MBE - how'd you feel? Forum

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How did the MBE go, compared to your expectation?

A lot easier than I expected.
6
2%
Somewhat easier than I expected.
11
4%
About how I expected.
36
12%
Somewhat harder than I expected.
89
29%
A lot harder than I expected.
167
54%
 
Total votes: 309

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Learned Throw Hands

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by Learned Throw Hands » Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:34 am

What a complete mindfuck that we're expected to know that lol.

FU_BAR

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by FU_BAR » Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:38 am

The actual MBE questions I felt were a little less explicit about what exactly they were expecting, but for the most part they were about what I expected.

konar

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by konar » Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:54 am

Edit; The more I think about it, the question was just incredibly ambiguous. Gotta love the MBE.

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sublime

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by sublime » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:01 am

..

LAW813FL

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by LAW813FL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:07 am

I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us

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musicfor18

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by musicfor18 » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:13 am

Mod edit: user has been banned for continuing to discuss the content of bar exam questions. This thread is VERY close to getting locked.

odoylerulez

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by odoylerulez » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:42 am

LAW813FL wrote:I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us
I don't think there is a curve, only a scaled score. Meaning, there's no guarantee that X number of people will pass this exam -- hypothetically, everyone could fail.

The scaling is only done to normalize the exam's difficulty with past bar exams so that we're graded as evenly as possible with people that took it in February, last July, etc.

There was a big shitstorm last summer over pass rates going down, but NCBE pretty much said it's because the quality of your typical law student is deteriorating. I think there might actually be some truth to this. I know that in my class, there were a lot of people that had no business being accepted to law school, but probably were anyway because admissions were down and the school still needed to make money. They'll get by in law school because everything in law school is curved, but then the bar exam cuts them down.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by odoylerulez » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:52 am

For data junkies like me, you might find these interesting -- you can draw your own conclusions. Scaled scores/percentiles in Illinois from February 15/14 and July 14/12.

https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/percent ... s-feb-2015

https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/feb-201 ... ent-charts

https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/july201 ... ent-charts

https://www.ilbaradmissions.org/Percent ... lentCharts

LAW813FL

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by LAW813FL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:04 am

odoylerulez wrote:
LAW813FL wrote:I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us
I don't think there is a curve, only a scaled score. Meaning, there's no guarantee that X number of people will pass this exam -- hypothetically, everyone could fail.

The scaling is only done to normalize the exam's difficulty with past bar exams so that we're graded as evenly as possible with people that took it in February, last July, etc.

There was a big shitstorm last summer over pass rates going down, but NCBE pretty much said it's because the quality of your typical law student is deteriorating. I think there might actually be some truth to this. I know that in my class, there were a lot of people that had no business being accepted to law school, but probably were anyway because admissions were down and the school still needed to make money. They'll get by in law school because everything in law school is curved, but then the bar exam cuts them down.
Ya I meant scale, isn't it supposed to be larger the harder the exam? I just don't get how they determine the scale.

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odoylerulez

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by odoylerulez » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:12 am

LAW813FL wrote:
odoylerulez wrote:
LAW813FL wrote:I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us
I don't think there is a curve, only a scaled score. Meaning, there's no guarantee that X number of people will pass this exam -- hypothetically, everyone could fail.

The scaling is only done to normalize the exam's difficulty with past bar exams so that we're graded as evenly as possible with people that took it in February, last July, etc.

There was a big shitstorm last summer over pass rates going down, but NCBE pretty much said it's because the quality of your typical law student is deteriorating. I think there might actually be some truth to this. I know that in my class, there were a lot of people that had no business being accepted to law school, but probably were anyway because admissions were down and the school still needed to make money. They'll get by in law school because everything in law school is curved, but then the bar exam cuts them down.
Ya I meant scale, isn't it supposed to be larger the harder the exam? I just don't get how they determine the scale.
I don't know how it is determined either -- I'm sure it's some sort of mathematical formula that is used behind closed doors, which might or might not be adjusted after the exam is completed. Yeah, I would think it would be a bigger scale with a harder exam, but yeah, there's no guarantee that a certain percentage will pass or anything like that.

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Tom Joad

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by Tom Joad » Sat Aug 01, 2015 11:24 am

.

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TommyK

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by TommyK » Sat Aug 01, 2015 11:30 am

odoylerulez wrote:
LAW813FL wrote:
odoylerulez wrote:
LAW813FL wrote:I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us
I don't think there is a curve, only a scaled score. Meaning, there's no guarantee that X number of people will pass this exam -- hypothetically, everyone could fail.

The scaling is only done to normalize the exam's difficulty with past bar exams so that we're graded as evenly as possible with people that took it in February, last July, etc.

There was a big shitstorm last summer over pass rates going down, but NCBE pretty much said it's because the quality of your typical law student is deteriorating. I think there might actually be some truth to this. I know that in my class, there were a lot of people that had no business being accepted to law school, but probably were anyway because admissions were down and the school still needed to make money. They'll get by in law school because everything in law school is curved, but then the bar exam cuts them down.
Ya I meant scale, isn't it supposed to be larger the harder the exam? I just don't get how they determine the scale.
I don't know how it is determined either -- I'm sure it's some sort of mathematical formula that is used behind closed doors, which might or might not be adjusted after the exam is completed. Yeah, I would think it would be a bigger scale with a harder exam, but yeah, there's no guarantee that a certain percentage will pass or anything like that.
Jesus. Lawyers doing math and our fates hang in the balance. That is a terrifying thought.

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat Aug 01, 2015 11:56 am

People, I don't know how "don't talk about the answers you gave" was unclear enough that many of you have continued to talk exactly about what answers you gave to specific questions. STOP.
A. Nony Mouse wrote:I know, it's not really obvious where to draw the lines. It's fine to talk about topics in generalities, like "the crim pro question involving the car search totally tripped me up." Please don't then talk about the answers that you gave, though - while by now everyone should have taken it, and I agree that people reading this thread for answers might end up more confused than anything else :D I think the answers are going a little too far, because they allow for a certain degree of reverse engineering of the questions.

(I don't know if the NCBE has ever come after us, but they do monitor online discussion of questions - though I'm sure they're not remotely successful in eliminating it - and since LSAC has come after us about LSAT discussions, we err on the side of caution here.)

Mostly I'm with those saying you should stop worrying about or thinking about the questions AT ALL, and try to forget the exam till your results come back. :D

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waxecstatic

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by waxecstatic » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:30 pm

Well it's not like we can go back and change them anyway.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by PJP » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:52 pm

odoylerulez wrote:
LAW813FL wrote:I wonder what the curve will be. I went back and looked at other threads right after the exam and nobody has ever complained or talked about an mbe like this so I wonder if that's a good thing or it says something bad about us
I don't think there is a curve, only a scaled score. Meaning, there's no guarantee that X number of people will pass this exam -- hypothetically, everyone could fail.

The scaling is only done to normalize the exam's difficulty with past bar exams so that we're graded as evenly as possible with people that took it in February, last July, etc.

There was a big shitstorm last summer over pass rates going down, but NCBE pretty much said it's because the quality of your typical law student is deteriorating. I think there might actually be some truth to this. I know that in my class, there were a lot of people that had no business being accepted to law school, but probably were anyway because admissions were down and the school still needed to make money. They'll get by in law school because everything in law school is curved, but then the bar exam cuts them down.
So the scale is probably predetermined w/o consideration of the performance of the current pool?

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anon sequitur

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by anon sequitur » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:08 pm

PJP wrote:
So the scale is probably predetermined w/o consideration of the performance of the current pool?
Yeah, this is the whole point of standardized exams, they want it not to matter when/where/with whom you take the test. To do that, they have to equate this MBE with past MBE's using the experimental questions and other complicated math things that are too complicated for my lawyer brain. If the total quality of test-takers goes down, median scores will go down.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by jul15taker » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:18 pm

.
Last edited by jul15taker on Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by justicecardoorzo » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:27 pm

jul15taker wrote:
That it was hard is a good thing. Take pride in it. If we pass or fail, we did it. ftw
I don't understand why people think just taking the exam is something to celebrate. I'll hold off celebrating until I find out if I pass. I don't believe I accomplished anything just by "getting through it."

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kjartan

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by kjartan » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:41 pm

anon sequitur wrote:
PJP wrote:
So the scale is probably predetermined w/o consideration of the performance of the current pool?
Yeah, this is the whole point of standardized exams, they want it not to matter when/where/with whom you take the test. To do that, they have to equate this MBE with past MBE's using the experimental questions and other complicated math things that are too complicated for my lawyer brain. If the total quality of test-takers goes down, median scores will go down.
Buttsy:
History_Buff wrote:If the MBE shakes out to be the same kind of deal that it was last year pitchforks and torches should be involved.

There's some completely valid speculation that the bar exam is being made harder because they're trying to lessen the influx of new lawyers.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/11/10/dec ... -of-words/

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somuchbooty

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by somuchbooty » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:45 pm

Just lol @ their insinuation that kids would be dumber from one year to the next. They're clearly making the test harder, it's kind of shameful they can't admit it.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by History_Buff » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:55 pm

somuchbooty wrote:Just lol @ their insinuation that kids would be dumber from one year to the next. They're clearly making the test harder, it's kind of shameful they can't admit it.
At least own up to it. I would respect them a little more if they just admitted it.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by nyny » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:03 pm

It clearly has gotten harder, they have added another substantive subject on the MBE (civ pro), and on the state day they are constantly adding and subtracting subjects... Most states and school passage rates are going down... While some of the unranked and third tier schools admission standards may have decreased, top schools have kept their admission standards the same, while their rates dip subtly. At the end of the day, no matter how hard the test is, we all need to pass it one way or another.

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kjartan

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by kjartan » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:08 pm

History_Buff wrote:
somuchbooty wrote:Just lol @ their insinuation that kids would be dumber from one year to the next. They're clearly making the test harder, it's kind of shameful they can't admit it.
At least own up to it. I would respect them a little more if they just admitted it.
Dean Allard of Brooklyn Law School nailed it with this one
Right now the NCBE is acting like a medieval trade guild arbitrarily and unpredictably raising a very expensive toll bridge and forestalling the entry into the profession of well qualified, very competitive motivated people.

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by cdelgado » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:22 pm

So even if this administration is determined to be more "difficult" than previous administrations, we receive no benefit. We still need to be in line with previous passing scores on the raw because the scale will be what it will be.

I hope we all pass because it's only going to get worse.
Last edited by cdelgado on Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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sd5289

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Re: MBE - how'd you feel?

Post by sd5289 » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:22 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:People, I don't know how "don't talk about the answers you gave" was unclear enough that many of you have continued to talk exactly about what answers you gave to specific questions. STOP.
This whole thread has been complete neuroticism anyway.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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