Be Real About Your MPRE Score

Along with LSAT scores, law school performance, and grit, first-time MPRE scores are also generally a good predictor of a bar applicant’s first-time performance on the MBE, which, in turn, is a good predictor of first-time bar passage rates.

But students are sometimes confused about how to interpret their MPRE score.

The MPRE (Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination) is a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice examination developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners that is administered three times per year (March, August, and November). It’s required for admission to the bars of all but three U.S. jurisdictions (Maryland, Wisconsin, and Puerto Rico), and some states, like Connecticut and New Jersey, accept successful completion of a law school course on professional responsibility instead of passing the MPRE.

The MPRE is scored on a 50 to 150 scale, with the mean scaled score calculated to be around 100, depending on the difficulty of the examination. More recently, however, the mean scaled score has been 93.1 (2016), 95.0 (2015), and 93.6 (2014). (Statistics for the 2017 MPRE administrations will likely be released in the March 2018 issue of The Bar Examiner, the NCBE’s quarterly publication.)

Passing scores are established by each jurisdiction, but states have made passing the MPRE rather easy with nine states requiring only a scaled score of 75 and another two states requiring a scaled score of 77 and 79. Granted, some states, like South Carolina, which recently raised its MPRE requirements from 75 to 85, have upped up their passing scores, while other states, like Tennessee, have positioned themselves to make it easier to raise MPRE requirements by amending court rules. But, generally speaking, the (ethics) bar isn’t that high.

So, if you passed the MPRE, then congratulations to you. Have yourself a drink, and mark one more thing off your licensing checklist.

However, you should compare your score to the mean scaled score. If you passed in the jurisdiction where you’re taking the bar exam, but you scored significantly lower than the mean scaled score, then you might have difficulty on the MBE as well. Don’t be satisfied with simply passing the MPRE.

Understand that difficulty on the MPRE could foreshadow difficulty on the MBE, with the difficulty potentially being magnified on the MBE since there are approximately four times the number of questions on the MBE.

Also, try not to rationalize a low MPRE score by arguing that you didn’t study for the MPRE and that you will have more time to study for the bar exam when your life as a law student ends. That’s a weak excuse. First, the MPRE is a minimum competency exam. Second, if you think you will have the luxury of time and focus when you’re studying for the bar exam, you’re kidding yourself. While you aren’t taking law school classes, you are (or should be) taking a bar review course and trying to review 20+ different subjects in multiple testing formats in about two-and-a-half months.

Get real, and take your performance on the MPRE seriously.