Barbri vs actual MPRE Forum

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blong4133

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Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by blong4133 » Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:50 pm

Just curious what others have found when taking the MPRE after studying from the Barbri book.

I didn't study as hard as I probably should have, because I just couldn't really motivate myself to study for it. (not because I thought it'd be easy, but I got back from the beach a week ago and I've been working 2 jobs all summer and I'm just worn out) I plan to practice in WV so I need a 75 to pass. I took 3 full practice tests, and got scores in that would have put me in the mid to upper 90's...maybe even over 100. The second and third one, I was right at 85. I sat down to take the third one last night before going to bed, and I stopped at question 35 and had missed 7 questions, so I said hell with it and went to bed.

But I actually thought the test was pretty difficult. I felt like I could usually narrow it down to two answers, and (in accordance with my strategy before the test) I went with the most narrowly worded answer choice.

Also, I was so worried about the time requirement, I was flying through the test and finished with about 20 minutes left (I'm guessing because we didn't have a clock in the room). So I just went and turned it in because when I go back through stuff, I have a tendency to second guess myself and start changing right answers and stuff like that.

But to make it simple, if I'm scoring 85's and a couple in the 90's, are these indicative of your actual performance on the real thing? I know that there's a lot of variables that go into taking a practice test vs. the real thing...but I am a little worried and I definitely don't want to take it again.

bdepeyster

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by bdepeyster » Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:35 pm

FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....

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Rocío

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by Rocío » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:16 pm

bdepeyster wrote:FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....
For the MPRE? Are there even that many practice tests available? Wow I am just sorry if you actually did that to yourself for no reason. :lol:

bdepeyster

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by bdepeyster » Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:24 pm

Rocío wrote:
bdepeyster wrote:FWIW, I though the test today was a lot harder than the Barbri questions. I did the chemerinsky lecture, all 180 practice tests, and went through the outline and I do not feel great.

Many of my friends feel the same way....
For the MPRE? Are there even that many practice tests available? Wow I am just sorry if you actually did that to yourself for no reason. :lol:

--------------------




Yikes typo 180 questions.

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Yvonnella

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by Yvonnella » Sat Aug 11, 2012 2:21 am

I started with the Kaplan book and thought, if the MPRE is this easy, passing will be a snap. Then I went through the Barbri book, and it was noticeably harder than Kaplan. I thought, if the real MPRE questions look like the questions in Barbri, passing at all will be a blessing. And of course, the MPRE looked exactly like Barbri and nothing like Kaplan. Studying the Barbri book is why I passed by a comfortable, though not necessarily great, margin. But I may not have made it if all I had studied was Kaplan.

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kalvano

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by kalvano » Sat Aug 11, 2012 2:25 pm

I thought the BarBri questions were pretty dead on to what the actual questions were like.

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alphasteve

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by alphasteve » Sat Aug 11, 2012 4:17 pm

f7u12 wrote:I thought the actual questions were slightly easier than Barbri's, or maybe just slightly less annoying. With Barbri there were a lot of questions where I had it down to two answers and had to guess; that only happened on the MPRE where I didn't really know the rule.
Nerd.

risingamerican_2l

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by risingamerican_2l » Sat Aug 11, 2012 4:45 pm

I think Barbri was a little easier than the actual MPRE. Granted, I probably spent more time getting my photo done at Rite-Aid for the MPRE admissions ticket than I did studying. I did get through about 20 questions on Barbri, and got 15/20 right. I guessed on over half the questions on the actual MPRE, though, so I am nervous right now.

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thesealocust

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by thesealocust » Sat Aug 11, 2012 7:36 pm

I begrudgingly did the BarBRI questions and found them similar to the actual MPRE.

For the mot part, reading the model rules + CJC and understanding them seemed like adequate preparation. I'm sure I missed some questions and overall it was often fairly challenging, but HARD jurisdictions require you to get just over half of the questions right, and most 'hard' questions I had narrowed down to 2 choices, as I imagine most people who even attempted studying did. Statistics is on our side is all I'm saying.

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Big Shrimpin

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by Big Shrimpin » Sat Aug 11, 2012 8:08 pm

Watched the vid + did 2 practice tests. I'm not that smart. Got a 130ish. ROFLCOPTER at this dumb exam.

thesmiley

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by thesmiley » Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:53 pm

Update 2017 - Barbri questions are still very similar to MPRE, but are more difficult and take longer to read on average compared with the test. I scored around 85% on Barbri, but feel as though I did better on the MPRE today. General rule: if you do (and pass) the Barbri practice exams, then you are guaranteed to pass the MPRE.

thesmiley

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Re: Barbri vs actual MPRE

Post by thesmiley » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:33 pm

Update 2017 - after scoring 80-85% on Barbri PEs, I ended up with a score of 142 (~99.8 percentile)!
So I think Barbri is clearly a good indicator of how well you'll do on the actual exam.

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