MPRE Study Guide: What Do I Need to Know to Pass?

The obvious answer to this question is “the rules.” While that may be annoying to read, we encounter SO many students who never read the rules, in any way shape or form, prior to taking the MPRE. Thus, it is worth reminding you that the rules are the most important thing to know!

So, in short, for an MPRE study guide, you need to know the rules to pass. However, not all the rules are created equal. We firmly believe that if you are trying to maximize your time studying prior to the MPRE you should study smarter, not harder. To do this you should get an idea how they test these rules. Next, you should make sure that you review the rules and practice application. If you do these things, you are much more likely to pass the MPRE.

MPRE Study Guide: What Do I Need to Know to Pass?

1. Study Smarter Not Harder

First, to start off our MPRE study guide, there are twelve areas or topics that are testable on the MPRE. Each topic is not equally tested. For instance, conflicts of interest, the lawyer client relationship and litigation and other forms of advocacy can make up to 50% of your total exam. You should note that we said “can” make up to fifty percent of the exam. On the low end, those topics together will compromise at least 32% of your total exam. But they can make up to fifty percent.

Why should you care about this? Well, it makes sense to make sure that you master the highly tested areas—as that is likely the most effective way to ensure that you get a passing score. We recommend, for an MPRE study guide, that an examinee should review all testable topics. But in terms of prioritizing, we would start with the highly tested areas.

A handful of the other topics make up smaller portions of the exam, specifically around 2-8%. Those topics are: transactions and communications with other persons, different roles of a lawyer, safekeeping funds and other property, lawyer’s duties to the public and legal system and judicial conduct. If you are thinking that you may avoid reviewing these topics, we caution you against that approach. While each topic only compromises 2-8% of your total exam, if you take these five subtopics together, they can make up anywhere from 10-40% of your total exam. That is a lot of questions to gamble!

So, instead of gambling, we simply suggest reviewing all areas, just paying special attention to those highly tested areas. This will ensure that you are using your study time most effectively and maximizing your chances of passing the exam. If you are looking for an MPRE cheat sheet that tells you the percentage that each area is tested, check out this post. We also list the percentages below.

Below is a breakdown of the topics tested and their corresponding percentages:

Regulation of the Legal Profession (6-12%)
The Lawyer-Client Relations (10-16%)
Client Confidentiality (6-12%)
Conflicts of Interest (12-18%)
Competence, Legal Malpractice, and other Civil Liability (6-12%)
Litigation and Other Forms of Advocacy (10-16%)
Transactions and Communications with Other Persons (2-8%)
Different Roles of a Lawyer (2-8%)
Safekeeping funds and other property (2-8%)
Communications about Legal Services (4-10%)
Lawyer’s Duties to the Public and Legal System (2-8%)
Judicial Conduct (2-8%)

For more tips on how to pass the MPRE on the first try, check out our other blog post. If you are looking for five last minute MPRE tips click here.

2. Actually Take Time to Memorize the Rules!

It will be tempting to simply start answering practice MPRE questions, as that appears to be the most common (and unsuccessful) approach to prepare for this exam. But instead of falling in to the trap of being poorly prepared and risking not passing this exam, you should take time to not only read the rules (and to try to understand them) but also to actively review the rules. By actively reviewing the rules you are aiding in your memorization and making it more likely that you will not be tricked by tough MPRE questions.

Many students do not know how to actively review or run out of time to actively review and that is the reason they fail the MPRE. To ensure that you don’t fall into one of these pitfalls, be sure that you start preparing for this exam early—that way you have plenty of time to review. Secondly, active review requires you to simply find different ways to review the material. Try re-writing rules that you have a hard time memorizing. You could also make a chart or an attack outline. The key to active review is that you are doing more than passively reading your outline. Find a method that works for you and do it over and over again. Or, some students like implementing multiple methods to keep interested. We recommend you read this post on how to memorize your bar exam outlines. The exact same strategies will work for your MPRE outline!

If you want more tips on how to study for the MPRE click here.

3. Practice Released Questions.

As one of the last steps in our MPRE Study Guide, we suggest that you take time to practice applying the rules that you have spent time memorizing. After all, the MPRE is testing if you know the rules and can apply the rules. So, it only makes sense to carve out time in your study schedule to practice.

There are a lot of different resources to get practice questions, but our favorite comes from the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) website. The NCBE offers an MPRE exam for purchase that contains all released MPRE questions. This is the best study tool because you can gauge whether or not you are prepared to take the real exam. It is the best gauge because you are practicing with real questions (instead of made up ones). We usually recommend that students take this exam no later than three days prior to the MPRE. In our experience, most of our students who can pass this practice test go on to do extremely well on the actual MPRE.

If you are looking for more MPRE question resources click here.

4. Review and Quiz Yourself with our MPRE Cheat Sheet

Finally, the last step of our MPRE study guide is to utilize our MPRE Cheat Sheet. Our MPRE Cheat Sheet is a three-page PDF that covers the highly tested areas of the rules. The study guide not only is great for providing an overview of the rules but it is offers mnemonics to aid in your memorization for the exam.

As the last tip of our MPRE Study Guide, we suggest that you use the MPRE Cheat Sheet at the beginning or end of your studies. It has helped a lot of students gain “the big picture” of the rules before hopping into their more in-depth outline. It has also helped a lot of students as a last-minute resource to quiz themselves. However, you choose to use it, make sure that you are not substituting the cheat sheet for a complete outline.

Meagan Jabbori, a JD Advising bar exam tutor and course instructor, wrote this post. Meagan scored in the 96th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam. She has helped hundreds of students pass the bar exam and the MPRE. She also boasts above a 90% passage rate for privately tutored MPRE students!

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