What is the new Michigan bar exam grading formula?
Earlier this year, the Michigan Board of Law Examiners disclosed that it would be grading essays according to a new undisclosed grading curve. The curve is supposed to ensure that “essay test scores across administrations reflect the same skill level” and continue to “reflect differences in the difficulty between the multiple choice and essay portion of the exam.”
We assumed that this grading scale was going to be very complicated – maybe points were added to particularly difficult questions or maybe the Board came up with a complex formula based on the exam scores. After reading several essays and looking at several score reports for the July 2014 bar exam, we noticed a pattern in the amount of points awarded.