NCBE Quietly Increases Number of Experimental Questions From 10 to 25 on MBE Forum

[TXLawguy]

I thought this was deserving of its own thread. Another poster noticed that NCBE's website now states that the number of "experimental" questions on the MBE is 25, NOT 10. It is unclear if this change applied to the July 2016 administration of the test or if it only applies future administrations.

The current NCBE site is here: http://www.ncbex.org/exams/mbe/preparing/

An archive of the same page from July 12, 2016 is at this link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160712165 ... preparing/

Check out the differences.

[ironbmike]

Interesting...need to find out if this applied to July 2016...

[akcheat]

Boy will I just lose my mind if this doesn't apply to July and I fail by like 6 points or something.

[kellyfrost]

I don't think this would have applied to July 2016. It would have been announced in advance on the website and the bar prep companies would have known about it.

[symphony07]

I called them. It's for the February 2017 exam.

[JayRock2015]

Thank you so very much for the update! Very much appreciated!

[symphony07]

yea. I wish it applied to us (2016). My thought is that there is an advantage to having only 175 scored questions.

[mvp99]

I think it's only an advantage if you're able to identify the experimental questions.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Or if they only reduce the tough questions. If they get rid of the easier questions for experimental ones it doesn't help anyone.

[Bexy73]

I wonder why they increased the number of experimental questions? They have been pretty steadfast in defending the integrity of their testing process.

[rcharter1978]

I wonder why they increased the number of experimental questions? They have been pretty steadfast in defending the integrity of their testing process.

It might be a good way to give themselves some wiggle room for questions that are "established" but really have two "right" answers. Or a way to throw out questions that are established (not intended to be experimental) but the vast majority of test takers get it wrong.

[passx3]

I emailed NCBE, here's what they said:

"This change is effective with the February 2017 administration. Because MBE scores are scaled, all scores will still be comparable to those earned when there were more scored questions."