The scaled score provided the testing agency as part of an examinee’s test results is compared to the cut off for MBE scores in the state where the examinee is taking the bar exam to interpret Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) scores. The examinee has passed the multistate portion of the exam if the scaled score is higher than the cutoff. In the state’s bar examination process, the examinee must also determine the weight given to MBE scores. Some states consider the MBE to be half of the total score required to pass the bar exam, while others give it less weight.
Each state in the United States sets its own requirements for allowing lawyers to practice and administers its own bar exam. The MBE is a standardized multiple-choice test developed the National Council of Bar Examiners that states can use in their bar admissions process. It assesses knowledge of constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, evidence, real property, and torts in multi-jurisdictional contexts. The MBE is used to test general legal knowledge, while an essay section is used to test state-specific knowledge in most states. Each part of the exam is then given a weight the state to determine an overall state bar exam score.
The MBE has 200 questions, with 190 of them contributing to the examinee’s raw score. The raw scores are subjected to equating, a statistical process in which the testing agency assigns a difficulty level to each of the exam’s questions. Two examinees may have the same raw score or answer the same number of questions correctly, but their scaled scores may differ due to the difficulty level of the questions. The statistical computations that are applied to the raw scores to transform them into scaled scores are a little more complicated, but the testing agency does not publish the exact formula.
Equating adjusts MBE scores for each test session based on difficulty, ensuring that no examinee gains or loses taking a more difficult or easier version of the test. Even though the actual questions change, the process is supposed to ensure that the entire test has the same overall difficulty level across testing sessions. Its validity, however, is contingent on a subjective assessment of each question’s difficulty.