The MBE is the part of the bar exam that most people hate. I will be honest, I hated it—studying for it and taking it (I was pretty sure I had failed after the first session of the MBE).
One of the things that I wish I had known then (that I know now) is that although there is a ton of law tested on the MBE, not everything is tested with the same frequency! When I tell my students this, they are often very surprised. So if you are feeling crunched for time or just terribly overwhelmed, you can tailor your study approach to the most heavily tested areas of the law.
How do I know what these are? Did I go through past MBE tests and tally up the questions on each subject area? No! Turns out that the National Conference of Bar Examiners actually tells you. Most of us just don’t know where to look.
The 2013 MBE Information Booklet is here to help.
Take a moment and download the 2013 MBE Information Booklet from the National Conference of Bar Examiners. This booklet contains quite a bit of handy information for you and at no charge (which sounds good after all the money you have spent on bar prep up to this point, right?).
Next, flip to page 17 of the PDF that you just downloaded. That’s where you’ll find the subject matter outlines. How nice! All the stuff to be tested. At first, it may seem overwhelming until you read the paragraph at the top of each subject matter outline, which tells you approximately how many questions will cover different subject areas on the MBE. For constitutional law,it says, “Approximately half of the Constitutional Law questions on the MBE will be based on category IV [individual rights], and approximately half will be based on the remaining categories [other stuff].” So, if I am targeting my study time, can I be pretty sure that individual rights is going to be tested on the MBE? You bet! So make sure you know and understand that law and have practiced applying it.
Then, go through the rest of the subject matter outlines. You will quickly find that you have a target list of the heavily tested areas. These are what you should be most concerned about. Not the rule against perpetuities, which worries many bar studiers.
Therefore, if you are feeling overwhelmed, get strategic about how you are spending your time! First, review the law that is most heavily tested to make sure you have it down. Don’t forget the other law, but you definitely want to be getting the most “bang for your buck” out of your study time.
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Did you find this post helpful? Check out some of our other articles for more great study tips!
- How to Cope with Bar Exam Stress
- Getting Mentally Ready for the Bar Exam
- 4 Things You Can Do to Make Sure You Are Ready for Bar Season
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A great point made by Sean Silverman (http://mbetutorial.blogspot.com/) on our facebook page: “Another benefit of the outline is that it’s likely to mention areas that you might have over-looked because the outlines do not cover them in detail. For example the MBE recently on each administration of the exam has been testing “future-advance mortgages.” That concept is given a few lines at most in the commercial outlines, but it’s worth understanding the concept in a bit more detail in order to ensure those questions are answered correctly.”
Hello,
I frequently read the articles posted by Lee Burges. I am trying to analyze my previous bar scores for the purposes of focusing my studying. I took the exam in Oregon and am finding it difficult to determine just how close I was to passing. For example, would a couple points on essays put me over the top – or do I need to drastically improve? Here are my scores:
Essay 1: 3
Essay 2: 2
Essay 3: 2
Essay 4: 6
Essay 5: 4
Essay 6: 4
MPT1: 3
MPT2: 2
Total written: 26, Scaled: 137.5
MBE: 120, Scaled: 135.4
Total: 272.9
Total necessary to pass: 284
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Hi John: I will ask around to my network to see if I can get you some answers on your Oregon results. Best – Lee
Dear John,
First, sorry you did not pass. You will. You came very close. The fact that you received 5s and 6s tells me that you can issue spot and write an essay in the required manner. A 2 answer tells me that you probably blanked, ran out of time, didn’t know the subject matter, or didn’t answer the call of the question.
Second, a disclaimer, because I also sell bar prep materials.
Though I am not familiar with your jurisdiction, it appears that Oregon allows a combined score, where if you do better on the essays you can offset a lesser MBE score or vice-versa. Nevertheless, I can tell you that you can and should be getting at least a 4 on all of your essays.
Take your essays, especially those that you scored a 2 or 3 on, and have a tutor in your jurisdiction or law professor/bar advisor from your school write a model answer for you. This is an answer that would rank a 7. It will likely have more spotted issues than 99% of the credited essays that received a 6 or 7 answer on the actual exam, because it will be answered by a professional.
You don’t need to spot all issues to get a 6 or a 7. You need to spot the main ones, and write like a lawyer. This means: 1) answering the call of the question 2) crafting good topic sentences that show the grader that you know the law and can spot the issues, and the topic sentence sets the tone and structure for the entire essay 3) use good English 4) interleave fact and law in your responses 5) use lots of ‘because’ 6) be sure to discuss remedies and defenses, where appropriate 7) take a stand on an issue, or argue in the alternative (this is where ‘because’ comes in!)
Now, take your essay answers with model answers and for each:
1) read the entire question, and the entire model answer, carefully. DO NOT
ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THE ESSAY YET.
2) Wait at least 1 hour, read the question, and write out your answer to the essay.
3) The next morning, read the question and the model answer, and compare it to your answer. Dissect and parse this line-by-line, word-for-word if you have to, paying attention to not only the issues spotted, but the way the person organized the answer.
4) Wait 2-3 hours, read the question, and answer the question.
5) Repeat steps 3-5 until you have nailed the question. You don’t need to wait until the next morning to review, though.
6) Repeat for all the questions
One more thing
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There is more than one way to answer a question/organize your answer. Moreover, some types of questions, such as criminal law, just beg you to answer in a style that uses headings to organize the crimes and defenses for each actor.
Be sure to organize your thoughts via an outline that you write on a separate piece of scratch paper, or on the back of the exam paper (which is typically separate from your answer book).
Good luck on the exam. You can do this. You are so close. Feel free to check in with our facebook site above, where we will be announcing new essay materials that include information such as the above, and other goodies in addition to our MBE outlines.
John J. Gillis, Esq.
MA-licensed attorney, associate patent attorney, and co-author of The Multistate Digest with Alfred M. Zappala, Esq.
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