North Carolina Bar Exam July 2015 thread Forum

[reinbowbrite]

^last July was 62%, including everyone

"In July 2005, 83 percent of in-state students and 68 percent of all students passed the North Carolina bar. In July 2014, those numbers dropped to 69 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

And in February 2015, the rate slipped to 40 and 43 percent, respectively."

From WRAL: http://www.wral.com/bar-exam-failure-r ... yJgb5z.99


Not to knock anybody's school, and I didn't even go to a NC school, but could the huge drop from July 2005 to 2015 be because of newer law schools opening up in the state who don't have the same entrance requirements of Duke, UNC, Wake, etc.?

[old_soul]

Isn't it curved or scaled?

65% pass in NC, and I just don't see 65% of takers being able to average a straight up 7 (considering how tough the grading rubrics seems to be).

No idea how that's done, I feel like we are at the mercy of the grader [snip]

I hate that NC is so secretive about this stuff. Like we don't have enough stress and anxiety going on as it is...And I'm glad that I'm not the only one that thinks these grading rubrics are super strict. Let me just say, if we get a straight up, stand-alone suretyship, liens, or trust question, I'm SOL. I'd much prefer a wills question over a trust question.

Is 65% the total average, including repeat-takers?

I think I've devoted a total of -- 15 mins of review of suretyship after the lecture. Don't know much beyond what it takes to create a valid trust. And don't know much on liens either. >_<

[old_soul]

Does anyone know at what time we'll be done with the exam on both days?

[ahduke99]

I have a feeling the law school in Charlotte has brought down the over all passing rate in NC over the last few years. Didn't it has a 50% passage rate last July? Maybe lower in February?

I went over the February 2014 exam this weekend, and I'm not sure whether to be more nervous or less. The essay questions and model answers seemed much easier and more straight forward than the questions asked on the South Carolina bar last July. I have almost exclusively focused on NC essay topics this time since I'm banking that I'll remember most of the MBE concepts from a year ago.

[old_soul]

So. Hard. I think I failed. Couldn't finish on time on both sessions; the first session especially.

Can't believe we got interrupted during the exam to correct an error on the exam. >_<

[reinbowbrite]

I'm not feeling so hot about it either tbh. I only feel good about 4 of them. I feel terrible about 4 of them. That leaves 4 others that are a total crap shoot. I could have completely screwed them up or nailed them on the head....I truly have no idea if what I wrote was on point or not.

I honestly thought most of the essays were way more challenging than anything I had seen in the Barbri practice essay materials. There was one in the morning where I honestly had no idea what they were looking for. I couldn't tell if it was a contracts issue, a torts issue, an equity issue, or what the heck it was. I went off by myself for lunch but ended up at a restaurant where a couple of takers were discussing the bar exam. They were debating whether one of the morning questions was a Con Law question or a Civ Pro question.

The afternoon session was killer because of the length of the fact patterns and then most questions had 3 and 4 parts to it, which was a lot to cover in only 30 minutes. I was typing right up until the last minute during both sessions. My response to subpart 4 of the very last essay was only 1 sentence long. That's all I had time to write.

I seem to recall Barbri saying that North Carolina gave pretty specific prompts, but to me, it felt like there were definitely some wide open prompts (discuss any claims he/she might have, if any; discuss any remedies he/she might have, if any). I don't perform well with those types of prompts.

Oh well...can't do anything about it now. Thinking about doing some practice MBEs before going to bed.

[reinbowbrite]

The essay questions and model answers seemed much easier and more straight forward than the questions asked on the South Carolina bar last July.

I'm interested in if you feel the same way coming out of today.

[old_soul]

I'm not feeling so hot about it either tbh. I only feel good about 4 of them. I feel terrible about 4 of them. That leaves 4 others that are a total crap shoot. I could have completely screwed them up or nailed them on the head....I truly have no idea if what I wrote was on point or not.

I honestly thought most of the essays were way more challenging than anything I had seen in the Barbri practice essay materials. There was one in the morning where I honestly had no idea what they were looking for. I couldn't tell if it was a contracts issue, a torts issue, an equity issue, or what the heck it was. I went off by myself for lunch but ended up at a restaurant where a couple of takers were discussing the bar exam. They were debating whether one of the morning questions was a Con Law question or a Civ Pro question.

The afternoon session was killer because of the length of the fact patterns and then most questions had 3 and 4 parts to it, which was a lot to cover in only 30 minutes. I was typing right up until the last minute during both sessions. My response to subpart 4 of the very last essay was only 1 sentence long. That's all I had time to write.

I seem to recall Barbri saying that North Carolina gave pretty specific prompts, but to me, it felt like there were definitely some wide open prompts (discuss any claims he/she might have, if any; discuss any remedies he/she might have, if any). I don't perform well with those types of prompts.

Oh well...can't do anything about it now. Thinking about doing some practice MBEs before going to bed.

Omfg, yes! You nailed exactly my issues! Much harder than what Barbri gave us! My head was spinning because I couldn't freaking even identify the area of law being tested! Same about the torts-K-equity issue. As well as the Con Law. I also just hated the Secured Trans q. Just too much. I came back to the hotel and literally threw up.

Tldr; I think I failed the essays. There is no way my overall avg can be above 6 with the crapshoot I wrote today. At best, 5. At worst, gulp: 4?!

[reinbowbrite]

Sorry you were sick. I hope you're feeling better and able to get some rest tonight so that you'll be in good shape tomorrow. After today, I feel like bubbling in little circles on a Scantron sheet will be heaven. haha. And, although I'm not the type of person to wish ill will on anyone, I can only hope that enough other people struggled with the questions too so that we can get a nice curve!

By the way, I couldn't help myself...I had to look up some of the issues tested to see how far off I was in my responses. And I was actually pleasantly surprised that some of the stuff I came up with was either right on target or pretty darn close. In the heat of the moment, I felt like I didn't have a clue what I was writing, but come to find out, I actually remembered more than I thought. Now, I still have a few that I'm pretty sure I completely bombed, but I'm not feeling quite as deflated as I did when I walked out the door this afternoon.

BTW, I also thought the Secured Transactions question was ridiculous. Multiple entities and you're asking me who, if any, can prevail against the other? That's at least 4 different permutations that have to be analyzed and written up in a 30 minute question, where I spent almost half of my time just reading the question and trying to keep straight who was who and who paid for what. I don't really remember what all I wrote. I think it was pretty much just word vomit, trying to get something down on paper and not get behind on time.

Oh well. Gotta let it go now and focus on tomorrow. What's done is done.

[ahduke99]

The essay questions and model answers seemed much easier and more straight forward than the questions asked on the South Carolina bar last July.

I'm interested in if you feel the same way coming out of today.

Fucking ridiculous. I couldn't believe some of the stuff they asked, and what's worse, they literally touched on contracts/property in something like 4/12 essays and ignored a bunch of other areas of law I wasted time on.

I can't say I passed this one, I'm just not strong enough with Property stuff, and even the secured question they asked was ridiculous for a 30 minute essay. I guess it'll just hang on what the curve is... but I am pretty beaten down about that exam.

[reinbowbrite]

Yes, the property/contracts overlap in so many essay questions was awful. I seem to remember 2 in the afternoon that I thought were very much a hybrid like that (with mortgages junk thrown in for good measure). Pretty effing ridiculous.

I do feel better about the MBE than I do the essays, but even the MBE seemed to have mortgages/property/contracts conflated, or else I was not as prepared in those areas as I thought I was (I was doing pretty good on contracts Qs, never great with property Qs though) and couldn't spot the issue.

And the Civ Pro questions on the MBE were NOTHING like Barbri's practice questions. I'd never seen so many questions about the appeals process. Barbri had a ton of State A/State B, does this qualify for diversity jurisdiction, can B remove, 3rd party joinder-type questions. More what I would call "threshold" questions, but I didn't see a whole lot of that on the MBE. A few, but not the majority.

Edited: sorry, typos all over the place

[reinbowbrite]

but I am pretty beaten down about that exam.

Well, we just have to believe that in about a month's time we'll be celebrating and looking back at these posts and laughing at how worried we were. We've got this!

[throwawayNC15]

BTW, I also thought the Secured Transactions question was ridiculous. Multiple entities and you're asking me who, if any, can prevail against the other? That's at least 4 different permutations that have to be analyzed and written up in a 30 minute question, where I spent almost half of my time just reading the question and trying to keep straight who was who and who paid for what. I don't really remember what all I wrote. I think it was pretty much just word vomit, trying to get something down on paper and not get behind on time.

Oh well. Gotta let it go now and focus on tomorrow. What's done is done.

had to make an account for this. The secured question was brutal, no doubt, but not because they asked for 4 separate analysis's. They asked about who had rights in the collateral. There were 2 pieces of collateral. I bifurcated my answer into two sections after I wrote out all of the rules I could think of.

I did feel like I knew secured and wills inside and out though. I really hope for my sake that the wills question doesn't get tossed out wholesale.

[ahduke99]

Why would they toss out the wills question?

Even though I knew very little about the topic aside from what it was, I ended up guessing correctly for nearly all of the questions they asked regarding wills.

[reinbowbrite]

Is there a history of throwing out essay Qs?

I only wrote 1 sentence for the 4th subpart of the Wills question - mostly because I didn't have time to write anything else, but also because I didn't have much else to say besides my conclusion. I feel pretty good about the stuff I wrote for the first three parts of the question, so I don't want it thrown out either.

If I can vote for one to throw out, it'd be the one from the morning where I wasn't sure if it was torts, contracts, or something else entirely (think: garage sale) or maybe the one from the afternoon that was real property/contracts/mortgages or something else entirely (think: flea market).

[throwawayNC15]

Why would they toss out the wills question?

Even though I knew very little about the topic aside from what it was, I ended up guessing correctly for nearly all of the questions they asked regarding wills.

I knew of a guy that was in the restroom at the time the correction was made and when he got back to his seat his proctor told him to correct the first date. After reading the question he asked again after about 10 minutes to clarify that he had in fact received the correct correction. At that point the proctor checked again and then gave him the correct correction. If I were him, I would be hopping mad that the correction was handled that way, or that there was even a correction at all. I don't seriously think that they will throw it out wholesale, but they might throw out the part that was based on the correction. Who knows, the NCBLE will do what they want to and we will know in a few weeks.

[reinbowbrite]

I'd completely forgotten about them stopping in the middle of the afternoon to fix the date in the wills question. Now it makes sense why you were thinking they might throw out the question. Gotcha.

[CliveStaples]

Just FYI for those of you who haven't checked your mail, bar exam results were mailed out on August 28 (received mine August 31).