How the bar exam is scored

The legacy UBE

NCBE scores the MBE. Your state grades the MEE essays and MPT tasks, and NCBE then scales those written scores before adding them up. The total is on a 400-point scale, weighted 50% MBE, 30% MEE and 20% MPT.

Minimum passing scores run from 260 to 270. For example, 266 in New York, Illinois and D.C., and 270 in Texas, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

NextGen

NextGen gives you a single score from 500 to 750. It’s equated, so a score means the same thing on every exam and in every jurisdiction. Passing scores set so far run from 610 to 620, and each jurisdiction decides its own.

California

• Graders mark each essay and the performance test from 40 to 100, in steps of five.
• Those written scores are scaled to the same units as the MBE, which is equated across exams.
• You need a total of 1390 out of 2000.
• If you score from 1350 to 1389, a second group of graders reads your answers again. You pass if your averaged score reaches 1390.

Why a percentage doesn’t tell you much

Scaling adjusts for how hard each exam was, so the same number of right answers can be worth a little more or less on different dates. That’s why there’s no official “you need X% on the MBE” rule.

In practice, many people aim for a solid majority right on practice MBE questions. Our practice test uses 70% as a target. It’s our own goal, not a pass mark.