BarWrite® Blog

BarWrite® Blog: Learn to Finish the MPT and Bar Exam Essays on Time

HOW ARE THE ESSAYS DIFFERENT FROM THE MPT? One obvious answer is that the bar exam essays are different from the Multistate Performance Test (MPT)--or the California Performance Test--because the essays require knowing a lot of law, which the MPT does not.But don't let that difference distract you. It''s easy to overlook key similarities. First, both the essays and the MPT require a bar candidate to stay in control of time. Second, both the essays and the MPT require a bar candidate to read

BarWrite® Blog: MBE Bar Exam Myths

"People always say that time changes things, but actually, you have to change them yourself."                                                                                          --  Andy Warhol

The bar exam season is here, and so students are asking me, "How many practice MBE questions should I do every day?" They expect me to give them a big number, like 33 or 50 or 100.

In fact, I take a totally different approach to the MBE.  Numbers have nothing to do with it.  My method for raising your score on the MBE is painful but effective, and it does not involve 33 or 50 or 100.  I say that the way to raise your MBE score is to learn more law and learn to do patient legal analysis.  That's right:  learn more law, do better on the bar exam.  What a concept!   But learning more law is painful.  Patiently applying the law to practice fact patterns, one element at a time, is slow and agonizing.  And on many days, you won't feel the progress you are making.