Barbri vs actual MPRE Forum

[blong4133]

Just curious what others have found when taking the MPRE after studying from the Barbri book.

I didn't study as hard as I probably should have, because I just couldn't really motivate myself to study for it. (not because I thought it'd be easy, but I got back from the beach a week ago and I've been working 2 jobs all summer and I'm just worn out) I plan to practice in WV so I need a 75 to pass. I took 3 full practice tests, and got scores in that would have put me in the mid to upper 90's...maybe even over 100. The second and third one, I was right at 85. I sat down to take the third one last night before going to bed, and I stopped at question 35 and had missed 7 questions, so I said hell with it and went to bed.

But I actually thought the test was pretty difficult. I felt like I could usually narrow it down to two answers, and (in accordance with my strategy before the test) I went with the most narrowly worded answer choice.

Also, I was so worried about the time requirement, I was flying through the test and finished with about 20 minutes left (I'm guessing because we didn't have a clock in the room). So I just went and turned it in because when I go back through stuff, I have a tendency to second guess myself and start changing right answers and stuff like that.

But to make it simple, if I'm scoring 85's and a couple in the 90's, are these indicative of your actual performance on the real thing? I know that there's a lot of variables that go into taking a practice test vs. the real thing...but I am a little worried and I definitely don't want to take it again.

[bdepeyster]

FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....

[Rocío]

FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....

For the MPRE? Are there even that many practice tests available? Wow I am just sorry if you actually did that to yourself for no reason.

[bdepeyster]

FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....

For the MPRE? Are there even that many practice tests available? Wow I am just sorry if you actually did that to yourself for no reason.

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Yikes typo 180 questions.

[Yvonnella]

I started with the Kaplan book and thought, if the MPRE is this easy, passing will be a snap. Then I went through the Barbri book, and it was noticeably harder than Kaplan. I thought, if the real MPRE questions look like the questions in Barbri, passing at all will be a blessing. And of course, the MPRE looked exactly like Barbri and nothing like Kaplan. Studying the Barbri book is why I passed by a comfortable, though not necessarily great, margin. But I may not have made it if all I had studied was Kaplan.

[kalvano]

I thought the BarBri questions were pretty dead on to what the actual questions were like.

[alphasteve]

I thought the actual questions were slightly easier than Barbri's, or maybe just slightly less annoying. With Barbri there were a lot of questions where I had it down to two answers and had to guess; that only happened on the MPRE where I didn't really know the rule.

Nerd.

[risingamerican_2l]

I think Barbri was a little easier than the actual MPRE. Granted, I probably spent more time getting my photo done at Rite-Aid for the MPRE admissions ticket than I did studying. I did get through about 20 questions on Barbri, and got 15/20 right. I guessed on over half the questions on the actual MPRE, though, so I am nervous right now.

[thesealocust]

I begrudgingly did the BarBRI questions and found them similar to the actual MPRE.

For the mot part, reading the model rules + CJC and understanding them seemed like adequate preparation. I'm sure I missed some questions and overall it was often fairly challenging, but HARD jurisdictions require you to get just over half of the questions right, and most 'hard' questions I had narrowed down to 2 choices, as I imagine most people who even attempted studying did. Statistics is on our side is all I'm saying.

[Big Shrimpin]

Watched the vid + did 2 practice tests. I'm not that smart. Got a 130ish. ROFLCOPTER at this dumb exam.

[thesmiley]

Update 2017 - Barbri questions are still very similar to MPRE, but are more difficult and take longer to read on average compared with the test. I scored around 85% on Barbri, but feel as though I did better on the MPRE today. General rule: if you do (and pass) the Barbri practice exams, then you are guaranteed to pass the MPRE.

[thesmiley]

Update 2017 - after scoring 80-85% on Barbri PEs, I ended up with a score of 142 (~99.8 percentile)!
So I think Barbri is clearly a good indicator of how well you'll do on the actual exam.