Top Four MEE Bar Exam Tips From 99th Percentile Scorer
Top Four MEE Bar Exam Tips — By Someone Who Scored in the 99th Percentile on the Written Portion of the UBE
If you are preparing to take the Uniform Bar Exam, then you should know that in most jurisdictions, the Multistate Essay Examination or MEE, is worth 30% of your total score. The MEE tests the MBE topics as well as some others like, secured transactions, decedents’ estates, trusts and future interests, family law, conflicts of law, corporations/LLCs, agency and partnership. If you are looking for some MEE bar exam tips keep reading for our top four!
Top Four MEE Bar Exam Tips — By Someone Who Scored in the 99th Percentile on the Written Portion of the UBE
1. Start practicing writing essays early.
We frequently encounter students who put off studying for the MEE because they felt like they are already good writers. So, instead of making sure that they practiced, they spent most of their time worrying about the MBE or other aspects of the exam. The problem with this approach is that the MEE graders don’t care if you are a good writer. The MEE is testing to see if you know the law and know how to apply it to the facts presented by the question. Thus, the tip to practice writing MEEs is our number one tip out of our MEE bar exam tips!
Also, when you practice your MEEs be sure that you are doing some timed. So, you should stop writing when the 30 minutes is up. You don’t want to get in the habit of using more time than you will really have on exam day. You should also make sure that you not only do timed practice each week (where you fully write out the essays), but you should also issue spot some MEEs too. This will give you greater exposure to how they ask questions and what the graders are expecting of you without having to spend 30 minutes on every single MEE that you look at. If you want information on where you can get practice MEE questions and answers click here.
2. Memorize the highly tested subjects and issues within those subjects.
When you are preparing for the bar exam there is so much information getting thrown at you in a short period of time. This is why one of the most important MEE bar exam tips is to study efficiently. You should make sure that you are covering all of the testable topics, meaning don’t skip anything. However, you should pay special attention to the subjects that are highly tested. But don’t stop there, you should also be sure that you are familiar with the highly tested topics within each of those subjects.
If you are looking for information on those highly tested subjects check out our frequency chart. If you are wondering how to figure out what those highly tested topics are within each subject you can do this by simply practicing past MEE questions. Or, if you are looking for someone to do some of the heavy lifting for you, check out our MEE one sheets. Each sheet contains the highly tested issues for each subject of the MEE.
As you work through the highly tested subjects and issues, be sure to pay attention to the areas of the law where there are multiple approaches. For these areas, if asked on your MEE, you will be expected to set forth the different approaches. Many students lose valuable points on the MEE when they fail to do this. This is why studying efficiently is one of our top MEE bar exam tips!
3. Be sure to self-grade your essays.
It is not enough to simply write out your essay and to read the answer to see if you were right or wrong. We repeat: it is not enough to simply write out your essay and to read the sample answer. If you are truly looking to pass the bar exam you should get in the habit of self-grading your MEEs. Out of all of the MEE bar exam tips, this one may be the easiest for you to incorporate into your schedule. Why? Well, if you aren’t already self-grading you are most definitely reading the answer. So, this tip just requires you to take it one step further. However, adding this one step will make a HUGE difference.
So, you may be wondering what it means to self-grade? When we say you should self-grade we want you to take your MEE response and compare it to the answer. Then, be sure that if you do something well that you note that. If you missed something—say you misstated the applicable rule, write in the correct rule statement. If your analysis of the facts was off in some way, be sure to note that and fix it in whatever way is necessary.
“Why do this?” you may ask. Well, self-grading is SO important because you are forcing yourself to fix your mistakes. By taking the time to think through what you did wrong and actually fix it, you are way more likely to remember what you did and therefore less likely to make the same mistakes in the future. After all, isn’t the whole purpose of practice to get better? If you don’t take the time to correct your mistakes you aren’t going to improve. If you want more information on how to self-grade check out this post.
4. Have a formulaic approach to answering MEEs.
On to the last tip of our MEE bar exam tips! While this tip is technically number 4, it is not any less important than the ones that come before it. One key to a high scoring MEE is to have a good approach. When we say good approach we mean: have a good structure, and make your essay easy to read and give points to.
In order to have a good structure you should make sure that you use headings. Headings help direct the grader to each part of the question that you are responding to and quickly communicate to the grader that you touched on everything relevant. Plus, headings help keep your answer organized and easy to read. If you answer is easy to read, it is more likely to get more points.
Then, under each heading, you should start with a rule statement. Then under the rule statement you should move onto the analysis of the issue. And then finally, be sure to conclude. If the issue posed has multiple approaches, be sure to include that under the heading as well. For more information on how to structure your MEE answers click here.
We hope that you find our MEE bar exam tips helpful. Be sure to check out our MEE services if you need extra help!
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