NC Feb 2017 Forum

[HerptonBurpton]

Did anyone take NC for Feb 2017? Haven't seen any comments on it yet

Curious as to what others thought about the essays

[TenaciousJ]

I did... missed July by 12 points and had to retake, so now I'm on pins and needles every day waiting on the mailman. lol. Should be here any day now probably since it'll be 4 weeks tomorrow since the exam. Last year's results posted March 30th, but I'm not sure if that means people received them March 30th, or if that was the online posting which is always a few days after individual results are mailed.

Having sat for two, the essays in my opinion were easier this go round (at least they FELT easier) than they were in July.. maybe it was added experience though, who knows. Oddly, I felt that the Prof. Resp. Q was tougher than July, which I didn't expect. The Corp. Q was tougher as well.. less room for discretion in your answer if you didn't actually know the precise rule. That one I felt like I either completely nailed it or totally bombed it, but I doubt there was a lot of gray area.

[DurhamNC2017]

I took Feb. 2017 exam as well. Missed the July 2017 exam by one point. I think the essays were about the same in terms of difficulty between July and Feb., with Feb. maybe being a little harder. I feel like I got lucky in that for several, I just knew the answers to questions cold (e.g. con. law, corp. law, family law, wills) but the civ. pro question, the contracts question and to a lesser extent the property question I thought were somewhat difficult. The other questions were all ok, but not close to perfect or not what I felt was something like a 4 type of answer. From reviewing my essays from July, what I took away was even if you are totally wrong on the law or partially wrong, go through a lawyerly looking analysis in terms of aspects of a certain test, number your point (e.g. i, ii, iii), and come to some sort of conclusion based on something even if its not correct. To the extent that I did that on my essays in July, I generally did better even if I did not know all of the law.

As for timing, I believe that the results last year were mailed on or around March 28, but the exam was a few days later in Feb. last year (23 and 24 in 2016 as opposed to 21 and 22 in 2017), so I'm hoping that they have been mailed or will be mailed soon. I believe that the posting online generally occurs several days after the mailing.

In terms of study tips, I did about 90 or so practice essays and about 900-950 practice MBE and used themis this time around. I used Kaplan previously. I generally felt better prepared and really liked Themis overall. I did more studying in terms of practice problems and essays in Feb. I would suggest trying to max out on the topics you actually like (for me Con law, which is great because its the same on both days, crim pro and crim law) and feel competent in your other subjects but don't worry about getting absolutely everything. Then towards the end try to memorize tests with multiple points. I think the absolute key though is to slowly go through your answers where you got questions right and wrong. This really let things sink for me and I can think of both essay and MBE points I got because of a specific practice problem I got wrong but then really analyzed the law in reviewing my answers.

Good luck to all of those who took the exam and those taking this summer!

[HiOCEAN]

I did... missed July by 12 points and had to retake, so now I'm on pins and needles every day waiting on the mailman. lol. Should be here any day now probably since it'll be 4 weeks tomorrow since the exam. Last year's results posted March 30th, but I'm not sure if that means people received them March 30th, or if that was the online posting which is always a few days after individual results are mailed.

Having sat for two, the essays in my opinion were easier this go round (at least they FELT easier) than they were in July.. maybe it was added experience though, who knows. Oddly, I felt that the Prof. Resp. Q was tougher than July, which I didn't expect. The Corp. Q was tougher as well.. less room for discretion in your answer if you didn't actually know the precise rule. That one I felt like I either completely nailed it or totally bombed it, but I doubt there was a lot of gray area.

You said you missed July by 12 points ... does anyone know scoring on the NC exam? I think it's out of 500 and you need 350. But how exactly do they calculate that. If 12 points is scaled, does that mean you could have passed if you just got like 2 or 3 more points on the essay?

[HerptonBurpton]

I did... missed July by 12 points and had to retake, so now I'm on pins and needles every day waiting on the mailman. lol. Should be here any day now probably since it'll be 4 weeks tomorrow since the exam. Last year's results posted March 30th, but I'm not sure if that means people received them March 30th, or if that was the online posting which is always a few days after individual results are mailed.

Having sat for two, the essays in my opinion were easier this go round (at least they FELT easier) than they were in July.. maybe it was added experience though, who knows. Oddly, I felt that the Prof. Resp. Q was tougher than July, which I didn't expect. The Corp. Q was tougher as well.. less room for discretion in your answer if you didn't actually know the precise rule. That one I felt like I either completely nailed it or totally bombed it, but I doubt there was a lot of gray area.

You said you missed July by 12 points ... does anyone know scoring on the NC exam? I think it's out of 500 and you need 350. But how exactly do they calculate that. If 12 points is scaled, does that mean you could have passed if you just got like 2 or 3 more points on the essay?

MBE is 40%, essays are 60%. Essays are scored in a scale of 1-10 (and are supposedly curved).

I've heard that the raw essay score is multiplied by either 2.5 or 3 (there seems to be some disagreement about the exact multiplier). The essay total is then added to the scaled MBE score. If you end up with 350+, you pass.

[HiOCEAN]

OK so basically if you don't pass by 15 points, you're not really THAT far off ...

On another note, I just took another state's bar, and all the NC state specific stuff is ridiculous. Most states hardly test on minutiae the way NC does.

[DurhamNC2017]

I did... missed July by 12 points and had to retake, so now I'm on pins and needles every day waiting on the mailman. lol. Should be here any day now probably since it'll be 4 weeks tomorrow since the exam. Last year's results posted March 30th, but I'm not sure if that means people received them March 30th, or if that was the online posting which is always a few days after individual results are mailed.

Having sat for two, the essays in my opinion were easier this go round (at least they FELT easier) than they were in July.. maybe it was added experience though, who knows. Oddly, I felt that the Prof. Resp. Q was tougher than July, which I didn't expect. The Corp. Q was tougher as well.. less room for discretion in your answer if you didn't actually know the precise rule. That one I felt like I either completely nailed it or totally bombed it, but I doubt there was a lot of gray area.

You said you missed July by 12 points ... does anyone know scoring on the NC exam? I think it's out of 500 and you need 350. But how exactly do they calculate that. If 12 points is scaled, does that mean you could have passed if you just got like 2 or 3 more points on the essay?

MBE is 40%, essays are 60%. Essays are scored in a scale of 1-10 (and are supposedly curved).

I've heard that the raw essay score is multiplied by either 2.5 or 3 (there seems to be some disagreement about the exact multiplier). The essay total is then added to the scaled MBE score. If you end up with 350+, you pass.

Based on my experience with reviewing my score from July 2016 you essentially take your MBE score, take your average essay score (e.g. if you got an average of 7, take 70% * 300 and if you got average 6, take 60% * 300) and then the examiners added 30-35 points in scaling. I'd imagine that the scaling would vary slightly from exam to exam but that should give you a rough idea based on recent scoring of the exam

[spartjdawg]

I took Feb. 2017 exam as well. Missed the July 2017 exam by one point. I think the essays were about the same in terms of difficulty between July and Feb., with Feb. maybe being a little harder. I feel like I got lucky in that for several, I just knew the answers to questions cold (e.g. con. law, corp. law, family law, wills) but the civ. pro question, the contracts question and to a lesser extent the property question I thought were somewhat difficult. The other questions were all ok, but not close to perfect or not what I felt was something like a 4 type of answer. From reviewing my essays from July, what I took away was even if you are totally wrong on the law or partially wrong, go through a lawyerly looking analysis in terms of aspects of a certain test, number your point (e.g. i, ii, iii), and come to some sort of conclusion based on something even if its not correct. To the extent that I did that on my essays in July, I generally did better even if I did not know all of the law.

As for timing, I believe that the results last year were mailed on or around March 28, but the exam was a few days later in Feb. last year (23 and 24 in 2016 as opposed to 21 and 22 in 2017), so I'm hoping that they have been mailed or will be mailed soon. I believe that the posting online generally occurs several days after the mailing.

In terms of study tips, I did about 90 or so practice essays and about 900-950 practice MBE and used themis this time around. I used Kaplan previously. I generally felt better prepared and really liked Themis overall. I did more studying in terms of practice problems and essays in Feb. I would suggest trying to max out on the topics you actually like (for me Con law, which is great because its the same on both days, crim pro and crim law) and feel competent in your other subjects but don't worry about getting absolutely everything. Then towards the end try to memorize tests with multiple points. I think the absolute key though is to slowly go through your answers where you got questions right and wrong. This really let things sink for me and I can think of both essay and MBE points I got because of a specific practice problem I got wrong but then really analyzed the law in reviewing my answers.

Good luck to all of those who took the exam and those taking this summer!

DurhamNC2017,

I took the Feb exam too. I'd be very curious as to what a 3 or 4 essay looks like. Any way to convey how/why an essay would be graded a 3 or 4? Similarly, would you estimate that a model answer posted by the NC Bar is a 10?

[HiOCEAN]

In my opinion it's not easy to get above a 5 on the essays. They grade pretty harshly. I wouldn't blow the thing off or expect to "make up" law on a number of essays and get a high score.

I took Feb. 2017 exam as well. Missed the July 2017 exam by one point. I think the essays were about the same in terms of difficulty between July and Feb., with Feb. maybe being a little harder. I feel like I got lucky in that for several, I just knew the answers to questions cold (e.g. con. law, corp. law, family law, wills) but the civ. pro question, the contracts question and to a lesser extent the property question I thought were somewhat difficult. The other questions were all ok, but not close to perfect or not what I felt was something like a 4 type of answer. From reviewing my essays from July, what I took away was even if you are totally wrong on the law or partially wrong, go through a lawyerly looking analysis in terms of aspects of a certain test, number your point (e.g. i, ii, iii), and come to some sort of conclusion based on something even if its not correct. To the extent that I did that on my essays in July, I generally did better even if I did not know all of the law.

As for timing, I believe that the results last year were mailed on or around March 28, but the exam was a few days later in Feb. last year (23 and 24 in 2016 as opposed to 21 and 22 in 2017), so I'm hoping that they have been mailed or will be mailed soon. I believe that the posting online generally occurs several days after the mailing.

In terms of study tips, I did about 90 or so practice essays and about 900-950 practice MBE and used themis this time around. I used Kaplan previously. I generally felt better prepared and really liked Themis overall. I did more studying in terms of practice problems and essays in Feb. I would suggest trying to max out on the topics you actually like (for me Con law, which is great because its the same on both days, crim pro and crim law) and feel competent in your other subjects but don't worry about getting absolutely everything. Then towards the end try to memorize tests with multiple points. I think the absolute key though is to slowly go through your answers where you got questions right and wrong. This really let things sink for me and I can think of both essay and MBE points I got because of a specific practice problem I got wrong but then really analyzed the law in reviewing my answers.

Good luck to all of those who took the exam and those taking this summer!

DurhamNC2017,

I took the Feb exam too. I'd be very curious as to what a 3 or 4 essay looks like. Any way to convey how/why an essay would be graded a 3 or 4? Similarly, would you estimate that a model answer posted by the NC Bar is a 10?

[spartjdawg]

In my opinion it's not easy to get above a 5 on the essays. They grade pretty harshly. I wouldn't blow the thing off or expect to "make up" law on a number of essays and get a high score.

I think this is precisely why I ask the question. On the test, I know that I missed the corporations rule, part of the family law rule, and part of the civ pro rule. Everything else was pretty decent. Analysis-wise, I think I did a sufficient enough job, but would love some guidance on how these things are graded. Part of me feels that my answers for Torts, Contracts, Con Law, and PR could have been model answers. Another part of me feels like I could have failed with flying colors.

[HiOCEAN]

I'm pretty sure they have a rubric giving a certain number of points for each thing you got right. While you might score 1 point for making up a rule and analyzing it, I found that this didn't net enough points. They are really looking for the specific points. I know some MEE states grade very loosely. I do not believe NC falls into that category. For what it's worth, I heard of someone who got a "1" on one of the essays and still passed. So if you bomb on one of them, you still have hope.

[DurhamNC2017]

In my opinion it's not easy to get above a 5 on the essays. They grade pretty harshly. I wouldn't blow the thing off or expect to "make up" law on a number of essays and get a high score.

I think this is precisely why I ask the question. On the test, I know that I missed the corporations rule, part of the family law rule, and part of the civ pro rule. Everything else was pretty decent. Analysis-wise, I think I did a sufficient enough job, but would love some guidance on how these things are graded. Part of me feels that my answers for Torts, Contracts, Con Law, and PR could have been model answers. Another part of me feels like I could have failed with flying colors.

On the July exam, I got, I believe 3 or 4 essays with a 4, which was my lowest score on any essay. The theme in these essays for me was that I was not very organized, in part because I did not know the answer the question, but I did know parts of the answer and I put those in. From my experience, if you feel like you did an essay perfectly, you probably got an 8 or 9. NC grades hard.

However, there was one question in July, secured transaction regarding a potential disguised sale that had two parts. I got the first part perfect (I think) and provided all the parts of a secured transaction and did good analysis, but the second part, about priority of lien, I did not answer well. I got a 9 on the essay because I think I had a good approach to the question in terms of ticking through points, etc. So I took from that the fact that you essentially need to make it easy for the grader to give you points by really trying to tick through your tests and elements, which I really tried to do in Feb.

So, I don't think that you can organize your way, without knowing the law, to a good essay score, but you should organize your essay the best you can and try to memorize tests/elements. I hope that helps.

[spartjdawg]

On the July exam, I got, I believe 3 or 4 essays with a 4, which was my lowest score on any essay. The theme in these essays for me was that I was not very organized, in part because I did not know the answer the question, but I did know parts of the answer and I put those in. From my experience, if you feel like you did an essay perfectly, you probably got an 8 or 9. NC grades hard.

However, there was one question in July, secured transaction regarding a potential disguised sale that had two parts. I got the first part perfect (I think) and provided all the parts of a secured transaction and did good analysis, but the second part, about priority of lien, I did not answer well. I got a 9 on the essay because I think I had a good approach to the question in terms of ticking through points, etc. So I took from that the fact that you essentially need to make it easy for the grader to give you points by really trying to tick through your tests and elements, which I really tried to do in Feb.

So, I don't think that you can organize your way, without knowing the law, to a good essay score, but you should organize your essay the best you can and try to memorize tests/elements. I hope that helps.

This was incredibly helpful! For the most part, I tried to use headings/subheadings/bullets frequently to call attention to the high level stuff. Hopefully, that translates. Thank you!

[TenaciousJ]

You said you missed July by 12 points ... does anyone know scoring on the NC exam? I think it's out of 500 and you need 350. But how exactly do they calculate that. If 12 points is scaled, does that mean you could have passed if you just got like 2 or 3 more points on the essay?

Yeah it's brutal... basically had I gotten 4-5 more unscaled essay points I would have passed. I didn't go to a NC Law school, so I had to learn stuff like family law (which I never took a class in) from scratch and that was one of my lowest essay scores. I boned up on that pretty good this time, so hopefully as long as I picked up a point or two on a couple of other questions and did ok on the fam law Q I will pass this go round. (assuming I kept a similar MBE score).

The total possible for the essays is 120 and that is 60% of 500 possible points, so the breakdown posted earlier is probably pretty close. 300 / 120 gives
you a total possible for each essay of 25 points. whatever you got for each Q out of 10 will likely be multiplied by 2.5, then curved for difficulty based on the std. deviation of the mean distribution (semi-guessing that's how they do it anyway). Not sure if they curve each question separately or the total score, but it's probably more likely that the total essay score is weighted because that's less work. So if you got a 3 on an essay, that gives you 7.5 total points toward your score, but if you get a 5 you add 12.5 even though you only added 2 raw points. So in my case 4-5 points depending on the curve should get me across the finish line, though hopefully it's not that close of a shave this time =)

I also hope the scoring on the MBE doesn't get all screwy since it's the first one where they had 25 ungraded questions, which makes wrong answers hurt more. I felt like there were a lot of really screwy questions, but who knows if those were ungraded or not.

I'm convinced that the decline in pass rates over the past few years has nothing to do with declination of student ability, and everything to do with legal services demand. Harder grading means fewer lawyers competing for limited work in a stagnant market. But now that demand is on the rise in a burgeoning economy, maybe we'll see pass rates go back up as well. Especially with all the grief bar examiners are getting lately over tests designed to cull the herd rather than provide baseline ability analysis. Of course, that's all pure speculation on my part

[TenaciousJ]

I'm pretty sure they have a rubric giving a certain number of points for each thing you got right. While you might score 1 point for making up a rule and analyzing it, I found that this didn't net enough points. They are really looking for the specific points. I know some MEE states grade very loosely. I do not believe NC falls into that category. For what it's worth, I heard of someone who got a "1" on one of the essays and still passed. So if you bomb on one of them, you still have hope.

They're definitely looking for specific talking points in an answer that's why the organization is just as important as the actual answer itself. If the grader has to work at finding the answer they're looking for out of what you wrote, you're much less likely to get a point for it even if it's there. That was part of my issue the first go round, my answers were a bit rambling at times unless I had the law down cold and could just formulaically spit out the rule and associate facts to elements. This exam really is an exercise in rote memorization. If you know the rules cold, the issues jump out and the questions are pretty straight forward. If you're unsure, you can still get partial credit certainly but the time spent increases dramatically in my experience which can end up hurting other areas. The corporations question was like that for me this round... I studied corporate law, and reviewed that section of my bar course extensively, but still wasn't sure what rule they were getting at. It actually seemed to me that they were hinting at a rule that didn't actually exist to see if we'd catch that or not. Who knows.

[TenaciousJ]

I took the Feb exam too. I'd be very curious as to what a 3 or 4 essay looks like. Any way to convey how/why an essay would be graded a 3 or 4? Similarly, would you estimate that a model answer posted by the NC Bar is a 10?

I would not think the model answers are necessarily 10 scores, but they're definitely in the 8-10 range. A 3-4 answer is one that's not organized well, misstates a rule of law and/or analyzes the fact pattern improperly. I think if you give an incorrect rule, but analyze the fact pattern based on the rule you give properly, you may get partial credit for that issue from some graders depending on what other exams they've graded and how yours compares. Missing issues obviously knocks off points, so if there are 3 issues and you only talk about 1, that might knock you down to a 3 or 4 since you missed 2/3 of the available points.

Key thing for me was making sure to use all the facts provided. No words are ever wasted, so if you re-read the fact pattern and notice a stray sentence that you didn't use, then you've probably missed something that you should have discussed, even if to explain why that fact isn't relevant. That was something I didn't do well the first time around, and focused on this time. I felt like it helped to keep that in mind throughout the writing process always looking for things I wasn't using in my answer yet, then I could spot issues I might have otherwise overlooked.

[hopeful456]

Any guestimates on when we'll receive results? I'm getting increasingly anxious

[spartjdawg]

Any guestimates on when we'll receive results? I'm getting increasingly anxious

It looks like the results were received via mail on March 30, last year, which is 5 weeks from the last day of the test. The equivalent date this year would be next Wednesday, March 29. But who is counting down....

[DurhamNC2017]

I believe that someone called the NCBLE after the July exam and they confirmed when the results had been mailed, so I suppose that is a possibility. I believe that the results were sent last year on March 28, although the test was administered a few days later in February last year, so I'd imagine that if they are sticking to the same schedule as last year for the Feb exam that the results should be sent on March 27, so everyone would receive their mailings a few days after, and then the results would be posted online.

[HerptonBurpton]

I think it's safe to assume that the results will be mailed out on the 27th or 28th and basically everyone will have received the results by next Friday, March 31. The results will probably be online the following Monday (April 3)

But that's just a guess based on when they were mailed last year and when they were posted online

[ariadne328]

I think there is a decent chance the results will be mailed today, which would mean starting to get them tomorrow or Monday in the triangle area. They say somewhere on the site the letters are mailed on the fifth Friday after the exam, which is today, and that would generally be in line with past years as well. I think last year was a special case because of Good Friday screwing up the normal mail date. I guess we will see soon!

[isla0108]

I took the Feb exam too. I'd be very curious as to what a 3 or 4 essay looks like. Any way to convey how/why an essay would be graded a 3 or 4? Similarly, would you estimate that a model answer posted by the NC Bar is a 10?

I would not think the model answers are necessarily 10 scores, but they're definitely in the 8-10 range. A 3-4 answer is one that's not organized well, misstates a rule of law and/or analyzes the fact pattern improperly. I think if you give an incorrect rule, but analyze the fact pattern based on the rule you give properly, you may get partial credit for that issue from some graders depending on what other exams they've graded and how yours compares. Missing issues obviously knocks off points, so if there are 3 issues and you only talk about 1, that might knock you down to a 3 or 4 since you missed 2/3 of the available points.

Key thing for me was making sure to use all the facts provided. No words are ever wasted, so if you re-read the fact pattern and notice a stray sentence that you didn't use, then you've probably missed something that you should have discussed, even if to explain why that fact isn't relevant. That was something I didn't do well the first time around, and focused on this time. I felt like it helped to keep that in mind throughout the writing process always looking for things I wasn't using in my answer yet, then I could spot issues I might have otherwise overlooked.

Hi NC bar takers,
I will take the NC Feb. Bar next year. I have passed Washington State bar (UBE) last year and then moved to NC lately.
NC bar essay part seems very challenging since the non-relevant facts need to be mentioned in the answer!! How long do I need to prepare? I know nothing about NC Law currently.
Any tips for the essay part of NC bar? I am trying to find some old review materials online to save money on the bar review companies.
Good luck to everyone. Have a nice end of March!

[TenaciousJ]

I think there is a decent chance the results will be mailed today, which would mean starting to get them tomorrow or Monday in the triangle area. They say somewhere on the site the letters are mailed on the fifth Friday after the exam, which is today, and that would generally be in line with past years as well. I think last year was a special case because of Good Friday screwing up the normal mail date. I guess we will see soon!

I called them on Friday and they said they hadn't been mailed yet (as of 1pm), but that they would be "soon".

[ariadne328]

I think there is a decent chance the results will be mailed today, which would mean starting to get them tomorrow or Monday in the triangle area. They say somewhere on the site the letters are mailed on the fifth Friday after the exam, which is today, and that would generally be in line with past years as well. I think last year was a special case because of Good Friday screwing up the normal mail date. I guess we will see soon!

I called them on Friday and they said they hadn't been mailed yet (as of 1pm), but that they would be "soon".

Ugh! But thanks for the update!

[virgoyum]

I saw on another forum that they were mailed out yesterday. I am not sure what time. Someone called their processor this morning.

Good luck to you all.