Results are posted on the Applicant Portal. At p.m. on the day results are posted, applicants can also access the pass list on the State Bar website. Applicants who have failed the exam receive the grades assigned to their written answers as well as their MBE scaled score.
However, the NCBE's scale means that if you get 60-66% correct, you should “pass” the MBE, depending on your jurisdiction's overall passage rate. So, to answer the question “How Many MBE Questions Do I Need to Get Correct?”, answering 60-66% correct may get you there. Of course, aiming for a higher score does not hurt!
If you receive a score at or over 1440, you automatically pass the California bar exam. If, after one reading of your answers, your score is below 1390, you fail the California bar exam. If your score is 1390 or greater but less than 1440, you will get a “second read” by a different set of graders.
California is widely considered to have the hardest bar exam, due to its low pass rate and the difficulty of the content and constraints of the exam.
The percentage needed for a passing MBE score in California is 69.5% (1390/2000 or 139/200) is the scaled score. Being that 25 random questions are dropped; a raw score of 1220/1750 or 122/175 is needed. For a more accurate determination of your score, take advantage of One-Timers' MBE Test Simulator.
The written components— the Multistate Essay Exam and the Multistate Performance Test—make up the remainder of your score. A good rule of thumb is that you'll need to answer about 66% of the graded MBE questions correctly to pass the bar exam, assuming you perform reasonably well on the other components.
MBE Scaled Score Calculator For example, if you answered 1,000+ representative MBE questions in practice and averaged 65% overall, you will probably average somewhere around 65% correct on the actual MBE (meaning a scaled score around 140).
So, as a general rule, if you are answering somewhere between 60 and 67%, your MBE raw score is in the “passing zone” depending on the jurisdiction you are in.
California's General Bar Exam pass rate of 53.8 percent is up from last year's July pass rate of 51.5 percent, and 2022's July pass rate of 52.4 percent. Preliminary statistical analyses show that of the 8,291 applicants who completed the GBX, 67.7 percent were first-time takers.
Is The California Bar Exam Hard? Yes, the California bar exam is widely considered to be the most difficult of all state bar exams in the US. The California bar exam has a pass rate of 34%.