California Bar Exam (February 2014) thread Forum

[Carryon]

I just signed in here, but have been reading posts. I did pretty bad on the feb 2014 cal bar exam. Essays 55 55 55 50 60 55. PTA 50 PTB 55. 12444.87 I just did the attorney's exam. I did the barmax review course. ISO have barbri material when I took another states bar exam. Any suggestions? I need to radically change my studying. I may sign up for baressays and also get the lean sheets. I was thinking about a tutor, but wonder how much it would costs.

[El Pollito]

I just signed in here, but have been reading posts. I did pretty bad on the feb 2014 cal bar exam. Essays 55 55 55 50 60 55. PTA 50 PTB 55. 12444.87 I just did the attorney's exam. I did the barmax review course. ISO have barbri material when I took another states bar exam. Any suggestions? I need to radically change my studying. I may sign up for baressays and also get the lean sheets. I was thinking about a tutor, but wonder how much it would costs.

How do they count your MBE score for the attorney's exam?

[duskfall]

I just signed in here, but have been reading posts. I did pretty bad on the feb 2014 cal bar exam. Essays 55 55 55 50 60 55. PTA 50 PTB 55. 12444.87 I just did the attorney's exam. I did the barmax review course. ISO have barbri material when I took another states bar exam. Any suggestions? I need to radically change my studying. I may sign up for baressays and also get the lean sheets. I was thinking about a tutor, but wonder how much it would costs.

How do they count your MBE score for the attorney's exam?

They don't because the attorneys exam only include the PTs and essays, unless he registered as an attorney for the general bar?

[El Pollito]

I just signed in here, but have been reading posts. I did pretty bad on the feb 2014 cal bar exam. Essays 55 55 55 50 60 55. PTA 50 PTB 55. 12444.87 I just did the attorney's exam. I did the barmax review course. ISO have barbri material when I took another states bar exam. Any suggestions? I need to radically change my studying. I may sign up for baressays and also get the lean sheets. I was thinking about a tutor, but wonder how much it would costs.

How do they count your MBE score for the attorney's exam?

They don't because the attorneys exam only include the PTs and essays, unless he registered as an attorney for the general bar?

I mean your old MBE score.

[Carryon]

The attorney's exam is just the essays and pt. They don't use my old mbe exam score. They do give you the option of taking all three, but I decided to take just the essays.

Brett

[El Pollito]

The attorney's exam is just the essays and pt. They don't use my old mbe exam score. They do give you the option of taking all three, but I decided to take just the essays.

Brett

In that case, I'm not sure why anyone takes the attorney's exam.

[rgucsb]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

[Carryon]

The attorney's exam is just the essays and pt. They don't use my old mbe exam score. They do give you the option of taking all three, but I decided to take just the essays.

Brett

In that case, I'm not sure why anyone takes the attorney's exam.

If you do really well with the MBEs, then you may want to take the three day general exam. However, if you are pressed for time and/or do not do well on the MBEs, then you should take the two day attorneys exam.

[Carryon]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

I thought passing score is 1440. Are the last two scores pts?

[vacations]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

Sorry to hear you didn't pass. A passing score is actually 1440. A 1390 only qualifies your essays and PTs to get a second read, where your scores will then be averaged. What was your MBE score?

The bottom line is that getting a 50 is just a big no no because it requires too much from other areas of the exam to compensate for such a low score. You might be able to get away with a 55 or two..again - this is assuming you do ok in other areas where it can compensate. A 50 shows that you either missed most of the issues on the essay or your analysis was very very weak. Overall, a 50 tells you that you have a major deficiency in that area of the law.

I passed Feb 2014 and failed July 2013. To give you perspective, my July 2013 scores were 50, 55, 60, 55, 55, 50 55, 55 and 119 raw.

If you want to pass July 2014, it can be done. Have a game plan, assess your weaknesses and work hard my friend. Good luck to you.

[rgucsb]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

I thought passing score is 1440. Are the last two scores pts?

Yeah, the last two scores (60,60) were PTS

[Carryon]

so if you passed do you get to see your score at all?

Never, not even if you want to transfer your MBE score. Unless you were in the top 5%, you got somewhere between 1440-1636: http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals ... 201402.pdf

"Applicants who passed the examination are not entitled to review their scores from the examination." We should be entitled IMO

They give you the scores in Ohio regardless of whether you passed or failed. I think it's better to allow everyone to see their scores. By he way, did you take baressays or get lean sheets. What did you differently this time?

[Carryon]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

I thought passing score is 1440. Are the last two scores pts?

Yeah, the last two scores (60,60) were PTS

My PT-A was pretty bad - 50. I am not sure why. I thought that I did pretty well on it. I hear that calbar will post the model answer for the 2014 February exam tomorrow.

[fl0w]

I hear that calbar will post the model answer for the 2014 February exam tomorrow.

nope. they didn't release the model answers for july 2013 until right before the feb 2014 exam. no way the are releasing them in the same week as results this time.

[fl0w]

Congrats to everyone that passed. I unfortunately did not (1st time taker) and am contemplating whether to retake. My score was 1332 and according to the CA bar, the passing score was 1390. I was off by 58 points. Is a 1332 a low score? They are no longer releasing MBE raw scores but I imagine that was what killed me. My essay scores were: 55,55,50,60,55,60,60,60?

Any insight would be much appreciated

You can do it man.
My score in July 2013 was 1385. I then created an excel spreadsheet that calculates the score based on the formula the committee of bar examiners distributed for July 2013. I tortured myself because all I had to do was earn a 65 instead of a 55 on PTB and increase any other essay by 5 points and I would have passed. To be clear that would have made my scores 60, 50, 55(instead of 50), 55, 55, 60 then 65PTA 65PTB (instead of 55) and 122 MBE raw

Based on my calculator, if you don't have your raw MBE, your raw MBE for july 2013 would have been about 100 assuming the formulas are not too far apart and plugging your written scores in. Need to get that up MBE up. But honestly if you get a 65 on all essays you can get a 100 on MBE and still pass. Essays are key.

None of the numbers I just spit out help you study, but it helps you understand where you win the most points. PTs are worth two essays each. A 5 point increase in an essay (which could be 1 issue spotted) is worth about 3.5 more MBE raw. And being able to spot the issues helps you get more MBE correct.

If you're interested in calculations like this (I'm an engineer so I am) then I just need the formula from the Feb 2014 exam and I can make a new spreadsheet.

tl;dr
You're missed the mark, but it's possible. With a good approach this time around you can do it. I know people who've failed multiple times but have been able to increase their essay scores by 80 raw points (but still crash and burned on MBE).
This table lets you know where you stood percentile wise for the Feb 2014 exam (it was on the prior page of this thread)
--LinkRemoved--

I hope this was a little encouraging.

[BeautyNBrains85]

I got a 1339, the 1390 score is to see if you get a 2nd read but I believe 1440 scaled is a passing score for the exam. Basically, I got a lot to work on, I'm not taking July going to take some time off and get a tutor. I don't have the money to pay for another bar exam or course right now.

[Jay Heizenburg]

I've been mourning this failure all weekend. And alcohol is only making things worse.

Raw Written: 577.5 (Not good, two 55's on the PT's I think killed it)

Scaled Written: 1363.3125

Scaled MBE: 1510.00

Total Scaled Score: 1414.6531 (1415)

I don't know about anybody else but this whole "scaled" as opposed to "raw" scores for the MBE is total bullshit. I have no idea what the fuck this 1510 means, at all . . .

#suffering

P.S. Congrats to everyone that passed.

[duskfall]

I got a 1339, the 1390 score is to see if you get a 2nd read but I believe 1440 scaled is a passing score for the exam. Basically, I got a lot to work on, I'm not taking July going to take some time off and get a tutor. I don't have the money to pay for another bar exam or course right now.

Are you sure about that? Starting in Feb 2015, they will test Civ Pro on the MBE portion.

[Carryon]

I hear that calbar will post the model answer for the 2014 February exam tomorrow.

nope. they didn't release the model answers for july 2013 until right before the feb 2014 exam. no way the are releasing them in the same week as results this time.

They said that they would (see below excerpt from calbar's website under "Information for unsucessful applicants.... ).

BAR EXAMINATION STUDY AIDS
“Selected Answers,” which are examination answers written by actual successful applicants that received high grades during the course of grading, are produced for each administration of the examination. Essay questions, Performance Tests and Selected Answers for the past several administrations of the California Bar Examination are available free of charge on the Admissions portion of The State Bar of California’s website at http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov. Selected Answers from the February 2014 administration are expected to be available online by May 20, 2014.


But what and what they actually do may be different. Did they say the same thing for the July 2013 exam?

[fl0w]

I hear that calbar will post the model answer for the 2014 February exam tomorrow.

nope. they didn't release the model answers for july 2013 until right before the feb 2014 exam. no way the are releasing them in the same week as results this time.

They said that they would (see below excerpt from calbar's website under "Information for unsucessful applicants.... ).

BAR EXAMINATION STUDY AIDS
“Selected Answers,” which are examination answers written by actual successful applicants that received high grades during the course of grading, are produced for each administration of the examination. Essay questions, Performance Tests and Selected Answers for the past several administrations of the California Bar Examination are available free of charge on the Admissions portion of The State Bar of California’s website at http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov. Selected Answers from the February 2014 administration are expected to be available online by May 20, 2014.


But what and what they actually do may be different. Did they say the same thing for the July 2013 exam?

Yes. They say the same thing every examination.

[fl0w]

I've been mourning this failure all weekend. And alcohol is only making things worse.

Raw Written: 577.5 (Not good, two 55's on the PT's I think killed it)

Scaled Written: 1363.3125

Scaled MBE: 1510.00

Total Scaled Score: 1414.6531 (1415)

I don't know about anybody else but this whole "scaled" as opposed to "raw" scores for the MBE is total bullshit. I have no idea what the fuck this 1510 means, at all . . .

#suffering

P.S. Congrats to everyone that passed.

If someone wants to look at their results in detail and see if they provided the formula for calculating from raw to scaled for written and MBE I can take that formula and reverse it to get your raw scores for you.

If the results do not contain such a formula (like they did for July 2013), then I can likely only estimate. But what it looks like is your MBE was just fine. Your essays are what needs the boost. You were much closer than I was on my first try at the test and I only needed a small increase to pass. I'm guessing 10 more essay points or 60s on the PTs would have done it for you. My excel sheet is at home.

[uvauvauva]

Talking about scores... I'm taking the cali bar in July and this is my second bar exam.

If I scored a 138 on the MBE... is this enough to pass cali? Around what scores would I need on the essays? I am sure I would get above average on the PTs.

I'm self studying with some barbri books I bought off of someone so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fl0w]

Talking about scores... I'm taking the cali bar in July and this is my second bar exam.

If I scored a 138 on the MBE... is this enough to pass cali? Around what scores would I need on the essays? I am sure I would get above average on the PTs.

I'm self studying with some barbri books I bought off of someone so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Play with this: http://one-timers.com/calculate-your-fi ... exam-grade

And don't be "sure" of anything. Nobody is joking when they say this is the most difficult bar exam.

[Carryon]

I've been mourning this failure all weekend. And alcohol is only making things worse.

Raw Written: 577.5 (Not good, two 55's on the PT's I think killed it)

Scaled Written: 1363.3125

Scaled MBE: 1510.00

Total Scaled Score: 1414.6531 (1415)

I don't know about anybody else but this whole "scaled" as opposed to "raw" scores for the MBE is total bullshit. I have no idea what the fuck this 1510 means, at all . . .

#suffering

P.S. Congrats to everyone that passed.

If someone wants to look at their results in detail and see if they provided the formula for calculating from raw to scaled for written and MBE I can take that formula and reverse it to get your raw scores for you.

If the results do not contain such a formula (like they did for July 2013), then I can likely only estimate. But what it looks like is your MBE was just fine. Your essays are what needs the boost. You were much closer than I was on my first try at the test and I only needed a small increase to pass. I'm guessing 10 more essay points or 60s on the PTs would have done it for you. My excel sheet is at home.

Here is the formula for the written portion of the 2014 Feb bar exam. Written scaled score = (Raw written score x 3.1584) – 460.6635

I don't know the formula for the MBE scaled score. Congrats on passing!

[vacations]

Talking about scores... I'm taking the cali bar in July and this is my second bar exam.

If I scored a 138 on the MBE... is this enough to pass cali? Around what scores would I need on the essays? I am sure I would get above average on the PTs.

I'm self studying with some barbri books I bought off of someone so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Play with this: http://one-timers.com/calculate-your-fi ... exam-grade

And don't be "sure" of anything. Nobody is joking when they say this is the most difficult bar exam.

I agree with fl0w big time. You cannot and should not be sure of anything when it comes to CBX.

When I failed July 2013, I was sure I got a passing score for the torts essay and I ended up getting a 50. I walked out of Feb. 2014 feeling unsure of almost everything I wrote and I finally realized that this was perfectly normal. I ended up passing.

Also, be wary of the One-Timers calculator. It was a good indicator for Feb. CBX, but it doesn't look to be calibrated for July scaling.

The best thing you can do is practice, practice and practice. Keep aiming for higher MBE scores on practice exams. MBEs (objective part of test) will be your cushion for any points you may lose on essays/PTs (the subjective part).

Good luck to you.