MPREvil
Well, my testing center was a complete circus, with everyone wandering around aimlessly trying to find the right room, since the ticket didn't even have the right building on it. Then the hidden classroom where the check-in was turned out to be too small to acommodate all the test-takers, so we waited around while they determined a room to use, which ended up being in an altogether new building. We weren't even close to starting on time. I guess there was no real harm done, but wouldn't it be better for morale if this thing were better organized?
Then the test itself...I'm not going to bring anything specific to light; I'll just say that I'm pissed at BarBri for representing the test as much easier than it turned out to be. In the BarBri practice tests, I was scoring 40+ out of 60. To my chagrin, the actual MPRE's questions turned out to be generally much more ambiguously worded, and much closer calls between the options given (to be honest, I felt like many were a coin flip). I had a similar experience with practice LSAT tests, so I guess I shouldn't be very surprised.
My main impression is that I am totally sick of taking tests. Unfortunately, the grandaddy of all of them looms large on the horizon.
Oh well, hopefully we all passed. (Supposedly it's a pretty low standard.) Feel free to vent or share anecdotes, but I ask that people avoid the "what did you get for question x?" types of inquiries. No good will come of it. If anything, it serves to make people even more insecure than they already are.
Then the test itself...I'm not going to bring anything specific to light; I'll just say that I'm pissed at BarBri for representing the test as much easier than it turned out to be. In the BarBri practice tests, I was scoring 40+ out of 60. To my chagrin, the actual MPRE's questions turned out to be generally much more ambiguously worded, and much closer calls between the options given (to be honest, I felt like many were a coin flip). I had a similar experience with practice LSAT tests, so I guess I shouldn't be very surprised.
My main impression is that I am totally sick of taking tests. Unfortunately, the grandaddy of all of them looms large on the horizon.
Oh well, hopefully we all passed. (Supposedly it's a pretty low standard.) Feel free to vent or share anecdotes, but I ask that people avoid the "what did you get for question x?" types of inquiries. No good will come of it. If anything, it serves to make people even more insecure than they already are.
Labels: Bar Exams
posted by Mad.J.D. at 12:24 PM
7 Comments:
This test sucked! DS studied for it too. A lot. Read the entire 140 page long version of everything, did two BarBri practice tests, one test he found online, and, finally, read the 50 page mini-review at the beginning of the book. And he still thinks he might have failed.
Seriously, if a test this easy gives him this much of a headache and unsure feeling about his passing quality in the field of law, what's going to happen when the bar exam comes around. Ugh!
No, my friends, you have it wrong. The test isn't supposed to feel easy. The MPRE is infamous for leaving everyone feeling like they may have failed. That's the beauty of the thing. Because when you get your score, you will be shocked to discover your passing grade was not a marginal pass, but a dramatic pass. You passed. Go relax.
I'm feeling very uneasy.
I share the general unease. And I feel like it's weird to give us a test on ethics calculated to make us all feel very uncertain. I think that in this instance the exigencies of the t-curve are at war with thoughtful acculturation into the profession.
My suspicion is that at least some of these questions ARE coin-flips, or nearly-so, designed to make sure they get nicely-shaped distibution curves. Especially silly when they set the pass-level as low as they (allegedly) do. A threshold-test would seem to be more appropriate in a context like this. In the employment-discrimination context you can be liable in damages for using this kind of scaling when it's not sufficiently job-related. Hm.
This post pretty much summarizes everything I felt after the last MPRE administration in November. And yes I passed, so you should be fine.
***Bar-Bri needs to make its practice MPRE questions tougher. I hope they're a little better about our Bar exam prep.
do you think it'd be in the state's best interest to let us know the correct answers to the 30-40% of questions we got wrong instead of a simple pass/fail?
the point is, if i'm confronted with a similar fact pattern in real life--whether sleeping with a prostitute whose services were given as a gift from a former client who you are now adverse to constitutes an offense of moral turpitude--i'm going to answer "(D) No way" again.
Normally I hate to do more work than necessary for a test like this, but I didn't talk to enough people about how much to slack. I skipped the BAR/BRI review session, but I read their prep book - the outline, the mini-outline, and did the practice tests. There were a lot of questions I wasn't sure about, but considering how few you need to get right to pass I felt over-prepared. I think that most of the people who walk out feel terrible just aren't used to shooting so low.
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