So they’re pegging the passing percentage to 10% – 17%. That’s just about 580 to 986 passers. Now I’m licking myself more. Why is this little peace of mathematical figure so dreadful? I’ll tell you why it is so dreadful. It is dreadful because the slimmer the figures the more you think that you are not included in it. Your mind just auto-calculate the possibilities of you being included and the slot machine give you the numbers 0-0-0-0. There are just too many bright cats than you that you just can’t be included in the slim figures. Who knows.

Who is responsible for the figures anyway? Why are there thousands of carcasses lying on the ground yearly? The figures are created by two factors: the examinees and the examiners. Many examinees just coast along during the review period that they cook themselves halfbake during the exams. Many lack the proper game plan to prim themselves up for the bar. So they perform poorly. The examiners on the other hand, succumb from time to time to their frailties-they let their emotions run wild while they were checking. Some examiners metaphorphose to some wild tasmanian devils, scrawling the testbooklets angrily with thrift scores. I don’t really know whether this is true but I’ve heard stories bout examiners who got mad over faulty grammars and bad handwritings, as well as examiners who check the test booklets on a full moon (mood swings). So when the emotions cooks up to the boiling point, watch out testbooklets for some blood dripping scores.

However, there is a consolation part in this process. The Supreme Court en banc may sustain a higher percentage in an en banc session. This is like a buffer to the low passing percentage. The justices may decide to give bonus points across the board or leniency in one killer subject (in this 2007 bar exams, there are many killer subjects as rumoured). So, if the initial passing percentage is peg at 10%-17%, the same can still go up high by the en banc session. This is where prayers matter. God still play a big part in this whole process.

The following are the statistics on the Bar exams results for the past seven years:

Year
Total Number of Examinees
Total Number of Those Who Passed
Percentage

2006
6,187
1,893
30.60%

2005
5,607
1,526
27.22%

2004
5,249
1,659
31.61%

2003
5,349
1,108
20.71%

2002
4,659
917
19.68%

2001
3,849
1,266
32.89%

2000
4,698
979
20.84%

So in the meantime, lets just lick our way through this day.