What is actually tested on Civil Procedure MBE Questions?

What is actually tested on Civil Procedure MBE Questions?

Most of the course-invented Civil Procedure MBE questions are not very good. Many of the commercial course questions focus on jurisdiction and evade some of the issues that the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) likes to frequently test. The Emanuels questions are way too long and not even close to real Civil Procedure MBE questions. It is not “bad” to practice invented questions, but the best source of questions are the NCBE-released questions. These are invented by the organization that writes the bar exam. And they are closest to what you will see on test day! 

What is actually tested on Civil Procedure MBE Questions?

Note that there are only 40 NCBE-released Civil Procedure MBE questions available (and you can see where to find them here) and you can purchase the released ones here.

A lot of what is tested on the released MBE questions appears not covered in depth by some commercial courses. The NCBE seems to emphasize some topics that courses either skip over altogether or do not cover in detail. This includes:

• The Klaxon doctrine
• The nuances of how to object to jury instructions
• The effect of claim preclusion (which law applies)
• The two-dismissal rule
• Rule 11 intricacies
• The final judgment rule intricacies and exceptions

The subject matter outline released by the NCBE gives a breakdown of where questions come from – most of the questions cover jurisdiction and venue, pretrial procedures, and motions. Less questions relate to the law applied by federal courts, jury trials, verdicts and judgments, and appealability and review.

However, once you see how a nuance is tested, it is easy to get that nuance right again. For example, the NCBE seems to love to test the Klaxon doctrine. And more than one question related to jury instructions of the NCBE’s most recently released questions. These are “easy points” on the MBE if only you know the law! The problem that most students have is that their courses do not teach these highly tested nuances and their courses also do not provide MBE questions on them – so students miss out on seeing these issues altogether until they get to the real bar exam.

Again, some of these issues are not that “hard” but if you don’t know the law, you will not do well on the questions.

It is better to be exposed to the questions now – by going through every released question available. As mentioned above, there are only 40 released Civil Procedure MBE questions available (and you can see where to find them here) and you can purchase the released ones here.

If you are looking for a free overview on some of these tricky Civil Procedure questions, you can also download our free PDF/watch our youtube video here. And we have an MBE Favorites series available for purchase here! In this series, we discuss “favorite” issues to test from each area of law, including Civil Procedure.

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