giant pool of all national MBE takers with a single MBE scale? What I've read & heard is conflicting.

Second, do you have a sense of how the pass/fail rates of each state are affected by the number of foreign test-takers whose first language isn't English? I've read speculation that the presence of such applicants contributes to lower rates of passage in states like NY, DC, and CA, but I'd also wonder whether the number of people fitting the profile is big enough to do so.

Thank you!
The bar examiners are notorious for releasing very little about the exam, so people like me have to try to reverse engineer it. I strongly believe the scaling varies from state to state. For example, DC and Colorado are both UBE and both grade essays on a 1-6 scale, but in looking at the scaling for the F18 exam (which should be close to the F19 exam), if you scored 3s for all the MEE/MPT and had an MBE of 138, your UBE score would have been 260 in DC versus 271 in CO.

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.

If you fill out my form of commonly asked questions, I can also provide you with a free 15 page confidential analysis of your scoring along with my advice:
http://seperac.com/scoreform.php

As to NY, DC, and CA, the foreign examinees absolutely impact NY (26% of takers), likely impact DC (12% of takers) but probably don't impact CA (just 4% of takers).

In examining the average pass rates in New York over the past 23 years of reported information (looking at NCBE annual statistics), the pass rate for examinees who went to Law School outside the United States is 36.5% (80,325 taking and 29,327 passing). Accordingly, these foreign examinees represented 26% of the takers. In contrast, the overall pass rate in New York over the same period was 63.1%.

In examining the average pass rates in District of Columbia over the past 23 years of reported information (looking at NCBE annual statistics), the pass rate for examinees who went to Law School outside the United States is 28.1% (1,605 taking and 451 passing). Accordingly, these foreign examinees represented 12% of the takers. In contrast, the overall pass rate in District of Columbia over the same period was 52.9%.

In examining the average pass rates in California over the past 23 years of reported information (looking at NCBE annual statistics), the pass rate for examinees who went to Law School outside the United States is 14.5% (12,180 taking and 1,770 passing). Accordingly, these foreign examinees represented 4% of the takers. In contrast, the overall pass rate in California over the same period was 48.4%.

Mdala008

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Mdala008 » Tue May 21, 2019 8:55 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
Mdala008 wrote:Hi Joe,

I’m just curious about how my performance stacked up on game day, especially given how nervous I was going into it as a foreign taker.

I ended up with a score of 155.1 in the MBE and a total of 315.

Cheers!
Sorry, the prior statistics mistakenly assumed you passed a July exam. Following are the stats for passing F19:

Based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1, your estimated raw MBE score was about 145/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 82.9% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 89.2% percentile for the MBE. This means that 10.8% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 155.1 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 315, your written score was 159.9, which would have placed you in the 94.4% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 5.6% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Although NCBE does not release percentiles for total UBE scores, if I average your MBE and written percentiles, this would place you in the 91.8% percentile among examinees nationwide based on your total score of 315 (meaning that 8.2% of examinees nationwide scored better than you on the UBE). Please keep in mind this is just an estimate and may be incorrect.
Thanks Joe, much appreciated.

To answer your previous question, I’m an Aussie qualifier lawyer already so many of the concepts were at least familiar.

My preparation was a bit time limited as I was working full time until 5 days before the exam. I completed about 25% of the barbri course but mainly focussed on answering MBE questions through Adaptibar (I think I ended up answering about 2000ish) and reviewing the law for the ones I got wrong. My % correct overall was about 72 but in the period closer to the exam was sitting at about 78.

I didn’t prepare for the MPT but probably spent two weeks leading up to the exam doing practice essay outlines.

scarletpiggy

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by scarletpiggy » Tue May 21, 2019 9:31 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
scarletpiggy wrote:Dear Joe,

Apparently, you are genius. I suck at math and I can't figure it out myself so I need your brain.

I just passed the Feb bar as a first timer. I never actually looked into this scoring system other than just trying to aim at 70 or so over all.
Now that I passed and I learned I will never receive the score, I am dying to know how I did and I requested the advisory score. I thought my essays were horrible and I probably scored high on MBE, but turned out, according to the advisory score, my MBE score was only somewhere between 133-144.

So let's say my MBE score was 137. At minimum, what did I get for my essays and PT? Average 70 or so? I'm surprised as I thought I did better on MBE which would have covered my horrible essays.

Thanks much!
With a 137 MBE, you probably would have needed 65s across the board to pass. I haven't made a CA F19 calculator yet, but if you play with my F18 CA calculator (https://mberules.com/california-bar-exa ... alculator/) you could have squeaked by with 65s for essays 1-4, 60 for essay 5 and 65 for the PT. Based on a scaled MBE score of 137, your estimated raw MBE score was about 119/175 correct (based on the last time an MBE scale was released in 2013). This means you answered about 68% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 51.1% percentile for the MBE. This means that 48.9% of Feb examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 137 (based on national data for the past 7 years).

if you failed and have your MBE subscores, I can give you a breakdown of them if you fill out this form: https://seperac.com/subscoreform.php


Wow! Thank you Joe. You are actually genius.. I am so surprised as it was my strategy to do well on MBE and cover my low essay scores.. but 48.9% did better than me nationwide and I still passed...?( though there is a slight chance I got 144 since my score was somewhere between 133-144) I must have written one or two high score essays.. I'm thinking I probably got 80 on Torts or Evidence. I was really dying to know how I passed this exam so thank you so much.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!


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