Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass Forum

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TheSpanishMain

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by TheSpanishMain » Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:39 pm

Probably need a 198 to really sleep soundly.

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star fox

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by star fox » Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:49 pm

Leo wrote:
nickpapagiorgio wrote:
Leo wrote:
What about 99th percentile MBE? We're talking bottom 1% on essays, right?
That sounds about right. Download the spreadsheet and play with the numbers. Probably not the best strategy though, banking on 99th percentile.
Is Barbri Simulated MBE a good indicator? Got 99th percentile on that (171 raw). I've heard conflicting reports on how similar Barbri practice questions are to the real deal.
I'm going to assume you will pass.

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crumb cake

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by crumb cake » Thu Jul 06, 2017 9:09 pm

BVest wrote:
nickpapagiorgio wrote:
BVest wrote:
nickpapagiorgio wrote: Thank you. I wish New York released stats on essays and MPT.
Without looking it up, I assume those are scaled to the MBE distribution, like most other states do. For example, if the mean MBE is a 140.3 (like last July) and your raw essay score is right at the mean raw essay score, then your scaled essay score is a 140.3. Likewise, if your raw essay score is one standard deviation above the mean raw essay score, your scaled score would be 140.3+ 1 standard deviation (16.7 in July, for a 157 scaled score).
Super helpful. So is the below spreadsheet a good representation of how the UBE would be scored in New York? Sorry, can't post images yet.

https://app.box.com/s/90109ec73yfqi2zrscerojk6x43jhnog
Yes. (though I didn't check the calculations to make sure the spreadsheet calculated right).
Is this spreadsheet an accurate representation of pure MBE jurisdictions (MBE 50- MEE 30- MPT 20)?

If so, it looks like you could score in the 50 percentile for MBE, the 30 percentile for MPT, and the 5 percentile for MEE and still get a 260 (which is what I need)?! That's insane.

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nickpapagiorgio

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by nickpapagiorgio » Fri Jul 07, 2017 8:48 am

crumb cake wrote:
BVest wrote:
nickpapagiorgio wrote:
Super helpful. So is the below spreadsheet a good representation of how the UBE would be scored in New York? Sorry, can't post images yet.

https://app.box.com/s/90109ec73yfqi2zrscerojk6x43jhnog
Yes. (though I didn't check the calculations to make sure the spreadsheet calculated right).
Is this spreadsheet an accurate representation of pure MBE jurisdictions (MBE 50- MEE 30- MPT 20)?

If so, it looks like you could score in the 50 percentile for MBE, the 30 percentile for MPT, and the 5 percentile for MEE and still get a 260 (which is what I need)?! That's insane.
This spreadsheet will calculate a score under the UBE. I think. The spreadsheet scales the MPT and MEE to the MBE using the mean and standard deviation of the MBE from July 2016. You can download the spreadsheet and play around with the parts highlighted in yellow.

Yes, crazy. But as Barbri says, the bar exam is a "test of minimum competence."

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nickpapagiorgio

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by nickpapagiorgio » Fri Jul 07, 2017 11:13 am

nickpapagiorgio wrote:
crumb cake wrote:
If so, it looks like you could score in the 50 percentile for MBE, the 30 percentile for MPT, and the 5 percentile for MEE and still get a 260 (which is what I need)?! That's insane.
This spreadsheet will calculate a score under the UBE. I think. The spreadsheet scales the MPT and MEE to the MBE using the mean and standard deviation of the MBE from July 2016. You can download the spreadsheet and play around with the parts highlighted in yellow.

Yes, crazy. But as Barbri says, the bar exam is a "test of minimum competence."
Separac has the below explanation of UBE scoring in New York on his web site (which has its own calculator).

tldr; Looks like my spreadsheet is correct, it just goes about the calculations in a different manner. The MPT and the MEE are combined, then scaled to the MBE.
  1. Each MPT/MEE essay is given a score from 20 to 80. The mean is 50.
  2. The MPT and MEE are combined to form an essay score, with MEE accounting for 60% of the score and MPT accounting for 40% of the score.
  3. The resulting essay score is scaled to a distribution similar to that of the MBE.
  4. The MBE and essay score are combined to form the UBE score.

Separac wrote:According to NYBOLE, the scaled score for each of the six MEE questions and two MPT questions are arrived at by converting the raw score for each question to a scale that generally ranges from approximately 20 to 80, with 50 as the mean. The candidate's MEE scores are totaled and divided by six, the MPT scores are totaled and divided by two and the resultant scores are added together to arrive at the average scale score for the written section. In computing the average scale score the MEE is weighted 60% and the MPT is weighted 40%. That average is then converted to a score distribution that is comparable to that of the MBE. The resulting figure is the candidate's total written score. A candidate's final examination score is determined by combining the written and MBE scores.
Using Separac's calculator, I gave myself a 170 on the MBE, 25s on all MEEs, 50s on all MPTs (=scaled essay score of 98). Still got a 168. My plan: keep studying MBE, let the essays take care of themselves.

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Halp

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Halp » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:24 pm

Dumb dumb question, but I'm a little confused trying to figure out how this works and how to apply it for my state.

In a state with 50% MBE, 37.5% essays, 12.5% MPT. My state scales essays to the MBE. Minimum passing score is 270.

Going off last July's data, a 155 is 79th percentile. I scored 83rd percentile on the midterm, close enough. (Edit: raw of 140)

So, I need 21st percentile on the essays, if I repeat my midterm performance? (Since if you get a 99th percentile MBE, you only need 1% on the essays?)

That doesn't seem like quite autopass to me. Should be doable...I hope...but I'm godawful at remembering all the essay law so I'm not super confident about this...

Or do I need a scaled 115, which is 5th percentile? Since they scale essays to the MBE? So I only have to be better than the dumbest 5% of essay writers?

Am confuzzled.

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BVest

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by BVest » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:49 pm

Halp wrote:Dumb dumb question, but I'm a little confused trying to figure out how this works and how to apply it for my state.

In a state with 50% MBE, 37.5% essays, 12.5% MPT. My state scales essays to the MBE. Minimum passing score is 270.

Going off last July's data, a 155 is 79th percentile. I scored 83rd percentile on the midterm, close enough. (Edit: raw of 140)

So, I need 21st percentile on the essays, if I repeat my midterm performance? (Since if you get a 99th percentile MBE, you only need 1% on the essays?)

That doesn't seem like quite autopass to me. Should be doable...I hope...but I'm godawful at remembering all the essay law so I'm not super confident about this...

Or do I need a scaled 115, which is 5th percentile? Since they scale essays to the MBE? So I only have to be better than the dumbest 5% of essay writers?

Am confuzzled.
If you get a 155 MBE, you only need a scaled 115 for the rest of the exam to get to 270. So, yes, you only have to be better than the bottom 5% of essay writers. (Thus the "autopass").
Last edited by BVest on Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Halp

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Halp » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:05 pm

BVest wrote:
Halp wrote:Dumb dumb question, but I'm a little confused trying to figure out how this works and how to apply it for my state.

In a state with 50% MBE, 37.5% essays, 12.5% MPT. My state scales essays to the MBE. Minimum passing score is 270.

Going off last July's data, a 155 is 79th percentile. I scored 83rd percentile on the midterm, close enough. (Edit: raw of 140)

So, I need 21st percentile on the essays, if I repeat my midterm performance? (Since if you get a 99th percentile MBE, you only need 1% on the essays?)

That doesn't seem like quite autopass to me. Should be doable...I hope...but I'm godawful at remembering all the essay law so I'm not super confident about this...

Or do I need a scaled 115, which is 5th percentile? Since they scale essays to the MBE? So I only have to be better than the dumbest 5% of essay writers?

Am confuzzled.
If you get a 155 MBE, you only need a scaled 115 for the rest of the exam to get to 270. So, yes, you only have to be better than the bottom 5% of essay writers. (Thus the "autopass").
Oh, man, that'd be amazing. Thanks!

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BVest

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by BVest » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:13 pm

Minor correction: I was using your numbers. It looks like a 115 in July is more like 7.5%ile. But yeah.
Last edited by BVest on Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Yugihoe

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Yugihoe » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:24 pm

BVest wrote:
Halp wrote:Dumb dumb question, but I'm a little confused trying to figure out how this works and how to apply it for my state.

In a state with 50% MBE, 37.5% essays, 12.5% MPT. My state scales essays to the MBE. Minimum passing score is 270.

Going off last July's data, a 155 is 79th percentile. I scored 83rd percentile on the midterm, close enough. (Edit: raw of 140)

So, I need 21st percentile on the essays, if I repeat my midterm performance? (Since if you get a 99th percentile MBE, you only need 1% on the essays?)

That doesn't seem like quite autopass to me. Should be doable...I hope...but I'm godawful at remembering all the essay law so I'm not super confident about this...

Or do I need a scaled 115, which is 5th percentile? Since they scale essays to the MBE? So I only have to be better than the dumbest 5% of essay writers?

Am confuzzled.
If you get a 155 MBE, you only need a scaled 115 for the rest of the exam to get to 270. So, yes, you only have to be better than the bottom 5% of essay writers. (Thus the "autopass").
What percentile do you need to be on the MEE and the MPT each if you can score a raw of 140/200? So is it bottom 7.5% of just the MEE? Or of the MEE and MPT combined?

How's the analysis change if you score a raw of 125/200 on the MBE?

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Halp » Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:30 pm

BVest wrote:Minor correction: I was using your numbers. It looks like a 115 in July is more like 7.5%ile. But yeah.
Oh hmm that's weird - May I ask where that's from? I was going off Silverman's site (http://mbetutorial.blogspot.com/2016/10 ... 6.html?m=1) ...maybe the percentile for a 155 is off too then.

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BVest

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by BVest » Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:43 am

Last edited by BVest on Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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anon sequitur

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by anon sequitur » Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:55 am

I think people worrying about their percentile performance on the essays should keep in mind that a bottom 10 percent performance on the essays is going to be really, really week. The whole point of the thread (to me) is that if you can safely get yourself into the top 10 or 20th percentile on MBE, you're fine, because your general knowledge of legal principles will be enough to put you ahead of the worst essay writers. To be frank, I wrote most of my essays with little or no idea of what the actual state law was, I just tried to imagine what a reasonable law would be and wrote an essay on that. I'm sure a top 10th percentile essay is pretty damn good, but that also makes me confident that a bottom 10 is pitiful. Your essays just have to be slightly better than pitiful if you have an awesome MBE.

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BVest

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by BVest » Thu Jul 13, 2017 12:26 pm

Bottom 10% of essays will also include people who poorly manage their time and don't even get to a question (or 2 if it's Texas and you have 12 essays).
Last edited by BVest on Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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anon sequitur

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by anon sequitur » Thu Jul 13, 2017 1:17 pm

BVest wrote:Bottom 10% of essays will also include people who poorly manage their time and don't even get to a question (or 2 if it's Texas and you have 12 essays).
I think this is a significant factor, some people end up quitting on the essays and give up easy points they could have gotten with even the flimsiest of IRAC. Also consider that the essays are on day 2, by which time some people have already kind of given up.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by barkschool » Thu Jul 13, 2017 1:41 pm

i wonder why no one ever gets a 190

there has got to be one weaponized autist out of 50k takers

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BVest

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by BVest » Thu Jul 13, 2017 1:55 pm

barkschool wrote:
i wonder why no one ever gets a 190

there has got to be one weaponized autist out of 50k takers
FWIW 0.0% of 70,000 annual examinees can include up to 34 people.
Last edited by BVest on Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by ConfusedL1 » Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:43 pm

Does anyone know if they release the mean by jurisdiction?

Also, that calculator is CRAZY. So you can get only HALF of the UBE questions right, a 20% score on the MPT and a 25% score on the MEE (or vice versa if weighted equally) and STILL pass. Minimum competency indeed.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Yugihoe » Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:57 pm

ConfusedL1 wrote:Does anyone know if they release the mean by jurisdiction?

Also, that calculator is CRAZY. So you can get only HALF of the UBE questions right, a 20% score on the MPT and a 25% score on the MEE (or vice versa if weighted equally) and STILL pass. Minimum competency indeed.
Damn how do people end up failing then

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TheSpanishMain

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by TheSpanishMain » Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:10 pm

Yugihoe wrote:
ConfusedL1 wrote:Does anyone know if they release the mean by jurisdiction?

Also, that calculator is CRAZY. So you can get only HALF of the UBE questions right, a 20% score on the MPT and a 25% score on the MEE (or vice versa if weighted equally) and STILL pass. Minimum competency indeed.
Damn how do people end up failing then
I imagine it's people who really shit the bed on the MBE. Failing with a decent MBE score seems almost impossible.

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Yugihoe

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Yugihoe » Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:26 pm

TheSpanishMain wrote:
Yugihoe wrote:
ConfusedL1 wrote:Does anyone know if they release the mean by jurisdiction?

Also, that calculator is CRAZY. So you can get only HALF of the UBE questions right, a 20% score on the MPT and a 25% score on the MEE (or vice versa if weighted equally) and STILL pass. Minimum competency indeed.
Damn how do people end up failing then
I imagine it's people who really shit the bed on the MBE. Failing with a decent MBE score seems almost impossible.
Hmm i wonder if this is why prep companies don't stress the MEE stuff so much. That's at least how I feel about Kaplan, idk how barbri/themis is.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by ConfusedL1 » Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:47 pm

Yugihoe wrote:
TheSpanishMain wrote:
Yugihoe wrote:
ConfusedL1 wrote:Does anyone know if they release the mean by jurisdiction?

Also, that calculator is CRAZY. So you can get only HALF of the UBE questions right, a 20% score on the MPT and a 25% score on the MEE (or vice versa if weighted equally) and STILL pass. Minimum competency indeed.
Damn how do people end up failing then
I imagine it's people who really shit the bed on the MBE. Failing with a decent MBE score seems almost impossible.
Hmm i wonder if this is why prep companies don't stress the MEE stuff so much. That's at least how I feel about Kaplan, idk how barbri/themis is.
I'm sorry, I read that wrong. It's not a percentage right; It's a person's percentile.

So, you can be middle of the pack on MBE, the bottom 20 percent on the MEE, and the bottom 25 percent on the MPT and still pass.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by Love With The Coco » Sat Jul 15, 2017 7:02 pm

So a mean July 16 UBE only needed a 126 to pass NY and other 166 states. 126 is like bottom 25% or so right?

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los blancos

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by los blancos » Sat Jul 15, 2017 7:24 pm

i am so jealous of you people, this is my SECOND time taking a bar in a state with only 40% MBE. And I have to average a 145 between the MBE and essays. F me.

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Re: Strong MBE = AUTO bar pass

Post by EzraFitz » Sat Jul 15, 2017 10:38 pm

los blancos wrote:i am so jealous of you people, this is my SECOND time taking a bar in a state with only 40% MBE. And I have to average a 145 between the MBE and essays. F me.
I feel you here. A 160 on the MBE would require a 135 on the MPT + Essays to get to passing range. I mean, that's below average, but still not even close to autopass. Even a 175 would require us to still get a 125 on the Essays. It's a rough state. 40% MBE plus highest cutoff in the country is just mean.

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