What Subjects Are Tested on the MBE?
What Subjects Are Tested on the MBE?
The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is a staple of every bar exam in the United States. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) designs the questions to test basic elements of different subjects of law. In order to do well on your bar exam, you need to be well on the MBE. So, what subjects are tested on the MBE?
What Subjects Are Tested on the MBE?
The MBE covers seven subjects:
- Civil Procedure,
- Constitutional Law,
- Contracts & Sales,
- Criminal Law & Procedure,
- Evidence,
- Real Property and
- Torts.
How Does the MBE apportion test questions to subjects?
Each subject is apportioned 25 questions, for a total of 175 total scored questions.
The MBE, however, contains 200 questions. The NCBE puts 25 test questions into the MBE that are indistinguishable from real questions. So, you need to try equally on every question, since it will not be apparent if a question is a test one or not. Previously, the NCBE only included 10 test questions, but starting with the February 2017 bar exam, there have been 25. These 25 questions can be pulled from any subject.
What else should I know about how the MBE tests these seven subjects?
While the MBE covers each subject equally, it does not cover individual topics within each subject equally. So, for example, within Torts, you are much more likely to see a question on negligence than you are on liability. To get a high MBE score, you need to focus your attention most strongly on the areas most likely to appear within a topic. If you would like to see the breakdown of MBE topics by subject, see our MBE topic frequency chart!
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