Was the MBE harder than you expected Forum

[YYZ]

I thought the first half was about what I expect, maybe a bit easier. But then the second half I thought was way harder. I thought it balanced out to slightly harder than the BARBRI simulated MBE.

Agreed

[LSATNightmares]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

[AJS30]

I keep thinking about all the stupid mistakes I made on the easy questions, who knows what I did on the harder questions....really hoping there is a big curve.

[SammyJ]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks.

[lmr]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

How exactly would ca know that the mbe would be difficult? Isn't ca bar a separate entity from ncbe? Def didn't think the trusts or pr/corps questions were easier.

[SamSeaborn2016]

Can't say I walked away from the MBE thinking it was any better or worse than I anticipated. Some of the experimental questions were obvious and I don't feel like I was completely mugged. Pretty standard mix of stuff I knew, could sort out, or just had to guess between two answers. There were only a few of the WTF questions where I just blindly guessed. If anything, it confirmed that certain topics kill me and others don't.

[OklahomasOK]

About 35% of the questions I knew. About 45% of the questions I could discern the right answer have some work and am fairly confident. About 10% I was able to narrow down to two and make an educated guess. 10% I kinda blanked on with a few in particular I had no idea what was going on.

Just need to stay afloat. Hoping my MPT & essays carry me.

[tepper]

I was practicing at around 83% raw score for most of the barbri mixed sets, and I got a 80% on the barbri simulated final, raw. However, I found the MBE was very difficult, at least more difficult than I expected. There was a bunch of wtf questions on there that I had to narrow my answers down to two, and then take an educated guess.

[scrowell]

Easier. Kap-test questions were tougher

[LSATNightmares]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

How exactly would ca know that the mbe would be difficult? Isn't ca bar a separate entity from ncbe? Def didn't think the trusts or pr/corps questions were easier.

Yeah, but I would imagine that California has access in advance and data about questions, no?

[lmr]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

How exactly would ca know that the mbe would be difficult? Isn't ca bar a separate entity from ncbe? Def didn't think the trusts or pr/corps questions were easier.

Yeah, but I would imagine that California has access in advance and data about questions, no?

I just don't see how or why. Even if they did have access to the scores they'd have no statistical data to back up whether the MBE was difficult or not. NCBE would have to conduct that analysis and give the scaled score or whatever once they actually see how people performed on that test. I just don't see essays being made easier/harder bc of the MBE. It makes sense that they make PTs harder or easier given the difficulty of the essays topics but MBE would be difficult.

[sam9317]

About 35% of the questions I knew. About 45% of the questions I could discern the right answer have some work and am fairly confident. About 10% I was able to narrow down to two and make an educated guess. 10% I kinda blanked on with a few in particular I had no idea what was going on.
Just need to stay afloat. Hoping my MPT & essays carry me.

Wish I could say the same... I am confident with about 30% of the questions, another 40% I could narrow down to 2 choices, and then about 15%I was guessing from 3 choices, and the last 15% was just random. I literally wanted to use my pencil as a guessing tool...

[Anonnn]

So am I right in thinking that because the MBE is scaled and not curved, it's possible that the passage rate could be a lot lower than usual? Or would a scale fix the difficulty factor in the same way that a curve would? I guess what I'm wondering is, will passage rates be similar to previous administrations? I'm confused.

I think it depends on your state. I think my state of California balanced it out by giving us easier essays than usual. They have ways of calculating scores and scaling them so that you won't be penalized for taking a harder test.

Easier essays? Maybe Thursday's essays were easier but Tuesday's were not particularly fun. And I didn't personally think the MBE was all that bad considering.

[vandalvideo]

About 35% of the questions I knew. About 45% of the questions I could discern the right answer have some work and am fairly confident. About 10% I was able to narrow down to two and make an educated guess. 10% I kinda blanked on with a few in particular I had no idea what was going on.
Just need to stay afloat. Hoping my MPT & essays carry me.

Wish I could say the same... I am confident with about 30% of the questions, another 40% I could narrow down to 2 choices, and then about 15%I was guessing from 3 choices, and the last 15% was just random. I literally wanted to use my pencil as a guessing tool...

I'm in a similar boat, although I would say 5-10% of the questions I had to ask myself what the person would bring that cause of action to begin with.

[mikealao]

About 35% of the questions I knew. About 45% of the questions I could discern the right answer have some work and am fairly confident. About 10% I was able to narrow down to two and make an educated guess. 10% I kinda blanked on with a few in particular I had no idea what was going on.
Just need to stay afloat. Hoping my MPT & essays carry me.

Wish I could say the same... I am confident with about 30% of the questions, another 40% I could narrow down to 2 choices, and then about 15%I was guessing from 3 choices, and the last 15% was just random. I literally wanted to use my pencil as a guessing tool...

My favorite was whenever I was able to eliminate all four answer choices.

I have no idea how I did. I counted the number of questions I was not sure on, which was like 79. So I guess that means I was confident on 60% of the questions. I dunno, pointless to try to figure out it whether or not I passed. Taking the test itself wasn't bad, kind of fun actually. But now this waiting - much more stressful.

[AJS30]

About 35% of the questions I knew. About 45% of the questions I could discern the right answer have some work and am fairly confident. About 10% I was able to narrow down to two and make an educated guess. 10% I kinda blanked on with a few in particular I had no idea what was going on.
Just need to stay afloat. Hoping my MPT & essays carry me.

Wish I could say the same... I am confident with about 30% of the questions, another 40% I could narrow down to 2 choices, and then about 15%I was guessing from 3 choices, and the last 15% was just random. I literally wanted to use my pencil as a guessing tool...

My favorite was whenever I was able to eliminate all four answer choices.

I have no idea how I did. I counted the number of questions I was not sure on, which was like 79. So I guess that means I was confident on 60% of the questions. I dunno, pointless to try to figure out it whether or not I passed. Taking the test itself wasn't bad, kind of fun actually. But now this waiting - much more stressful.

I felt like I struggled with that way too often, I was like, " okay, this answer is semi-right, but wrong because of the second part of the answer, the right answer choice is going to have the first part of this answer and the second part of the answer will have the correct law this time......" then to look at all the answers and say f**k in my head.

I really hope the curve is really large. The weather hasn't been the great the past few days, so I've just been doing nothing and I'm starting to remember more and more questions, and all the easy questions that I was struggling with, I realized I got them all wrong.

[amk110]

I felt like it was more difficult than the 1200 or so practice BARBRI questions I did.

Mostly because the subject areas seemed so completely different. When doing BARBRI practice questions, I swear I must've had about a billion crim law questions about people stealing without the requisite level of intent, a ton of accords and satisfactions, awkwardly confusing conveyances, and so on.

The MBE seemed to be testing completely different areas for the most part. I recall some eighth amendment and other questions that literally I never encountered in practice.

[LAWYER2]

Didn't someone on the Barbri test prep lectures mention that you want a hard test so that it gives you a better chance?

[encore1101]

A few of the conlaw or crimpro questions were counterintuitive unless you read the specific supreme court case on them.. I had to look up the case after the bar to make sure I put down the right answer.

[Pokemon]

Some of the really really hard questions were probably test questions. Also, my brain blanks in such exams so cannot really tell now whether I felt it was easy or hard. I will say that I struggled to finish on time in both sessions, though I am also a bizarre test taker. I tend to take 5-10 minute breaks every hour so I would go and chill in the bathroom to relax and recharge. I would recommend this to more people, especially if you are going through a series of hard questions.

[JenDarby]

A few of the conlaw or crimpro questions were counterintuitive unless you read the specific supreme court case on them.. I had to look up the case after the bar to make sure I put down the right answer.

This led me to look up an MBE question for the first time. I apaprently guessed correctly on a 5-4 decision. What a relief! lol

[jd20132013]

i don t know how you all are remembering questions to look up this far out.

[sam9317]

i don t know how you all are remembering questions to look up this far out.

This. I can only remember that the MBE was hard, but not the specific question themselves...

[alicrimson]

i don t know how you all are remembering questions to look up this far out.

This. I can only remember that the MBE was hard, but not the specific question themselves...

Occasionally I'll remember specific things, if I'm reading something and some of the buzzwords from a question appear (non-law related stuff...really weird). For the most part, I can't recall the exact crim pro fact patterns. *shrug* Oh well.

[portaprokoss]

I'm so sorry that I erred on the side of caution and refused to discuss specifics with you when the sticky message from the administrator clearly bans users permanently for doing so but accepts general discussion of the test so long as no specifics are brought up.

TLS bans for talking about specifics now? Christ, what a joke this place has become.

Probably because they don't want to risk getting sued by the NCBE. The test instructions very clearly they reserved the right to pursue criminal and civil penalties for copyright infringement by anyone caught discussing questions or answers on "forums".

I thought we were supposed to be lawyers. Tls cannot be held liable unless 1) specific questions are transcribed on the forum verbatim and 2) tls refuses to comply with a dmca take-down request narrowly aimed at that specific post. As test-takers we sign something promising not discuss the questions, but that has nothing more to do with tls than does my rental agreement with my landlord. What's really happening here is this: tls gets spammed with some generic, groundless "remove X or we'll sue" email and--instead of representing the interests of its users--tls lazily bans all discussion of specific questions.

If you want to discuss specific questions just go over to lawschool.reddit, autoadmit, or any other of the myriad forums that allow such discussions. Nonetheless, we're all just as lazy than the tls mods, so we're not really going to bother doing that are we? [insert paper-thin trustafarian sheeple quote here]