The Committee of Bar Examiners (Committee) maintains a diverse pool of approximately 150 experienced attorneys from which Graders are selected for each examination grading cycle. A majority of the Graders have been grading bar examinations for at least five years and many of them have participated for well over ten years or more.
Eight groups consisting of eleven experienced Graders and up to three apprentice Graders are selected to grade the essay and PT answers. The groups convene three times early in the grading cycle for the purpose of calibration. A member of the Examination Development and Grading Team (Team) and a member of the Committee supervise each group of Graders. At the First Calibration Session, the Graders discuss a set of sample answers, which were distributed to everyone in the group prior to the meeting. These books are copies of answers written by a sample of the applicant group. After this discussion, the Graders receive a set of fifteen copies of answers submitted for the current examination and they begin by reading and assigning a grade 2 to the first answer in the set. The group then discusses the grades assigned before arriving at a consensus, and the process is repeated for each answer in the set. After reading and reaching consensus on the set of 15 books, the Graders independently read a new set of twenty answers, without any further discussion, and submit grades for review at the Second Calibration Session.
At the Second Calibration Session, Graders discuss the results of the first meeting and reread and discuss any of the answers where significant disagreement was seen, and resolve the differences through further discussion. An additional ten answer books are read and discussed. The groups are then given their first grading assignments. During the Third Calibration Session, the grading standards are reviewed and the Graders read ten additional answer books as a group to ensure they are still grading to the same standards.
Graders evaluate answers and assign grades solely on the content of the response. The quality of handwriting or the accuracy of spelling and grammar is not considered in assigning a grade to an applicant's answer. Based on the panel discussions and using the agreed upon standards, Graders assign raw scores to essay and performance test answers in five-point increments on a scale of 40 to 100.
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