How is the MPRE Roughly Scored? Forum

[I.P. Daly]

I understand that the MPRE uses a "scaled score" that involves a statistical process. However, I can't figure out approximately how many questions you have to answer correctly to get a score of at least 85.

I just took a practice MPRE (Kaplan) and got 35/50 (41/60) questions right (70%). I realize that I need improve, but I can't figure out where I'm at "score-wise" right now.

Does anyone have an idea as to how many questions you need to answer correctly to get a score of 85?

[Jordan77]

I can't answer with certainty, but I heard if you range from 30-35 you are generally safe to pass (85). That said, I believe they try to generally set the median around scoring a 100.

[I.P. Daly]

I can't answer with certainty, but I heard if you range from 30-35 you are generally safe to pass (85). That said, I believe they try to generally set the median around scoring a 100.

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the feedback!

[futurelawyer413]

30-35 out of 60 to get the 85? or 30-35 out of 50?

also, via another TLS post, rumors are the barbri PR book has some verbatim repeats as the actual exam, confirm/deny anyone?

[I.P. Daly]

30-35 out of 60 to get the 85? or 30-35 out of 50?

also, via another TLS post, rumors are the barbri PR book has some verbatim repeats as the actual exam, confirm/deny anyone?

I got some more info from the BarBri course. I believe BarBri recommends scoring between 32-38 out of 60.

Here is the Nov. 2005 MPRE Scale:

Score/Percent Correct:

75-48%
77-50%
79-51%
80-52%
85-53%
86-54%

(Source: --LinkRemoved--)

So, in Nov. '05, it took a score of 32/60 to score an 85...

I don't think the MPRE is quite as easy as some folks suggest.

[Yvonnella]

30-35 out of 60 to get the 85? or 30-35 out of 50?

also, via another TLS post, rumors are the barbri PR book has some verbatim repeats as the actual exam, confirm/deny anyone?

I took the MPRE in August, and I recognized certain questions on the exam as being virtually word-for-word from the Barbri PR book. Maybe they changed the names. One was on fees. I was glad to see it because the pattern of the question and the answer selections were an exact match. I answered that fee question easily because I'd seen it and read the explanation in Barbri. There were about four or five questions that I recognized like that. If you're studying for the MPRE, get the Barbri book. I got it only because I paid them $20 to lock in a bar prep course in a couple of years, but I do wish I had spent more time in Barbri and less in Kaplan. The Kaplan book was too easy to be useful.

[20160810]

Can someone link me to some good MPRE prep stuff online somewhere? I am supposed to take this in 2 weeks and haven't done dick.

[I.P. Daly]

Can someone link me to some good MPRE prep stuff online somewhere? I am supposed to take this in 2 weeks and haven't done dick.

Kaplan offers an online course that is free (it includes two exams)...

http://www.kaptest.com/Bar-Exam/Free-Pr ... ourse.html

Of course, as noted above:

I do wish I had spent more time in Barbri and less in Kaplan. The Kaplan book was too easy to be useful.

[futurelawyer413]

30-35 out of 60 to get the 85? or 30-35 out of 50?

also, via another TLS post, rumors are the barbri PR book has some verbatim repeats as the actual exam, confirm/deny anyone?

I got some more info from the BarBri course. I believe BarBri recommends scoring between 32-38 out of 60.

Here is the Nov. 2005 MPRE Scale:

Score/Percent Correct:

75-48%
77-50%
79-51%
80-52%
85-53%
86-54%

(Source: --LinkRemoved--)

So, in Nov. '05, it took a score of 32/60 to score an 85...

I don't think the MPRE is quite as easy as some folks suggest.

thank you, this helps!

30-35 out of 60 to get the 85? or 30-35 out of 50?

also, via another TLS post, rumors are the barbri PR book has some verbatim repeats as the actual exam, confirm/deny anyone?

I took the MPRE in August, and I recognized certain questions on the exam as being virtually word-for-word from the Barbri PR book. Maybe they changed the names. One was on fees. I was glad to see it because the pattern of the question and the answer selections were an exact match. I answered that fee question easily because I'd seen it and read the explanation in Barbri. There were about four or five questions that I recognized like that. If you're studying for the MPRE, get the Barbri book. I got it only because I paid them $20 to lock in a bar prep course in a couple of years, but I do wish I had spent more time in Barbri and less in Kaplan. The Kaplan book was too easy to be useful.

thanks for the heads up on this!


I <3 TLS!

[dougroberts]

I did the Barbri book and online quizzes. Passed the MPRE with flying colors.

The Barbri quizzes are harder than the real questions, so if you are doing 70% on Barbri you are doing okay. That's what I was getting roughly on mine. If I remember, I was getting like 60th percenticile scores on Barbri quizzes, and I did above the 100 median.

Just keep in mind that the MPRE is in fact trickier than it looks. The content is easy, but the way the test is is hard. All or most of the answer choices are correct, you have to select the BEST one (like the bar exam). This can be tricky, and when you get down to 2 choices, usually you pick the narrower choice or the more detailed choice (not the one that is very broad). And, don't get too ethical. The test is not testing you on what is the most ethical choice (which would be easy for most), but what the Professional Conduct Rules say you can or cannot do -- sometimes the Rules are not as ethical as you might think since sometimes the Rules allow some leeway. Hence, you have to study and know what the Rules say rather than relying on your ethics.

[krishna_das]

I found more up-to-date data on the raw score one might need to achieve a passing scaled score in his or her jurisdiction.

Per Susan M. Case, PhD (Director of Testing for the National Conference of Bar Examiners) in a March 2011 column entitled "Common Goals with Increasingly Similar Outcomes: Jurisdiction Approaches to Bar Exam Grading, Scoring, and Standards":

While there is some variability from one administration to the next, a score of 100 reflects a performance of approximately 68 percent correct. The current standards used by jurisdictions reflect lower performance levels: 85 is approximately 60 percent correct; 80 is approximately 58 percent correct; 75 is approximately 56 percent correct. The difference between an 85 and an 86, for example, is less than one question.

Source: http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files ... Column.pdf (See p. 3 "MPRE Passing Standard")

Raw | Scaled Score Conversion according to NCBEX's Director of Testing is approximately:
56% Raw (28/50) = 75 Scaled
58% Raw (29/50) = 80 Scaled
60% Raw (30/50) = 85 Scaled
68% Raw (34/50) = 100 Scaled

I guess that's why Barbri recommends the 32%-38% range to be safe because it probably puts a test taker above the scaled score of 86--the most any jurisdiction requires. I broke down the raw numbers out of 50 since 10 of the questions on the MPRE are experimental.

For those of us who studied with MPRE practice exams, this might give us an idea of how our raw percentages convert to scaled scores (approximately, at least). I hope this helps.

[waxecstatic]

I did the Barbri book and online quizzes. Passed the MPRE with flying colors.

The Barbri quizzes are harder than the real questions, so if you are doing 70% on Barbri you are doing okay. That's what I was getting roughly on mine. If I remember, I was getting like 60th percenticile scores on Barbri quizzes, and I did above the 100 median.

Just keep in mind that the MPRE is in fact trickier than it looks. The content is easy, but the way the test is is hard. All or most of the answer choices are correct, you have to select the BEST one (like the bar exam). This can be tricky, and when you get down to 2 choices, usually you pick the narrower choice or the more detailed choice (not the one that is very broad). And, don't get too ethical. The test is not testing you on what is the most ethical choice (which would be easy for most), but what the Professional Conduct Rules say you can or cannot do -- sometimes the Rules are not as ethical as you might think since sometimes the Rules allow some leeway. Hence, you have to study and know what the Rules say rather than relying on your ethics.

This is not true at all. If anything, the opposite is true. I took the MPRE in August and the MPRE questions are centered on the grey area of the rules, not the main point of each rule, or something that is tailor-made for the application of that rule. For instance, the question on a BarBri test related to the law of advertising will be something like "I receive a huge settlement, all because of this lawyer, over a million dollars!" and the question on the MPRE will be something like this: "divorce is rough, but my lawyer made the process easier than I thought it would have been." There's a big difference between those two examples, so how you do on BarBri is not necessarily an indication of how you might do on the test.

[Bronx Bum]

I did the Barbri book and online quizzes. Passed the MPRE with flying colors.

The Barbri quizzes are harder than the real questions, so if you are doing 70% on Barbri you are doing okay. That's what I was getting roughly on mine. If I remember, I was getting like 60th percenticile scores on Barbri quizzes, and I did above the 100 median.

Just keep in mind that the MPRE is in fact trickier than it looks. The content is easy, but the way the test is is hard. All or most of the answer choices are correct, you have to select the BEST one (like the bar exam). This can be tricky, and when you get down to 2 choices, usually you pick the narrower choice or the more detailed choice (not the one that is very broad). And, don't get too ethical. The test is not testing you on what is the most ethical choice (which would be easy for most), but what the Professional Conduct Rules say you can or cannot do -- sometimes the Rules are not as ethical as you might think since sometimes the Rules allow some leeway. Hence, you have to study and know what the Rules say rather than relying on your ethics.

This is not true at all. If anything, the opposite is true. I took the MPRE in August and the MPRE questions are centered on the grey area of the rules, not the main point of each rule, or something that is tailor-made for the application of that rule. For instance, the question on a BarBri test related to the law of advertising will be something like "I receive a huge settlement, all because of this lawyer, over a million dollars!" and the question on the MPRE will be something like this: "divorce is rough, but my lawyer made the process easier than I thought it would have been." There's a big difference between those two examples, so how you do on BarBri is not necessarily an indication of how you might do on the test.

[waxecstatic]

I found more up-to-date data on the raw score one might need to achieve a passing scaled score in his or her jurisdiction.

Per Susan M. Case, PhD (Director of Testing for the National Conference of Bar Examiners) in a March 2011 column entitled "Common Goals with Increasingly Similar Outcomes: Jurisdiction Approaches to Bar Exam Grading, Scoring, and Standards":

While there is some variability from one administration to the next, a score of 100 reflects a performance of approximately 68 percent correct. The current standards used by jurisdictions reflect lower performance levels: 85 is approximately 60 percent correct; 80 is approximately 58 percent correct; 75 is approximately 56 percent correct. The difference between an 85 and an 86, for example, is less than one question.

Source: http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files ... Column.pdf (See p. 3 "MPRE Passing Standard")

Raw | Scaled Score Conversion according to NCBEX's Director of Testing is approximately:
56% Raw (28/50) = 75 Scaled
58% Raw (29/50) = 80 Scaled
60% Raw (30/50) = 85 Scaled
68% Raw (34/50) = 100 Scaled

I guess that's why Barbri recommends the 32%-38% range to be safe because it probably puts a test taker above the scaled score of 86--the most any jurisdiction requires. I broke down the raw numbers out of 50 since 10 of the questions on the MPRE are experimental.

For those of us who studied with MPRE practice exams, this might give us an idea of how our raw percentages convert to scaled scores (approximately, at least). I hope this helps.

Does this basically mean that if you got an 80, you were one question away from passing?

[krishna_das]

I found more up-to-date data on the raw score one might need to achieve a passing scaled score in his or her jurisdiction.

Per Susan M. Case, PhD (Director of Testing for the National Conference of Bar Examiners) in a March 2011 column entitled "Common Goals with Increasingly Similar Outcomes: Jurisdiction Approaches to Bar Exam Grading, Scoring, and Standards":

While there is some variability from one administration to the next, a score of 100 reflects a performance of approximately 68 percent correct. The current standards used by jurisdictions reflect lower performance levels: 85 is approximately 60 percent correct; 80 is approximately 58 percent correct; 75 is approximately 56 percent correct. The difference between an 85 and an 86, for example, is less than one question.

Source: http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files ... Column.pdf (See p. 3 "MPRE Passing Standard")

Raw | Scaled Score Conversion according to NCBEX's Director of Testing is approximately:
56% Raw (28/50) = 75 Scaled
58% Raw (29/50) = 80 Scaled
60% Raw (30/50) = 85 Scaled
68% Raw (34/50) = 100 Scaled

I guess that's why Barbri recommends the 32%-38% range to be safe because it probably puts a test taker above the scaled score of 86--the most any jurisdiction requires. I broke down the raw numbers out of 50 since 10 of the questions on the MPRE are experimental.

For those of us who studied with MPRE practice exams, this might give us an idea of how our raw percentages convert to scaled scores (approximately, at least). I hope this helps.

Does this basically mean that if you got an 80, you were one question away from passing?

Based on the raw scale conversion, it appears so. It seems like just one or two questions can make the difference between passing or failing in your jurisdiction.

[ph14]

Bumping this. Is this information still accurate?

[yung]

also would like to know

[HeavenWood]

I did the Barbri book and online quizzes. Passed the MPRE with flying colors.

The Barbri quizzes are harder than the real questions, so if you are doing 70% on Barbri you are doing okay. That's what I was getting roughly on mine. If I remember, I was getting like 60th percenticile scores on Barbri quizzes, and I did above the 100 median.

Just keep in mind that the MPRE is in fact trickier than it looks. The content is easy, but the way the test is is hard. All or most of the answer choices are correct, you have to select the BEST one (like the bar exam). This can be tricky, and when you get down to 2 choices, usually you pick the narrower choice or the more detailed choice (not the one that is very broad). And, don't get too ethical. The test is not testing you on what is the most ethical choice (which would be easy for most), but what the Professional Conduct Rules say you can or cannot do -- sometimes the Rules are not as ethical as you might think since sometimes the Rules allow some leeway. Hence, you have to study and know what the Rules say rather than relying on your ethics.

This is not true at all. If anything, the opposite is true. I took the MPRE in August and the MPRE questions are centered on the grey area of the rules, not the main point of each rule, or something that is tailor-made for the application of that rule. For instance, the question on a BarBri test related to the law of advertising will be something like "I receive a huge settlement, all because of this lawyer, over a million dollars!" and the question on the MPRE will be something like this: "divorce is rough, but my lawyer made the process easier than I thought it would have been." There's a big difference between those two examples, so how you do on BarBri is not necessarily an indication of how you might do on the test.

I just took the test and I thought the Barbri questions were pretty similar to the real deal.

[quaskx]

on the contrary, i took it this morning and thought the BarBri questions were harder.

[OhScalia]

I took it this morning and thought Barbri questions were as hard as the real test, but not harder or easier. I expect to get similar score from my practice range.

[ph14]

I took it this morning and thought Barbri questions were as hard as the real test, but not harder or easier. I expect to get similar score from my practice range.

I agree.

[BearState]

Bump for c/o 2015. Any indication if these conversion scales are/aren't applicable?

[Kitakk]

Just got my score from November 2014 exam, and I knew about how many I would get right. Rough numbers listed here still seem accurate (remember: this is anecdotal evidence).

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I am getting 77-79% right on Barbri, test is Saturday. I'm going to stop studying.

[LawGuy321]

What did everyone think of the March 2015 exam? How do people think the curve will look?