MBE Question Approach for the Bar Exam

As you practice your approach to the MBE, ask yourself these two questions: What is the subject area and what is happening in the fact pattern.

You then want to isolate the legally relevant facts. The next step of analysis is to ask what the legal issue is, what rule of law addresses this fact pattern and what should be the outcome.

Your next step is to identify the issue in each answer choice. Finally, ask yourself which answer choice best corresponds to the issue in the fact pattern.

Follow this simple approach for answering your MBE questions.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

Practice MBE Timing

As to timing of the MBE, you must answer 100 questions in 3 hours, both in the morning and the afternoon. Breaking it down further, you must answer each question in 1.8 minutes, or 17 questions in a half hour and 34 questions in an hour. You must be able to sustain that fast pace.

As you practice, keep that pace in mind. It is imperative that you finish all 200 questions. You do not want to leave any questions unanswered or unread and lose valuable points. As you know, even 1 point or 2 points can mean the difference between passing and failing.

Not only do you need to answer the questions, you need to answer them correctly.

How do you build up your time and accuracy? In the beginning of this process, start with 17 questions first – note your time and your accuracy. As you get better at your accuracy, your time will also get better. Once you feel that you are comfortable with the 17 questions, then, proceed to doing 34 questions in one sitting. Again, notice how long it took you and your accuracy. Then move up doing 68 questions in 2 hours, until finally you are working at 3 hour stretches.

You must get comfortable and condition yourself to sitting for 3 hours, working on MBE questions, without losing your focus or concentration. In the last couple of weeks, prior to the bar exam, you should be working on 3 hour blocks for the MBE.

Once you get to the bar exam, write down the time for 34 questions, 68 questions or break it down in half hours, i.e. 17, 34, 51 etc., so you can glance at your sheet and know that you are on schedule to answer all 100 questions.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBETesting Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

Three Weeks to the MBE

Every state who tests the MBE, tests on the Wednesday of the bar exam week.  It is now three weeks to the MBE.  Three weeks to the MBE is a good time to evaluate how you are doing. You have enough time to now pinpoint your weak areas and enough time to change your schedule if you feel you’re spinning your wheels. Consider this day your line in the sand.

By now you should have done several hundred multistate questions. If you haven’t done it, get busy. Change your schedule if you need to, work on your weak areas and keep testing.

If you have, you are ready for the bar exam. You just need to keep working, stay cool and continue to test yourself.

Make sure you are peaking on exam day. If you are like some of my students who study all night, stop it today. Get up at 6 am or 7 am and start studying at 9 am until 12 pm, with no breaks, then study from 1 pm to 4 pm, with no breaks, You want to mimic the bar exam hours so you are at your peak at 9 am every day.

Don’t pretend you’re not nervous. Accept that it’s okay to be nervous. Channel that nervous energy properly by attacking your study schedule and transform your nerves into confidence. But, remember, you do not want to be overly tired for the bar exam. Try to sleep through the night or, at least, take some cat naps during the day to catch up on missed sleep.

One of the most important things to do during this 3 week period is not to doubt your abilities. You can pass this bar and you know it. You just need to be in the top 2/3rds of your state. Don’t stress too much about what you don’t know – you are not expected to get a 100% on this test – it’s more like 65%. The examiners expect that you will have weak areas. Go into the bar exam with the knowledge you will pass the bar exam.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

Strategies for the Answer Choices for the MBE

Here are some strategies for the answer choices for the MBE:

1. Look for the more precise answer: That is a better choice – one that incorporates more facts and more of the law relevant to your fact pattern.

2. Be careful of those absolutes. If you see words like must, always, never, etc., be careful, because we know that the law almost never deals in absolutes. They are few absolutes in the law.

3. Look for conjunctions. Be careful when you see words like because, if, only if, unless, etc. Those conjunctions are designed to try to trick the reader, especially the careless reader. For example, you’ll see a question that says, if the jury believes the defendant, it is because…. This example wants you to focus on the defendant’s defense, not whether the defendant is guilty.

4. Be careful of distractors. Common distractors for evidence are the best evidence rule and prejudicial v. probative. Make sure you know when you can use these two as the right answer or else they may be distractors.

5. Be careful of sympathy or dislike. The MBE likes to pull at your heart strings a bit too. Sometimes they have a really reprehensible defendant who has a legitimate “procedural” issue that makes him not guilty, i.e. an improper search and seizure. You want to find him guilty, but the police make an error and the evidence is suppressed. Similarly, you’ll see a sympathetic person who commits a cause of action or a crime and must be either liable or guilty. Don’t let emotion rule the day.

Remember, that common mistakes in choosing the answer come from not knowing the law, not reading the fact pattern carefully, or not reading the call of the question.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

The Answer Choices for the MBE

As we know, after the fact pattern and the call of the question, there are 4 multiple answer choices. One of those multiple choice answers is the correct one, while distractors form the other 3 choices. How do we know which choice is the correct answer?

The good thing about the MBE is that the right answer is staring at you. Your just have to find the right answer out of 4. That’s a 25% chance you’ll pick the right answer. The wrong answer choices usually come in various categories: the law is incorrect, the facts are incorrect, there is a mixture of wrong facts and wrong law, or the law is correct but doesn’t apply to your facts.

Yes, the MBE uses every trick in the book, but you can find the right answer by eliminating the wrong answers first. Being able to eliminate the wrong answers is critical to your success in finding the right answer. Because even if you don’t know the right answer, you may be able to successfully eliminate the other 3 answers and get to the right answer, even without knowing what the right answer is.

Eliminating the obvious wrong answers will substantially increase your chances of getting the right answer. If you successfully eliminate two, you chances become 50% of getting the right answer.

Remember that the correct answer must state the correct law, must state the correct facts, have a sound application of law to facts and finally needs to address and resolve the central issue in the fact pattern.

Remember, you get no points for choosing the wrong answer, so you must get the right answer for your MBE questions at a rate of at least 65% – 70% in order to pass the MBE.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

The MBE Exam Progression

For all MBE questions, here is the list of progressions you should follow to get the most out of your 1.8 minutes when working on the MBE exam.

1. Read the call of the question first.

2. Read the fact pattern carefully and critically

3. Try to decide the issue after you read the fact pattern and before you look at the answers.

4. Once you have figured out the issue, think of the black letter law and the distinctions.

5. Read the answer choices.

6. Try to eliminate the answer choices, one by one, looking for errors in law or in fact or both.

7. Remember that in order for the answer choice to be correct, it must be correct in all of its answer.

8. After you are done with the question, let it go and move to the next answer.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.

The MBE Exam: The Analysis of the MBE

The Multistate Examination is hard. You have to have a game plan when you go into the exam.

Here are some suggestions:

Reading a Question

Because of time constraints, you will have time for only one reading of the fact pattern. Do not read the fact pattern as a novel.

You must read carefully and actively to spot signal words and legally significant facts. Pay attention to the bar examiners’ particular use of language and look for the following as you read:

1) Relationships between parties that signal the area of law and legal duties: landlord/tenant, employer/employee, principal/agent, buyer/seller;

2) Amounts of money, dates quantities and ages;

3) Words such as “oral” and “written,” “reasonable” and “unreasonable,” among others;

4) Words that indicate the actor’s state of mind. Look for such language as:

• Intended
• Decided
• Mistakenly thought
• Deliberately
• Reasonably believed

Never Assume Facts

The bar examiners construct MBE questions to contain all the facts you need to answer the question. You must rely solely on these facts and no others, to answer the question. Of course you may draw reasonable inferences from the facts but you cannot fabricate your own or create “what if” scenarios.

Stick to the Law

You must apply the rule of law to the facts . You cannot get emotionally involved with the parties or substitute your instincts for what you know is legally correct. Don’t think someone is guilty when the call of the question says he is not. That is not what the question is asking you.

An MBE Tutor is important to the repeat taker.  The MBE Testing Institute can help you overcome the difficulty of the MBE test and help you to a successful score.

If you need help passing the MBE, contact the MBE Testing Institute at pass@mbetestinginstitute.com for more information.