Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[zot1]

Did anyone ever find out whether we have to submit all of the graded essays in order to (worst case scenario) retake the course fo' free?

Per this link at above the law: http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/which-ba ... he-best-2/

"GUARANTEES

If you complete 75% or more of course work and fail, you get money back AND free repeat for next available session. If you don’t complete 75% you get free repeat.
MUST be 1st timer"

If you need to know for sure, give Themis a call. They are available directly on their phone line. No wait.

I e-mailed them about it before and they said there was no completion percentage requirement either...

Would we really get our money back??

[lilypad144]

Did anyone ever find out whether we have to submit all of the graded essays in order to (worst case scenario) retake the course fo' free?

Per this link at above the law: http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/which-ba ... he-best-2/

"GUARANTEES

If you complete 75% or more of course work and fail, you get money back AND free repeat for next available session. If you don’t complete 75% you get free repeat.
MUST be 1st timer"

If you need to know for sure, give Themis a call. They are available directly on their phone line. No wait.

I e-mailed them about it before and they said there was no completion percentage requirement either...

Why don't you call them to find out?? I honestly dont care bc I was a rep and got it for free.

Would we really get our money back??

[gr8scOtt!]

Did anyone ever find out whether we have to submit all of the graded essays in order to (worst case scenario) retake the course fo' free?

Per this link at above the law: http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/which-ba ... he-best-2/

"GUARANTEES

If you complete 75% or more of course work and fail, you get money back AND free repeat for next available session. If you don’t complete 75% you get free repeat.
MUST be 1st timer"

If you need to know for sure, give Themis a call. They are available directly on their phone line. No wait.

I e-mailed them about it before and they said there was no completion percentage requirement either...

Would we really get our money back??

The ATL article is a few years old. I don't remember seeing anything about getting our money back (just another course for free), so maybe they don't do that anymore?

[somuchbooty]

its so depressing to think about that I don't even care, I guess I"m going to do smoe things to get over the 75% hump just for the hell of it.

[sd5289]

Turned my graded essay in on Friday and still have not gotten it back. Is it 2 business days? So I should get it by today?

I think it is 2 business days.

Well that would explain why I haven't gotten mine back yet. I've been submitting them 2 days late for a while and getting them back on Tuesdays, but finally submitted the last one on time. Still don't have it.

[zot1]

Did anyone ever find out whether we have to submit all of the graded essays in order to (worst case scenario) retake the course fo' free?

Per this link at above the law: http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/which-ba ... he-best-2/

"GUARANTEES

If you complete 75% or more of course work and fail, you get money back AND free repeat for next available session. If you don’t complete 75% you get free repeat.
MUST be 1st timer"

If you need to know for sure, give Themis a call. They are available directly on their phone line. No wait.

I e-mailed them about it before and they said there was no completion percentage requirement either...

Would we really get our money back??

The ATL article is a few years old. I don't remember seeing anything about getting our money back (just another course for free), so maybe they don't do that anymore?

The only reason to stop doing it is if they were losing a lot of money

[Confused7]

Turned my graded essay in on Friday and still have not gotten it back. Is it 2 business days? So I should get it by today?

I think it is 2 business days.

Well that would explain why I haven't gotten mine back yet. I've been submitting them 2 days late for a while and getting them back on Tuesdays, but finally submitted the last one on time. Still don't have it.

If you submit it late apparently they don't go by the 2 business days rule.

[lilypad144]

Did anyone ever find out whether we have to submit all of the graded essays in order to (worst case scenario) retake the course fo' free?

Per this link at above the law: http://abovethelaw.com/2013/05/which-ba ... he-best-2/

"GUARANTEES

If you complete 75% or more of course work and fail, you get money back AND free repeat for next available session. If you don’t complete 75% you get free repeat.
MUST be 1st timer"

If you need to know for sure, give Themis a call. They are available directly on their phone line. No wait.

I e-mailed them about it before and they said there was no completion percentage requirement either...

Would we really get our money back??

The ATL article is a few years old. I don't remember seeing anything about getting our money back (just another course for free), so maybe they don't do that anymore?

The only reason to stop doing it is if they were losing a lot of money

Hahah, sure. Or, they became more established and didn't have to offer such lucrative offers to lure people in?

[Nelson]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

[zot1]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

The other day I had a question where the correct answer was chosen only 12% of the time. It was behind two others that got chosen more often.

[somuchbooty]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

doesn't missing it matter just as much as missing any other question? Or am I confusing how the scaled score works? I thought EVERYONE got points back at the end, just less if you're higher up?

It seems kind of unfair if people who miss get points back but people who got it right get nothing, if that is what is going on?

[Nelson]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

doesn't missing it matter just as much as missing any other question? Or am I confusing how the scaled score works? I thought EVERYONE got points back at the end, just less if you're higher up?

It seems kind of unfair if people who miss get points back but people who got it right get nothing, if that is what is going on?

No, everyone gets the same scale. But the point of the scale is to make up for the questions that a large majority of takers get wrong. That's how scaling works.

Edit: my point was that there's no point in trying to glean what the reasoning behind most of the questions that only 10% of takes got right. It's usually a judgment call and the examiners misjudged how people would come out. Occasionally they're testing some crazy exception, but most of the time they're just poorly written questions. It's why the explanations suck so much for most of those questions.

[kjartan]

I feel like these later MBE sets are testing the most randomly obscure rules on the planet

Seriously, dying right now.

[somuchbooty]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

doesn't missing it matter just as much as missing any other question? Or am I confusing how the scaled score works? I thought EVERYONE got points back at the end, just less if you're higher up?

It seems kind of unfair if people who miss get points back but people who got it right get nothing, if that is what is going on?

No, everyone gets the same scale. But the point of the scale is to make up for the questions that a large majority of takers get wrong. That's how scaling works.

So just to clarify, b/c I think I'm still confused, if person A gets all 10 cut questions right, and person B gets all 10 cut questions wrong, but they both get a 130, they both get the same scale, say, up 10 to 140?

[Nelson]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

doesn't missing it matter just as much as missing any other question? Or am I confusing how the scaled score works? I thought EVERYONE got points back at the end, just less if you're higher up?

It seems kind of unfair if people who miss get points back but people who got it right get nothing, if that is what is going on?

No, everyone gets the same scale. But the point of the scale is to make up for the questions that a large majority of takers get wrong. That's how scaling works.

So just to clarify, b/c I think I'm still confused, if person A gets all 10 cut questions right, and person B gets all 10 cut questions wrong, but they both get a 130, they both get the same scale, say, up 10 to 140?

Yes. But it's statistically unlikely that someone would get all 10 of the hardest questions right but then shit the bed on the rest of the exam to end up at the same number as someone who got all of them wrong.

The scaling isn't a curve like in law school-it's not trying to make a certain percentage of people hit a certain mark necessarily (although it does in practice because of the large numbers involved). It's designed to normalize difficulty between exams. The reason why the scale varies is the number of hard questions that most takers get wrong varies.

[eloise16]

I feel like these later MBE sets are testing the most randomly obscure rules on the planet

Seriously, dying right now.

THIS.

[anon sequitur]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

The other day I had a question where the correct answer was chosen only 12% of the time. It was behind two others that got chosen more often.

Just got a property question

A - 76%!!
B - 17% - correct response
C - 2%
D - 5%

Explanation gives one sentence for both A and C, says they're both wrong for the same reasons. Obviously there's some more explanation required for A here, since nobody fell for C and damn near everyone chose A. But whatever. Turns out it's a modified question. Screw that.

[sd5289]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

The other day I had a question where the correct answer was chosen only 12% of the time. It was behind two others that got chosen more often.

Just got a property question

A - 76%!!
B - 17% - correct response
C - 2%
D - 5%

Explanation gives one sentence for both A and C, says they're both wrong for the same reasons. Obviously there's some more explanation required for A here, since nobody fell for C and damn near everyone chose A. But whatever. Turns out it's a modified question. Screw that.

This has definitely been happening to me more and more. Either me and at least 80% of everyone else chose the correct answer, or a) tons of us chose the wrong answer, or b) a significant majority of us split between two wrong answers.

If the former happens on the exam, that question just gets scaled out, doesn't it?

[FloRida15]

I give up... was plugging away, doing fine, then MBE Mixed set 14 crushed me. Confidence destroyed. This is my fear -- the one bad set of questions on exam day.

[IamIn]

There's no point worrying about the odd question where they come out a weird way on a judgment call. If 60-70% of people pick a wrong answer, that question is getting scaled out of the exam so it doesn't matter that you missed it.

The other day I had a question where the correct answer was chosen only 12% of the time. It was behind two others that got chosen more often.

Just got a property question

A - 76%!!
B - 17% - correct response
C - 2%
D - 5%

Explanation gives one sentence for both A and C, says they're both wrong for the same reasons. Obviously there's some more explanation required for A here, since nobody fell for C and damn near everyone chose A. But whatever. Turns out it's a modified question. Screw that.

This has definitely been happening to me more and more. Either me and at least 80% of everyone else chose the correct answer, or a) tons of us chose the wrong answer, or b) a significant majority of us split between two wrong answers.

If the former happens on the exam, that question just gets scaled out, doesn't it?

Today I saw this:

A -- 29%
B -- 20%
C -- 26%
D -- 24%

[amorsebu14]

Turned my graded essay in on Friday and still have not gotten it back. Is it 2 business days? So I should get it by today?

I think it is 2 business days.

Yeah, you should be getting yours back soon. I submitted mine on Friday and only got it bad late last night.

They SAY 2 business days, but my poor grader has been averaging 5-7 days. (And yes, I've turned everything in on time.) Advisor says she's swamped at work. I have very little compassion for her, although she seems nice enough.

PS Husband played baseball with son, he is loving football camp, believes he's the next Russell Wilson, and I don't think he'll be shooting anyone from a bell tower anymore; he's too tired from all the sports. Crisis averted.

[Lawbro]

I'm doing worse on the MBE sets than I did last week. Not sure if they're getting harder or I'm regressing here

[marthac66]

I'm doing worse on the MBE sets than I did last week. Not sure if they're getting harder or I'm regressing here

Snap! I'm hitting 50s and that terrifies me...my confidence has taken a huge battering with these mixed sets.

[sd5289]

The MBE sets seem to be increasingly testing random obscure rules at this point. Earlier today I had a question where the only reason I got it right was because I could definitely tell 3 of the answer choices were wrong. I had never even heard of the rule of the correct answer choice, but chose it because I'd eliminated the other 3. I think today was the last day I'm doing a full set, but I'll do questions (and an essay or two) each day to stay fresh and now just focus on memorizing as much as I can.

Also trying to make sure I don't burn out in this last week. I am SO exhausted and just mentally tired at this point.

[zot1]

I give up... was plugging away, doing fine, then MBE Mixed set 14 crushed me. Confidence destroyed. This is my fear -- the one bad set of questions on exam day.

I know the feeling. Take the night off, come back tomorrow ready to grind again.