July 2015 MBE Scores/Results Forum

[nyny]

I will just drop this unfortunate news here... pass rates are down in almost every state that reported as of now.

http://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2015/ ... re-carnage

[History_Buff]

Mississippi plummeted by 27% points. How is that even possible?

[gabewatch]

I would imagine huge swings like 27% are usually in states with several hundred bar takers. Not like 15,000+ like NY or California. I'm waiting for NY, so thats what I'm telling myself.

[gabewatch]

Actually, just checked. Miss had less than 150 bar takers in July. http://courts.ms.gov/baradmissions/bar_ ... ly2015.pdf. So yeah, small sample size.

[941law]

Hard to agree with the sentiment below from the link above. As someone who has been working in law firms for 5 years, I know I would be a great attorney and have the minimum capability at least; however, I may have failed the bar. I know many people that have passed the bar are are awful attorneys. At the end of the day the bar exam measures your ability to figure out a test and guess the correct letter answer.

(As an important caveat, I recognize that there are many measures of "student quality" or "law school graduate quality," and that the bar exam is but one measure of that. But, assuming, which may be even too big an assumption for many, that the bar exam presents, very roughly, a proxy for those who have the minimum capability to practice law, and the pass rates continue to decline, then we can, very roughly, say that there has been a "decline" in "law school graduate quality," at least as evaluated by this one metric. Perhaps there are other metrics, or perhaps there are better metrics, but this is how I use the term here.)

[anozira]

The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July [2015] test fell 1.6 points from the previous year, reaching its lowest level since 1988, according to data provided to Bloomberg by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The mean score on this summer's exam was 139.9, down from 141.5 in July 2014.

Bloomberg

[Outis Onoma]

My thoughts before I got my results: Make the bar exam easier!

My thoughts after I got my results: Make the bar exam harder!

[osbarca]

The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July [2015] test fell 1.6 points from the previous year, reaching its lowest level since 1988, according to data provided to Bloomberg by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The mean score on this summer's exam was 139.9, down from 141.5 in July 2014.

Bloomberg

That's terrifying. Our results come out tomorrow. I'm scared.

[BCgirl]

(2) had a huge string of D in the first column (broken up with a different answer every so often) on the AM session, and IIRC, a lot of D scattered throughout the remainder of the session

Me too! It was like 12-13 out of the first 20 was D for me. I got behind on time on the AM session because I literally panicked and re-read all the questions for the first column

[zot1]

Good luck to everyone who will be finding out today!

May the force be with you.

[Florence Night]

Kaplan, 170 MBE, felt like trash walking out of the test. It all worked out.

Also, no recollection of a string of Ds, though I doubt I would've noticed if there was one. (Who cares? It's all random. No one is policing whether there's an equal balance of answer choices!)

Final note, kaplan's "add 15-20" to your final score was dead on for me.

[K Rock]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... in-decades

"Bar Exam Scores Drop to Their Lowest Point in Decades"

[nyny]

The pass rates are going down and the reasons are clearly two fold. At first I did not want to admit the quality of student has probably decreased over the past decade, but some stats including admission standards would beg to differ.

But then again, what about the schools who have still seen their rates decline even though they have kept their admission standards the same?

Second, I think its clear that the NCBE have made the MBE more difficult. For crying out loud, they added another section to the exam, that students and bar companies still don't really know how to prep for yet. Besides that, the questions from past released tests and the actual bar exam are like night and day. The questions now are nuanced and don't test the straight forward items they used too. I don't think I saw many straight forward crime questions... you know... if A does blah blah blah to B, is it murder, manslaughter etc. etc.

Overall we all just must adjust and overcome the hurdle and just pass.

[trustmouse83]

So, to be clear, the average MBE nationwide is now confirmed at below 140?!

wow.

I was having a few wobbles in my confidence over the last few days, but this news is a real kick in the nuts to me.

[zot1]

So, to be clear, the average MBE nationwide is now confirmed at below 140?!

wow.

I was having a few wobbles in my confidence over the last few days, but this news is a real kick in the nuts to me.

Cite?

[K Rock]

So, to be clear, the average MBE nationwide is now confirmed at below 140?!

wow.

I was having a few wobbles in my confidence over the last few days, but this news is a real kick in the nuts to me.

Cite?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... in-decades

[petepilsh]

Idaho has a 280 point passing score?? That is crazy! How do people pass that? Other than the previous poster who stated they scored a 170 MBE. This person should transfer their MBE score to a bunch of different jurisdictions and practically "auto-pass."

[Florence Night]

The pass rates are going down and the reasons are clearly two fold. At first I did not want to admit the quality of student has probably decreased over the past decade, but some stats including admission standards would beg to differ.

But then again, what about the schools who have still seen their rates decline even though they have kept their admission standards the same?

Second, I think its clear that the NCBE have made the MBE more difficult. For crying out loud, they added another section to the exam, that students and bar companies still don't really know how to prep for yet. Besides that, the questions from past released tests and the actual bar exam are like night and day. The questions now are nuanced and don't test the straight forward items they used too. I don't think I saw many straight forward crime questions... you know... if A does blah blah blah to B, is it murder, manslaughter etc. etc.

Overall we all just must adjust and overcome the hurdle and just pass.

Agree. The actual past-test questions I'd done were laughably easier actual July MBE test. I was literally around 87% correct on those by the end and was probably under 80% on the real deal..and it felt much worse than that.

[osbarca]

So, to be clear, the average MBE nationwide is now confirmed at below 140?!

wow.

I was having a few wobbles in my confidence over the last few days, but this news is a real kick in the nuts to me.

The MBE felt SO hard. I really didn't feel like I was well-prepared for it, even though I took my studying seriously. Granted, I only got a month off work, and I have two young kids, but I felt like I did what I could with that time. I felt "good" (whatever that means) going in to the exam, and like I had been spun through the twilight zone when I left.

[jlanky]

I love all the finger pointing by law schools and the NCBE.

NCBE: "Its not us, it must the law schools to blame."

Law Schools: "Its not our fault we have to admit unworthy students, those are the people applying."

As lawyers, I find it amazing that they all offer up statements without looking deeper into potential causes. Not saying that they are incorrect, but they should be more careful. I know NCBE "looked into" the July 2014 test after the allegations last year, but I'm not buying it. You know who is not getting blamed in all of this? Bar exam prep companies. Which is ridiculous given that those materials were the sole source of studying for many people. I mean, how well did my torts class really prepare me for the bar exam? Not very well, I can assure you.

[osbarca]

You know who is not getting blamed in all of this? Bar exam prep companies. Which is ridiculous given that those materials were the sole source of studying for many people.

I agree with this. Especially if the NCBE doesn't truly curve the test, so that when the majority of folks don't know an answer, the question gets tossed. I still don't really understand how the calibrating works -- if more people are getting less questions right, shouldn't the curve straighten that out? Or are the very high and very low outliers screwing up those in the middle?

To me, one of the biggest benefits of taking barbri was always: "well if I've never heard of it, or I don't know it, then many others don't either." The whole "be a sheep and you'll pass" concept. But I'm not sure how much that actually helped me.

[bg9903]

I just don't know how this MBE was similar to any other MBE I have seen before in practice or past exams. These questions were very confusing and some were convoluted at best. I'm not going to complain (that much) until my scores are back, but I will say I was not expecting to see what I saw on that MBE.

[gaagoots]

I just looked at the NCBE statistics archives and the last time July went below 140 scaled was in 1988 when it was 139.8.

According to the article in Bloomberg, Ms Moeser claims it wasn't to blame on civ pro. I personally found Con Law foreign. Statistically, examinees do the best in Con Law but I really struggled on exam day with those questions and I way over-prepared for that subject hoping that it would compensate for my low Adaptibar civ pro scores.

[ResIpsa305]

So the 139.9 number represents the average "scaled" score of all jurisdictions? (even those not reporting yet?)

Interesting because I was under the impression that each state determines their own final scale. For ex. Iowa may decide to scale up 15 points from the "raw score" while Hawaii may scale up 20, etc. etc. I was unable to decipher whether that 139.9 number takes that variation into account.

[robinhoodOO]

Just my 2 cents on the NCBE and MBE conversation:

(1) I recall roughly 5-6 trickier CivPro questions on motion for judgement as a matter of law, none of which seemed familiar to MBE's I'd seen in practice questions (and I'd seen a bunch). That's roughly 1/5 (20%) of the CivPro Q's on that single area. If they're testing such a minor area of such a huge topic and you don't know it cold, many are likely to bomb and lower the averages.

(2) I also recall roughly 3-5 trickier questions on the requirement of having both a promissory note and mortgage for foreclosure, and potential transfer of one, but not the other for a subsequent mortgagee to foreclose. That's a huge percentage of RP questions dedicated to notes and mortgages for foreclosure, on a very small area. Again, if you didn't know the nuances and the rules cold, you could take a pretty big hit on just that.

All that to say, there is not much wiggle room on an exam like this. And there's even less when they're over-inclusive of minor areas that you may not have studied as much.

Now, I can't say whether this "trend" has existed prior, but you also have to consider the CivPro section had NEVER been tested on a July exam. So, it's easy to say that students are worse (especially for the NCBE, who has a horse in the race), but you also have to consider other factors. That, and correlation doesn't equal causation--obviously.