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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by twitterati » Tue Oct 23, 2018 7:02 pm

Hi Joe! Thanks for all that you do. Your posts/website kept me (relatively) sane while I was studying and waiting.

Would you calculate my numbers from the July 2018 NY bar? I scored 170.6 on the MBE and overall 341. Thanks!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:10 am

HELLOWORLD33 wrote:What are the stats for a 347 and a 167.8 MBE? Thanks!
Congratulations on passing the J18 exam. Based on your scaled MBE score of 167.8, your estimated raw MBE score was about 153/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 87.4% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 95.4% percentile for the MBE. This means that 4.6% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 167.8 (based on July national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 347, this means your written score was 179.2, which would have placed you in the 99.7% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 0.3% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT). Great job!

On the MBE, examinees usually score close to their MBE practice scores, especially if they have done a large number of MBE questions in practice. Were you at 80% correct or higher in MBE practice?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by EncyclopediaOrange » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:13 am

Dear Joe,

You are a wizard and the Man.

Please break me down: 333 UBE, 179.5 MBE.

If you are in New York please let me buy you a beer someday.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:15 am

twitterati wrote:Hi Joe! Thanks for all that you do. Your posts/website kept me (relatively) sane while I was studying and waiting.

Would you calculate my numbers from the July 2018 NY bar? I scored 170.6 on the MBE and overall 341. Thanks!
Congratulations on passing! Based on your scaled MBE score of 170.6, your estimated raw MBE score was about 157/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 89.7% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 97.4% percentile for the MBE. This means that 2.6% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 170.6 (based on July national data).

Based on a total score of 341, this means your written score was 170.4, which would have placed you in the 97.3% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 2.7% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Your scores are a good illustration of NCBE's recent statement that "[p]erformance on the written portion of the bar exam tracks MBE performance" https://seperac.com/pdf/2018-09-18-00-0 ... ournal.pdf

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:23 am

EncyclopediaOrange wrote:Dear Joe,

You are a wizard and the Man.

Please break me down: 333 UBE, 179.5 MBE.

If you are in New York please let me buy you a beer someday.
Well, you win the prize for highest MBE that's ever been reported to me. Based on your scaled MBE score of 179.5, your estimated raw MBE score was about 170/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 97.1% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 99.8% percentile for the MBE. This means that 0.2% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 179.5 (based on July national data for the past 7 years). That's pretty insane. How were you doing in practice (e.g. 80% correct overall)?

Based on a total score of 333, this means your written score was 153.5, which would have placed you in the 75% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 25% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Also, if you don't mind one other quick question, if you had to attribute your MBE score to just one thing, what would that be?

And thanks for the offer. While I rarely turn down a pint, i'll trade it for answers to the above questions

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by EncyclopediaOrange » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:47 am

JoeSeperac wrote:
EncyclopediaOrange wrote:Dear Joe,

You are a wizard and the Man.

Please break me down: 333 UBE, 179.5 MBE.

If you are in New York please let me buy you a beer someday.
Well, you win the prize for highest MBE that's ever been reported to me. Based on your scaled MBE score of 179.5, your estimated raw MBE score was about 170/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 97.1% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 99.8% percentile for the MBE. This means that 0.2% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 179.5 (based on July national data for the past 7 years). That's pretty insane. How were you doing in practice (e.g. 80% correct overall)?

Based on a total score of 333, this means your written score was 153.5, which would have placed you in the 75% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 25% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Also, if you don't mind one other quick question, if you had to attribute your MBE score to just one thing, what would that be?

And thanks for the offer. While I rarely turn down a pint, i'll trade it for answers to the above questions
Wow, honestly that's pretty weird to hear. Anything for you, Joe.

I used Themis. After the first couple of introductory MBE sets, I don't think I hit anything under 70% again. By the time I was doing mixed sets, I was pretty consistently hitting in the 80-90% range. I can't recall my first full practice test score but I want to say it was a 145-55. Final practice test was 84/100.

Re: the real MBE. I thought I crushed the morning session but legitimately walked out of the afternoon thinking I failed the bar. If I had to attribute my MBE score to anything, it would probably be luck. But to give a substantive answer, I think it would be trying to get a real feel for what NCBE thinks is the "best answer." I worked at a litigation firm in college, grew up around lawyers, and generally nerd out about procedure and the legal industry. Taking NCBE's practice 21 question set as an example, even though some of the questions that had totally off the wall answers or arcane terms of art, you can usually walk your way into the correct answer with some background knowledge about the topic or how the law generally works. Once you learn most of the testable law, there's only so much memorizing one extra rule will do for you.

There were some questions on the MBE this year that I thought were entirely unsuitable for an "objective" test. Whether they were graded, who knows, but I guess the "feel" worked out for me this time.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Cop2lawyerNYC » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:20 am

Thanks for all the info, Joe.

There was a 32 point difference between my MBE score and MEE/MPT. Towards the end my practice MBE were in the high 80s (I also got a 145/200 in the Barbri midterm and saw a 20+ point boost).

Thank god I don’t have to take this test again, but if I did I wonder if handwriting would have been more beneficial for me?
I’m “middle aged” lol and type around 25 words per minute. I’m guessing this explains the 32 point spread between my mbe and written scores.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Ohnt » Thu Oct 25, 2018 1:29 am

Hi Joe,

Foreign educated attorney here.
I scored 321 overall. 153.9 mbe. Please what are my rankings? Thanks!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Houstonttt » Thu Oct 25, 2018 1:40 am

Ohnt wrote:Hi Joe,

Foreign educated attorney here.
I scored 321 overall. 153.9 mbe. Please what are my rankings? Thanks!
congrats!! what bar review you did.. and if you don't mind what was your practice score for the mock MBE exam and regular sets. tanks and congrats again

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Ohnt » Thu Oct 25, 2018 2:07 am

I used Themis. Highly recommend because all the odds were stacked against me and it came through for me.

In addition to being a foreign educated attorney from west Africa I’m a mother of a toddler who was 17 months when I sat bar, a wife,

and I was 7 months pregnant during exam. Was also breastfeeding months leading up to exam and was throwing up a lot during bar prep (made me weak and tired all the time).

We also moved across state 2 weeks to the exam.

Had 139 for first mbe simulated
140 for second simulated mbe
I did 3,500 practice questions
Had 64% for 2,195 Themis questions
Wrote out over a 100 essays
Also wrote out approximately 12 MPTS
If it helps, I scored a 113 on the MPRE

321 overall on my first ny bar exam attempt.
Houstonttt wrote:
Ohnt wrote:Hi Joe,

Foreign educated attorney here.
I scored 321 overall. 153.9 mbe. Please what are my rankings? Thanks!
congrats!! what bar review you did.. and if you don't mind what was your practice score for the mock MBE exam and regular sets. tanks and congrats again

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by sarge52 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:22 am

Hey Joe, could you break me down?

MBE: 159.8
Total: 336

Thanks!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Calbears123 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:38 am

Hey Joe responding to you from a different thread about my 175.4 mbe.

The only practice exam I did was barbri’s midterm. I don’t count the practice exam I did in the Emmanuel book. Most if not all of those questions I had already seen after completing adaptibar.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:15 am

Ohnt wrote:Hi Joe,

Foreign educated attorney here.
I scored 321 overall. 153.9 mbe. Please what are my rankings? Thanks!
Congratulations on passing. The First-Time foreign pass rate was 50% so foreign examinees did very well in J18.

Based on your scaled MBE score of 153.9, your estimated raw MBE score was about 134/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 76.6% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 75.9% percentile for the MBE. This means that 24.1% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 153.9 (based on July national data for the past 7 years).

Based on a total score of 321, this means your written score was 167.1, which would have placed you in the 94.8% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 5.2% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

If you don't mind one quick question, if you had to attribute your passing to just one thing, what would that be? I ask this to see if there is any commonality in answers among similarly situated examinees.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:21 am

sarge52 wrote:Hey Joe, could you break me down?

MBE: 159.8
Total: 336

Thanks!
Congratulations! Based on your scaled MBE score of 159.8, your estimated raw MBE score was about 142/175 correct (based on my estimate of the MBE scale). This means you answered about 81.1% of the graded MBE questions correctly. This places you in the 86.3% percentile for the MBE. This means that 13.7% of Jul examinees nationwide did better than you on the MBE based on your scaled MBE score of 159.8 (based on July national data for the past 7 years). Based on a total score of 336, this means your written score was 176.2, which would have placed you in the 99.3% percentile among examinees nationwide (meaning that 0.7% of examinees nationwide would have scored better than you on the MEE/MPT).

Did you think you did well on the written? Do you recall if you wrote a lot for each MEE/MPT, or just average?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:25 am

Calbears123 wrote:Hey Joe responding to you from a different thread about my 175.4 mbe.

The only practice exam I did was barbri’s midterm. I don’t count the practice exam I did in the Emmanuel book. Most if not all of those questions I had already seen after completing adaptibar.
Thanks. I'm guessing you were 85% correct on Adaptibar to get a 175 MBE.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Electricella » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:33 am

Hi Joe,
Was meaning to ask long time ago - is there a predicting calculator for non-UBE states, in particular, for example, Texas?
Couldn't find anything on your website.

Thanks in advance

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Calbears123 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:37 am

JoeSeperac wrote:
Calbears123 wrote:Hey Joe responding to you from a different thread about my 175.4 mbe.

The only practice exam I did was barbri’s midterm. I don’t count the practice exam I did in the Emmanuel book. Most if not all of those questions I had already seen after completing adaptibar.
Thanks. I'm guessing you were 85% correct on Adaptibar to get a 175 MBE.
Sounds right. When I started in June I was anywhere from 65% to 75% but the week of the bar I was around 90%.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by JoeSeperac » Thu Oct 25, 2018 12:23 pm

Electricella wrote:Hi Joe,
Was meaning to ask long time ago - is there a predicting calculator for non-UBE states, in particular, for example, Texas?
Couldn't find anything on your website.

Thanks in advance
If you are taking the exam in a non-UBE state, just convert your score to the expected UBE score (e.g. Texas 675/1000*400=270) and use that estimate. Most of the studies that I use are based on NY examinees, but I find that the data carries over to examinees from other states.

https://seperac.com/zcalc-passcalc.php

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Electricella » Thu Oct 25, 2018 12:53 pm

Thanks. Just did the estimator, and it showed I probably failed :oops:
So much for comforting myself)))
JoeSeperac wrote: If you are taking the exam in a non-UBE state, just convert your score to the expected UBE score (e.g. Texas 675/1000*400=270) and use that estimate. Most of the studies that I use are based on NY examinees, but I find that the data carries over to examinees from other states.

https://seperac.com/zcalc-passcalc.php

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by DK134 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 1:15 pm

Hello Joe!

Thank you for the great job you do. I only recently discovered this forum, but I am impressed by the hard work you put in and your kindness. From reading your post, I have a general idea of my rankings, but I want to share my score with you for your records.

I am a foreign-educated first time taker. I got 324 in total and 166.8 in MBE. I studied only with Barbri and did all the assignments. I got 142 in the MBE simulation. I also memorized the Barbri key cards, which helped me a lot with the essays.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Electricella » Thu Oct 25, 2018 1:50 pm

I guess, if I didn't do the LSAT here, most of the prediction is based on my demographics + MPRE score, am I correct?
Didn't really study for the MPRE and got a very low, although passing, score there.
I played with the estimator, and even when I input the GPA of 3.8, the score went up only a 1-2 points. Meanwhile increasing the MPRE score drives the overall predicted score very-very high.
Electricella wrote:Thanks. Just did the estimator, and it showed I probably failed :oops:
So much for comforting myself)))
JoeSeperac wrote: If you are taking the exam in a non-UBE state, just convert your score to the expected UBE score (e.g. Texas 675/1000*400=270) and use that estimate. Most of the studies that I use are based on NY examinees, but I find that the data carries over to examinees from other states.

https://seperac.com/zcalc-passcalc.php

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by mysojuli » Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:40 pm

Would the " JoeSeperac" method work for taking the Georgia Bar?

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Great45 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:12 pm

Hey Joe! Thank you for all the information you provide on this site! Can you possibly calculate my numbers?

My total UBE score was 282. I scored 142.2 on the MBE. Thank you!

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by diatribe » Thu Oct 25, 2018 9:27 pm

JoeSeperac wrote:
Electricella wrote:Hi Joe,
Was meaning to ask long time ago - is there a predicting calculator for non-UBE states, in particular, for example, Texas?
Couldn't find anything on your website.

Thanks in advance
If you are taking the exam in a non-UBE state, just convert your score to the expected UBE score (e.g. Texas 675/1000*400=270) and use that estimate. Most of the studies that I use are based on NY examinees, but I find that the data carries over to examinees from other states.

https://seperac.com/zcalc-passcalc.php

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.
I am not sure I understand how to use the calculator for non-UBE states. For instance, why is Texas 675/1000*400 and how would I know which numbers to input for other states? (Cali here)

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Re: The "Ask @JoeSeperac" Thread

Post by Electricella » Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:30 pm

Happy to report that the estimator erred, and I passed.
lol
:) 8) :wink:
Electricella wrote:Thanks. Just did the estimator, and it showed I probably failed :oops:
So much for comforting myself)))
JoeSeperac wrote: If you are taking the exam in a non-UBE state, just convert your score to the expected UBE score (e.g. Texas 675/1000*400=270) and use that estimate. Most of the studies that I use are based on NY examinees, but I find that the data carries over to examinees from other states.

https://seperac.com/zcalc-passcalc.php

If you failed the exam and would like to see a score calculator for your state (AL, AR, CO, MA, etc), just send me your scores (or post them here) and I can make one. The score calculators are useful because you can see exactly how many points each answer contributed to your final score.

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