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Can someone explain how scaling works this year now that 25 questions are non-graded. I know that last year if you got say 130/190 that would scale to somewhere around a 145 or so. This year if you get say 120/175 (roughly the same percent right) will that scale to a 135 or 145. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer on this, and in Barbri's lecture they say you can expect a 10-15 point scaled bump, but I feel like that should be higher this year with less graded questions.

It literally changes year to year.

Hard to predict, but you can likely add at least 10-15 points to your raw score.

BTW, I think having only 175 questions instead of 190 makes it harder to get points.

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:
BTW, I think having only 175 questions instead of 190 makes it harder to get points.

I don't think so. I think they'll just tweak the scaling. Pass rates have already been failing for years, they're not going to suddenly make it that much harder.

edit

TheSpanishMain wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:
BTW, I think having only 175 questions instead of 190 makes it harder to get points.

I don't think so. I think they'll just tweak the scaling. Pass rates have already been failing for years, they're not going to suddenly make it that much harder.

To each his/her own opinion, but having 175 questions instead of 190 isn't a benefit to anyone in my humble opinion. When they switched to 175 questions, the average MBE score bombed to the lowest it had ever been in the history of the MBE in February 2017, and the pass rate in my state dipped to 47%-the lowest it had ever been. I think the average MBE in February was a 134 or 135, and I scored between the 70th and 75th percentiles with a 141.

The NCBE Examiners don't seem sympathetic to our plight, unfortunately. They have publicly said that they think bar exam candidates are getting dumber (in a nicer way) and that's why they think bar exam scores are plummeting...I don't buy it.

I'm not saying this to discourage anyone. Just my point of view from past experience, and draw your own conclusions from it and prepare accordingly.

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:

TheSpanishMain wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:
BTW, I think having only 175 questions instead of 190 makes it harder to get points.

I don't think so. I think they'll just tweak the scaling. Pass rates have already been failing for years, they're not going to suddenly make it that much harder.

To each his/her own opinion, but having 175 questions instead of 190 isn't a benefit to anyone in my humble opinion. When they switched to 175 questions, the average MBE score bombed to the lowest it had ever been in the history of the MBE in February 2017, and the pass rate in my state dipped to 47%-the lowest it had ever been. I think the average MBE in February was a 134 or 135, and I scored between the 70th and 75th percentiles with a 141.

The NCBE Examiners don't seem sympathetic to our plight, unfortunately. They have publicly said that they think bar exam candidates are getting dumber (in a nicer way) and that's why they think bar exam scores are plummeting...I don't buy it.

I'm not saying this to discourage anyone. Just my point of view from past experience, and draw your own conclusions from it and prepare accordingly.

The undergraduate GPA and LSATs of recent graduates saw a material decline. In other words, yes the current crop of law students is dumber than before. Have the essay scores remained the same during this change in the 175 question test?

See e.g. if link doesn't work:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341 ... 970c-800wi

More detail: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... s-fur.html

And if you don't want to use dumb you can use "worse at high stakes multiple
Choice standardized tests"

nothingtosee wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:

TheSpanishMain wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:
BTW, I think having only 175 questions instead of 190 makes it harder to get points.

I don't think so. I think they'll just tweak the scaling. Pass rates have already been failing for years, they're not going to suddenly make it that much harder.

To each his/her own opinion, but having 175 questions instead of 190 isn't a benefit to anyone in my humble opinion. When they switched to 175 questions, the average MBE score bombed to the lowest it had ever been in the history of the MBE in February 2017, and the pass rate in my state dipped to 47%-the lowest it had ever been. I think the average MBE in February was a 134 or 135, and I scored between the 70th and 75th percentiles with a 141.

The NCBE Examiners don't seem sympathetic to our plight, unfortunately. They have publicly said that they think bar exam candidates are getting dumber (in a nicer way) and that's why they think bar exam scores are plummeting...I don't buy it.

I'm not saying this to discourage anyone. Just my point of view from past experience, and draw your own conclusions from it and prepare accordingly.

The undergraduate GPA and LSATs of recent graduates saw a material decline. In other words, yes the current crop of law students is dumber than before. Have the essay scores remained the same during this change in the 175 question test?

See e.g. if link doesn't work:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341 ... 970c-800wi

More detail: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... s-fur.html

And if you don't want to use dumb you can use "worse at high stakes multiple
Choice standardized tests"

I mean it's obviously true that LSAT scores have dropped recently, but on barbri's simulated mbe it seems the scores are considerably up this year. Therefore, we should see a rise in pass rates or the test is considerably harder

Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

this took less time to find than typing "look up if interested"

http://barexamtoolbox.com/ncbe-announce ... -mbe-mean/

ConfusedL1 wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

this took less time to find than typing "look up if interested"

http://barexamtoolbox.com/ncbe-announce ... -mbe-mean/

TLS wasn't letting me post the link due to some "IMG" code error on my end.

The fact that there are now 175 live questions instead of 190 should make absolutely no difference to how you'd perform. NCBE pays its statisticians to ensure that somebody who received a 145 in July 2011 represents the same ability as somebody who scored a 145 in July 2017. That is the whole point of equating.

Now, whether it actually makes a difference depends on how well the NCBE does its job in equating the tests. People can rightly claim that more of their time is being wasted on pretest questions, and the psychological handicap that comes from thinking there are fewer cookies to take out of the jar hurts performance. But know that, at least in this regard, NCBE is on your side and probably does try its best to make sure that the change does not affect the scaled score.

ConfusedL1 wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

this took less time to find than typing "look up if interested"

http://barexamtoolbox.com/ncbe-announce ... -mbe-mean/

The explanation in that link doesn't make complete sense to me. As I see it, each question did not become worth more when the graded questions went from 190 to 175, we effectively did not get 15 less chances to earn points towards a passing score, and accuracy did not become more important than ever. That's based on my understanding that the scaling is essentially a 2-part process: 1) scale to 200; and 2) scale against prior test administrations. I understand the first part to mean that everyone just gets +25 initially (to get 175 to 200), so the 15 additional experimental questions are essentially 15 additional "free" scaled points. In essence, we get 25 free points instead of only 10.

Let's say 2 persons want to get a scaled score (before adjusting for cross-test scaling) of 150. The first person takes a 190/10 test and the second takes a 175/25 test. The first person has to answer 140/190 correctly (about 74%) while the second person has to answer 125/175 correctly (about 71%). Another way to look at it is that to get to a certain score, the 190/10 people get more chances to earn points towards that score. However, the 175/25 folks start with 15 extra points "in the bank."

Of course, the qualitative effects of answering an extra 15 questions that are inherently (and likely significantly) tougher should also be considered, but from a purely quantitative perspective and assuming one stayed disciplined and treated each question equally, the change is actually (slightly) beneficial to the test-takers.

Am I missing something here or have I oversimplified things? (Also, I will get a life once the weekend starts...)

jman77 wrote:

ConfusedL1 wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

this took less time to find than typing "look up if interested"

http://barexamtoolbox.com/ncbe-announce ... -mbe-mean/

The explanation in that link doesn't make complete sense to me. As I see it, each question did not become worth more when the graded questions went from 190 to 175, we effectively did not get 15 less chances to earn points towards a passing score, and accuracy did not become more important than ever. That's based on my understanding that the scaling is essentially a 2-part process: 1) scale to 200; and 2) scale against prior test administrations. I understand the first part to mean that everyone just gets +25 initially (to get 175 to 200), so the 15 additional experimental questions are essentially 15 additional "free" scaled points. In essence, we get 25 free points instead of only 10.

Let's say 2 persons want to get a scaled score (before adjusting for cross-test scaling) of 150. The first person takes a 190/10 test and the second takes a 175/25 test. The first person has to answer 140/190 correctly (about 74%) while the second person has to answer 125/175 correctly (about 71%). Another way to look at it is that to get to a certain score, the 190/10 people get more chances to earn points towards that score. However, the 175/25 folks start with 15 extra points "in the bank."

Of course, the qualitative effects of answering an extra 15 questions that are inherently (and likely significantly) tougher should also be considered, but from a purely quantitative perspective and assuming one stayed disciplined and treated each question equally, the change is actually (slightly) beneficial to the test-takers.

Am I missing something here or have I oversimplified things? (Also, I will get a life once the weekend starts...)

i highly doubt that's how it works. they didn't just give us 15 free questions. sure, we'll get more points by scaling, but it's not because they just give everyone 15 raw points.

omar.comin wrote:

jman77 wrote:

ConfusedL1 wrote:

Tiredbuthappyitsover wrote:Good question about the essay scores-I don't know. Don't worry about this MBE 175 thing too much...It's a change, yes, but not a HUGE change and everyone has to deal with it on the exam.

There is an article on Bar Exam Toolbox explaining better what the changes in the MBE mean for bar candidates. Look it up if interested...

this took less time to find than typing "look up if interested"

http://barexamtoolbox.com/ncbe-announce ... -mbe-mean/

The explanation in that link doesn't make complete sense to me. As I see it, each question did not become worth more when the graded questions went from 190 to 175, we effectively did not get 15 less chances to earn points towards a passing score, and accuracy did not become more important than ever. That's based on my understanding that the scaling is essentially a 2-part process: 1) scale to 200; and 2) scale against prior test administrations. I understand the first part to mean that everyone just gets +25 initially (to get 175 to 200), so the 15 additional experimental questions are essentially 15 additional "free" scaled points. In essence, we get 25 free points instead of only 10.

Let's say 2 persons want to get a scaled score (before adjusting for cross-test scaling) of 150. The first person takes a 190/10 test and the second takes a 175/25 test. The first person has to answer 140/190 correctly (about 74%) while the second person has to answer 125/175 correctly (about 71%). Another way to look at it is that to get to a certain score, the 190/10 people get more chances to earn points towards that score. However, the 175/25 folks start with 15 extra points "in the bank."

Of course, the qualitative effects of answering an extra 15 questions that are inherently (and likely significantly) tougher should also be considered, but from a purely quantitative perspective and assuming one stayed disciplined and treated each question equally, the change is actually (slightly) beneficial to the test-takers.

Am I missing something here or have I oversimplified things? (Also, I will get a life once the weekend starts...)

i highly doubt that's how it works. they didn't just give us 15 free questions. sure, we'll get more points by scaling, but it's not because they just give everyone 15 raw points.

Yeah, that was probably oversimplified, but my point was that the reduction of graded questions from 190 to 175 did not make each question more valuable and did not make it harder to get to a passing score. At worst, the value of each question and the chances to get to a passing score remained the same. That article was just plain wrong.

Again, this is from a purely quantitative perspective.

I'm interested to see how they deal with the 25 questions, too.

In the past, "scales" seem to range from anywhere from 10-22 points from what I can tell based on various Google searches (which may be complete and total BS).