You may have gotten this email if you took the 2025 February California Bar Exam:
(You know the one where the exam software wasn’t working and some people even had to retake it in March?)
What does it mean for the raw passing score of 560 to be dropped to 534?
Here’s my understanding:
First, this doesn’t give us a complete picture of how this translates to an exact scaled score because the scaling formula is different for each exam. You will get a different scaled score depending on a given exam’s formula, which is the point of scaling to equalize the exams.
Attempts to calculate straight percentages based on the raw score are therefore incorrect.
In recent years, the raw score you needed to get a 1390, at least on the written side, hovered around 430 (an average of 61-62 per essay/PT).
It’s possible that—
(1) The numbers announced by the State Bar account for the MCQ portion. For example, we can see that 430 written raw + 130 MCQ raw (how many you answered correctly) = 560 initially recommended (presumably to be fitted to 1390 scaled); and
(2) 534 will be the passing number. A difference of 26 freebie raw points to be distributed over the written and MCQ portions. (We don’t know how, but see below.)
This is a significant buffer.
In previous years, such as in the last exam in 2024 July, even a 10-point difference in raw written score would be the difference between 1350 and 1390 (5 raw = about 20 scaled or about a 4x multiplier*).
If we assume this exam’s scaling formula will be similar (and the CA Supreme Court approves the 534 recommendation), one way you might pass is if your essays were at the 1290 level (if we apply all 26*4 points here) + your MCQs were at the typical pass level (~1390 — it’s unknown how this will be calculated).
So an overall pass score based on the lowered raw score of 534 might correspond to roughly 1340.
Since this is the first time they’re using their own MCQs, it’s hard to say what will be the case… And there doesn’t seem to be information about attorney applicants…
But I’d say this is potentially optimistic news.
* You can see this example and generally how important each 5-point tick is in this article: https://www.makethisyourlasttime.com/formula-shows-importance-5-point-increment-california-bar-exam/