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Hi all,

Took the NY bar exam today and having a bit of a post-exam freakout. During the morning session, I inserted on the scantron sheet various dashes and light circles to the left of the question numbers, corresponding to the questions that I was struggling with (a perhaps ill-advised system for tracking the questions I needed to revisit once I had finished answering all the questions...). I've made these types of marks before when filling out scantron sheets, but I'd always made sure to erase them. Today, due to what I assume was a combination of nerves and not thinking ahead, it was only after the fact that I realized I forgot to erase these stray marks, and now I'm panicking that the scantron is going to pick up the stray marks and count all these questions wrong.

Does anyone know anything about how scantron scoring works? Will all these marks be detected as incorrect answers? I'm sorry for this admittedly inane question -- just kind of freaked out, in addition to already having typical post-exam jitters.

I'd be grateful for any insights that anyone might have. Thank you!

PS - apologies if any of this sounds incoherent, my brain feels like slush after the past two days' craziness

I did the same with the second section. I have to imagine that this is a pretty common thing, and they have corrected for it. Then again, we do have examsoft

worst case you just pay to have it hand graded...but you should be fine

I do this all the time and it has never been an issue. Don't worry!

Florida had bad issue some guy was bubbling in after they called time, it was ID number then someone on the board of bar examiners took the kid's exam ID and DL to podium and was escorted out.

fire_ice wrote:I do this all the time and it has never been an issue. Don't worry!

Thank you so much, all, for the helpful and encouraging replies. Having serious nightmares that I failed the bar (I did Themis, and yet walked away feeling like I screwed up every section -- especially the MBE), and this concern about the scantron has only exacerbated things. So thank you for this. Going to be a difficult next few months as I await the results, but knowing that the scantron marks (hopefully) won't have a major effect on my score is encouraging.

Thanks again. I really appreciate it, TLS.

slf42 wrote:Hi all,

Took the NY bar exam today and having a bit of a post-exam freakout. During the morning session, I inserted on the scantron sheet various dashes and light circles to the left of the question numbers, corresponding to the questions that I was struggling with (a perhaps ill-advised system for tracking the questions I needed to revisit once I had finished answering all the questions...). I've made these types of marks before when filling out scantron sheets, but I'd always made sure to erase them. Today, due to what I assume was a combination of nerves and not thinking ahead, it was only after the fact that I realized I forgot to erase these stray marks, and now I'm panicking that the scantron is going to pick up the stray marks and count all these questions wrong.

Does anyone know anything about how scantron scoring works? Will all these marks be detected as incorrect answers? I'm sorry for this admittedly inane question -- just kind of freaked out, in addition to already having typical post-exam jitters.

I'd be grateful for any insights that anyone might have. Thank you!

PS - apologies if any of this sounds incoherent, my brain feels like slush after the past two days' craziness

I know how you feel, and so just wanted to send some love/support your way. I heard that you can challenge your MBE score if it turns out not to pass, and then they have a person (instead of machine) look it over. Hopefully that won't be the case for you though. I hate the amount of stress this exam causes...I still have knots in my stomach from the test and I just know it's going to be hell on earth waiting until November for the jerks in my state to release the results. The bar exam is a truly awful way to measure competence to enter the profession. They should just make our freakin law school exams the standard...because afterall, the bar associations are regulating the standards for legal education...so why have to do this extra BS AGAIN right at the time our student loans start racking up interest?!? Good luck!

hockeyman969 wrote:Florida had bad issue some guy was bubbling in after they called time, it was ID number then someone on the board of bar examiners took the kid's exam ID and DL to podium and was escorted out.

That's so sad. I hope this person is ok because that sounds like a nightmare.