Contracts, torts, Constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, evidence, and real property are among the six types of questions on the multistate bar examination, or MBE. All MBE questions have multiple-choice answers and are structured as short fact patterns. The MBE is a reading comprehension test in many ways. Test takers are required to read short passages, apply certain fundamental laws and legal principles to those facts, and then respond to a series of questions about their application.
Each MBE contains 200 questions. The exam is usually given over the course of one day, with the first hundred questions given in the morning and the second hundred given after a brief lunch break. Every student who takes the MBE on a specific date receives the exact same exam, complete with the exact same MBE questions. The MBE is only offered twice a year, on the last Wednesdays of February and July. These dates correspond to the bar examinations in most states in the United States.
The MBE questions are included in the vast majority of U.S. states’ required bar exams. In most jurisdictions, passing a bar exam is required before practicing law. The MBE is scored but also scaled, like most standardized tests. A student’s raw score is converted to a scaled score that reflects how all examinees performed on that specific exam, based on the number of correct answers. Different states have different requirements for what constitutes a passing score.
As part of their bar exam preparations, most students practice answering MBE questions. The test contains a lot of material that is based on general knowledge rather than specific knowledge. As a result, legal codes and rules learned in law school may be ineffective. The law that students are supposed to apply is provided in most MBE questions. The real test is how students handle the facts in the questions in light of that hypothetical law.
The MBE is not intended to assess a person’s legal knowledge. Its goal is to determine how competent a person is to practice law, which is a much softer, grayer assessment in many ways. The MBE questions, among other things, ask students to choose the best legal reasoning, identify the strongest arguments, analyze legal relationships, and choose positions in order to assess practice ability.
Although most examinees are familiar with the six subject areas of the MBE questions, the way the questions are framed requires a lot of practice. Of course, fundamental legal principles are critical, as is a thorough understanding of how the law works. More important is a grasp of how to look for what the question is actually asking, as well as a strategy for dissecting the given fact pattern for the best — not necessarily correct — answer.
MBE questions are all written members of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, or NCBE. The NCBE is in charge of the MBE’s administration and scoring. The NCBE publishes subject matter outlines for each of the six MBE question types prior to each exam. MBE study aids and practice questions are also available for purchase in each of the six subjects.