Prioritizing MPT over Essays? Forum

[amk110]

Hello all:

Second-time taker here. Despite my best laid plans to allow myself adequate time to study all of the material covered on the upcoming February exam, I am once again finding myself in a time crunch, and will not be able to fully prepare for the MBE, essay, and MPT portions of the exam.

The first time through, I was working, and only able to accomplish about 1100 MBE questions. The first 600 or so from BARBRI's notoriously convoluted single subject sets, on which I averaged approximately 55% overall. The latter 500 from BARBRI's much more manageable mixed sets, on which I averaged 69% overall. I left myself a single day to both try to outline several essay subjects I hadn't studied at all, and to outline a few evidence and civil procedure essays. Zero MPT practice.

The result of this attempt was a near miss by 9 points, with a 140.4 scaled MBE score. I didn't ask for my results in time, so I don't know how my remaining points were divided between my essay and MPT scores.

==============================================================================================================================

This time around, for the February exam, my goal is to have done 1500 MBE questions. (1000 from BARBRI, and the Emmanuel MBE Strategies & Tactics book).

My schedule this time will leave me with approximately 4-5 days before the exam to prepare for the essay and MPT portions of the exam.

My question to the community is how best to spend these remaining 4-5 days. My jurisdiction has (6) essays, and (2) MPTs, both weighted equally at 25% of the grade. Of these 6 essays, it is generally safe to assume that at least 3 will be MBE subjects, and I feel pretty good about those from the MBE practice.

As to those remaining essay subjects, there are some that I have absolutely never studied. Not during law school, nor during the first time I prepared for the exam (as I correctly gambled that they would not show up on the essays...)

Including: Federal tax, administrative law, secured transactions, wills & trusts.

So, I believe I have two options for how to allocate my last few days of study:

(1) Attempt to outline and learn the basics of tax, administrative law, secured transactions, wills, trusts & estates and practice essays on these topics. Or at least on those most likely to appear on the exam; or

(2) Practice MPTs and hope to score well enough there to offset poor essay performance.


I'm no math wiz, but it seems to make more sense to focus on the MPT practice, as this is 25% of the overall grade, rather than to focus on the essay subjects I haven't studied, as this would at most be 12.5% (or less, if they don't appear) of the overall grade.

Is it generally easier to improve MPT scores with practice than it is to mine points out of the essays?

Any advice, as always, is appreciated.

[law732]

I'd get after those essays. A 140 is a solid MBE score, which means the essays must have been your downfall. I'm on the opposite side - 124 MBE and actually passed my states essay portion. Good luck!!