MBE Time Management: Develop an MBE Scantron Strategy

MBE time management is a struggle for many students. It is important to manage your time on the MBE for two reasons:

First, you want to make sure you answer each question on the MBE. (You are not penalized for incorrect answers!) Thus, every bubble should be filled in.
Second, you want to make sure you are able to answer the questions you are most likely to get right. This means that you do not want to just randomly fill in the last ten bubbles on your scantron sheet. If you have to “randomly fill in” a bubble on your scantron sheet, it is better if you probably wouldn’t have known the answer to that question anyway. In other words, you want to be strategic about which questions you guess on.

We have some great strategies on MBE timing tips here. In this post, we simply focus on developing MBE time management using an MBE scantron strategy.

MBE Time Management: Develop an MBE Scantron Strategy

There are a few MBE scantron strategies you can use:

MBE Scantron Strategy #1: Skip questions that test certain topics.

Some students skip questions they instantly know they will struggle with. For example, they skip:

Real Property MBE questions that test the rule against perpetuities, or present and future interests
“Really long” questions

If you go this route, we have a few recommendations:

We don’t recommend skipping too many questions unless you really struggle with a subject or really struggle with timing. For example, one student we know skipped every Real Property question. That is probably too many! (It may be better to get some bar exam private tutoring for Real Property before deciding to skip every Real Property question!)
Still fill in the bubble on your scantron sheet so that you don’t accidentally fill in the wrong bubble later.
Indicate on the question or your scantron sheet when you skipped a question. Then, come back to these questions if you have time. If you don’t have time, at least you skipped the ones you were least likely to get right anyway!

MBE Scantron Strategy #2: The Dot/Dash system.

On the bar exam, I used a “dot/dash” system. Here is how you use it:

Put a dot on your scantron sheet right next to any question you are not entirely sure about.
Put a dash on your scantron sheet by any questions you really do not know or simply skipped.

Then, when you are done going through all 100 MBE questions, go back and review the questions with dashes. If you have additional time, review the questions with dots.

That way, you still get to see all of the questions. And you have prioritized which questions you come back to. This MBE time management strategy is very helpful for that reason!

Looking for additional MBE help?

If you are looking for MBE help, read our 10 expert MBE tips here. Check out our step-by-step guide to improving your MBE score, please review this post for an overview of tips.

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MBE Time Management: Develop an MBE Scantron Strategy