BarWrite® Blog

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.

How to Manage the MBE

You can manage the MBE.

One key on the MBE is to analyze the fact pattern first, decide on your own answer to the interrogatory, then skim the answer choices for the one closest to your own answer. Don't just glance at the fact pattern and then let yourself get twisted around by the answer choices.

The PMBR Case Teaches Some Lessons

The facts of the PMBR case are riveting. At every administration, the NCBE uses some recent MBE questions again, so as to make sure that the new exam is of the same level of difficulty as the previous exam. PMBR, knowing this, would systematically copy the MBE questions and use them in the pre-test it administered during its classes preparing candidates for the next exam. Most disappointingly, PMBR made the fact that its questions were so much like the real questions on the MBE into one of its primary advertising claims.

The case reminds us all, however, that the MBE is an extremely difficult exam.

Here is a journalist's report on my comments on NCBE v. PMBR.

"The BarWrite method for the MBE requires students actually to master many of the rules of law that the MBE tests," Dr. Gallagher says. "What a concept! Know more law, do better on the MBE."

The method PMBR preached in its three-day classes, Dr. Gallagher says, was different. It suggested students should do 50 questions a night, but it did not systematically teach the law. Doing 50 questions a night without systematically learning the law does not raise most people's MBE scores. . . ."

PMBR Hit with $12 Million Judgment

A quick note while I work on analyzing this situation. Briefly stated, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) brought suit against PMBR for copyright violation regarding the MBE, and on August 22 the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held for the NCBE. The amount of the jugdgment against PMBR is nearly $12 million. The facts of the case are riveting.

More MBE Tips from Dr. Gallagher

LEARN TO APPLY FOUNDATIONAL RULES OF LAW TO MBE FACT PATTERNS. Another thing you can do now to prepare for the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is to take five MBE questions on a foundational area like contract formation, review the answers, and analyze the fact patterns. Then in two days analyze those same five fact patterns again. I don't mean remember the answer choices, I mean work through the analysis: This is an offeror, this is an offeree, this is consideration, etc., etc.

Three MBE Tips from Dr. Gallagher

(1.) GALLAGHER MBE BAR TIP NUMBER ONE. To maximize credit on both the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) and the essays, if your state includes contracts or torts on the essays, concentrate on making sure you know two subjects cold: (a) contract formation and (b) negligence. These are the topics with the largest numbers of questions on the Multistate. To take New York as an example, Contracts/UCC, usually including formation, appears on 8 out of 10 New York essay exams. The best study aid is the yellow box of Law-in-a-Flash flashcards for contracts, now published by Aspen.