Continued Weirdness With the New York Bar Exam?
Take this with a grain shaker of salt. It’s based on an anonymous, uncorroborated comment, which appeared on another blog.
But for what it’s worth, from Eric Turkewitz’s New York Personal Injury Law Blog:
The New York State Board of Law Examiners managed to foul up this year’s bar exam, as readers of this space know, by losing many of the essay answers that had been submitted on laptops….[T]he results were made known 11 days ago, and the examiners claimed to have taken educated guesses on the missing results [by extrapolating from how affected exam takers did on other parts of the test]….
[O]ver the holiday weekend, this anonymous comment appeared on my site, claiming that credit was given for an essay with no answer, and the same credit was given for an essay with a great answer. And there was no indication that this person was told his/her essays were part of the missing ones:
“Here’s a fair summary (having taken the test, having intense problems down loading and uploading the test) and failed: I left one NYS essay blank. (Ran out of time) I received a 3/10. That’s odd… But then, on the essays I KNEW — KNEW so well that I was practically jumping for joy as I took the test — I received a 3/10 on those as well.”
“BOLE claims they have informed all those who had computer essays lost — I suspect not. I have written away for my answers and I will be intensly [sic] interested to see how that blank esay [sic] scored a 3/10… I suspect they were ALL blanks, because of the uploads.”
“If anyone else is in this prdicament [sic], please chime in. There are a few attorneys that specialize in this, and I’ve contacted a few.”
Very strange. Does anyone have a similar experience to share? Or is this commenter off his or her rocker?
How, Exactly, did New York Grade That Bar Exam? [New York Personal Injury Law Blog]
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Comments
Uploaded FIRSSSSSSSSSST.
how did they get the score on the essay portion?
The scores aren't available, so post is clearly erroneous.
Yeah, I have no idea what my scores are, except for the MBE score (unless I'm missing something completely).
I call shenanigans.
Where did you get the MBE score?
Detailed scores are available if you failed.
If this guy's grammar is any indication of his intelligence, I'm not surprised he failed.
I feel this guy's pain. I know I gave a great answer on every single question on every single one of my law school exams...yet I didn't get a 4.0. It's obviously a grand conspiracy.
NYBOLE sends a score report to those who did not pass the exam. The score report includes scaled scores on all of the essays, the MPT, the NY Multiple Choice and the MBE. BOLE also makes available, for $15, your graded essays if you did not pass.
5:29PM --> The MBE scores were mailed to you in a flimsy tear-away notification. They sent it to my parents address for some strange reason... so I only got mine yesterday. Yours probably should have arrived by now.
5:33: TITCR
Wow...latty boy is obsessed with the NY bar exam - let it go latty...
Wow...latty boy is obsessed with the NY bar exam - let it go latty...
5:29: the MBE score is behind the notice that says you passed (if you did) from NY BOLE.
i kant beleeve i faled.
Didn't that guy on "How I Met Your Mother" take the bar by computer? So you're telling me his statement "I passed" is in doubt? I wonder if they'll do a follow-up on how the grading was a sham, and therefore how he actually failed!
Screw a writers' strike; I just wrote an episode, baby! BOOOYYYYAAAWWW.
Most likely story: 1) Guy is a moron - gets 3/10 on 'esay' he KNEW; 2) BOLE sees blank essay - thinks guy had software problem; 3) BOLE gives guy 3/10 on blank essay, which is his average from the other essays.
Guy is a moron for, if nothing else, running out of time without writing anything for the last essay. One of the most important things they teach you in BarBri is that you're always better off writing something for each essay rather than going for extra points by writing a longer answer to a question you know more about.
Actually, this guy KNEW the other essays so well he decided he didn't even need to answer an entire question. I bet he KNEW the answer to the first, commercial paper, essay. Or maybe his essays were written with the same precision and logic as his blog posts and worth the same scaled score as a blank essay. Actually I think this guy got lucky for getting the same score as a blank essay; I would have knocked him down a point or two. I'm "intensly" interested in this "prdicament" too.
If anything, New York should make the bar exam harder. I've seen far too many semi-literate morons engaged in the practice of law in this state; some of their briefs are worse than a pro se submission. At least the pro ses generally care enough to *try* to submit a persuasive argument.
>>>Most likely story: 1) Guy is a moron - gets 3/10 on 'esay' he KNEW; 2) BOLE sees blank essay - thinks guy had software problem; 3) BOLE gives guy 3/10 on blank essay, which is his average from the other essays.<<<
That was also my initial reaction. But the writer seems to indicate that s/he was not notified that s/he had a missing essay.
And the fact that the comment was submitted on an 11-day old post on a small blog meant it was likely to only be seen by a few, so a hoax didn't seem likely either.
This gave it a certain ring of truth.
We'll see if it amounts to anything.
9:17 - shut up.
Jerry Garcia Murder
I've kept this to myself for too long. I was part of the inner-circle of the Dead in the 80's-90's. Two band members, who will remain unnamed, poisoned Jerry while he was at the rehab clinic where he died.
He kept calling them from the clinic telling them how much trouble he was having with withdrawal. They secretly brought him something, telling him it was dope, that wouldn't leave any traces and stopped his heart. He was dead a few hours later.
The guilty band members knew Jerry would never clean up so they wanted him to go out before he saturated the market with his fat self, and they wanted to have control over all of the band's intellectual property. They have no idea that I know about this.
Well, you told me you were drowning; I would not lend a hand. I've seen your face before, my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am.
I like the nickname "Latty boy"- will be using it for future reference...
5:41, I like the nickname "Latty boy"- will be using it for future reference...
I still haven't gotten my MBE score in the mail. Anyone else not get it yet?
Tell us when something happens beyond an anonymous poster.
9:50 - sorry if you already knew this, but it's on the certification that you passed. It's on the envelope part.
10:07
Thanks but I'm saying that I haven't gotten anything from them in the mail. All i've seen is the notification online
Seems as though the person posting to Eric Turkewitz's blog should perhaps have used spell checker.
Perhaps he is Hof1L's big brother and feels that there is no need to spell check when you go to an amazing law school.
Anybody know the average MBE score in NY?
Is there any way that the essay he left blank, which let's just call it "commercial paper," was scaled in such a way that everyone got a three-point bump? Meaning that you'd get 3/10 even if you left it blank?
what law firms specialize in this business?
Isn't national average MBE score somewhere around 147 (scaled)?
143.73 (scaled)
http://www.pabarexam.org/Bar_Examination/Statistics/pdfs/0707Stats.pdf
They probably just start everyone at a 3/10 so even if you freak out on a question or don't have time to answer, it won't completely tank your chances at passing. I like how he's already contacted an attorney before even getting an explanation from BOLE.
wow any stats pages like that for NY or CA?
I am SO glad to see this post! Not because I don't feel sorry for the poor chap who failed, but because when I failed, I suspected that something went seriously wrong, especially when I saw my score report.
My situation was the following:
When I saw the commercial paper question, it took everything I had in me not to walk out of that exam, because I knew absolutely NOTHING on the topic. I had skipped the BarBri lecture on it and never bothered to go over the notes because BarBri practically guaranteed it wouldn't be a major essay topic. I elected to stay and wrote down such BS that I was almost ashamed to submit it. But, I focused on getting the most pity points I could, so I made up some rules (framed the whole question in terms of agency) and threw down some analysis.
As the anonymous taker described in the OP, I was jumping for joy on some of the essays, especially family law, which I felt I knew quite well. Imagine my surprise then, when my commercial paper answer received the HIGHEST grade of ANY of my essays, including the family law one. Furthermore, it was TWICE as high as my grade on the other essays. Although I will readily admit that I did not know the entire rule for all of the issues on all of the essays, I feel like I picked up most of the issues, took a decent stab at the rules and did relatively well on analysis. I think it's absolutely impossible that my answer on commercial paper was that much better than on essays where I felt comfortable with at least 50% of the material, especially when I turned commercial paper into agency, which was completely and totally wrong!
So, to anyone in the same boat...
What the HELL do I do now?
From the BOLE website:
Again, there is no appeal from the final total weighted scaled score.
I am curious about the original post which stated the the person had contacted a lawyer that specializes in this practice. Not much of a practice if there is no avenue of appeal...
I feel bad for you. I passed, so I have no idea how I did. But, I felt the same way you did, I was sure I bombed commercial paper and aced family law. Also, 1/2 the commercial paper essay was criminal law - did the results you got break out the essay into the various parts?
I thought I had aced the commercial law. Didn't even hit average. What recourse is there?