MBE Scores & Tips Forum

[squiggle]

Last July, someone on TLS graciously collected practice and real MBE scores from other posters, and then created this very helpful google doc excel. It's a great tool to help guess what your real MBE score might be based on your practice MBE scores

Here's the google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Here's the original thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 9&start=50

Anyone have any MBE tips?

Something I would suggest is trying not to get psyched out or distracted by what others might be doing. Some will got at a faster pace than you, others may have a weird system for put answers into their scantron, your neighbor may go to the bathroom three times... Moral of the story: you do you at the MBE.

If you're generally finishing with time left, consider going back and reviewing some of your answers. I keep a running list on the front inside cover of my booklet of which questions I may want to review at the end. I do this for the difficult questions that I may need more time on, but only if I end up with extra time. I'd recommend only changing your answer if you can work through why another answer is better.

[whitecollar23]

Last July, someone on TLS graciously collected practice and real MBE scores from other posters, and then created this very helpful google doc excel. It's a great tool to help guess what your real MBE score might be based on your practice MBE scores

Here's the google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Here's the original thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 9&start=50

Anyone have any MBE tips?

Something I would suggest is trying not to get psyched out or distracted by what others might be doing. Some will got at a faster pace than you, others may have a weird system for put answers into their scantron, your neighbor may go to the bathroom three times... Moral of the story: you do you at the MBE.

If you're generally finishing with time left, consider going back and reviewing some of your answers. I keep a running list on the front inside cover of my booklet of which questions I may want to review at the end. I do this for the difficult questions that I may need more time on, but only if I end up with extra time. I'd recommend only changing your answer if you can work through why another answer is better.

I'd even consider making sure you bubbled the right answers on your scantron. I'd check to make sure you're in the right place periodically and at the end if you have time, to check over parts where you moved quickly to see if you reversed answers bubbles in any spots.

[LionelHutzJD]

That's a nice spreadsheet, thank you for posting.

My MBE advice is to slow down and read the facts carefully.

[Mr. Archer]

I would second not focusing on what others are doing during the exam. There will be multiple versions of the MBE on test day that switch the order of questions and contain different sample questions than other versions. This ultimately affects pace and when people take breaks. Just do what is best for you to succeed.

[squiggle]

Difficult questions can often be grouped together on the MBE. Knowing that, do whatever it takes to persevere through a difficult batch without losing your confidence or totally second guessing your abilities.

[omar1]

I scored 90 on the Barbri full MBE and ended up with 148 on the real thing. So my first advice would be not to think about your practice scores at all.

Second advice, which is something that worked really well for me personally. When I was doing practice questions, the 100 q. sets, I would get soooo angry/frustrated when I was getting to question 50, thinking that "f*#k, I still have 50 questions of this shit" LOL. So on the real thing, I started on question 50, did 50-65, and then went back to question 1. So by the time I got to question 50, I had 65 questions done, only 35 to go. IDK it just felt really good psychologically haha

[squiggle]

I agree with the poster above that much of the MBE is mental. As an experiment, I did my last practice exam subject by subject. I started by going through and labeling the topic of each question (based on the call of the question and answer choices). It took me about 5 minutes to label 50 questions, but I've never had an issue with time. I also think it saved me time in the long wrong, which I have discussed below.

Then I did the questions from the same topic together (all the con law questions, all the contracts questions, all the torts questions, etc). I was able to get into the mindset of that topic, and I think it made a difference on my score. I also didn't have to spend the first few seconds both figuring out what subject the question was about and/or switching my brain to think about that topic. I think this saved me time overall honestly. Additionally, I didn't have that daunting feeling that the above poster talked about where I would think, "I seriously have 70 questions left."

I would definitely recommend this approach if you're frustrated by jumping around to different topics, but only do it if you're comfortable with timing (because it's harder to tell if your pacing is correct). I would NOT suggest doing this on the real MBE if you haven't tried it first on a practice test, even just a mixed set. Let me know if anyone has questions.

[teabreeze]

I scored 90 on the Barbri full MBE and ended up with 148 on the real thing. So my first advice would be not to think about your practice scores at all.

Second advice, which is something that worked really well for me personally. When I was doing practice questions, the 100 q. sets, I would get soooo angry/frustrated when I was getting to question 50, thinking that "f*#k, I still have 50 questions of this shit" LOL. So on the real thing, I started on question 50, did 50-65, and then went back to question 1. So by the time I got to question 50, I had 65 questions done, only 35 to go. IDK it just felt really good psychologically haha

Oh interesting! This method never crossed my mind, but I think it's a good method for me too. I'm not the type who can sit through 100 questions and be fully motivated from beginning to end. It's not like the questions are in order of difficulty so there's no reason to go chronologically from 1-100.

Thanks!!

[squiggle]

I scored 90 on the Barbri full MBE and ended up with 148 on the real thing. So my first advice would be not to think about your practice scores at all.

Second advice, which is something that worked really well for me personally. When I was doing practice questions, the 100 q. sets, I would get soooo angry/frustrated when I was getting to question 50, thinking that "f*#k, I still have 50 questions of this shit" LOL. So on the real thing, I started on question 50, did 50-65, and then went back to question 1. So by the time I got to question 50, I had 65 questions done, only 35 to go. IDK it just felt really good psychologically haha

Oh interesting! This method never crossed my mind, but I think it's a good method for me too. I'm not the type who can sit through 100 questions and be fully motivated from beginning to end. It's not like the questions are in order of difficulty so there's no reason to go chronologically from 1-100.

Thanks!!

I think they might even put the longer questions at the end to mess with people who are running out of time. So you'd actually may be doing the longer questions first, and I think it's great to get them out of the way.

[ChocolateTruffle]

I scored 90 on the Barbri full MBE and ended up with 148 on the real thing. So my first advice would be not to think about your practice scores at all.

Second advice, which is something that worked really well for me personally. When I was doing practice questions, the 100 q. sets, I would get soooo angry/frustrated when I was getting to question 50, thinking that "f*#k, I still have 50 questions of this shit" LOL. So on the real thing, I started on question 50, did 50-65, and then went back to question 1. So by the time I got to question 50, I had 65 questions done, only 35 to go. IDK it just felt really good psychologically haha

Oh interesting! This method never crossed my mind, but I think it's a good method for me too. I'm not the type who can sit through 100 questions and be fully motivated from beginning to end. It's not like the questions are in order of difficulty so there's no reason to go chronologically from 1-100.

Thanks!!

I think they might even put the longer questions at the end to mess with people who are running out of time. So you'd actually may be doing the longer questions first, and I think it's great to get them out of the way.

If that's true, I think I'll do it this way, too!

[L_William_W]

I don't recommend this strategy unless 1) You're a good writer or 2) You're VERY desperate

I figured that there are some subjects that I'm A LOT better at than others. I'm very confident in torts and crim. I find evidence and con law challenging but doable. I totally suck ass in property, civ pro, and contracts. My strategy was to try to get 75-80% questions in the big 4 correct and guess the rest of the questions. I figured that if I got 60% of the questions overall correct then that roughly be a 130 MBE. That's a mediocre score, but I took the bar in New Jersey where the essays and MBE's are worth 50% each. Furthermore, the essay graders in Jersey are pretty liberal (unlike NY where you lose points for bad grammar). My final MBE was a 130.2. The overall passing score in Jersey is 133, meaning that I scored at least 136 on the essays.

Torts - I simply did a lot of questions. The negligence questions were straightforward. I initially had problems with strict product liability, but once I did a lot of them, I noticed patterns in the correct answers. The only section which was a tad confusing was the intentional torts (trespass to chattel, conversion of chattel). Nevertheless, I'm confident that I got at least 70-75% of the torts questions correct on the actual exam

crim- this is also fairly straightforward, though there are a handful of tricky questions (particularly the self-defense fact patterns since they're sometimes ambiguous). Still, if you're familiar with the warrant exceptions then this is another doable section.

con law- when I took the bar the first three times, I found this section to be difficult. On attempt #4, however, I used the infamous red Kaplan book and did as many problems as possible. I eventually noticed patterns in both the correct answers and the appealing but incorrect answers.

evidence- the rules are very tricky, but if you know them by heart (particularly the hearsay exceptions) then you can get 65% or more of them correct

As for property, contracts, and civ pro, I think I got about 1/3 of the questions correct in these sections. The hardest section was property. There isn't enough time to do all of the questions on the exam so guessing and moving on in these sections actually worked to my advantage since it gave me more time to do the questions in the subjects that I'm better at.

[squiggle]

I don't recommend this strategy unless 1) You're a good writer or 2) You're VERY desperate

I figured that there are some subjects that I'm A LOT better at than others. I'm very confident in torts and crim. I find evidence and con law challenging but doable. I totally suck ass in property, civ pro, and contracts. My strategy was to try to get 75-80% questions in the big 4 correct and guess the rest of the questions. I figured that if I got 60% of the questions overall correct then that roughly be a 130 MBE. That's a mediocre score, but I took the bar in New Jersey where the essays and MBE's are worth 50% each. Furthermore, the essay graders in Jersey are pretty liberal (unlike NY where you lose points for bad grammar). My final MBE was a 130.2. The overall passing score in Jersey is 133, meaning that I scored at least 136 on the essays.

Torts - I simply did a lot of questions. The negligence questions were straightforward. I initially had problems with strict product liability, but once I did a lot of them, I noticed patterns in the correct answers. The only section which was a tad confusing was the intentional torts (trespass to chattel, conversion of chattel). Nevertheless, I'm confident that I got at least 70-75% of the torts questions correct on the actual exam

crim- this is also fairly straightforward, though there are a handful of tricky questions (particularly the self-defense fact patterns since they're sometimes ambiguous). Still, if you're familiar with the warrant exceptions then this is another doable section.

con law- when I took the bar the first three times, I found this section to be difficult. On attempt #4, however, I used the infamous red Kaplan book and did as many problems as possible. I eventually noticed patterns in both the correct answers and the appealing but incorrect answers.

evidence- the rules are very tricky, but if you know them by heart (particularly the hearsay exceptions) then you can get 65% or more of them correct

As for property, contracts, and civ pro, I think I got about 1/3 of the questions correct in these sections. The hardest section was property. There isn't enough time to do all of the questions on the exam so guessing and moving on in these sections actually worked to my advantage since it gave me more time to do the questions in the subjects that I'm better at.

Which strategy are you referring to? A few have been mentioned in this thread. Why don't you agree? How does a person's writing ability related to how he or she approaches the MBE questions? Maybe I'm missing something.

[L_William_W]

I should've been more clear. My strategy would only be effective in scoring in the upper-120's or low-130's. Assuming you get that score, your essays would have to be solid in order to pass. However, if you scored over 140 on the MBE then you could write shitty essays and still pass.

[LionelHutzJD]

I should've been more clear. My strategy would only be effective in scoring in the upper-120's or low-130's. Assuming you get that score, your essays would have to be solid in order to pass. However, if you scored over 140 on the MBE then you could write shitty essays and still pass.

Yikes. Definitely don't recommend going this route.

[0lol]

i mean the strong mbe = auto pass thread

is great and all

but really doesnt apply to most states (<41%mbe)

& certaintly doesnt apply to 140s scores

[whitecollar23]

NY graders are sticklers? Read that above. What? Who? When? Where? Why?

[squiggle]

Remember, 10 of the MBE questions are experimental and won't count towards your score. If you get a totally off the wall question, it may be one of your 10.

[whitecollar23]

Remember, 10 of the MBE questions are experimental and won't count towards your score. If you get a totally off the wall question, it may be one of your 10.

Also remember, each question is only 0.25% of your grade. So it's okay to get one or two wrong. Maybe even three.