Five Essential MPRE Strategies

Five Essential MPRE Strategies

In this post, we cover five essential MPRE strategies to maximize your chances of passing the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). These strategies are time-tested and have helped many of our MPRE students pass the MPRE with flying colors. 

Five Essential MPRE Strategies

1. Focus on the law first!

While this may seem obvious, this tip is overlooked by a lot of MPRE takers! A lot of students simply answer a bunch of questions and hope that they are exposed to enough material that they pass the MPRE. But this approach is flawed for two reasons. First, even if you pick up on some nuances of the law here and there, you will not have a coheisve organized picture of it so it will be very difficult to remember what you learned. Second, it is inefficient and will be very frustrating as you will likely not see your score improve despite putting forth effort.

So, how do you learn the law? Here are a few ways:

• First, take Professional Responsibility (“Ethics”) prior to taking the MPRE. This will give you a good overview of the rules and cases on which the MPRE is based.
• Second, sign up for an MPRE course! Most courses come with lectures and outlines that explain the law.
• Third, make sure to focus on your MPRE outline. Don’t look at it once and forget about it. You should be going through it again and again until you have a decent overall picture of the law as well as the ability to recite many of the key elements.

Focusing on the law first is one of the most essential MPRE strategies because you will be maximizing your effort and time!

2. Use actual official MPRE questions!

Many students rely solely on course-invented questions when they study for the MPRE. Then they are surprised to find that the actual MPRE questions look nothing like the questions they had been practicing.

There is nothing better than REAL MPRE questions. When you studied for the LSAT, you used “actual official” LSAT questions (and probably found that the actual LSAT was pretty similar to those questions). When you study for the MPRE, you should do the same thing.

Most commercial courses do not use real MPRE questions. In fact, we don’t believe any of the major commercial courses (Barbri, Kaplan, Themis) have this as an option at all but feel free to correct us in the comments if we are wrong!

(Hint: if they don’t advertise that they use real questions, they probably don’t use them!) Here, we tell you where to find real MPRE questions.

3. Create a study plan that includes both memorization and practice questions.

Next, you want to make sure you have a good MPRE study plan in place. Some students spend five days studying for the MPRE. Some students spend five weeks studying. (Some spend five minutes, which we don’t recommend ;))  While many students just study for the MPRE at the last minute (since it has an undeserved reputation of being “easy”) you will save yourself time, stress, and MPRE registration fees, if you start studying a bit earlier!

Regardless of the amount of time you have, making sure you spend it well — e.g., on the material that is actually tested — will go a long way. Here, we have a free MPRE study schedule if you are wondering how to tackle each portion of the MPRE material.

4. Keep in mind key MPRE words and phrases that will help you maximize your points.

We find that some students answer MPRE questions incorrectly simply because they do not pay attention to what is being asked! We recommend you check out the key words and phrases on the MPRE here. You will learn to distinguish questions that ask, for example, if a lawyer is subject to discipline versus if a lawyer is subject to civil liability. That one minor difference can make a big difference in what the correct answer choice is! Keeping in mind these key words and phrases is critical to maximize your points on the MPRE!

5. Create your own “attack outline” as the MPRE nears.

Many of our students find it helpful to create their own “mini outline” or “attack outline” as the MPRE nears. Some only rewrite laws they still struggle with. Others make an outline of all the material and include the highly tested rules. We do have an MPRE cheat sheet of our own. But many students find it most helpful if they make their own.

We hope these MPRE strategies helped you — good luck studying!

• Looking to Ace the MPRE?

  • Enroll in our 5-star rated free MPRE Course, complete with expert guidance, an exclusive outline, practice questions, and a one-sheet.
  • Tackle the Real MPRE questions — the gold standard for test preparation.
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