Bar Exam Rumor... Forum

[blaze1306]

I keep hearing this rumor that I don't think is true. Word has it that if you do well enough on the MBE the examiners wont even score your MEE, you pass automatically. That cant be true, can it? I have heard this a number of times and it makes no sense. How would you get a number score to transfer with if a major portion of the test was not scored?

Has anyone else heard this?

[squiggle]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

[whitecollar23]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

How does such scaling even work? Can you direct me to where to find such info?

[blaze1306]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

OK...I read this as they wont even waste their time grading your essay and MPT if you don't get at least a 115 on the MBE. You need to average at least a 130 on each section to pass (ignoring the MPT and is 20%).

[squiggle]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

How does such scaling even work? Can you direct me to where to find such info?

Here's some more info on scaled scores: http://www.seperac.com/zcalc-raw-scaled.php

[squiggle]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

Here's the original source of this quote (pg. 10): https://www.gabaradmissions.org/exam-rules

[BVest]

Georgia has a rule that's actually the reverse:

"Your MPT and Essay answers will not be graded unless you achieve a scaled score of at least 115 on the MBE portion of the examination."

How does such scaling even work? Can you direct me to where to find such info?

Scaling is fairly complicated, but after grading is done and the bar examiners have all the raw scores, basically it works like this:

Step 1: MBE and Equating
NCBE uses some carry-over questions from last July and this February on the MBE. How all this July's examinees do on these questions is compared to how the examinees did on the same questions last July and February. From this, they extrapolate what the distribution of scaled scores should be on this July's exam. For example, let's the median* scaled score in July 2015 was 140.0 and the median scaled score in February 2016 was 136.0; and the standard deviation in July 2015 was 16.0 and was 15.0 in February. If the July 2016 examinees turn out to be halfway between these two prior exams, then this summer's median score might be 138.0 with a standard deviation of 15.5. Now that they have the elements of a distribution, they can take the raw scores from this year's exam and plot them along this scaled distribution (such that somebody scoring the median in raw score will receive a 138.0 and somebody one standard deviation removed from the median (about top third) will receive a 153.5). This is called equating. It is meant to make the grading fair from exam to exam, even though the exam you take may have been harder or easier than a past exam.

Essays, MPT, and other non-MBE sections:
Now that they've got their distribution of scaled scores, they apply the same scaling to other sections. So if essays are worth 600 possible raw points and the median essay score is 350 with a standard deviation of 30, then somebody who gets a 350 raw score on the essays will get a 138.0 scaled score. Somebody who gets a 380 will get 153.5. Etc.

Getting a 115 or better:
It's not possible to say in advance exactly what it takes to get a 115. Based on last July's numbers, a 115 would be approximately bottom 5-6 percent.




* I'm pretty sure their equating is more complicated than this and involves more inputs, but this description is close enough to answer your question.

e: potentially scooped (though I've not looked at the separac link.)

[hogfan1991]

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