On the legacy UBE, NCBE scores the MBE, your jurisdiction grades the MEE and MPT, and those written scores are scaled to the MBE before NCBE totals the UBE on a 400-point scale — MBE 50%, MEE 30%, MPT 20%.
Each UBE jurisdiction then compares the total with its own passing score — on the legacy scale, from 260 to 270.
On the NextGen UBE, one score on a 500–750 scale replaces the separate component scores.
How is the bar exam scored?
On the legacy UBE, two bodies do the work.
NCBE scores the MBE.
Your jurisdiction grades the MEE and MPT, and those written scores are scaled to the MBE before NCBE calculates the UBE total score.
The components themselves are fixed: the UBE combines the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), two Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tasks and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE).
Of the MBE's 200 questions, 175 are scored and 25 are unscored pretest questions; each question has four answer choices and there is no penalty for a wrong answer.
The MEE adds six 30-minute essay questions, each graded by your own jurisdiction, and the MPT adds two 90-minute tasks.
The weights and the reporting scale are fixed too: the MBE counts 50%, the MEE 30% and the MPT 20%, and the legacy UBE total is reported on a 400-point scale.
What comes back for the MBE is a scaled score — a number that can range from about 40 (low) to 200 (high) — not the raw count of the 175 scored questions you answered correctly.
The NextGen UBE, first given in July 2026, scores differently.
NCBE reports it as one number on a 500–750 scale, with no separate multiple-choice and written component scores.
Internally it is still weighted: 120 standalone multiple-choice questions (40 per section), six integrated question sets and three performance tasks, weighted 49%, 21% and 30%.
Twenty of the 120 multiple-choice questions and one of the six integrated sets are unscored pretest items that look like scored ones.
Which scoring system applies to you depends on when and where you sit.
NCBE now calls the current version the legacy UBE and says it will be administered through February 2028, and most jurisdictions move from the MBE, MEE and MPT to the NextGen UBE between July 2026 and July 2028.
NCBE marks fourteen jurisdictions as never having adopted the legacy UBE.
Some of them give the NextGen UBE instead; for the others, the admitting authority's own materials are the source for how its exam is scored.
For the exam's structure itself, the bar exam overview has the full picture.
What is scaling and equating?
Scaling solves a mixing problem: essays and tasks graded by your jurisdiction have to be combined with a multiple-choice score.
On the legacy UBE, your jurisdiction grades the MEE and MPT, and those written scores are scaled to the MBE so all three components can add up on one 400-point scale at their fixed weights.
Equating solves a comparability problem: NCBE equates MBE scaled scores across administrations, which is what makes a score comparable from one exam to the next.
NCBE's statement on curving covers the NextGen UBE only: its scores are equated, not curved, and a score does not depend on how other examinees performed.
One caution for score research: the performance information NCBE publishes for the MBE is the scaled score itself, from about 40 to 200, and our research did not find NCBE-published percentile rankings for the exam.
If a source quotes a "bar exam percentile," check it against NCBE's own score pages before relying on it.
What is a passing score?
Scoring and passing are separate acts by separate bodies.
NCBE calculates the score; the jurisdiction decides what passes.
Each UBE jurisdiction independently sets its own passing score, alongside who may sit and be admitted, educational requirements, character and fitness, retake limits and the rest of its admission rules.
On the legacy UBE, those minimums range from 260 to 270 on the 400-point scale — no UBE jurisdiction requires more than 270.
The same minimum applies to people who tested there and to people transferring a UBE score in, which is why a score that fell short in the testing jurisdiction can still be transferred if it meets another jurisdiction's passing score.
On the NextGen UBE, NCBE says most jurisdictions have set passing scores between 610 and 620.
Do not line the two scales up side by side: NCBE says legacy 400-scale scores and NextGen 500–750 scores should not be compared directly.
Cut scores also move.
Iowa lowered its legacy UBE passing score to 260 starting with the July 2026 exam; it had been 266 for earlier exams.
Passing scores are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction
Is the bar exam curved?
It depends on which exam you sit.
For the NextGen UBE, NCBE says it outright: scores are not curved based on the performance of the group of examinees who test together, and a score does not depend on how other examinees performed.
For the legacy UBE, NCBE's scoring pages describe scaling and equating — MBE scaled scores equated across administrations, and written scores scaled to the MBE.
The NCBE legacy scoring pages in our research do not say whether those scores are curved, so check with the bar admission authority where you sit rather than assume the NextGen answer carries over.
The practical upshot NCBE describes: on the NextGen UBE your score does not depend on how the people testing with you performed, so you are not competing with them for a fixed share of passes.
What decides your result is your own total score measured against the passing score your jurisdiction sets.
How many test-takers clear that bar each administration is a separate question — the bar exam pass rates page has those numbers.
What is a good bar exam score?
A good score is a score that clears the cut where you sit.
There is no single national passing score: each UBE jurisdiction sets its own minimum, and on the legacy UBE those minimums run from 260 to 270, while NCBE says most NextGen jurisdictions have set theirs between 610 and 620.
The two scales should not be compared directly.
As for the ceiling everyone asks about: the performance information NCBE publishes for the MBE tops out at about 200 on its scaled range, legacy UBE totals are reported on a 400-point scale, and NextGen results are reported as one number on a 500–750 scale.
Those are reporting scales — the number to beat is the jurisdiction's minimum.
Because minimums differ, the same score can have different outcomes in different places: a total that misses one UBE jurisdiction's cut can still meet another's if you transfer it, and the receiving jurisdiction applies its own minimum to transferees exactly as it does to its own test-takers.
Career information, not legal advice. Scoring and passing scores come from NCBE and from each jurisdiction's admitting authority; confirm the current rules with the bar admission authority where you plan to practice.