One way to tell whether you wrote what the graders are looking for is to check your work against high- and low-scoring actual student answers.
To that end, you’ll find two things here:
- A small collection of actual graded essays and performance tests, along with their scores.
- Mostly for California. Other states like New York and Nevada are also available.
- For more actual essays from California takers, check out BarEssays (click here to grab a $25 coupon).
- Below the essay bank is an editable California bar essay and issue locator by subject and year.
Real graded CA bar essays (some other states available)
Essay 1 (Torts): 60, 70, 57.5, 60, 50
Essay 2 (Prof Resp): 65, 75, 57.5, 57.5, 60
Essay 3 (Contracts Remedies): 60, 65, 52.5, 60, 60
Essay 4 (CA Evidence): 65, 60, 57.5, 70, 65
Essay 5 (Business Associations): 65, 55, 65, 65, 55
California 90-minute PT: 57.5, 60, 60, 55, 70
Essay 1 (Civil Procedure): 55, 55, 55, 50, 62.5, 65, 60, 55, 65
Essay 2 (Remedies, Con Law): 60, 62.5, 70, 55, 62.5, 52.5, 55, 72.5, 50, 60
Essay 3 (Criminal Law and Procedure): 55, 60, 55, 60, 57.5, 65, 55, 55, 70
Essay 4 (Prof Resp): 60, 55, 50, 50, 55, 52.5, 55, 65, 55, 55
Essay 5 (Contracts): 60, 57.5, 60, 55, 57.5, 55, 65, 70, 60, 55
California 90-minute PT: 55, 60, 60, 65, 62.5, 55, 70, 60, 60
My assessment of essays in the 5th column of essays above (in bold).
Essay and PT set 1 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 57.5, Q3 62.5, Q4 55, Q5 57.5, PT 70)
Essay and PT set 2 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 62.5, Q3 60, Q4 60, Q5 62.5, PT 62.5)
Essay 1 (Wills, Trusts, Community Property): 70, 60, 55, 65
Essay 3 (Real Property): 52.5, 62.5, 60, 65/70
Essay 4 (Civil Procedure, Evidence): 65, 55, 60
Essay 3 (Prof Resp): 75 (sample from BarEssays), 55
Essay 4 (CA Comm Prop): 60, 55
California 90-minute PT: 55, 55
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores: Q1 60, Q2 50, Q3 50, Q4 55, Q5 50, PT 55)
Essay and PT answers set 2 (scores: Q1 65, Q2 57.5, Q3 55, Q4 65, Q5 55, PT 60)
New York: 2018 July New York (UBE) MEE and MPT set (MEE 1-6 scores in order 57.06, 44.55, 55.46, 41.42, 53.79, 40.09; MPT scores in order 49.42, 52.44; total 137.7)
Essay 1: 55 (Brian’s Annotations)
Essay 2: 60
Essay 3: 60
Essay 4: 65 (Brian’s Annotations)
Essay 5: 65
California 90-minute PT: 65
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 55, Q3 65, Q4 50, Q5 60, PT 60)
Essay and PT answers set 2 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 60, Q3 55, Q4 70, Q5 60, PT 50)
Essay 1: 60, 72.5, 60, 65, 60, 65, 60
Essay 2: 60, 62.5, 60, 60, 55, 55, 65
Essay 3: 65, 62.5, 65, 55, 55, 50, 50
Essay 4: 60, 65, 65, 70, 60, 60, 65
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 60, Q3 45, Q4 60, Q5 65, Q6 60, PT A 50, PT B 55)
Essay and PT answers set 2 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 50, Q3 50, Q4 50, Q5 55, Q6 50, PT A 55, PT B 60)
Essay and PT answers set 3 (scores: Q1 60, Q2 57.5, Q3 65, Q4 52.5, Q5 65, Q6 60, PT A 60, PT B 57.5)
Nevada: Essays Day 1 (scores in order: 63.32, 90.06, 71.40 / 75.00 passing), MPTs (score in order: 67.50, 51.91 / 75.00 passing), Essays Day 3 (scores in order: 61.52, 93.47, 76.43, 78.82 / 75.00 passing)
My analysis of the first column of essays and PTs above (in bold) (my estimated scores before actual scores were sent to me + my evaluation of the answers and suggestions)
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores: Q1 55, Q2 60, Q3 65, Q4 50, Q5 60, Q6 50, PT A 60, PT B 70)
Essay and PT answers set 2 (ZIP file with images; scores: Q1 55, Q2 75, Q3 65, Q4 55, Q5 50, Q6 50, PT A 55, PT B 60)
Essay and PT answers set 3 (scores: Q1 50, Q2 50, Q3 50, Q4 60, Q5 55, Q6 55, PT A 55, PT B 55)
Essay 1: 60
Essay 2: 65
Essay 3: 60
Essay 4: 55
Essay 5: 55
Essay 6: 60
PT A: 60
PT B: 55
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores in order: Q1 60, Q2 55, Q3 55, Q4 60, Q5 55, Q6 55; PT A 50, PT B 50)
Essay and PT answers set 2 (scores in order: Q1 60/55, Q2 75/85, Q3 60/55, Q4 65/65, Q5 65/60, Q6 60/60; PT A 55/55, PT B 60/60)
Essay 1: 65
Essay 2: 60
Essay 3: 55
Essay 4: 55
Essay 5: 55
Essay 6: 55
PT A: 60
PT B: 70
New York: 2014 July New York essay answers set (scaled scores in order: 60.82, 44.77, 43.83, 40.62, 45.01, 31.66)
Essay and PT answers set 1 (scores in order: Q1-6 55, 55, 55, 55, 55, 55; PTs 55, 60)
Notes for California bar takers:
- Prior to the 2020 October exam, an average written score of approximately 62.5 generally put you on track to pass (1,440 scaled points) assuming you score enough to put you on track to pass the MBE (1,440 scaled points). So the benchmark was to want your essays to be at least as good as the answers scoring 65. Looking at answers scoring lower than 65 could be instructive as well so that you can get a sense of what’s missing there.
- The passing score has been lowered to 1,390 scaled points. Whether this has any effect on essay grading or difficulty, we don’t know. All else equal, we can conjecture that there’s more leeway on the essays and the PT. That is, you may not need to shoot for 65 (although you should do your best anyway). But remember that whether you pass is based on your scores on both the written portion and the MBE portion. There is now leeway on the MBE side as well.
- If you’re looking to compare your answer to a much larger bank of high-scoring and low-scoring 3,000+ actual graded essays and performance tests stretching back to 1999, BarEssays is a must. Check my review if you’re on the fence. Enter your email below and confirm to get a $25 coupon code, along with my weekly prep emails.
Sample legacy (3-hour) CA PT answers by Brian
PT 2008 FEB B (Dr. Snyder) — with grader commentary
PT 2006 FEB B (Estate of Small) — with grader commentary and self-analysis
PT 2012 FEB B (State v. Dolan) — self-graded
PT 2009 JULY A (Farley) — self-graded
PT 2010 JULY A (Vasquez CC&Rs) — self-graded with notes, comments, and questions
Snow King Mountain Resort answer, notes
Pearson
California essay and issue locator by subject
Anonymous donor’s how-to-use: Barbri has a different chart that has the subjects in the left column, the month and year of the test along the top row, and the question number where the subject and test date intersect, but creating the chart this way made me focus on my weakest subjects instead of trying to predict which topics would be tested. There were certain subjects where I missed a lot of issues, e.g., constitutional law and community property, because I didn’t take ConLaw II or CP in law school.
Instead of doing the same amount of essays for each subject, I’d only outline the subjects that I’d spotted most of the issues for and use my extra time reviewing how the essays were organized in my weakest subjects for as many essays as I could. Having a chart allowed me to find those essays faster, compare how they were written from year to year, and create a template for how to approach issues that I hadn’t learned in law school.