How Is The California Bar Exam Scored?

How Is The California Bar Exam Scored?

How Is The California Bar Exam Scored?: If you are preparing to take the California Bar Exam, you may be wondering how the exam is scored.  In this post, we break down how California scores the bar exam!

UPDATE: California passed an order on January 28, 2021 that allows examinees who narrowly passed the California Bar Exam between July 2015 and February 2020 to be admitted to the state bar after completing 300 hours of supervised legal work (no second bar exam is required).

How Is The California Bar Exam Scored?

What does California test on the bar exam?

As of July 2017, the California Bar Exam is now a 2-day exam (instead of a 3-day exam).  Day one is the written portion of the exam and it consists of five one-hour essays and one ninety-minute performance test.  Day two of the California Bar Exam is the multiple-choice portion, or Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”).  On day two, you will have six hours to answer 200 multiple-choice questions.

How is the Multistate Bar Exam scored?

Of the 200 questions on the MBE, 175 of the questions are scored and 25 of the questions are “test” questions that the NCBE is evaluating for use on future bar exams.  However, there is no way to know which questions are the test questions, so you should answer every question as if it is a real question!

The scored questions are each worth 1 point.  The number of questions correct equates to a student’s “raw” score.  The National Conference of Bar Examiners scored the MBE.  The NCBE uses an undisclosed statistical formula to convert a raw score into a “scaled score.”  California appears to convert this score reported by the NCBE onto a 2000-point scale (where a “perfect” score on the MBE is 2000 in California).  The State Bar of California has indicated that “MBE raw scores are converted to scale scores to adjust the results for possible differences in average question difficulty across different administrations of the examination.”

On July 16, 2020, the California Supreme Court announced that it was permanently reducing the passing score by 50 points, from 1440 to 1390. On August 10, 2020, the California Supreme Court issued an order stating that the 1390 passing score would not be applied retroactively to past exam takers. Thus, beginning with the October 2020 bar exam, the passing score is 1390.

This equates to an approximate scaled score of 139 out of 200 questions on the MBE portion of the California Bar Exam.  If you are wondering how many questions you need to answer correctly to obtain a scaled score of 139, check out this post where we break down the math for you!

Because the two scores—the written score and the multiple-choice score – are averaged together, a 139 or 1390 is not the minimum required to pass the California Bar Exam.  For instance, if you score higher on the written portion, that would decrease the score you need on the multiple-choice portion to pass (and vice versa).

How are the California essays and performance test scored?

Practicing attorneys grade California essays and performance tests.  California divides the graders into six groups, each consisting of 12 experienced graders and up to 4 apprentice graders.  A member of the Examination Development and Grading Team and a member of the Committee of Bar Examiners supervise each group.  The graders spend some time “calibrating” their grading to ensure that all given scores comport with the same standards.

The graders assign a raw score to each essay on a scale from 40 to 100. For performance tests, the raw score scale is from 80 to 200.  The State Bar of California has explained, “in order to earn a grade of 40, the applicant must at least identify the subject of the question and attempt to apply the law to the facts of the question.  If these criteria are not met, the answer is assigned a zero.”

There is a total of 700 possible raw points for the written portion of the California bar exam (100 points for each essay and 200 points for the performance test).  This total raw score is “scaled” to equate the total possible points on the written portion with the total possible points on the MBE portion (2000 total points possible, as discussed above).  Each portion of the bar exam – the written portion and the multiple-choice portion – is worth 50% of the total score.

What total score do I need to pass the California Bar Exam?

California multiplies the MBE scaled score (out of 2000 possible points) by .50. The converted written score is also multiplied by .50 (also out of 2000 possible points).  These scores are then added together. To pass, these combined scores need to total at least 1390.

Will I receive my score?

California does not tell successful applicants their essay scores, performance test score, or MBE score. Successful applicants do not receive copies of their answers following the exam.  Only unsuccessful applicants receive their scores on each essay and performance test. They also receive their MBE scaled score and their percentile rank for each of the seven MBE subjects.  Unsuccessful examinees will also receive their percentile rank for their performance on the MBE compared to other California Bar Exam examinees.  They can obtain copies of their essay answers shortly after California releases results.

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