How do I study for the MPRE?

How do I study for the MPRE?

Before we talk about exactly how to study for the MPRE, let’s talk about how not to study! We find a lot of law students have bad MPRE study habits. So, first, a few tips on what not to do:

Do not just take your Professional Responsibility (or Ethics) class at your law school and assume you are good to go. Some Professional Responsibility professors will teach state-specific rules (whereas the MPRE tests the ABA Model Rules). Further, your law school class may not have prepared you for a sixty-question multiple-choice exam. You will want to make sure you put in additional hours to study for the MPRE!

Do not wait until the day (or couple days) before to study! We know it happens. And we know it is possible to pass. But this is not a recommended approach! The MPRE has a reputation for being “easy” but it is not a deserved reputation! Put in the time so you maximize your chances of only having to take the MPRE once!

Do not only complete practice questions. Understanding the law and then committing it to memory are two important steps to take before diving into practice questions. Some students focus solely on MPRE practice questions and often feel frustrated when their score doesn’t improve after completing several exams. Quality is more important than quantity!

So now that we’ve talked about how not to study, let’s look at how to study for the MPRE!

How do I study for the MPRE?

1. Take Professional Responsibility in law school.

While a Professional Responsibility class may not be enough to prepare you for the MPRE by itself, it will certainly make studying for the MPRE easier. A Professional Responsibility class will likely give you exposure to many of the common highly-tested rules and explain the theory behind the rules (so they will be more memorable).

Even if your Professional Responsibility class does not cover the ABA Model Rules, you may find that many of your state rules are similar to the ABA Model Rules.  Thus, we recommend you take Professional Responsibility your 2L year!

2. Take an MPRE course.

It is important to take an MPRE course because an MPRE course will focus on the law that is tested on the MPRE (i.e., the ABA Model Rules). It will also provide you with lectures so that you understand the law, and free practice questions. So, even if you take Professional Responsibility, do yourself a favor and sign up for an MPRE course.

It is free after all!

All of the major commercial bar vendors offer an MPRE course, and we offer our own free MPRE course too! All commercial courses (including ours) come with a free MPRE outline, free instruction, and free practice questions.

You can even check out a few different commercial courses and see which one is the best fit for you. (As an added bonus — it will help you to determine if the course is a good fit for you for bar prep!)

3. Focus on memorizing the highly tested rules and then completing practice questions.

We recommend you focus on memorizing the highly tested rules of law before completing practice questions. As noted above, some students dive into practice questions and make their goal to do as many practice MPRE questions as possible. This often leads to frustration and anxiety. You will not improve your score on an MPRE practice exam if you do not know the rules! So focus on learning the MPRE rules first before completing practice questions. You will find that you improve your score much faster if you approach the MPRE this way.

4. Use real MPRE questions to boost your chances of passing the MPRE.

Real MPRE questions will prepare you the best for the real MPRE. “Real” MPRE questions are those promulgated by teh National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), which is the organization that administers the MPRE.

All commercial courses (Barbri, Kaplan, Themis, JD Advising) provide invented MPRE questions. That is, the course themselves invented the questions. Invented questions are not as good as real MPRE questions.

We offer invented MPRE questions because we want to keep our course free to everyone. (The NCBE requires that we pay a licensing fee if we distribute released questions.) With that said, you can still purchase released MPRE questions apart from your commercial course. And we recommend you do that! We give you an overview of where to find real MPRE questions here.

You will likely notice a difference in quality and in difficulty between “real” and “course-invented” MPRE questions. The real MPRE questions are most reflective of what you will see on test day. So the real MPRE questions are the most important questions to practice with!

Hopefully, this post gives you a good outline of how to study for the MPRE! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or post below!  If you are looking for a five-star MPRE course, sign up for our MPRE course here!

• Looking to Ace the MPRE?

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