POLL: Why are released/old MBE questions useful?

[supa_mitsu]

It's poll time!

After seeing a lot of succesful retakers raving about sources that use real past MBE questions, such as Adaptibar, and Emanuel, I figured this is an important question to understand better how to approach the MBE. Also, I am a retaker and using Adaptibar at the moment.

[a male human]

There's a different feel to them. You might feel good about doing well on "difficult" questions that Barbri (or whoever) intentionally wrote to be convoluted as hell, and that's just artificial difficulty. Real questions are difficult in different ways. The style, the rationale for the credited answers, and length of questions are subtly different. Even if the real MBE is "easier" compared to Barbri, you might feel like it's a different beast altogether. You want the real thing to be like practice so you don't panic more than you need to. If you want a real challenge, try answering the old questions under 1.8 minutes.

Some say that questions on the exam are starting to look different from the old questions. This is a fair point. Of course the examiners know about supplements and will throw in questions designed around the old ones to keep it fresh. So while the licensed questions are probably the closest to what you'll see on the MBE, you can also drill using commercial questions written by prep courses. You're hedging your bets so to say, diversifying your hopes and dreams, putting your eggs in multiple baskets, being glad that I also bought Etherium and not just Bitcoin, etc.

[toast and bananas]

You don't need old MBE questions to pass, in fact, most people I know used barbri/themis exclusively end never mentioned them. Another common thread - everyone leaves the MBE feeling like they bombed it, yet most end up passing with plenty to spare.

That said, doing old questions will help you avoid the shock after the first 10 questions of the real thing when you realize they are NOTHING like barbri questions.

[supa_mitsu]

Etherium and not just Bitcoin, etc.

Lol, love the comparison. Glad I got Ether indeed

[ndbigdave]

I voted for the first choice - I think it helps both regarding style + getting more experience with HOW subjects are tested.

I really cannot think of a better way to study, if there is only one thing you can do, practice questions + review the answers.

Even for those who know the BLL well (perhaps even really well) seeing how the law is tested is very beneficial. When under time constraints and not being asked to regurgerate info from a flashcard/outline the dynamic is different. Using "simulated" questions seems silly when there are officially licensed questions available that have been used on actual MBE tests. Granted, once you fork over $1k+ to Barbri or Themis having to pay even more sucks, but the analytical tools and "real" questions that are a part of Adaptibar or BarMax are worth it.