bar review pass fail logic

Given that the bar exam is a pass/fail test, then theoretically, I only need to know 51% of the law in order to pass. This is the best thing I've come up with all day. Who cares about res ipsa, larceny, M'Naughten, or products liability when you only need to know half the law?

I remember PMBR making a similar argument. Paraphrased, it went something like this. There are 200 questions on the MBE, and most jurisdictions require you to get about 135 or so right (after the curve, which could be a stingy 7 points or a generous 20 points, give or take). Assuming you are in a generous year, you really only need to get 115 right. Of these, you should recognize about 10-50 from PMBR or Barbri (hence the PMBR infringment lawsuit), which leaves you to really only need to get about 65 right. This logic reminds me of the bit explaining why we're all so tired.

Anyway, all of this must be tempered with the fact that the judge in the PMBR case stated with an air of certainty that PMBR questions weren't always right: "As with a number of PMBE questions, the answer key here is incorrect, further undermining Mr. Feinberg’s claims that he derived his questions independently from authoritative legal sources."

I'm sure most are probably right, however, but given that PMBR (theoretically) did not participate in stealing MBE questions for 2005-2006 (also in the opinion), I can only hope that the various PMBR/Barbri questions at least give me enough familiarity with the subjects and how they are questioned that I can get at least a passing mark.

Tags: bar review, pmbr, barbri