What Is The Format Of The UBE?

What Is The Format Of The UBE?: Are you sitting for the Uniform Bar Exam (“UBE”) for the first time and wondering what to expect? In this post, we discuss the format of the UBE and dive into what to expect for each section.

What Is The Format Of The UBE?

The Uniform Bar exam is a two-day exam that consists of three parts. (Note: some jurisdictions have a state-specific component that is not discussed herein. Please check the requirements of the jurisdiction in which you are trying to become licensed to see if there are jurisdiction-specific requirements!) The three parts of the Uniform Bar Exam are the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT). We discuss each of these sections in detail below.

The Uniform Bar Exam is offered on the last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and July. The written portion (MEE and MPT) occurs on Tuesday and the multiple-choice portion (MBE) occurs on Wednesday.

Multistate Essay Exam

The first section of the UBE that you will encounter is the Multistate Essay Exam or MEE. The MEE consists of 6 essays. You have 30 minutes for each essay. You will write these 6 essays in a 3-hour time block in the morning session of the first day of the bar exam.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners has identified the following subjects as eligible for testing on the MEE:

Business Associations (Agency, Partnership, Corporations, and LLCs)
Civil Procedure
Conflict of Laws
Constitutional Law
Contracts
Criminal Law and Procedure
Evidence
Family Law
Real Property
Torts
Trusts and Estates
Uniform Commercial Code (Secured Transactions)

Some subjects, such as Civil Procedure, are tested more frequently for others. Be sure to check out the UBE Essay Frequency Chart here for a breakdown of which subjects are tested most often.

Also, be aware that sometimes one essay tests multiple subjects. For instance, when Conflict of Laws is tested, it is generally tested in the same essay as Family Law or Decedent’s Estates. You may also see an Evidence question appear within an essay testing a different subject, such as Criminal Procedure.

Multistate Performance Test

The next portion of the UBE that you will encounter is the Multistate Performance Test or MPT. You have 2 MPT tasks and 90 minutes to complete each one. These 2 tasks will be completed in a 3-hour time block in the afternoon session of day 1 of the UBE.

Each MPT will ask you to complete a “lawyerly task” that does not require outside knowledge. For example, you might have to write an objective memo to a supervising attorney, a letter to a client, a persuasive memorandum or brief, or some other practical document. The File and a Library are both available to you. Within the File is a task memo that tells you what you need to do. The File also contains factual documents that provide you with all the information you will need about the assignment. The Library contains all the case law and statutes you need to complete the assignment.

There are five primary MPT tasks that you could see:

An objective memo
A persuasive brief
An opinion letter
A demand letter
Wildcard

Some of the “wildcard” tasks include drafting a closing argument, drafting articles of association, and drafting an Early Dispute Resolution statement. We summarize the frequency of each of the above types of tasks in our MPT Frequency Chart.

Be sure to also check out our MPT attack outlines so you know how to tackle each type of task you may see on the exam!

Multistate Bar Exam

The final portion of the UBE is the Multistate Bar Exam or MBE. This portion consists of 200 multiple-choice questions and occurs on the second day of the bar exam. You get 3 hours in the morning session to complete the first 100 questions and 3 hours in the afternoon session to complete the other 100 questions.

The MBE tests seven topics. It tests each one equally. The topics are:

Civil Procedure
Constitutional Law
Contracts & Sales
Criminal Law & Procedure
Evidence
Real Property
Torts

You will see 25 questions from each subject for a total of 175 scored questions. The remaining 25 questions are “test” questions that are not scored and can be from any of the above seven subjects. The “test” questions are nearly indistinguishable from the scored questions, so it is important to answer every question as if it is a scored question!

Although each subject is tested equally, the topics tested within each subject are not tested equally. For more information about the highly-tested MBE topics, be sure to review this post regarding the frequency of MBE topics!

Note that each jurisdiction sets its own scoring standards for the Uniform Bar Exam. Each jurisdiction sets its own passing score and the weight of each portion of the Uniform Bar Exam. Learn more about the passing UBE score in each jurisdiction.

Looking to Pass the Bar Exam?

Free or discounted resources
- A five-star UBE course (for as low as $1399.99!) that provides you with the best instruction, outlines, and questions. Preview our course for free here!
- Our new Free Bar Exam Resource Center, which includes our most popular free guides, posts, webinars, and more!
- Free popular bar exam guides (on the MBE, MEE, how to pass the bar exam, and what to do if you failed the bar exam) written by bar exam experts!
- A free Early Bar Prep Course for law students
- Free bar exam webinars taught by top bar exam experts
Other resources

Our most POPULAR and highly rated bar exam resources are:
- Our On Demand and Premium Bar Exam Courses
- Bar Exam Private Tutoring by bar exam experts
- MBE One-Sheets and MEE One-Sheets, CA One-Sheets—rated five stars! Our customers love these supplements!
- Real MBE questions—the best practice questions available!
- NEW! Mastery Classes for the MBE, MEE, and CA bar exams (these are effective and engaging classes to review the highly tested areas of law!)
We also have several additional MBE, MEE, and MPT products available.

What Is The Format Of The UBE?