5 Tips For Utilizing Practice Questions During Bar Prep

Practice questions are the single most important part of bar exam preparation.

Have you heard that practice questions are the most important thing that you can do to prepare for the bar exam? If not, allow me to be the first to tell you! Practice questions are the single most important part of bar exam preparation. Unfortunately, students often give them the least priority. And that’s a real shame because many of the students I counsel through retaking the bar exam disclose that they wish they had done more practice questions. It’s also not enough to merely complete practice questions. There are certain protocols that have to be in place because simply doing 3,000 multiple choice questions is not enough if you’re not doing and reviewing them properly. Use these five tips to properly utilize practice questions in your bar prep plan.

1. High Volume

The number one mistake most students make when it comes to practice questions and the bar exam is not doing enough of them. In order to become a fully competent bar exam test-taker you must do a lot of practice questions. I generally recommend that students preparing for the bar exam in a UBE jurisdiction do a minimum of 3,000 MBE questions, 30 MEE questions, and 5-7 MPTs. These numbers provide a good jumping off point but feel free to increase them in your weaker areas.

2. Closed Book

Next, do all your practice questions closed book. It’s not really helpful for you to know what you can do with the law in front of you because the bar exam is closed book. You’re not going to have access to outlines or flashcards during the exam, and by using these tools while you’re going through the practice questions, you will hurt your ability to determine whether you are making progress.  Some bar review companies encourage you start off by doing open book questions, but I strongly believe this is a mistake that will become a bad habit throughout bar prep. Instead, do all questions closed book from the beginning, even if it is difficult at first.

3. Timed Conditions

It is critically important that you do your practice questions under timed conditions. In the beginning, this can be a little discouraging and you might run out of time. However, the sooner you identify that time management is an issue the better because you’re not going to have extra time on the test. Therefore, by allowing yourself to take all the time in the world to get through and finish the practices questions, you’re not properly assessing your progress. For MBE questions, try and keep to seventeen questions in thirty minutes, thirty-three questions in one hour, and fifty questions in an hour and a half. If you’re taking the MEE questions in a UBE jurisdiction, give yourself thirty minutes per essay. For MPTs, set a timer for 90 minutes for each MPT.

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4. Review Carefully

While following tips 1-3 are critical to your success on the bar exam, they are all for nothing without tip 4: carefully reviewing all practice questions. Many students do engage in a review of their practice questions.  However, most of the time they’re merely looking to see if they got the law right. And yes, that is an extremely important part of why you’re reviewing. But another extremely important reason for you to review the questions thoroughly is to see if there are any skills-based or strategy issues you need to work on. For example, it is not enough to quickly check whether you discussed the correct law in an essay answer. You must also evaluate the quality and organization of your writing. When reviewing MBE questions, look for potential issues with reading comprehension. Determining what your skills based issues are and addressing them will catapult your progress forward faster than anything else.

5. Track the data

As you go through and conduct your careful review of the practice questions, make sure that you track the information you learn about yourself as a test-taker. This can easily be accomplished through the use of a spreadsheet. Important data points to keep track of are number of practice questions completed (overall and by subject), percentage correct (overall and by subject), and the reasons you have gotten questions wrong. You can then use this information to decide which areas you need to drill down and focus on.

Effectively using practice questions isn’t easy, but it is definitely worth it. I’m excited for you to implement these suggestions into your bar prep plan and to see the results of your hard work.

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Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.