MBE - how'd you feel? Forum

[sopranorleone]

All I know is that I have never, in three years of law school and months of bar prep, heard the phrase "earnest money" before today...

SAME

[Veridian40]

All I know is that I have never, in three years of law school and months of bar prep, heard the phrase "earnest money" before today...

SAME

If it would have just said "security deposit" I think it would have been less frustrating but, no, let's throw out the 1700s era English common law term so no one even knows what subject this is supposed to be...

[uganik]

I thought the questions on today's MBE were quite dissimilar, and thus much harder due to the lack of familiarity, than the questions Kaplan provided -- and I did over 3,000 of the latter.

[beastienoise]

I'm probably in the minority, but I didnt think it was that bad. I think part of the collective perception of difficulty is probably just a result of remembering hard questions and not the easy ones. When I finished both sessions I remember thinking there were a ton of close calls and that the exam had been hard, but when I went back and counted up the questions, I had marked over 50% as ones I was 95-100% confident on and only 25% or so as 50/50 toss ups with the rest inbetween. Even though I had been marking easy questions as I went along I had totally forgotten about them until I went back.

I also thought the Barbri questions weren't that far off from what we saw. I tested pretty well on the Barbri exams though (169 simulated and 78 refresher) and have always focused more on memorizing BLL than improving through seeing more questions, so YMMV.

[er232]

I'm probably in the minority, but I didnt think it was that bad. I think part of the collective perception of difficulty is probably just a result of remembering hard questions and not the easy ones. When I finished both sessions I remember thinking there were a ton of close calls and that the exam had been hard, but when I went back and counted up the questions, I had marked over 50% as ones I was 95-100% confident on and only 25% or so as 50/50 toss ups with the rest inbetween. Even though I had been marking easy questions as I went along I had totally forgotten about them until I went back.

I also thought the Barbri questions weren't that far off from what we saw. I tested pretty well on the Barbri exams though (169 simulated and 78 refresher) and have always focused more on memorizing BLL than improving through seeing more questions, so YMMV.

I'm sure you enjoy a well-balanced diet and adhere to a rigorous exercise regime as well. Congratulations! You, sir, have won!

[redblueyellow]

All I know is that I have never, in three years of law school and months of bar prep, heard the phrase "earnest money" before today...

SAME

I just pretended it meant consideration for consideration, lol.

[TommyK]

All I know is that I have never, in three years of law school and months of bar prep, heard the phrase "earnest money" before today...

SAME

If it would have just said "security deposit" I think it would have been less frustrating but, no, let's throw out the 1700s era English common law term so no one even knows what subject this is supposed to be...

Your property professor dropped the ball then. Earnest money is a term regularly used in real estate transactions and much more important for an attorney to know than some of the bullshit professors insist on hammering into students brains because they had to learn it.

[lakerinstl]

All I know is that I have never, in three years of law school and months of bar prep, heard the phrase "earnest money" before today...

SAME

If it would have just said "security deposit" I think it would have been less frustrating but, no, let's throw out the 1700s era English common law term so no one even knows what subject this is supposed to be...

Your property professor dropped the ball then. Earnest money is a term regularly used in real estate transactions and much more important for an attorney to know than some of the bullshit professors insist on hammering into students brains because they had to learn it.

Not once do I recall the words "earnest money" being mentioned in my Property class.

[redblueyellow]

Earnest money, per google "money paid to confirm a contract."

So it's basically consideration to hold open/validate a contract.

[LAW813FL]

I'm probably in the minority, but I didnt think it was that bad. I think part of the collective perception of difficulty is probably just a result of remembering hard questions and not the easy ones. When I finished both sessions I remember thinking there were a ton of close calls and that the exam had been hard, but when I went back and counted up the questions, I had marked over 50% as ones I was 95-100% confident on and only 25% or so as 50/50 toss ups with the rest inbetween. Even though I had been marking easy questions as I went along I had totally forgotten about them until I went back.

I also thought the Barbri questions weren't that far off from what we saw. I tested pretty well on the Barbri exams though (169 simulated and 78 refresher) and have always focused more on memorizing BLL than improving through seeing more questions, so YMMV.

I'm sure you enjoy a well-balanced diet and adhere to a rigorous exercise regime as well. Congratulations! You, sir, have won!

lol ya seriously like wtf? "Quit bitching, I got an awesome score."

[meatball_head]

I keep telling myself that even though the MBE was a nightmare, the essays weren't all that bad compared with what I expected.

Anyone else feel that way? IL especially?

[jadasistgoodja]

I am aware that the question order varied for each of us on the MBE. However, can someone tell me whether the 200 questions are in a completely mixed order (i.e. a question I answered in the AM could have been a question in someone else's PM session) or are the questions only mixed within each AM set / PM set (meaning that we all took the same 100 questions in the AM and PM sessions but in a mixed order)?

I hope that makes sense.

I ask because I found the AM session significantly easier than the PM, although I am aware that most people thought the opposite.

[dsb83]

I'm pretty sure the answers are contained in each section. Otherwise it'd be too easy for people to find their buddy with a different form and trade answers/questions.

On the whole. I thought PM was a little easier but not dramatically. PM started a lot easide for me.

[Tanicius]

I'm going to be totally honest here.
I failed NY in July 2010, July 2011, Feb 2013, and July 2013.
I had never broken 122 in the MBE in all 4 attempts.
Back in Feb I started doing the PMBR red book, finished all of those (1500, maybe more) in about 8 weeks.
Then moved onto Adaptibar. Completed 2200 questions on that, did all 4 practice tests, and a couple of 50 q custom exams.
I neglected Civ Pro severely, only reading an outline twice and giving up on Adaptibars q's after about 50.
My approach today was to highlight them as I went along, and return to them at the end, guessing like a champ.

I have to say, i've taken the MBE 5 times now, and after my preparation, I really feel like I did very well today.
I saw many of the same fact patterns with Adaptibar as I saw today, and many of the same pitfalls trying to catch me out.
I saw things in these questions that I had never seen before when taking the exam previously.
For the most part, I was throwing out answers to most questions before I even read the fact patterns. I think this all came with experience.

Adaptibar did the business for me, there is no doubt in my mind.
I missed passing NY with 641 when I needed a 665 in July 2013, and today I felt like I knew 10 times more than I did back then.
Anyone else who did a significent number of adaptibars questions seems to agree with me.

I am in the minority here, and it's probably not what people want to hear. But that's my honest experience.

Congratulations! That's fantastic.

[Tanicius]

86% of board thinks MBE was harder than expected and it keeps rising. .. this is damning. Was it this bad last year?

Yes. I averaged 75% on MBE's and walked out of the test center believing I had to have failed.

Here's the thing thing. What you guys aren't perceiving, because of test stress, is the fact that you got a shit ton of easy questions right without even really thinking. Because you didn't really think about them, you can't even remember them. It's only the hard questions that you remember, and because you did 200 questions today, there were a lot of hard questions. But percentage wise those hard questions don't account for nearly as much as you think.

I think the difference between today and what I was expecting is that I figured there'd be at least 60-70 or so out of the 200 that I was 100% sure I got right, 100% would bet my life.

I'm guessing there were only like 25 of those on this test. There seemed to typically be some possibility for confusion that wasn't 100% extinguished when you picked a choice. Just my impression.

You really did have 60-70 that you were solid on, you just don't remember them. Like you literally don't remember answering the question because it only took you 15 seconds to read the fact pattern and 5 seconds to know the answer before you even looked for it in the answer selections available.

[gr8scOtt!]

AM was very hard. There were only a couple that I was confident that I was choosing the correct answer. PM started off a lot easier but seemed to get hard very quickly (but that could be attributed to fatigue). Overall, I felt like I was guessing on 90% of them. I usually had a lot of extra time in my practice sets, but came down to the wire for the AM and made it out just before the 15 minute mark in the PM. A LOT of people were leaving early for both the AM and PM, so I'm glad to see others here were also like WTF MBE, because I thought maybe it was just me that was struggling.

I had a bunch of D answers in a row in the AM and after rereading the questions/answers two more times, I stuck with my answer choices and came to the conclusion that they were trying to mess with my head

[Florence Night]

86% of board thinks MBE was harder than expected and it keeps rising. .. this is damning. Was it this bad last year?

Yes. I averaged 75% on MBE's and walked out of the test center believing I had to have failed.

Here's the thing thing. What you guys aren't perceiving, because of test stress, is the fact that you got a shit ton of easy questions right without even really thinking. Because you didn't really think about them, you can't even remember them. It's only the hard questions that you remember, and because you did 200 questions today, there were a lot of hard questions. But percentage wise those hard questions don't account for nearly as much as you think.

I think the difference between today and what I was expecting is that I figured there'd be at least 60-70 or so out of the 200 that I was 100% sure I got right, 100% would bet my life.

I'm guessing there were only like 25 of those on this test. There seemed to typically be some possibility for confusion that wasn't 100% extinguished when you picked a choice. Just my impression.

You really did have 60-70 that you were solid on, you just don't remember them. Like you literally don't remember answering the question because it only took you 15 seconds to read the fact pattern and 5 seconds to know the answer before you even looked for it in the answer selections available.

See I thought I'd have several of those super quick ones but I really think it was a negligible number.

I did 2700ish questions at an overall 76% and I feel like I got rocked. Trying to either tell myself it felt worse than it was. or forget about it.

[Florence Night]

AM was very hard. There were only a couple that I was confident that I was choosing the correct answer. PM started off a lot easier but seemed to get hard very quickly (but that could be attributed to fatigue). Overall, I felt like I was guessing on 90% of them. I usually had a lot of extra time in my practice sets, but came down to the wire for the AM and made it out just before the 15 minute mark in the PM. A LOT of people were leaving early for both the AM and PM, so I'm glad to see others here were also like WTF MBE, because I thought maybe it was just me that was struggling.

I had a bunch of D answers in a row in the AM and after rereading the questions/answers two more times, I stuck with my answer choices and came to the conclusion that they were trying to mess with my head

The first 50 Qs in the AM were a nightmare for me. PM absolutely easier, but still very difficult.

Definitely didn't help that the dude on my right finished both sessions in 1:45. Super genius or insta-fail.

[The Greyest Goose]

86% of board thinks MBE was harder than expected and it keeps rising. .. this is damning. Was it this bad last year?

Yes. I averaged 75% on MBE's and walked out of the test center believing I had to have failed.

Here's the thing thing. What you guys aren't perceiving, because of test stress, is the fact that you got a shit ton of easy questions right without even really thinking. Because you didn't really think about them, you can't even remember them. It's only the hard questions that you remember, and because you did 200 questions today, there were a lot of hard questions. But percentage wise those hard questions don't account for nearly as much as you think.

I think the difference between today and what I was expecting is that I figured there'd be at least 60-70 or so out of the 200 that I was 100% sure I got right, 100% would bet my life.

I'm guessing there were only like 25 of those on this test. There seemed to typically be some possibility for confusion that wasn't 100% extinguished when you picked a choice. Just my impression.

You really did have 60-70 that you were solid on, you just don't remember them. Like you literally don't remember answering the question because it only took you 15 seconds to read the fact pattern and 5 seconds to know the answer before you even looked for it in the answer selections available.

This is wrong. I mark all my questions and did pretty well on all of the practice tests and I had about a third as many gimmie questions in the AM, and half as many in the PM, when compared with the NCBE OPE sets 1-4. On all four sets I had between 30-40 marked down as sure and I had 9 and 14 on AM and PM respectively.

Most of the questions I felt were very similar to what was on the OPE, but when you take out 20 gimmie questions and replace them with stuff no one has seen before, it makes a world of difference in terms of difficulty.

[LAW813FL]

To be fair, I went back and looked at my Kaplan answer sheets for midterm and final. I did this thing where I would circle when I was between two or didn't know the answer. On my answer sheets, I did it on like almost every question lol and I got 121 midterm and 127 final so who knows.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I'm not sure what to think of the MBE. There were some questions that were just gimmes that were easier than Barbri (what is the duty owed for negligence? person does an intentional act and doesn't contact person, is this battery? is this NIED?). Other questions were super hard and I had no idea. For instance, the difference between the mortgage and the note I basically just guessed what would seem to make sense. Also, Civ. Pro. appeals questions. There were a lot of mortgage questions but these were often actually contracts questions (A and B agree on terms for sale of house; the neighborhood suddenly improves, can B back out because of changed conditions?). Overall I thought the AM was easier than the PM, and I would say there were 30-40% of questions I was 100% sure of, maybe 20% where I was pretty sure, and the rest I was either choosing between two answers or was making an educated guess. I would be freaked out except I felt good on the local essay day so I think I will probably be okay even if the MBE is a bloodbath.

[gmail]

I'm so mad I want to pull a chair out front under someone and commit, what I hope, is a battery.

[trustmouse83]

AM was very hard. There were only a couple that I was confident that I was choosing the correct answer. PM started off a lot easier but seemed to get hard very quickly (but that could be attributed to fatigue). Overall, I felt like I was guessing on 90% of them. I usually had a lot of extra time in my practice sets, but came down to the wire for the AM and made it out just before the 15 minute mark in the PM. A LOT of people were leaving early for both the AM and PM, so I'm glad to see others here were also like WTF MBE, because I thought maybe it was just me that was struggling.

I had a bunch of D answers in a row in the AM and after rereading the questions/answers two more times, I stuck with my answer choices and came to the conclusion that they were trying to mess with my head

The first 50 Qs in the AM were a nightmare for me. PM absolutely easier, but still very difficult.

Definitely didn't help that the dude on my right finished both sessions in 1:45. Super genius or insta-fail.

I finished the 4 simulated exams in 2hours 2, 2 hours 10, and 2 in 2 hours 20.

I finished the real thing yesterday both at 2hrs 40.

I got out of dodge before I started going back over the thing.

[LAW813FL]

I'm so mad I want to pull a chair out front under someone and commit, what I hope, is a battery.

It is!

[SpeshulSnoflake]

I'm so mad I want to pull a chair out front under someone and commit, what I hope, is a battery.

I feel the same and hope the same.