Learning How to Score

I am obsessed with numbers. The California Bar Exam is a numbers game.

To increase my exam score, I have a quest to know how the bar exam scores are actually calculated. Knowing this process is something that was sorely lacking in my bar review course. Although we had a "sense" of the scoring process, I wanted to know EXACTLY how the numbers worked. I thought (and still think) that if I knew the numbers, I could work to improve my weakest points (MBE) and increase points in my stronger areas (essays). While my strategy was good, my performance in both areas needs improvement.

In my quest to win this game, I developed a bar exam scoring calculator and saved the MBE scaled scores as a PDF file that can both be shared via e-mail. The exam calculator is based on Feb. 2009 scaling. I suspect, without knowing, that the Feb. 2009 scaling is less lenient than the July bar exams, so please use this calculator judiciously.

Me? I like to shoot for numbers. (I wasn't too good a "shot" at my first exam, having undershot the mark, but that doesn't mean that I won't keep trying!)

See "Interesting Links" -- "Winning combinations of bar exam scores."

My summer "vacation" plans: I'll be spending the summer preparing for the Feb. 2010 bar exam by working only on increasing my MBE performance. In September 2009, I will begin a long-term program toward a more holistic exam preparation strategy. The only question is, how am I going to afford a private tutor?