California and New York have always had the rep of being the two hardest bars in the country. I took my first bar exam in Ohio and afterwards, I almost died of crying, believing I had flunked it. Ohio (at least then) had the odious practice of "notifying" you as to whether or not you passed -- in a few months' time -- by publishing in the major Ohio papers who had passed.....so of course, we all also knew who had failed.
They never bothered with a private snail mail letter, and they never gave you your score. I had no idea whether I had passed by a country mile or just squeaked by.
A year later, when I sat for Florida's bar, I was much more sanguine. Turns out, Florida does send you a letter if you pass, and when mine arrived, they also asked me to read for the next exam (grade essay questions) because I had scored so highly.
I joyously told them to go **** themselves, in legalese. IMO, bar examiners are assholes. And the questions! There's so little on any bar exam I took that had any bearing on what I learned in law school (and even less on what I still needed to learn to practice law), the damned things may as well be tests on zoology.