Free Bar Exam Resources — Questions, Study Guides, and More [Updated in 2022]

Free Bar Exam Resources: Updated 2022

If you are preparing to take the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), Michigan Bar Exam, or California Bar Exam, you probably are already aware that bar exam preparation can get very expensive. Although you may want to take advantage of all resources available to you to ensure that you are well prepared for the bar exam, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to spend more money. Believe it or not, there are a ton of completely free bar exam resources available online! Wondering how to find the free materials? Look no further! Below we have compiled our list of the best free bar exam resources (including questions, study guides, and more) to help you prepare for the bar exam without breaking the bank!

Free Bar Exam Resources: Updated 2022

1. JD Advising’s Bar Exam Resource Center

If you are taking the Uniform Bar Exam, California Bar Exam, Michigan Bar Exam, or Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), we encourage you to join hundreds of your peers and sign up for our new, completely free resource center! When you sign up, you will gain access to all of our best free bar exam resources in one convenient location (on our Canvas platform) including:

• Up-to-date information on the bar exam
• Topical attack outlines
• Tips for test-taking and study strategies
• An overview of highly tested topics, including frequency charts
• Our best multiple-choice, essay, and MPT tips in one place
• Resources for MBE questions, including a printable scantron
• Resources for free essay and performance test questions
• Links to guides, webinars, posts, and more

We send you announcements when we have NEW posts, NEW materials, NEW webinars, and more! So, you can have great free supplemental resources all in one place!

This resource has been spreading fast by word of mouth! We highly recommend you sign up!

Check out the JD Advising Bar Exam Resource Center for free here!

2. Free Bar Exam Questions

The bar exam is hard, and while having the rules and concepts memorized is important, that alone will not get you a passing score. On the day of the bar exam, you won’t be reading outlines or writing out rule statements—you’ll be taking a test in a specific format, which includes multiple-choice and written portions. It is critical to be prepared for the actual test questions, and the best way to do that is to practice (early and often!). Luckily, there are many free bar exam resources that have practice questions and answers for each part of the exam that you can use to supplement your other study materials. We’ve listed a few below, with links to even more free bar exam resources for each!

 Multistate Bar Exam (MBE)

In case you didn’t already know, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), among other things, develops and produces the licensing tests used by most US jurisdictions for admission to the bar. This includes the MBE, MEE, and MPT. You can’t get much better than questions and answers directly from the source! The NCBE has 21 sample test questions similar to those you will see on the MBE. The sample questions can be (and should be) answered in less than 40 minutes, and then you can self-grade using the answer key provided.

Access the NCBE’s 21 sample questions along with answer sheet here. And, of course, you’ll want to practice much more than 21 questions, so be sure to check out our post on how to find additional free MBE practice questions as well!

Multistate Essay Exam (MEE)

Similar to the MBE, the NCBE releases past MEE questions with answers promulgated by the NCBE. This is one of the best free bar exam resources because it gives you a breakdown of exactly how the Examiners envision you answering the question as well as how much each portion of the question is worth (e.g., issue one is worth 20%, issue two is worth 50%, etc.). This gives you a better idea of where you get the most points when writing your MEE answers.

You can access the links to each of the past MEE questions made available by the NCBE as well as our full list of where to find past MEE questions for free here!

Multistate Performance Test (MPT)

The MPT is different from the MEE and MBE in that the MPT does not test substantive knowledge. Rather, the MPT is a lawyerly exercise that requires examinees to complete a task that is outlined in the memo. In order to complete the task, students must critically evaluate and analyze the information provided in the “file” and the “library.” Because no outside knowledge is necessary, the best way (and really the only way) to study for the MPT is by actually doing and reviewing past MPT questions.

The NCBE has released past MPT questions which you can access for free and that include summaries from the most recent bar administrations, as well as MPTs and point sheets from older administration.

In addition to the NCBE questions, check out our full list of where to past MPT questions for free here!

California Bar Exam Essays

The State Bar of California has made the essay questions as well as two sample student answers to each essay question from the past 14 administrations of the bar exam available on its website. Check out our full post on where you can find past California bar exam questions and answers for free here!

 3. JD Advising’s Bar Exam Guides

Another one of the best free bar exam resources is our bar exam guides! We put together free, topic-specific bar exam guides for the MBE, the MEE, and the California Bar Exam. These guides not only contain invaluable information but also wonderful images that illustrate the substantive law for those who are visual learners. And the guides are all recently updated to ensure that you are getting the latest, up-to-date information and tips!

Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) 

Don’t make the mistake of assuming the MBE will be easy just because it is multiple choice. Like the other portions of the exam, studying for the MBE requires a ton of time and effort, so you want to use your study time efficiently and effectively!

To help you out, our free MBE Guide walks you through how to study smart for the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE)! The founder of JD Advising, who scored a top score of a 180 on the MBE, wrote the MBE Guide to share what works! We regularly teach these strategies to countless students seeking to improve their MBE score.

The MBE guide covers topics such as:

• How the MBE is scored
• Highly tested MBE topics
• How to read and answer an MBE question
• MBE timing tips
• Unique ways to boost your MBE score
• A breakdown by MBE subject of topics, charts, and checklists

Check out JD Advising’s MBE Guide here!

 Multistate Essay Exam (MEE)

If you ever feel overwhelmed at the sheer amount of MEE material that you need to memorize (and be able to coherently regurgitate in a well-written and well-organized essay format), you are not alone! Many students waste time trying to learn every subject and every topic equally, and either get overwhelmed or they don’t focus on the topics that are likely to be tested.

Although you should not ignore any subject or topic, to maximize your MEE score, you’ll want to pay attention to the most highly tested areas of law in each subject. Our MEE Guide is one of the best free bar exam resources to do just that!

For each MEE subject, we lay out:

• How the subject is tested on the MEE, including how often it is tested and whether it generally is tested by itself or with another subject
• An overview of some of the highly tested topics
• Tips for approaching the highly tested topics to maximize your points
• Where you can find free essays and point sheets that cover the highly tested topics

Check out our MEE Highly Tested Topic Guide here!

 California Bar Exam

California is one of the few states that has not adopted the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), so if you are taking the California Bar Exam, you need to look at California-specific materials.

Our California Essay guide provides:

• An overview of what is tested on the California Bar Exam
• California Bar Exam essay tips
• Highly tested issues for each subject
• A frequency chart showing how often and when each subject was tested
• Subject-specific tips and tricks for all 14 essay subjects

Follow the link for immediate and free access to our California Bar Exam Guide!

4. Additional Resources

We also recommend checking out some less traditional free bar exam resources, such as blog posts, YouTube videos, and other bar exam-focused materials. Each of these resources includes helpful information that doesn’t come across in practice questions or other guides! Although there are a number of resources out there, some of our top free bar exam resources include the following:

JD Advising’s Blog 

We release blog posts (including this one!) multiple times a week to ensure that you always have access to the latest tips, tricks, and information. If you are looking for a specific topic, you can use the search function on the side of the page to search by key term, or for a broader search, you can filter the posts by category. Access the blog posts page here!

JD Advising’s MBE Question of the Day 

We have done a series of MBE Tip of the Day posts, and you can find all of the archived posts saved in one convenient location. The MBE Tip of the Day is exactly what it sounds like—a tip on how to address a specific topic or work on a specific skill, including:

• How to approach an MBE question using a sample torts question
• Learning through “wrong” answers using a sample criminal law question
• Memorizing the details using evidence as an example

And so on! This is one of the best free bar exam resources because each post hones in on one specific topic in a fairly short post, along with sample questions and answers to practice. You can even read just one post a day as the series intended—check out the MBE Question of the Day posts here!

JD Advising’s YouTube Channel

If you are someone who prefers videos over written materials, you may be thinking that these free bar exam resources won’t be as helpful to you. If so, you need to check our YouTube channel! You will find videos of various lengths addressing just about every possible bar exam-related topic for the Uniform Bar Exam, the Michigan Bar Exam, and the California Bar Exam, including:

• Bar exam subject frequency charts
• Highly tested topics
• How to pass the MBE
• How to memorize bar exam outlines
• Bar preparation time management tips
• How to study efficiently
• Tips for improving timing on the MEE
• Differences between law school and bar exam essays
• Examples of a high scoring student answer
• How the bar exam is graded

And so much more!

Now that you have access to all these free resources, it is time to start using them! And if you are unsure if you are preparing well enough, check out our guide on how to pass the bar exam the first time.

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