jrbean

Just wondering what a "good" MBE score is? I scored 154 on MBE and 153 on Florida. How would you rate that score? What about the Florida score? Thanks!

monali8

Florida - 136

sorry, need to add that FL passing score is just 136, so you have done a fantastic job!!!

About MBE score:

If you get 150, you can pass almost any state

I would it depends on which state you are in. If you can pass with a 120, then hey, more power to you, that's a good score. But in general, if you have a 146 or above, then you can pass any state. 150, then you absolutely got a good score.

johndiu

There is no minimum for mbe (but the total score has to be at least 1440 to pass). Nor do essay graders know your mbe score! Points from all three parts of the exam are added together to achieve a total score. The points can come from any part of the exam. As a matter of fact, the multistate can’t contribute any more than 35% of your total scaled score, because the multistate raw score is multiplied by .35 when it is scaled. The written portion (essays and PT’s) contribute 65% of your scaled score. Since your total score comes one-third from the mbe and two-thirds from the written portions, you have to add twice as many points to your mbe score to pass than to your written score.
Why do people keep working on their mbe’s instead of their written exams? People feel more in control of their mbe score. They can understand the scoring and reasoning. Also, they know mbe law because that’s what courses teach. California’s essay law is a different body of law that employs different memory skills. Mbe law is vague recognition knowledge. You need to know essay law in much more detail and to be able to recite test elements.

Reread danger zone 1390-1439
The score you need to guarantee passing the bar is 1440. But the danger of re-read still exists for exams that fall short. When the total scaled score for an exam is from 1390 to 1339.999, each essay and performance test exam is graded a second time. The grader who is doing the second-read is not the same person who graded it the first time. But the second grader and the first grader were part of the same group who trained to grade that particular essay or PT. This is called calibration. The goal of calibration is that graders should not disagree about what score to give by more than five points.
In Phase II grading, the first grade and the second grade are averaged, and that average is the score. After all essays and performance tests have received a second grading, That score is again calculated with the multistate score and scaled. If the total scaled score is 1440 or above, the exam passes. Under the former grading policy, about 75% percent of the exams in second grading failed the bar. This percent is likely to be higher now. This is because re-grading used to include exams that received an initial score of up to 1465. Those exams would simply pass on first reading now. So the exams most likely to pass in second read, those with scores of 1440 to 1465, are not re-graded any more—and it was probably those exams that accounted for the 25% that passed on second reading.

If a given exam answer receives two grades that vary by more than ten points after Phase II, that exam answer will be graded a third time by an experienced grader who led the calibration sessions on that exam question. This third grading, or Phase III, will be the score for that exam answer. The Phase III grader is not constrained by either of the previous scores that exam received. Using the third score for that exam answer, if the applicant’s total scaled score is 1440 or above, he or she passes.

The State Bar will automatically send failing exams back to applicants along with all scores the exam received.

So, on one hand the new grading is fairer in that:
• 1440 really is a pass
• All scores the exams received will be released to applicants
• Every grader evaluating an exam was calibrated to grade that exam.
On the other hand, the new grading may be less fair in that:
• Ten-point differences in the score an essay or PT gets are too great a discrepancy and are outside of the Bar’s stated goal that all graders should agree within five points of one another.
• No third chance is given to an applicant’s exam as a whole. As there was in reappraisal, under the old grading policy. The problem is we do not know whether the third chance ever actually changed a failing exam into a passing exam.
The reason exams in re-read ultimately fail the bar exam is the performance test. That is unlikely to change under the new grading regime.

Source:The Writing Edge