Is One Portion of the MBE Harder than the Other?

After the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), you will likely hear students complain that one portion was especially difficult. Some students will complain that the morning portion was very difficult. Other students will complain that the afternoon portion was really difficult.

You may personally feel as though one portion of the MBE was significantly harder than the other portion.

It is important to keep in mind a few things:

1. Your morning exam may be someone else’s afternoon exam.

First, to prevent cheating, the NCBE does not allegedly give each student the same exam. The exam portion that you took in the morning, someone else may have taken in the afternoon.

So this is why some students may say the morning was harder, while others are certain that the afternoon portion was more difficult.

2. The NCBE now integrates 25 “test” questions in the exam.

There are now 25 “test” questions that are unscored. We suspect that these 25 questions are all in one portion of the exam (e.g. the morning portion or the afternoon portion, rather than scattered among both). If true, this would be a very good reason why one portion seems harder. The exam portion that contained the 25 unscored test questions would certainly be more challenging than the exam portion that does not contain the unscored test questions. The 25 unscored questions are sometimes very unusual and stump students. (But the good news is, they will not affect your MBE score! They are unscored!)

3. You remember what you didn’t know.

It is also proven in psychology that you will remember what you found more difficult rather than what you found less difficult. So, if you see two easy criminal law questions then you spend a few minutes on a really tough real property question (or a tough unscored “test” question)– you will remember that tough question when the test is over but may not remember those two criminal law questions. So the 25 unscored test questions plus our own human psychology make one section of the exam seem harder than the other section.

So remember, it is normal for one portion of the MBE to seem harder than the other!

As a side note, if one portion of the exam does not seem more difficult, don’t worry about it! We are simply addressing a concern we hear from some of our students!

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Is One Portion of the MBE Harder than the Other?