Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass Forum

[09042014]

So, what's the TL;DR on Texas? It's 40% here.

Bump. DF, any thoughts?

Written Score Needed = (135-.4*(MBE))/.6

a 160 MBE means you need a 118 scaled written. 118 is somewhere between bottom 1-5%

You probably need a 165 to be autopass.

[ChuckC]

could "holistic grading" prevent an autopass or near certain pass with a really strong mbe?
or does holistic grading only benefit the exam taker?

[Yobot]

DF, how about for Washington State? UBE (MBE weighted 50%, the MEE 30%, and the MPT 20%). Need a 270 total to pass.

[09042014]

DF, how about for Washington State? UBE (MBE weighted 50%, the MEE 30%, and the MPT 20%). Need a 270 total to pass.

155 seals it. 150 you'd have to really fuck up written.

[spleenworship]

Never mind, I finally got a google result that explained it.

Looks like they average the scores in my state. So if I get a 150 on the MBE but a 100 on the essays and MPTs I would fail because my average would be 125 - that is, 5 points below passing.

So 150-160 isn't auto-pass. I have to at least get 60% of the points on essays to pass.

Fuck.

[akak179]

Any help on pa? MBE counts for 45% and you need to hit 272 out of 400 total to pass

[newbienew]

How about Massachusetts? Need a 270 Total Scaled Score (MBE Scaled + Essay Scaled) to pass.

[TooManyLoans]

Any help on pa? MBE counts for 45% and you need to hit 272 out of 400 total to pass

PA requires a combined scaled score of 272. So you would need a 122 to pass with a 150 MBE. Below is some anecdotal evidence on what it might take to get a 122 on essay/pt portion:

Someone on a prior exam got a 15,11,8,13,12,11 on the essays in PA and a 13.5 on the PT for a scaled score of 146. So for the essays that an average of 11.66 or (58%) with the PT its 11.92 average or (~60%).

[igo2northwestern]

Thanks DF for this

[mvpforme]

My state is 50/50. It uses it uses 132 as a scale point, whatever that means. According to DF's link one page back, it had a cut score of 135 in 2013. What does it all mean?

[09042014]

My state is 50/50. It uses it uses 132 as a scale point, whatever that means. According to DF's link one page back, it had a cut score of 135 in 2013. What does it all mean?

151 = AUTOPASS

[JenDarby]

No. From what I've seen on Seperac, essays that receive < 4 either radically miss issues or radically misapply the law. There's not a lot of difference between a 4.0 and a 4.5 that I can tell. 40s 45s 50s 55s all seem pretty much interchangeable to me which is kind of terrifying because 45s are failing an 55s are passing. The only real difference I can tell is that the 40s and 45s come to the wrong conclusions in some of the issues. The sample answers NYBOLE releases always use the pleading standard from the question (I e no issue of material triable fact for summary judgment) so I think you could probably get some points for that as well.

essays in NY are scaled from the 0-10 grade up to the 40/45/50 etc. So a 5 on an essay isn't necessarily a 50. A 50 is just whatever the average for that essay question was (i.e. could be a 4, etc.).

And a 45 essay isn't failing. It's slightly below the average, but you don't even need to be average to pass, and that's assuming you just have an average MBE score. According to his little calculator thing, if you have a 140 scaled mbe, around average, and 25/50 on NYMC, you just need weighted scores of 45, 45, 45, 45, one 50, and then a 45 on the MPT to pass.

I appreciated reading this.

[shock259]

I wish it was clearer how NY essays are scored. Kaplan is giving me high scores, but I don't know if that is bullocks. I've compared my answers to ones provided by the NY BOLE and my answers hit most of the things covered by their "model" answers. But my rule statements are often imprecise and my organization isn't perfectly clear under timed conditions.

Anyone have additional info or samples of what a 4 essay looks like versus a 6 essay?

[YankeesFan]

Any idea on North Carolina? Essays=60%, MBE=40%. Need a cumulative 350.

[jd20132013]

are the NC essays scaled to the MBE scale?

my state does that and I confess I'm still not sure how it works. Mine is also 60/40 like NC

[JenDarby]

I wish it was clearer how NY essays are scored. Kaplan is giving me high scores, but I don't know if that is bullocks. I've compared my answers to ones provided by the NY BOLE and my answers hit most of the things covered by their "model" answers. But my rule statements are often imprecise and my organization isn't perfectly clear under timed conditions.

Anyone have additional info or samples of what a 4 essay looks like versus a 6 essay?

If Kaplan is giving you good scores (they generally grade down it seems) plus you are doing really well on the MBE than you really have nothing to worry about.

[Pokemon]

Wait... do we know what MBE score we need in NYC to autopass?

[shock259]

There is some info a few pages back. I think the TL;DR is that there isn't an autopass score because the MBE is only worth 40% in NY. Or if there is, it's ~165. But if you can get 155 or so, you can get all 4.5s on all the essays/MPT, and 25/50 on NYMC and pass.

Try playing around with the calculator: http://www.seperac.com/calc-bar-f14.php

[thsmthcrmnl]

There is some info a few pages back. I think the TL;DR is that there isn't an autopass score because the MBE is only worth 40% in NY. Or if there is, it's ~165. But if you can get 155 or so, you can get all 4.5s on all the essays/MPT, and 25/50 on NYMC and pass.

Try playing around with the calculator: http://www.seperac.com/calc-bar-f14.php

I agree with the previous poster. Assuming you literally did not study NY law, I would say AUTOPASS is a 166. With a 166 on the MBE and just barely passing the MPT, you can score a 13 on the NYMC and a 37.8 on each of the NY essays. 13 on the NYMC is the (rounded) score you would get by randomly guessing. 37.8 on the essays, if Seperac has his guesstimates right, is -3 standard deviations — much less than the bottom one percent.

[Pokemon]

Considering NY has so many ESL due to LLMs taking the bar there, shouldn't the essay averages be better than elsewhere?

[JenDarby]

Considering NY has so many ESL due to LLMs taking the bar there, shouldn't the essay averages be better than elsewhere?

I was just talking about this at work. If you look at the bar passage rates broken down by LLM and JDs it's pretty encouraging.

[Pokemon]

Considering NY has so many ESL due to LLMs taking the bar there, shouldn't the essay averages be better than elsewhere?

I was just talking about this at work. If you look at the bar passage rates broken down by LLM and JDs it's pretty encouraging.

Yeah... on one hand they do not count on the 85% passage rate cause that is just ABA accredited JD's... but am still thinking medium NY essay is lower quality than let's say medium MA essay.

Ps... does each state scale MBE scores, or is that nationally scaled?


Overall hypothesis: the overall group of people taking NY bar might be worse than the national average because of ESL influence; however, accredited ABA dudes are of "higher" quality in NY because they are so many biglaw firms attracting top students from schools all over the nation and NY schools students have home field advantage.

Constitutional exam question: if the conditions in Buffalo are super-shitty and cold, so non-NY students fail the bar, but conditions in Manhattan are Four Seasons level, do Buffalo students have some sort of a claim??

[shock259]

I agree with the previous poster. Assuming you literally did not study NY law, I would say AUTOPASS is a 166. With a 166 on the MBE and just barely passing the MPT, you can score a 13 on the NYMC and a 37.8 on each of the NY essays. 13 on the NYMC is the (rounded) score you would get by randomly guessing. 37.8 on the essays, if Seperac has his guesstimates right, is -3 standard deviations — much less than the bottom one percent.

Can you expand on the essay grading part of your post? What percentile is a 37.8 on the essays? Not seeing where that is on Separac. I just just find that a 50 is average, though. So that's cool.

[newbienew]

How about Massachusetts? Need a 270 Total Scaled Score (MBE Scaled + Essay Scaled) to pass.

Still curious about this. Thanks in advance for any help.

[northwood]

Constitutional exam question: if the conditions in Buffalo are super-shitty and cold, so non-NY students fail the bar, but conditions in Manhattan are Four Seasons level, do Buffalo students have some sort of a claim??

No. There has been exams in the past ( February) where Buffalo got a nice overnight lake effect snowstorm which caused a lot of travel difficulties. persons who failed to check into the exam room on time were denied entry, and they had to wait until the summer to take the exam. Unless the city shuts down ( it is very rare for it to shut down due to snow) you need to plan accordingly.

and by the way even if the weather center decides to name a snow storm like it does with a hurricane that's not good enough to shut buffalo down.