Well probably not my wife’s but apparently it happened to one essay question for 57 people. From http://www.nybarexam.org/press.htm:
“Following the administration of the July 2006 New York bar examination, packages of essay answers were sent by UPS overnight delivery to the graders. One package of answers to the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) question was damaged in a conveyor system at a UPS sorting facility, resulting in a partial loss of its contents. Answers to the MPT question written by 57 of the over 10,400 candidates who took the examination were destroyed. The MPT is weighted 10% in the calculation of a candidate’s total score.
Of the 57 candidates whose MPT answers were missing, 19 would have failed even if they had received the maximum score of 10 on that question. Twenty-four of the candidates would have passed even if they had received a score of zero on that question. The Board established a total score for each of the remaining 14 candidates based on that candidate’s performance on the 90% of the examination actually graded and an estimated MPT score. All 14 of these candidates passed the exam.
Fortunately, no candidate was adversely affected by a missing MPT answer, as the only candidates among these 57 with failing total scores were the 19 candidates who would not have passed even if they had achieved a perfect score on the MPT. Those 19 candidates have been specifically advised by the Board that their answers to the MPT question were among those destroyed.
The Board is examining alternative delivery methods in order to avoid such a loss in the future.”
