Was the MBE harder than you expected Forum

jd20132013 · Post by **jd20132013** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:35 am

I thought it was, but I was also exhausted so I don't know if that made it seem harder than it was.

check the poll

jd20132013 · Post by **jd20132013** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:40 am

i dont know why i added the "much harder" and "much easier" options. guess it really only matters whether it was harder or easier.

better question might be whehter you thought you hit within ~10 of your practice range. I definitely felt better coming out of the Barbri Simulated Final Exam. i had my doubts about the simulated MBE midterm but did pretty well on that. might have been within the bottom half of that range here.

Hannibal · Post by **Hannibal** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:48 am

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.

840e · Post by **840e** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:49 am

jd20132013 · Post by **jd20132013** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:51 am

yep there were a lot of answers where the answer you'd expect from the fact pattern simply wasn't there.

i wish i'd done this on AM as well, but in the PM I circled 21 questions that I thought could legitimately be experimentals just bc of their difficulty...
obviously, that's not a good sign

mincerray · Post by **mincerray** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:55 am

Definitely harder.

I first took the bar back in 2011. The MBE questions were way easier than the barbri practice questions. Walking out, I was 99% convinced that I passed.

I moved to another state in 2014, so I had to sit for the bar again. Although I didn't study with the same ferocity as I did in 2011, I walked in fairly confident. I feel great about the essays, but those MBE questions were brutal. 80% of them seemed like those trick gotchya-questions that would occasionally pop up in practice sets. I don't remember it being like that in 2011.

belowthelaw57 · Post by **belowthelaw57** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:14 am

I think it was only harder "than expected" because we were conditioned to believe barbris questions were MUCH harder than the actual MBE. I felt coming out of it pretty much in line with how I felt when I came out of the simulated MBE which is not great. But I did pretty well on simulated MBE nonetheless, despite getting many many questions wrong, so I'm not gonna worry about it.

jumpingjack · Post by **jumpingjack** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:34 am

I thought the MBE was so much harder than I expected, and that the essays were a walk in the park. Legitimately a little worried about passing now. But I guess it is good that a lot of people thought the same thing.

Guchster · Post by **Guchster** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:48 pm

I was seriously melting down last night about the test--I was nervous and scared for the test but last night I had my real first panic attack about this whole process.

But after 14+ hours of sleep I feel much better and a little more rational. I think that the test definitely asked more obscure/footnote type questions or answers than general broad statements of law but my hope is that people's bar exam performance on the curve is always consistent. So in other words, you may miss more questions than normal--but everyone else did too and you'll fall where you usually did. I thought I failed the simulated test as well but ended up doing well based on the barbri curve (even though my score wasn't that high). I feel like I did way worse than I did on the simulated test, but I"m hoping I fall where I did on the curve.

It's kind of like the barbri sets that were really easy. You might get excited because you did really well in comparison to your usual performance, but then end up just close to median.

I just am praying that the fact the questions weren't necessarily harder to me, just WAY more obscure, doesn't alter the usual distribution of how people typically perform on Qs.

Bildungsroman · Post by **Bildungsroman** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:53 pm

I thought it was a little easier overall than I expected, but we will see come October.

spleenworship · Post by **spleenworship** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:00 pm

I found it more difficult. The vast majority of people I've spoken to, both in my state and in other states, found it to be more difficult than what they have experienced before. I think that's probably a good thing since I think we can expect a 15 to 20 point scaling bump. Which I'm going to need.

jumpingjack · Post by **jumpingjack** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:03 pm

spleenworship wrote:I found it more difficult. The vast majority of people I've spoken to, both in my state and in other states, found it to be more difficult than what they have experienced before. I think that's probably a good thing since I think we can expect a 15 to 20 point scaling bump. Which I'm going to need.

Whew... So good to know!

Georgia Avenue · Post by **Georgia Avenue** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:06 pm

Based on discussions I had with people who took it, I think 15 to 20 might be on the low end of the curve. I did about 2000 practice questions, including NCBE ones, and thought this MBE was unbelievably difficult.

jd20132013 · Post by **jd20132013** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:23 pm

I didn't do 2000 questions, but I probably did about 1300 questions altogether, including the released past MBE questions that Emanuels had. Definitely agree with Georgia Avenue.

mmmnnn · Post by **mmmnnn** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:28 pm

One session was painful and often unfair, yes. But if you're the kind of person who visits TLS to talk about the bar before, during, and after the exam, I'm gonna bet you passed.

encore1101 · Post by **encore1101** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:31 pm

There were a few that I definitely knew the answer, and a handful that I had no clue, and the vast majority seemed like I could narrow down to two choices :\

Georgia Avenue · Post by **Georgia Avenue** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:32 pm

I will say fatigue definitely played a role too. I know for a fact that I blanked on some questions and picked total sucker answers.

spleenworship · Post by **spleenworship** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:41 pm

Georgia Avenue wrote:Based on discussions I had with people who took it, I think 15 to 20 might be on the low end of the curve. I did about 2000 practice questions, including NCBE ones, and thought this MBE was unbelievably difficult.

I think 25 points wouldn't be totally out of the question, I'll admit. But I went with a more conservative estimate just to be safe.

crEEp · Post by **crEEp** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:06 pm

If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?

LeDique · Post by **LeDique** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:08 pm

crEEp wrote:If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?

It's like people work at different rates or something.

Tanicius · Post by **Tanicius** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:08 pm

crEEp wrote:If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?

There were a bunch of questions I could not have answered even with the long outline open in front of me, because they were about "best answer" discrepencies that come down to the personal opinion of the test writer and not actual legal rules.

Georgia Avenue · Post by **Georgia Avenue** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:10 pm

Tanicius wrote:
crEEp wrote:If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?
There were a bunch of questions I could not have answered even with the long outline open in front of me, because they were about "best answer" discrepencies that come down to the personal opinion of the test writer and not actual legal rules.

yep

I finished the afternoon session with about 45 to spare, then went back to the 15-20 I had left completely blank because I had no fucking idea.

spleenworship · Post by **spleenworship** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:11 pm

crEEp wrote:If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?

Wow. First your "sue exam soft" thread and now this comment.

Maybe, I dunno, people realized after staring at the really hard ones for 2 minutes straight that they didn't know the answer and just made their best guess maybe?

Personally, I usually did 200 questions in 3.5 hours. I took 5 hours and a few minutes on this exam. So me leaving early had zero to do with it being easy, because my leaving early was actually leaving late.

LeDique · Post by **LeDique** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:13 pm

Wait, you were actually able to leave early if you were done? Fuck off, Colorado. I had to sit there with my thumb up my ass for an hour in both the morning and afternoon.

duskfall · Post by **duskfall** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:13 pm

Tanicius wrote:
crEEp wrote:If the exam was so difficult, then why did so many people complete it with 30 minutes to spare? Did they just want to get an early start on studying for february or something?
There were a bunch of questions I could not have answered even with the long outline open in front of me, because they were about "best answer" discrepencies that come down to the personal opinion of the test writer and not actual legal rules.

better watch out about talking about questions or you're gonna get banned.

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