The July 2011 CA Bar Exam results showed once again that the State’s overall pass rates are awful. The overall pass rate was 54.8%, by far the lowest in the nation.
While we at Celebration Bar Review had much higher overall pass rates (close to 70%) that’s still a significant number of failures and it’s caused me to spend some time trying to analyze the bigger picture of what’s going on with the California exam, and more specifically the scoring.
Here’s my theory:
The most important score in California has apparently become the MBE number. If it is not a passing equivalent (approx 128 raw or 1440 scaled) it doesn’t appear that the written part of the exam is being graded in such a way as to be truly “compensatory.” In other words, in some jurisdictions (such as Georgia) if the applicant’s MBE score is not high enough, the essays are not graded at all and a failing result is applied. In California, the same result is achieved but without quite as much candor. If the MBE score is not at a passing level, I think the essays and performance tests are only read in a perfunctory manner and assigned a relatively narrow range of scores. This quick scoring level (50-60) is simply not enough to overcome the lower MBE score and so the result is a nearly “automatic” failure.
What I’m seeing from those students who failed is that when their MBE score is below passing, the written Raw scores are nearly uniform at 570-580 total. I don’t think this is a coincidence, particularly since the quality of the practice and actual essays of these students varied by far more than the 10 points shown in the official score results.
If my theory is incorrect, we should see a lot of results from applicants with a “passing” MBE score but a failing written score and an overall fail. In my experience, that is not happening now. If you had such a score, I’d love to see your score sheet.
Otherwise, I think what we’re really seeing is a de-facto non-grading of the written part of the exam based on the applicant’s MBE score. In a perverse way, it makes sense for the examiners to do this since it minimizes grader resources on those exams that statistically have a much lower or nearly impossible chance of becoming an overall passing test. This would allow graders to spend more time on written work that could in fact tip the compensatory balance in favor of passing or failing.
Still, I think it would be far more forthcoming to simply acknowledge this process or to require a minimum MBE threshold before the essays are read and graded. Until that time, we will focus on the MBE score first for our California students and the written work secondarily.
Posts tagged "california bar exam"
Here’s the PressRelease from the CA Bar Examiners’ Web Site. The “official” overall pass rate was only 42.2%, with only 53% of first time takers passing and a 37% pass rate for repeat takers.
This is the lowest official pass rate in the country that I’m aware of for the Feb test, and frankly, it’s just crazy. There’s no justification for a test that is only producing a 40+% pass rate when the rest of the nation is in the 70+% range.
I’ll be reviewing test scores later this week as individual applicants receive their score sheets and I’ll share my thoughts more at that point. For today, my guess is that it took a 140 minimum on the MBE and an average 60-65 on the essays and PTs to pass. We’ll see if that’s correct. Until then, if you didn’t pass the exam, hang in there…you’ve got lots (too much) company.
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SAN FRANCISCO, May 18, 2012, 6:00 p.m. – The State Bar of California’s Committee of Bar Examiners reported today that 42.2 percent of the applicants passed the February 2012 General Bar Examination (GBX). If the 1,849 people who passed the February 2012 exam satisfy other requirements for admission, they will become members of the State Bar.
Preliminary statistical analyses show that of the 4,382 applicants who took the GBX, 33 percent were first-time takers. The passing rate for 1,446 first-time applicants was 53 percent overall. The passing rate for the 2,936 applicants repeating the examination was 37 percent overall.
Preliminary statistical analyses show the first-time and repeater percent passing the GBX (rounded to whole numbers) by law school type as follows:
School TypeFirst-TimersRepeatersCalifornia ABA62%50%Out-of-State ABA48%39%California Accredited (but not ABA)34%25%Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility0%11%Unaccredited: Correspondence46%17%Unaccredited Distance Learning31%14%
