July 2015 MBE Scores/Results Forum

[941law]

It's a fact that it is easier to get in to law school than once before. It should be noted that a good chunk of these kids do not graduate law school though.

The bar exam is the great equalizer.

That's a ridiculous concept though. NCBE knows that students just passed every MBE class in school, have a mountain of debt, but yet still writes a test that leaves everyone feeling empty.

Minimum competence my ass. Maybe the scoring works out to be in that realm, but every older attorney I know right now would struggle with the MBE - are they not fit?

[zot1]

Well, let's get serious here. The exam tests three things: 1. Who can remember the most material, 2. Who can write the most coherently under time pressure and stress, and 3. Who can guess better when it comes to multiple choice.

Does this sound to you like minimum competence to be an attorney?

At work, when I don't remember something, I research it, talk to other attorneys about it, or I ask my paralegal to research it. When I have to write something substantial like a brief, I often have several days to do it AND I have another attorney look at it for comments since I'm so junior and whatnot.

Finally, how many people here have said they guessed several questions in the MBE and passed? Many.

But yeah, y'all keep thinking that law students are getting dumber. Makes sense that that's the only factor* influencing lower MBE averages.

*Usually, more than one factor influences outcome per stats and data analysis experts. This to me is sufficient to think the NCBE is making a mistake by simply calling out law students. It is just not that simple. But I digress.

[SemperLegal]

We can be getting dumber when it comes to BLL and first drafting but still be good lawyers.

In which case, it makes sense for bar failures to go up in the margins. But, I am not sure they should lower the standards to smooth out bar passage., rote memorization still has some value, and for the traditonal lib art JD, this is the only time they are actually expected to memorize pure facts that cant be reasoned out. This puts more oneous on modern law students, because they likely never had to memorize as much (due to the wide avalibilty of distilled law school resources making briefing obesloete).

Anyway, law school and bar prep/ passage seem like two overlapping, but distinct, skill sets for the law. We can pass the buck all we want about looking things up, buf without minimal competency in all areas, we are useless to clients because we can't issue spot, communicate with experts in the field, or research effectivelty. The current bar has a lot of material of varying complexity, but a huge curve amount you can get wrong. That means you onlu need to know some subjects in depth, and the rest just in passing. For the most part, taker chooses which section to gun for and pickup extra points.

Doesnt seem to much to ask that a real estate attorney also know enough to tell a client to wait a year to sell a capital asset, corporate forms availble, and how a civil or criminal action might proceed if everything goes to hell. Thats the point of having a fused legal profession without solictors or paraprofessionals authorized to practice law. Not to mention, the societal beneifit of having extra people well versed in estats planning/crim/con than the market could otherwise bare.


New phone

[Veridian40]

The notion that new attorneys/law students are somehow "dumber" is not only erroneous, but also offensive. I will grant that many people that are getting to the point of taking the bar these days are worse testtakers (which, when it boils down to it, is all the LSAT really tests). Obviously, when the average LSAT score of MBE takers gets lower, the average score on the MBE is going to get lower, because the MBE itself is largely focused on examining one's testtaking ability. That really has no bearing on an individual's ability to be a lawyer, in my opinion, but it is what it is.

That said, the MBE is objectively more difficult than it has been in years past. For one, adding CivPro, regardless of what anyone wants to try and say or argue, makes the exam harder. Even if there are now fewer questions on the other subjects or the questions are somehow easier, that's another entire area of the law that now must be studied and learned prior to taking the MBE. With so much to study already, CivPro makes the exam harder just by its presence. But, on top of that, the questions themselves ARE becoming harder. NCBEX can dance around it all they want, but it's a fact. During my bar prep I took the 1998 MBE that is available online and scored a 172 raw on it, and I know I didn't score that on the real MBE (all I know is that I scored somewhere over 132), because the questions were way more straightforward on the older exam.

[chessquire]

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. It's made the interminable wait easier to bear.

I passed NY back in '07 and took KY this year, and can say without question that the MBE was SIGNIFICANTLY harder this time. Like many others have noted, I felt like I was guessing on the majority of the questions, and only felt reasonably good about maybe 10% of them.

Used BarBri eight years ago. This time did Kaplan. Skipped the mid-term, and scored 130 on the final. Was probably getting 60-70% of the questions correct the week before the exam.

Found out yesterday that I passed KY, but as others have noted, the Commonwealth does not share our scores with us, so all I know is that my score was at least 132.

One final note: I did NOT have a long string of Ds on the MBE, so don't freak out if you also did not have it! Good luck, all.

[SemperLegal]

The notion that new attorneys/law students are somehow "dumber" is not only erroneous, but also offensive. I will grant that many people that are getting to the point of taking the bar these days are worse testtakers (which, when it boils down to it, is all the LSAT really tests). Obviously, when the average LSAT score of MBE takers gets lower, the average score on the MBE is going to get lower, because the MBE itself is largely focused on examining one's testtaking ability. That really has no bearing on an individual's ability to be a lawyer, in my opinion, but it is what it is.

That said, the MBE is objectively more difficult than it has been in years past. For one, adding CivPro, regardless of what anyone wants to try and say or argue, makes the exam harder. Even if there are now fewer questions on the other subjects or the questions are somehow easier, that's another entire area of the law that now must be studied and learned prior to taking the MBE. With so much to study already, CivPro makes the exam harder just by its presence. But, on top of that, the questions themselves ARE becoming harder. NCBEX can dance around it all they want, but it's a fact. During my bar prep I took the 1998 MBE that is available online and scored a 172 raw on it, and I know I didn't score that on the real MBE (all I know is that I scored somewhere over 132), because the questions were way more straightforward on the older exam.

Whatever. Not dumber, just worse at taking tests and retaining information.

Just because Barbri (or whoever) was better at preparing us for past questions than predicted questions, doesnt mean the older ones are easier, just that Barbri teaches to the test. Had you taken the 1998 test after a curiculum created in 1997, you would have scored worse.


Congrats on passing.

[Veridian40]

The notion that new attorneys/law students are somehow "dumber" is not only erroneous, but also offensive. I will grant that many people that are getting to the point of taking the bar these days are worse testtakers (which, when it boils down to it, is all the LSAT really tests). Obviously, when the average LSAT score of MBE takers gets lower, the average score on the MBE is going to get lower, because the MBE itself is largely focused on examining one's testtaking ability. That really has no bearing on an individual's ability to be a lawyer, in my opinion, but it is what it is.

That said, the MBE is objectively more difficult than it has been in years past. For one, adding CivPro, regardless of what anyone wants to try and say or argue, makes the exam harder. Even if there are now fewer questions on the other subjects or the questions are somehow easier, that's another entire area of the law that now must be studied and learned prior to taking the MBE. With so much to study already, CivPro makes the exam harder just by its presence. But, on top of that, the questions themselves ARE becoming harder. NCBEX can dance around it all they want, but it's a fact. During my bar prep I took the 1998 MBE that is available online and scored a 172 raw on it, and I know I didn't score that on the real MBE (all I know is that I scored somewhere over 132), because the questions were way more straightforward on the older exam.

Whatever. Not dumber, just worse at taking tests and retaining information.

Just because Barbri (or whoever) was better at preparing us for past questions than predicted questions, doesnt mean the older ones are easier, just that Barbri teaches to the test. Had you taken the 1998 test after a curiculum created in 1997, you would have scored worse.


Congrats on passing.

I didn't mean to come across like I was responding to you in particular, or trying to be hostile. My post was more in response to the statements and articles from NCBEX that have been referenced throughout this thread.

You're probably right about the 1998 exam, honestly, but I noticed a distinct difference in th questions. The 1998 exam just seemed more like the questions were based on large areas of the law, with straightforward answer choices while the 2015 exam was more like an "IQ test". Everything was "choose the most correct answer" or "find this exception to the exception in a convoluted fact pattern". It just felt objectively more difficult to me.

Thanks for the congratulations though! It's such a relief to be done with that test. I don't have to think/talk about it ever again now!

[SemperLegal]

The notion that new attorneys/law students are somehow "dumber" is not only erroneous, but also offensive. I will grant that many people that are getting to the point of taking the bar these days are worse testtakers (which, when it boils down to it, is all the LSAT really tests). Obviously, when the average LSAT score of MBE takers gets lower, the average score on the MBE is going to get lower, because the MBE itself is largely focused on examining one's testtaking ability. That really has no bearing on an individual's ability to be a lawyer, in my opinion, but it is what it is.

That said, the MBE is objectively more difficult than it has been in years past. For one, adding CivPro, regardless of what anyone wants to try and say or argue, makes the exam harder. Even if there are now fewer questions on the other subjects or the questions are somehow easier, that's another entire area of the law that now must be studied and learned prior to taking the MBE. With so much to study already, CivPro makes the exam harder just by its presence. But, on top of that, the questions themselves ARE becoming harder. NCBEX can dance around it all they want, but it's a fact. During my bar prep I took the 1998 MBE that is available online and scored a 172 raw on it, and I know I didn't score that on the real MBE (all I know is that I scored somewhere over 132), because the questions were way more straightforward on the older exam.

Whatever. Not dumber, just worse at taking tests and retaining information.

Just because Barbri (or whoever) was better at preparing us for past questions than predicted questions, doesnt mean the older ones are easier, just that Barbri teaches to the test. Had you taken the 1998 test after a curiculum created in 1997, you would have scored worse.


Congrats on passing.

I didn't mean to come across like I was responding to you in particular, or trying to be hostile. My post was more in response to the statements and articles from NCBEX that have been referenced throughout this thread.

You're probably right about the 1998 exam, honestly, but I noticed a distinct difference in th questions. The 1998 exam just seemed more like the questions were based on large areas of the law, with straightforward answer choices while the 2015 exam was more like an "IQ test". Everything was "choose the most correct answer" or "find this exception to the exception in a convoluted fact pattern". It just felt objectively more difficult to me.

Thanks for the congratulations though! It's such a relief to be done with that test. I don't have to think/talk about it ever again now!

No worries.

That transitions well to what I think the future of the Bar Exam should be. A national UBE-style test with input from law professors (minimal), lawyers, judges, and lay people that allows you to sit local exams, which are harder then the local section is now but not nearly as hard as the current bar exam. The local section would be a different time of year, so there's less an edge to people who can just read and dump info.

That way clients can be "assured" that we can "think like a lawyer" since we passed law school, function as a general legal adviser because we are able to apply varying laws nationwide as well as quickly learn new fields of law, and that we actually know the outline of the law that exists in our chose jurisdiction.

Plus, its makes far more sense to take short, but legit, state exams whenever we move between jurisdictions, rather than the current policy where we either have to relearn everything (i.e. moving in the first 5 years) or merely be able to find the mailing address of the highest court (i.e. admission by motion).

The new national MBE could be just as hard, because it would essentially be the only thing you have to learn (because MEE are just MBE answers that show their work and the MPT is a whole lot of nothing,)

[AReasonableMan]

This is like a law school version of the 2008 debates over who was at fault for the financial crisis.

[TwoBars]

I believe the NCBE term used was law students are "less able" than prior years. Interpret as you will, but it is a fair assessment based strictly on the test results. However, as people have pointed out, there seems to be no discussion regarding the changes to the MBE questions. The material may be the same, but the questions are different today than even 4 or 5 years ago. My hunch is that NCBE is making an effort to change the questions so that the actual test questions are not the same and Barbri, Themis, Kaplan etc. practice questions. The end result is that come test time, the actual MBE is not phrased like all the practice questions so the test is harder. Who knows.

[BVest]

For a look at how the NCBE compares students over time, see this article on equating the MBE.

[CurryWithTheShot]

I received an email on Friday to complete additional information through my bar applicant portal online and the email said if I "fail to provide full and complete responses, it may affect my eligibility to participate in the admission ceremony." However, my bar results will not be released until a couple more weeks. Does this email essentially mean I passed, or is just a standard email they send to all applicants? Has anyone ever received something like this?

[lushes3]

You are assuming they haven't progressively made ALL questions harder. I would say that is likely a false assumption based on my experience.

That's certainly possible. However, LSAT/GPAs have been declining steadily, had a significant drop for C/O 2015, and an even larger drop for C/O 2016. It seems likely that next year will be worse.

Except you aren't accounting for the fact that LSAT scores are generally not steadily high in the first place. As the number of applicants to law schools grew, with the largest number being in some year in the 2000s, LSAT scores also became more competitive. But if you look back to the 90s, I'm pretty sure LSAT scores were not as high back then either. In any case, nobody can say that is the reason without actually sitting and comparing LSAT vs. MBE scores for individual takers, which I don't think anybody has done for the last administrations. The fact that LSAT scores are lower doesn't mean that applicants are dumber, there can be a variety of other explanations for lower LSAT scores. E.G., Applicant A wants to go to Law School L and knows that they need score XXX to go there with a scholarship. A also wants to make some money before they go to law school and also wants to enjoy life before they start school. A realizes that A doesn't need to bust his ass studying for the LSAT, he can get away with the lower score, so A decides not to intensely study for the LSAT and work and party instead. Or, you have Applicant B, who wants to go to law school but has 2 kids to feed and doesn't have a trust fund, so B doesn't really have any resources to invest and realizes now is a great time to go to law school without investing money beforehand. Are these examples necessarily the case? No, they aren't, but it also isn't a fact that the applicant pool is dumber.

[ash0117]

I received an email on Friday to complete additional information through my bar applicant portal online and the email said if I "fail to provide full and complete responses, it may affect my eligibility to participate in the admission ceremony." However, my bar results will not be released until a couple more weeks. Does this email essentially mean I passed, or is just a standard email they send to all applicants? Has anyone ever received something like this?

It sounds like there is some kind of C & F hold up. It depends on what state you're in, but it probably doesn't mean you passed. The people doing the C & F investigations are not the same people grading the tests. They likely have no knowledge as to whether you passed or not. All they are saying is that if you don't provide the additional information, you may not be able to be sworn in, even if you do pass.

[lakerinstl]

One thing I thought about with the whole "law students in 2015 are just dumber" narrative is looking at the pass rate at my school. The bar pass rate for my school has dropped at the same rate as the pass rate for the state overall. The thing is, my school has maintained GPA and LSAT medians over the past several years. So the GPAs and LSATs (the statistical evidence those have used to say that law students are now just dumber) are the same, yet since 2013 the pass rate continues to fall, the same for the state and national rate of those failing the bar. It's only one school, but it's a good way to show that maybe it's not just the new graduates of 2014 and 2015 that are just worse.

[nyny]

One thing I thought about with the whole "law students in 2015 are just dumber" narrative is looking at the pass rate at my school. The bar pass rate for my school has dropped at the same rate as the pass rate for the state overall. The thing is, my school has maintained GPA and LSAT medians over the past several years. So the GPAs and LSATs (the statistical evidence those have used to say that law students are now just dumber) are the same, yet since 2013 the pass rate continues to fall, the same for the state and national rate of those failing the bar. It's only one school, but it's a good way to show that maybe it's not just the new graduates of 2014 and 2015 that are just worse.

This is basically what the Brooklyn Law School dean said in response to the notion that the 2014 graduates were not as smart (or however the NBCE president phrased it) as the 2013 graduates, and other years prior. He said the 2014 lsat and gpa's were on par or better than 2013.

All in all we all know what's really going on here, the test has gotten harder to let in fewer lawyers, because there are not enough jobs for everyone. That's the issue. Law schools have been opening left and right in the past 20 years, thats more and more new graduates for competition.

New York has been adding and subtracting subjects from their exam every year it seems... And the MBE has another substantive subject on top of subtle changes in the other subjects already tested. At the end of the day with all these changes occurring, we all have to make sure we pass this exam to practice. I'm not sure that fact will ever change.

[lawguyjake]

It's nearly impossible to honestly deny that the MBE is harder now than it has been in previous. Previous NCBE exams available online tested on much broader and more straightforward material (i.e., criminal law in particular seemed substantially easier than what I encountered this summer). But even if I were to agree that the questions were equally hard then as they are now, I still had to memorize 17% more law for the MBE because of the introduction of civil procedure. This isn't like civil procedure appearing on an essay where you might only know the basics and could snag a few points here or there--there is only one correct answer on the MBE. That in and of itself makes the bar exam and bar prep dramatically and demonstrably harder.

I think there are two points that we should all keep in mind regarding the bar exam. First, if the test is designed to test minimal lawyer competency, it seems to me that all practitioners should be able to go into a testing site at any given moment and be able to do reasonably well. That is surely not the case. I just passed the damn thing 2 weeks ago and probably would fail right now.

Secondly, a lot of people have mentioned that passers should just be satisfied that they have passed and should stop complaining. But that's insane. All of us know smart people who would make good lawyers who failed the bar because the test is basically 100% bullshit. Their failure says nothing of their competence to practice law. Personally, I am all for an exam that has a tendency to artificially limit the number of people who enter the profession. Fine. Whatever, NCBE. But at least make a test that is in some way related to the actual practice of law.

[charlesxavier]

One thing I thought about with the whole "law students in 2015 are just dumber" narrative is looking at the pass rate at my school. The bar pass rate for my school has dropped at the same rate as the pass rate for the state overall. The thing is, my school has maintained GPA and LSAT medians over the past several years. So the GPAs and LSATs (the statistical evidence those have used to say that law students are now just dumber) are the same, yet since 2013 the pass rate continues to fall, the same for the state and national rate of those failing the bar. It's only one school, but it's a good way to show that maybe it's not just the new graduates of 2014 and 2015 that are just worse.

I've actually been taking solace in the fact that my school's pass rate has not followed the statewide trend. The state average for first time takers has been steadily around 81% and fell to 77% last year. Over the past 10 years my school has been passing at rates between 85% and 95% (91% last year). However, some of the lower tier schools in the state do seem to be heavily affected in recent years and have fallen into the 50% pass range. While top tier schools seem to be failing at a marginally higher rate it still seems that it's the lower tier schools that are really lowering passing rates.

[Ajren Robben]

I took Barbri, and there were several instances when they said that two answer choices were technically correct but one was better for some reason (which ticked me off). But at least we can't say they didn't prepare us for having to guess.

The way I see it is that if the MBE was straightforward then hundreds of people would probably be getting perfect scores on it every year. Lets face it, there might be a lot of info on it, but most of it is very basic and relatively easy to understand. The only way to make it more difficult is to come up with these super close call questions. I would be curious to see an explanation of every question though to see how many were really bullshit.

[zot1]

Any states releasing this week?

[Bexy73]

Any states releasing this week?

Illinois. (Fingers crossed!!)

[kyle010723]

Any states releasing this week?

Illinois. (Fingers crossed!!)

Supposedly Oct 1st... /terrified...

[Greenandgold]

For a look at how the NCBE compares students over time, see this article on equating the MBE.

It seems to me that this method fails to take into account what should be an expected drop in performance when new subjects are added to the test. The NCBE is basically saying, "you're all dumber because students on last year's test did better on these 10 questions, which were the exact same on both tests." Completely ridiculous for them to think we'd do as well when we had to study an extra subject. That's nearly 18% more material, if not more based on the fact that Civ Pro is a dense subject with lots of timing issues to memorize.

I know others in this thread have mentioned this stuff, but based on the NCBE's own documents it seems that we are getting the shaft. All while the NCBE is content to blame it on law student's "being less able" than in the past.

[mike.alexander23]

Am I the only one that has apathy towards this whole NCBE v LS deans/student quality discussion? I know it's a way for us type A people to vent about how unfair of a process it is, but frankly it's a process we have to deal with.

Thousands of people pass these exams every couple of months. We need to stop worrying about what we can't control, and at the end of the day we should hold ourselves accountable and pass the freakin' test. Have some confidence in yourselves, work hard, and give the bar examiners the middle finger when you pass.

[lawguyjake]

Am I the only one that has apathy towards this whole NCBE v LS deans/student quality discussion? I know it's a way for us type A people to vent about how unfair of a process it is, but frankly it's a process we have to deal with.

Thousands of people pass these exams every couple of months. We need to stop worrying about what we can't control, and at the end of the day we should hold ourselves accountable and pass the freakin' test. Have some confidence in yourselves, work hard, and give the bar examiners the middle finger when you pass.

Personally, I reject the notion that the bar exam is just "a process we have to deal with." Honestly, I don't have to deal with it ever again because I passed, but that shouldn't mean that I should stop caring about what I think is a completely arbitrary exam. I don't want anybody foreclosed from practicing law--after spending three years and untold thousands of dollars--because the NCBE is creating an exam that cannot reasonably be prepared for and which has little (if any) bearing on real lawyering skills. It's all bullshit.

No doubt there should be a licensing exam: we all went to law school with people who we wouldn't trust to do anything. But it is kind of inconceivable to me that the overwhelming majority of practitioners and judges would bomb an exam described as a "minimum competency test" if it were put in front of them today.

The people who need to be more accountable are at the NCBE.