Definitely Failed the MPT and Essays Forum

[LittleE]

That second MPT was INSANE. No one I talked to afterwords felt like they completed the question. I got through factor 4 and was like, shit, I have 10 minutes left. I vomitted the remaining 5 factors and the second part out. Totally incomplete. I definitely do not feel good about it. But everyone else took the same test. You will get points for the things you wrote down. Trust in the curve.

Damn same here. Spent too much time on the first MPT and got all the factors down for the 2nd one but did a poor ass analysis and omitted the 2nd part of the question. My essay prep tutor said that as long as you follow the instruction on the MPT, they start you off at a 2 (6 pt max and 3.5 to pass) so it could only go up from there. So I just follow the instructions and did my headings on the 2nd part of 2nd one despite not finishing.

[BVest]

Thanks for the support everyone. I think the worst part might have been sobbing in the middle of the convention center during the break. To quote my friend, "You basically lost everyone's respect." Great.

Even if it were possible to lose respect by sobbing about the bar, no one noticed. Okay, maybe a couple people who don't know who the fuck you are and your dickhead friend. But everyone else was too focused on their own shit/anxiety.

[L_William_W]

If you take the MBE tomorrow, you may still fail. But if you don't take the MBE, you'll definitely fail. TAKE THE MBE.

Though the possibility of failing really sucks, it will be important for you to have a MBE baseline going forward.

This is so true. I took the bar 4 times- twice in NY and twice in NJ. During my first two NY attempts (February and July 2014), I got hammered. I didn't even come close to passing. I took NJ in February 2015. During MBE day, I was totally clueless. I think I got every contracts, property, and civ pro question wrong. After that calamity, I didn't even feel like going back for day 2 (essays). I reluctantly went back and went through the motions.

In NJ, the essays and MBE are 50% each. You need an average of 133 to pass. In February, I received a 126 (123.2 MBE, 127.8 essay). Although I didn't pass, I was motivated since I came closer to passing than I thought. That was despite the fact that in 6 out of the 7 essays (torts being the exception), I basically wrote gibberish. I figured that if I could crush the essays then I would pass, even with a mediocre MBE. I also knew that I needed to increase my MBE by 5-10 points to give myself a fighting chance.

After ditching Adaptibar and Barbri's made up MBE's and using the Kaplan red book, my MBE increased by 7 points. And after outlining every NJ essay since the year 2000, my essays also improved (the score wasn't listed, but it's obviously 136 or higher).

Even if you fail, at least you'll know your weak areas so you can improve on those the next time you take it.

[sanjola]

To quote my friend, "You basically lost everyone's respect." Great.

I would re-evaluate that friendship.

[afarmerfromiowa]

That second MPT was INSANE. No one I talked to afterwords felt like they completed the question. I got through factor 4 and was like, shit, I have 10 minutes left. I vomitted the remaining 5 factors and the second part out. Totally incomplete. I definitely do not feel good about it. But everyone else took the same test. You will get points for the things you wrote down. Trust in the curve.

Same here.

This may or may not be good advice, depending on the tendencies of the graders, but in the event any of you retake and are again confronted with an MPT with a million factors, I would strongly suggest focusing on the ones that are most important to the problem. Keep in mind that it's not really a multi-factor test in the sense that each factor must be analyzed; rather, the reg said that these were just nonexclusive factors that bore on the issue. Also keep in mind that you're trying to flip a decision of the agency; you want to focus on (a) what helps the decision get flipped and (b) what the agency relied on. I talked about the ones that helped us and the ones that hurt us/the ones the tax department relied on its decision and flatly ignored the ones that were neutral. I've read probably hundreds of opinions and briefs in my lifetime addressing 6+ factor tests (clerked before I took the bar), and minimal to no discussion of factors that are insignificant in a particular case is very common. You'll probably get a better score if you have good analysis of the key factors than if you say something terse about each factor.