Mbe Scoring Forum

[JoeSeperac]

Obviously, this begs the question, what should be shooting for in California?

California is tough. I see examinees fail CA with MBE scores that would result in a pass in any other state. One examinee I recently spoke to failed CA with an MBE of 160 (this is insane).

To get a 1440 on the F19 MBE, I estimate you need to answer 74% correct. So to be safe, you really want to be close to 80% correct.

[JakeTappers]

Obviously, this begs the question, what should be shooting for in California?

California is tough. I see examinees fail CA with MBE scores that would result in a pass in any other state. One examinee I recently spoke to failed CA with an MBE of 160 (this is insane).

To get a 1440 on the F19 MBE, I estimate you need to answer 74% correct. So to be safe, you really want to be close to 80% correct.

Wowzer. Thanks for this. I, frankly, don't see that happening. I'm through nearly 1000 on Adaptibar and hovering around the 63-65% mark. I don't see a world where I can safely assume above 65, or one that I actually could get to 70+. Maybe I'm wrong but its been pretty consistent. What would my essay scores need to be at 65%?

[JoeSeperac]

Obviously, this begs the question, what should be shooting for in California?

California is tough. I see examinees fail CA with MBE scores that would result in a pass in any other state. One examinee I recently spoke to failed CA with an MBE of 160 (this is insane).

To get a 1440 on the F19 MBE, I estimate you need to answer 74% correct. So to be safe, you really want to be close to 80% correct.

Wowzer. Thanks for this. I, frankly, don't see that happening. I'm through nearly 1000 on Adaptibar and hovering around the 63-65% mark. I don't see a world where I can safely assume above 65, or one that I actually could get to 70+. Maybe I'm wrong but its been pretty consistent. What would my essay scores need to be at 65%?

To test scoring scenarios, start here:
https://www.seperac.com/zcalc-mbe-febjuly.php

This calculator will tell you your scaled MBE score based on an average of actual past released scales (latest being in 2013 and based on 190 graded MBE questions). Since no one releases the MBE scale anymore, I have to reverse-engineer it by looking at all the different permutations in MBE subscores. However, I never receive enough scores to calculate all the different permutations, so you have to take my estimates with a grain of salt. Based on my F18 estimate, 65% in F18 would have resulted in a scaled MBE score of 133. This means you may want to use the F06 scaling on my MBE Calculator to estimate F19 scaling.

Next, go here, select F18 for the exam and plug in 1330 for the MBE score (which is the rough estimate for 65% on the F19 MBE):
https://mberules.com/california-bar-exa ... alculator/

You will see that you need 65s for all the essays/PTs to pass CA F19 with and MBE of 133 (so basically 65% across the board).

The 65% is not a surprise. According to a 1997 study entitled Basic Concepts in Item and Test Analysis, "the ideal percentage of correct answers on a four-choice multiple-choice test is not 70-90%. According to Thompson and Levitov (1985), the ideal difficulty for such an item would be halfway between the percentage of pure guess (25%) and 100%, (25% + {(100% - 25%)/2}. Therefore, for a test with 100 items with four alternatives each, the ideal mean percentage of correct items, for the purpose of maximizing score reliability, is roughly 63%." Thus, about 65% correct or better is usually where you need to be to pass a high-stakes exam.

[JakeTappers]

Obviously, this begs the question, what should be shooting for in California?

California is tough. I see examinees fail CA with MBE scores that would result in a pass in any other state. One examinee I recently spoke to failed CA with an MBE of 160 (this is insane).

To get a 1440 on the F19 MBE, I estimate you need to answer 74% correct. So to be safe, you really want to be close to 80% correct.

Wowzer. Thanks for this. I, frankly, don't see that happening. I'm through nearly 1000 on Adaptibar and hovering around the 63-65% mark. I don't see a world where I can safely assume above 65, or one that I actually could get to 70+. Maybe I'm wrong but its been pretty consistent. What would my essay scores need to be at 65%?

To test scoring scenarios, start here:
https://www.seperac.com/zcalc-mbe-febjuly.php

This calculator will tell you your scaled MBE score based on an average of actual past released scales (latest being in 2013 and based on 190 graded MBE questions). Since no one releases the MBE scale anymore, I have to reverse-engineer it by looking at all the different permutations in MBE subscores. However, I never receive enough scores to calculate all the different permutations, so you have to take my estimates with a grain of salt. Based on my F18 estimate, 65% in F18 would have resulted in a scaled MBE score of 133. This means you may want to use the F06 scaling on my MBE Calculator to estimate F19 scaling.

Next, go here, select F18 for the exam and plug in 1330 for the MBE score (which is the rough estimate for 65% on the F19 MBE):
https://mberules.com/california-bar-exa ... alculator/

You will see that you need 65s for all the essays/PTs to pass CA F19 with and MBE of 133 (so basically 65% across the board).

The 65% is not a surprise. According to a 1997 study entitled Basic Concepts in Item and Test Analysis, "the ideal percentage of correct answers on a four-choice multiple-choice test is not 70-90%. According to Thompson and Levitov (1985), the ideal difficulty for such an item would be halfway between the percentage of pure guess (25%) and 100%, (25% + {(100% - 25%)/2}. Therefore, for a test with 100 items with four alternatives each, the ideal mean percentage of correct items, for the purpose of maximizing score reliability, is roughly 63%." Thus, about 65% correct or better is usually where you need to be to pass a high-stakes exam.

Thank you, Joe. I apologize for making you walk through each step for several of my questions. Quite incredible how complex it all is, particularly with the lack of transparency. But your input is phenomenal. I do wonder if you could elaborate on the bolded. Does that mean ideal in terms of what the test writers/givers should be shooting for. I've been seeing some other blogs that say 80-85% on adaptibar is what should be shooting for. My scores are going up a bit but not sure I'd reach that.