Three Reasons Students Struggle With The MBE

Three Reasons Students Struggle With The MBE

With complex questions at almost every turn, the MBE can quickly become a nightmare…if you let it. While students can wiggle themselves out of a tricky essay question, the same strategy doesn’t apply to the MBE. Each MBE question includes only four answer choices, so there’s no opportunity to smooth talk your way around a question. On top of four possible answer choices, add in hundreds of questions, limited time, and circumstantial pressure. In this post, we present three reasons why students struggle with the MBE.

Three Reasons Students Struggle With The MBE

1. Black Letter Law Memorization

The first major reason students struggle with the MBE portion of the bar exam comes down to memorization. The MBE covers a lot of material in a limited amount of time, which means memorization is key. Memorization of black letter law allows students to quickly scan fact patterns for important pieces of information. It also leads to the quick elimination of incorrect answers and irrelevant facts. Lastly, memorization of black letter law allows students to form an answer before actually looking at the four choices. This is a great way to increase both confidence and comfort levels when dealing with the MBE.

Students who practice MBE questions without taking the time to memorize the law are only doing themselves a disservice. It’s great to practice as many high-quality MBE questions as possible but without the underlying law memorized, those practice questions will not be nearly as effective. Before starting to seriously practice MBE questions, make sure you understand and memorize the law. It’s a crucial step to ensure you select the correct answer!

2. Practice Makes Perfect

The second major reason students struggle with the MBE portion of the bar exam is a lack of practice. You’ve probably heard the more MBE questions you practice before the exam the better, and that’s largely true. Practicing using previously administered MBE questions is essential to defeating the MBE. The reasoning behind this lies primarily in getting familiar with pattern recognition, use of language, and commonly selected incorrect answers. How the examiners draft questions, incorporate facts, and provide answer choices is something that can be picked up through MBE practice. Moreover, practicing MBE questions allows you the opportunity to practice in a timed environment similar to what you would experience on the actual exam. Practicing MBE questions also allows you to view answer choice explanations, which is incredibly beneficial when learning from mistakes.

3. Tick Tock Goes The Clock

The third major reason students struggle with the MBE portion of the bar exam is due to timing. Perfectly answering every MBE question is pointless if you aren’t able to do so in the allotted time. For reference, there are 200 questions on the MBE. These questions are split up into chunks of 100. Students are given three hours to answer the first 100 questions and three hours to answer the second 100. That breaks down to 33 MBE questions every hour, which itself boils down to 9 MBE questions every 15 minutes. To finish the MBE on time, we recommend starting small by timing yourself on small batches of questions and working your way up. For example, start with 25 questions in a row, then move on to 50, and then to 75. Your goal is to be able to answer the questions on time and with accuracy, focus, and confidence.

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