Florida Bar Exam - Official Thread Forum

[727law]

I dunno if this helps you all, but I passed Florida with the following raw scores:

Essays
#1 - 33
#2 - 53
#3 - 33

MC
FL Procedure - 17
Evidence - 22
Wills - 17
(averages to 62% raw)

Total Scaled Score: 138

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

Passed FL with 138, failed MBE with 127. Overall score: 132.5

July 2015? Sorry this is making my headspin. My life would have been so much easier this time around if I could have focused on MBE only. I feel like I got robbed, and then I read the score information sheet which states You will not be able to determine any relationship between the total Part A raw score reported to you on the breakdown of scores by subject and your Part A scaled score as the sum of the converted section scores is used in determining the scaled score So my interpretation is that being over the mean in MC is more valuable than being over the mean on Essay

[not guilty]

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

Are you guys both talking about the same exam date? July 15'?

[THE_U]

I dunno if this helps you all, but I passed Florida with the following raw scores:

Essays
#1 - 33
#2 - 53
#3 - 33

MC
FL Procedure - 17
Evidence - 22
Wills - 17
(averages to 62% raw)

Total Scaled Score: 138

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

Passed FL with 138, failed MBE with 127. Overall score: 132.5

July 2015? Sorry this is making my headspin. My life would have been so much easier this time around if I could have focused on MBE only. I feel like I got robbed, and then I read the score information sheet which states You will not be able to determine any relationship between the total Part A raw score reported to you on the breakdown of scores by subject and your Part A scaled score as the sum of the converted section scores is used in determining the scaled score So my interpretation is that being over the mean in MC is more valuable than being over the mean on Essay

Yes

[starry24]

I dunno if this helps you all, but I passed Florida with the following raw scores:

Essays
#1 - 33
#2 - 53
#3 - 33

MC
FL Procedure - 17
Evidence - 22
Wills - 17
(averages to 62% raw)

Total Scaled Score: 138

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

That is crazy (and unfair)! Maybe that reinforces notguilty's theory that the two sections are averaged though? If theu's average on MC was a 62%, and his average on essays was a 40%, that averages out to 51% on the exam overall. If your average on the MC was 51% and your average on the essays was 44%, your average on the exam was a 47.5%. Your scaled scores were very close, but with whatever curve they used, theu's was just a bit higher to push him over the 136 mark.

But I also think it shows that a good performance on the multiple choice will balance out a weaker essay score. Even though you got a 131.5 on essays and theu got a 119, the difference percentage-wise was pretty small if it's out of 300.

[not guilty]

Hmmmn..

UC Essays: 119
727* Essays: 131

UC MC: 56
727* mc: 46

UC total: 175 scaling to 138
727* total: 177 scaling to 134

[THE_U]

Read the link that I posted previously.

It describes this exact situation.

[727law]

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

Are you guys both talking about the same exam date? July 15'?

Ya, so for all the talk about how they score, your MC points are obviously a little more valuable. I was +12.5 on essays and theu is +10 on MC but he scaled 4 points higher.

[727law]

I dunno if this helps you all, but I passed Florida with the following raw scores:

Essays
#1 - 33
#2 - 53
#3 - 33

MC
FL Procedure - 17
Evidence - 22
Wills - 17
(averages to 62% raw)

Total Scaled Score: 138

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

That is crazy (and unfair)! Maybe that reinforces notguilty's theory that the two sections are averaged though? If theu's average on MC was a 62%, and his average on essays was a 40%, that averages out to 51% on the exam overall. If your average on the MC was 51% and your average on the essays was 44%, your average on the exam was a 47.5%. Your scaled scores were very close, but with whatever curve they used, theu's was just a bit higher to push him over the 136 mark.

But I also think it shows that a good performance on the multiple choice will balance out a weaker essay score. Even though you got a 131.5 on essays and theu got a 119, the difference percentage-wise was pretty small if it's out of 300.

Exactly, our average essay was only 4.2% difference, but the difference in MC % was much greater

[starry24]

This kind of pisses me off and makes no sense. Your Raw score is a 175 and you scaled a 138. My raw score was a 177.5 and I scaled a 134. Are you saying your scaled Florida was a 138? or you passed overall with a scaled 138? Because your MBE can push your overall scaled score up.

Essay 1: 53
Essay 2: 50.5
Essay 3: 28

FL Civ/Crim Pro: 13
Evidence: 19
Wills: 14

Scaled 134

Are you guys both talking about the same exam date? July 15'?

Ya, so for all the talk about how they score, your MC points are obviously a little more valuable. I was +12.5 on essays and starry is +10 on MC but he scaled 4 points higher.

the_u's score, not mine What about the averaging though? See my post above. Am I wrong? Couldn't that explain the situation?

[not guilty]

I'll try my formula and make it out of 190 by: Dividing essay total 3, adding mc, then subtracting that total from the scaled number to see what a "additional curve" might have been....


Gives a 42 scale on UC's score

Gives a 44 curve on 727's score


User 727 was given more points for some reason if they grade the exam out of 190 points (which is my theory because they average it to MBE).

[727law]

the_u's score, not mine What about the averaging though? See my post above. Am I wrong? Couldn't that explain the situation?

edited, sorry

[starry24]

the_u's score, not mine What about the averaging though? See my post above. Am I wrong? Couldn't that explain the situation?

edited, sorry

No worries. But basically - if you need like a 50% average score on both essays and mc to pass the exam, and you do poorly on the multiple choice (say under 60%), you need to REALLY do well on the essays.

The mean MC in July was about 61%, whereas the mean essay score was about 43%. To make up for a poor showing on multiple choice, you'd have to do well above average on the essays.

[not guilty]

"You will not be able to determine any relationship between the total Part A raw score reported to you on the breakdown of scores by subject and your Part A scaled score as the sum of the converted section scores is used in determining the scaled score"

I'm taking this as there is a portion in the formula that cannot be figured out by math.

But if you look at the percentages, you will see it works out logically for who passed and failed out of UC and 727

[727law]

Read the link that I posted previously.

It describes this exact situation.

Ya that is pretty much spot on.

[starry24]

"You will not be able to determine any relationship between the total Part A raw score reported to you on the breakdown of scores by subject and your Part A scaled score as the sum of the converted section scores is used in determining the scaled score"

I'm taking this as there is a portion in the formula that cannot be figured out by math.

But if you look at the percentages, you will see it works out logically for who passed and failed out of UC and 727

I think the part that cannot be determined could be how much they curve it. Ie, maybe a 51% wouldn't have been passing on its own, but then once they add a mysterious number of points to that, it got him over the edge. Whereas whatever unknown number they added to 47% was just under. I agree with you that taking the averages of the percentages on mc and essays seems to explain this odd situation.

[not guilty]

Re: Scaling

So this interesting..

I'll try my formula and make it out of 190 by: Dividing essay total by 3, adding mc, then subtracting that total from the scaled number to see what a "additional curve" might have been....


Gives a 42 curve on the_U score

Gives a 44 curve on 727Law score

So we have a 42?

Well 42 is the exact # you get from calculating the range raw scores for the July 2015 test.

Bar reported this:
Part A
Section / High Score / Out of total
1 / 90 / 100
2 / 85 / 100
3 / 83 / 100
4 / 30 / 30
5 / 30 / 30
6 / 30 / 30

Meaning curve is 10 off, 15 off, and 17 off = 42. Was 42 added to UC's total? Why would 42 be added to UC and 44 to '727'?

There is an element of math that we can't see. My final guess is that the Exam gets calculated to be out of 190 and that the MC and Essays are weighted equal after calculating.

[not guilty]

if anyone else ever wants to mess with the math, here is another sample from July 15'


essay 1: 33
essay 2: 28
essay 3: 23
mc 4: 10
mc 5: 11
mc 6: 11

Raw: 116
Scaled to: 114

[not guilty]

Ya, so for all the talk about how they score, your MC points are obviously a little more valuable. I was +12.5 on essays and theu is +10 on MC but he scaled 4 points higher.

Maybe, but it's very close.

If you score both sections equal in weight and out of 190 (100 for essay and 90 for MC)...

727Law got 47.65% of the total points available

the_U got 50.9% of the total points available.

UC beat '727' by 3.25%


or you could say the essays weren't out of 300. They were out of the curve, which was 90+85+83 = 258 essay points. 258+90 = 348 total points.

Meaning 727Law really got over 50% of the points available and still failed the exam.

[starry24]

Since we're not allowed to bring watches... do they give us any kind of warnings as to time? Nervous about the essays on Tuesday morning.

[THE_U]

Since we're not allowed to bring watches... do they give us any kind of warnings as to time? Nervous about the essays on Tuesday morning.

There are huge countdown clocks at the front of the room and I believe they also gave us a 15, 5, and 1 minute warning over the loud speaker.

[starry24]

Since we're not allowed to bring watches... do they give us any kind of warnings as to time? Nervous about the essays on Tuesday morning.

There are huge countdown clocks at the front of the room and I believe they also gave us a 15, 5, and 1 minute warning over the loud speaker.

Would be nice if they gave us a 2 hour and 1 hour warning for essays. Oh well. When I took Louisiana, they were supposed to give us a 30-minute warning and the proctor forgot.

[starry24]

Last minute FL Crim Pro question - so in the Barbri outline where it talks about Adversary Preliminary Hearings, it says that "if the defendant remains in custody and is not charged by information or indictment within 30 days of arrest or service of capias, the court on the 30th day, with notice to the state, must order the defendant automatically released on his own recognizance by the 33rd day unless formal charges are filed, or if the state shows good cause, the court must order the defendant to be automatically released on his own recognizance on the 40th day unless formal charges are filed."

So... okay... but isn't a defendant held in custody already required to have a nonadversary probable cause hearing within 48 hours of arrest? Is the distinction that a finding of probable cause at the nonadversary probable cause hearing (which would justify defendant's continued detention) does not necessarily result in formal charges being filed?

[not guilty]

Last minute FL Crim Pro question - so in the Barbri outline where it talks about Adversary Preliminary Hearings, it says that "if the defendant remains in custody and is not charged by information or indictment within 30 days of arrest or service of capias, the court on the 30th day, with notice to the state, must order the defendant automatically released on his own recognizance by the 33rd day unless formal charges are filed, or if the state shows good cause, the court must order the defendant to be automatically released on his own recognizance on the 40th day unless formal charges are filed."

So... okay... but isn't a defendant held in custody already required to have a nonadversary probable cause hearing within 48 hours of arrest? Is the distinction that a finding of probable cause at the nonadversary probable cause hearing (which would justify defendant's continued detention) does not necessarily result in formal charges being filed?

I know. I get confused as well. Defendant gets arrested and is required to have a First Appearance to set bail within 24 hours. After arrest the State has a certain amount of time to file charges on the defendant (175 days felony). However, if the defendant did not get bail then he will be ROR'd if there are no charges filed after 33 days (put motion in on 30th day). The State can of course file charges later, the Defendant just merely gets out for the time being.

[not guilty]

Twas the night before....

See you guys tom. to argue about issue spotting and complain about essay #2, which was most likely some unforeseen curveball.

[THE_U]

Good luck y'all. You're gonna kill it.