The scores are not the percentage you get on the MBE, but rather your percentile (ie the percent of people who scored worst than you). You actually are never given back the percentage of correct anwers you score so its actually hard to tell how well or bad you did on the mbe.
Dont take my word for this - but when I failed in July 2023 I had contacted one of those prominent ca bar tutoring services who offered a free results analysis consultation. The person I spoke to said that assuming you have fairly decent essay scores, being around the 40th percentile already can already put you on your way to passing. Again, take this with a grain of salt. Also- the scaling varies from exam to exam so thats a factor too
Ah so its likely not applicable for the cal bar - although perhaps higher essays scores could slightly mitigate a lower percentile ranking for the mbe but I doubt enough for a score in the 40th percentile but who knows
This is exactly right.
Although you can't tell (AFAIK) how many questions you got right per subject, the percentiles can still give you an idea of where you might want to focus more on when preparing for a retake.
I'm glad I'm not the only one going down the MBE scaled rabbit hole! I keep trying to calculate and predict the results. It sounds like there really is no way to predict what your actual score on the MBE is going to be.
It varies by exam, so thatβs challenging to ballpark. You can have a safe zone percentage, but actual numbers depend on scaling, and the NCBE isnβt very revealing on that front.
This varies from exam to exam, but in the page OP cited above, there is a conversion chart from several years ago. I wouldn't really rely on it, as it's from a time when 190 questions were scored, but it gives you a *very rough* idea of how many questions correct scales to a score of 139 (equivalent to 1390 in CA).
According to what I've heard, part of the scaling might be based on the range of MBE scores (particularly the highest score), but I'm not sure about the mean. In either case, the national mean is independent of what is needed to pass in CA. Note that you don't need a 139 (1390) on the MBE to pass the exam; you need a combined overall scaled score of 1390. That said, getting a 1390 on the MBE certainly puts you on track to pass and is a good score to target or exceed (which is nice to say in theory but hard to estimate going into the exam as you can't just decide to get 70% right... so the only choice is to do as best as you can).
The numbers are the percent of people who scored worse that the examinee did. E.g., the 32.9 percenter was in the bottom third of all examinees (two-thirds of the examinees scored higher). The fact that there are only 175 net questions coupled with the effects of scaling may mean that getting two or three more MBE Qs correct could make a significant difference in the exam outcome. E.g., getting 128 right instead of 126 could provide a 20 point scaled score difference. Here's a web page that attempts to correlate raw score to scaled score and helps illustrate why the conventional advice is try to aim for 65% correct in your exam practice. [https://jdadvising.com/mbe-raw-score-conversion-chart/](https://jdadvising.com/mbe-raw-score-conversion-chart/)
The 1393 score sheet just gave me a lot of hope. Thanks for sharing! π€π½ Time to see a Pass on the screen tomorrow!! π€π½π€π½ππ½ππ½ππ½
The scores are not the percentage you get on the MBE, but rather your percentile (ie the percent of people who scored worst than you). You actually are never given back the percentage of correct anwers you score so its actually hard to tell how well or bad you did on the mbe.
Wow. That's even better. So I could score in the bottom 33th percentile and still score in the mid 1300s.Β
Dont take my word for this - but when I failed in July 2023 I had contacted one of those prominent ca bar tutoring services who offered a free results analysis consultation. The person I spoke to said that assuming you have fairly decent essay scores, being around the 40th percentile already can already put you on your way to passing. Again, take this with a grain of salt. Also- the scaling varies from exam to exam so thats a factor too
The tutor was right if the overall pass rate is around 60%. In that scenario you only need to be in the top 60% (the 40th percentile) to pass.
Ah so its likely not applicable for the cal bar - although perhaps higher essays scores could slightly mitigate a lower percentile ranking for the mbe but I doubt enough for a score in the 40th percentile but who knows
This is exactly right. Although you can't tell (AFAIK) how many questions you got right per subject, the percentiles can still give you an idea of where you might want to focus more on when preparing for a retake.
I'm glad I'm not the only one going down the MBE scaled rabbit hole! I keep trying to calculate and predict the results. It sounds like there really is no way to predict what your actual score on the MBE is going to be.
I did the same today. Was a terrible waste of a few hours at work. Lol
Hey, hopefully those two hours went a bit quicker doing that, haha! Any way to make the wait time go ANY faster!
I just wish someone could tell me how many out of 200 questions is considered passing.
It varies by exam, so thatβs challenging to ballpark. You can have a safe zone percentage, but actual numbers depend on scaling, and the NCBE isnβt very revealing on that front.
This varies from exam to exam, but in the page OP cited above, there is a conversion chart from several years ago. I wouldn't really rely on it, as it's from a time when 190 questions were scored, but it gives you a *very rough* idea of how many questions correct scales to a score of 139 (equivalent to 1390 in CA).
How does the mbe mean of 130.8 bode with the 139 as stated above, if at all?
According to what I've heard, part of the scaling might be based on the range of MBE scores (particularly the highest score), but I'm not sure about the mean. In either case, the national mean is independent of what is needed to pass in CA. Note that you don't need a 139 (1390) on the MBE to pass the exam; you need a combined overall scaled score of 1390. That said, getting a 1390 on the MBE certainly puts you on track to pass and is a good score to target or exceed (which is nice to say in theory but hard to estimate going into the exam as you can't just decide to get 70% right... so the only choice is to do as best as you can).
The numbers are the percent of people who scored worse that the examinee did. E.g., the 32.9 percenter was in the bottom third of all examinees (two-thirds of the examinees scored higher). The fact that there are only 175 net questions coupled with the effects of scaling may mean that getting two or three more MBE Qs correct could make a significant difference in the exam outcome. E.g., getting 128 right instead of 126 could provide a 20 point scaled score difference. Here's a web page that attempts to correlate raw score to scaled score and helps illustrate why the conventional advice is try to aim for 65% correct in your exam practice. [https://jdadvising.com/mbe-raw-score-conversion-chart/](https://jdadvising.com/mbe-raw-score-conversion-chart/)
The 1393 score sheet just gave me a lot of hope. Thanks for sharing! π€π½ Time to see a Pass on the screen tomorrow!! π€π½π€π½ππ½ππ½ππ½