How was the MBE today? (Feb. 2019) Forum

[not guilty]

What issues/sub-topics were a surprise or got hammered?

*Discussion on tested legal subjects/areas is fine. Talk on exact fact patterns or answer choices is not.

[JakeTappers]

Felt like it was absolutely terrible. Lots of removal/reman questions, particularly about cross claims third party claims or counterclaims. Mortgages. Idk.

[ovcovc]

What issues/sub-topics were a surprise or got hammered?

*Discussion on tested legal subjects/areas is fine. Talk on exact fact patterns or answer choices is not.

A lot of civpro on jurisdiction and summary judgements((

also, a lot of zoning ordinance-related questions, which sort of baffled me

also, i honestly do not remember what it actually was, but i had a few questions in am and pm that seemed exactly the same, for a while i started to wonder if it wasnt a misprint. i think they gave up doing new fact patterns, otyher that on civpro or zoning

[Houstonttt]

Crazy!! Can not say more!!
Pm was little better better but the questions were longer !
OMG torture
And yes I felt some very similar fact patterns
But I was guessing like maybe on over than 80%

[anon sequitur]

there's always shit people have never seen before on every MBE. No different this time. That civ pro jx stuff was tough. I'd definitely brush up on removal and smjx for cross/counterclaims for anyone taking in july.

[ovcovc]

there's always shit people have never seen before on every MBE. No different this time. That civ pro jx stuff was tough. I'd definitely brush up on removal and smjx for cross/counterclaims for anyone taking in july.

yeah there were at least two basically idential questions about whether SMJ can be anchored by a counter-claim on a federal issue, after diversity failed. maybe three

there were also at least two almost-identical questions about double jeopdardy that had lesser included offense as an implied definition of - what's his name.... B*******r test, although this isn't really a precise definition

at least two zoning questions that jkept offering nonconforming use answer options

and there were quite a few very similar questions on transfers subject to mortgage, assumed or not assumed mortgages, and purchase mortgage priority over equity loans, lien jurisdiction, title jurisdiction

there were also i think two questions that were similar but one used "after acquired title" and another used "estoppel by deed" for a similar pattern, which are the same thing, why don't they just pick their terminology

i felt i mostly knew the answers to most q's, but a couple of questions I swear all answers were wrong, there was defo at least one of those

there was also a funny question in which an answer required you to pick between amendments to the Constitution only. i felt it was a test of "have you actually tead the constitution" ))

I felt this was (to me) an easier test than July, but maybe this is just that I am getting used to it now. I am middle aged and this constant flashing of timed distinct fact patterns causes a brain overload that hits me like a speed train. It's not the questions, it is how many different ones and how fast...

[lady_gaga]

What I found a bit “different” about the questions this time was that for quite a few it was not easy to immediately determine which topic was being tested. Some questions would start out civ pro sounding and end up testing torts, or there would be a long property sounding question that ended up testing evidence. I feel like one of the questions tested two separate topics in one and you had to know rules from both topics to get it right. Sigh.

[JakeTappers]

What I found a bit “different” about the questions this time was that for quite a few it was not easy to immediately determine which topic was being tested. Some questions would start out civ pro sounding and end up testing torts, or there would be a long property sounding question that ended up testing evidence. I feel like one of the questions tested two separate topics in one and you had to know rules from both topics to get it right. Sigh.

Completely seconded. At one point in the afternoon it hit me that, unlike OPE/Adaptibar it was not readily—and often not until the end—apparent what was being tested. I think it’s speaks to the convoluted nature of this set. I did every adaptibar question and very few were like the majority of this test, IMO.

[Nat3089]

The MBE was interesting. I have taken the bar exam several times and I found these group of 200 questions to be unique from other times that I have taken the MBE. I’m not sure if this is because I studied the most this time and was perceiving the issues embedded in the questions more carefully as opposed to blindly taking an exam with the hopes that the Bar God would credit me for not working hard. Oddly enough, I don’t remember a lot of the questions but I think I remember some of the subjects that stood out to me:
1.) Character Evidence (I think I correctly answered the ones regarding Civil Cases—I saw this a few times)
2.) there was some stuff on deeds and transfers....delivery and acceptance type stuff? Lol
3.) couple non-hearsay things —I don’t recall seeing one dying declaration question but then again I don’t recall a lot
4.) ohhhh...there was stuff about Congress and their power over our courts system and stuff on foreign affairs and maybe commerce clause things

In any event, that is my terrible list of the things I remember. But, it was weird because some questions I felt extraordinarily easy, and then some completely threw me off track and actually would piss me off because it was like I had to go back and read it SLOWLY to see what the heck the Bar God wanted me to answer with because I couldn’t comfortably pick an answer. I just kinda picked one and moved on.

****lots of stuff on closings I think, unless that is being merged with the fact that the night before I did a lot of questions on Property law.

I laugh when people say that the Bar Examiners aren’t trying to trick you.

[Nat3089]

What I found a bit “different” about the questions this time was that for quite a few it was not easy to immediately determine which topic was being tested. Some questions would start out civ pro sounding and end up testing torts, or there would be a long property sounding question that ended up testing evidence. I feel like one of the questions tested two separate topics in one and you had to know rules from both topics to get it right. Sigh.

Yea, there was like a fact pattern that started off with from law but the issue was like property or something weird like that. I thought it was clever.

[nonlawyer]

What I found a bit “different” about the questions this time was that for quite a few it was not easy to immediately determine which topic was being tested. Some questions would start out civ pro sounding and end up testing torts, or there would be a long property sounding question that ended up testing evidence. I feel like one of the questions tested two separate topics in one and you had to know rules from both topics to get it right. Sigh.

Not sure what bar prep you did, but this is why they emphasize to read the fall of the question first. It definitely helps compartmentalize your brain so you can weed out the red herrings early.

[Rhiannon17]

I personally thought Adaptibar prepped me well for this MBE. There were a few questions, especially the zoning ones where I was like WTF. Maybe those were the experimental ones? I’m also a repeat taker and I found this MBE not to be quite as bad as the previously administered one. However, it may just seem like that to me because this isn’t my first rodeo.

I finished the exam with 21 mins left in the morning and 15 mins left in the afternoon. I found the afternoon session stumped me a little more. But when I sat for the MBE last fall, I ran out of time and didn’t get to fully answer every question. So I felt much better this time around being able to answer everything and still have a time cushion.

[Houstonttt]

I can say nothing about adabdti bar coz I didn’t use it
But why some saying was help while too many saying it’s nothing like it !!

[lexingtonhr]

I personally thought Adaptibar prepped me well for this MBE. There were a few questions, especially the zoning ones where I was like WTF. Maybe those were the experimental ones? I’m also a repeat taker and I found this MBE not to be quite as bad as the previously administered one. However, it may just seem like that to me because this isn’t my first rodeo.

I finished the exam with 21 mins left in the morning and 15 mins left in the afternoon. I found the afternoon session stumped me a little more. But when I sat for the MBE last fall, I ran out of time and didn’t get to fully answer every question. So I felt much better this time around being able to answer everything and still have a time cushion.

I agree. The afternoon session stumped me as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

[paperplanes22]

I personally thought Adaptibar prepped me well for this MBE. There were a few questions, especially the zoning ones where I was like WTF. Maybe those were the experimental ones? I’m also a repeat taker and I found this MBE not to be quite as bad as the previously administered one. However, it may just seem like that to me because this isn’t my first rodeo.

I finished the exam with 21 mins left in the morning and 15 mins left in the afternoon. I found the afternoon session stumped me a little more. But when I sat for the MBE last fall, I ran out of time and didn’t get to fully answer every question. So I felt much better this time around being able to answer everything and still have a time cushion.

I agree. The afternoon session stumped me as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

+1

Morning was as expected. The afternoon session left me feeling like I prepped for a different exam altogether. We’ll see ... results for CO come out 5/2. It’s going to be a long 2 months.

[teacup4lyf]

I personally thought Adaptibar prepped me well for this MBE. There were a few questions, especially the zoning ones where I was like WTF. Maybe those were the experimental ones? I’m also a repeat taker and I found this MBE not to be quite as bad as the previously administered one. However, it may just seem like that to me because this isn’t my first rodeo.

I finished the exam with 21 mins left in the morning and 15 mins left in the afternoon. I found the afternoon session stumped me a little more. But when I sat for the MBE last fall, I ran out of time and didn’t get to fully answer every question. So I felt much better this time around being able to answer everything and still have a time cushion.

I agree. The afternoon session stumped me as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

+1

Morning was as expected. The afternoon session left me feeling like I prepped for a different exam altogether. We’ll see ... results for CO come out 5/2. It’s going to be a long 2 months.

+2

I felt like I bombed the PM session. Everyone else I've heard from thought the PM session was "much better". Either I was out of steam by late afternoon or the questions just seemed a lot longer and trickier to process. I finished the AM session with time to spare and checked my previous answers. But I couldn't even get to the end of the PM session and had to bubble the last few choices frantically.

[KunAgnis]

Morning was as expected. The afternoon session left me feeling like I prepped for a different exam altogether. We’ll see ... results for CO come out 5/2. It’s going to be a long 2 months.

Missouri comes out by April 17 so I'll update everyone - I don't know if there is a national curve or a state curve but at least I can tell everyone how many I got right/wrong for the MBE.

[Smiddywesson]

I personally thought Adaptibar prepped me well for this MBE. There were a few questions, especially the zoning ones where I was like WTF. Maybe those were the experimental ones? I’m also a repeat taker and I found this MBE not to be quite as bad as the previously administered one. However, it may just seem like that to me because this isn’t my first rodeo.

I finished the exam with 21 mins left in the morning and 15 mins left in the afternoon. I found the afternoon session stumped me a little more. But when I sat for the MBE last fall, I ran out of time and didn’t get to fully answer every question. So I felt much better this time around being able to answer everything and still have a time cushion.

I agree. The afternoon session stumped me as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

+1

Morning was as expected. The afternoon session left me feeling like I prepped for a different exam altogether. We’ll see ... results for CO come out 5/2. It’s going to be a long 2 months.

+2

I felt like I bombed the PM session. Everyone else I've heard from thought the PM session was "much better". Either I was out of steam by late afternoon or the questions just seemed a lot longer and trickier to process. I finished the AM session with time to spare and checked my previous answers. But I couldn't even get to the end of the PM session and had to bubble the last few choices frantically.

Half the examinees do one set of 100 questions, and half do the other set of 100 questions. In the afternoon, they swap. So when someone tells you the AM or PM is more or less difficult, you never know if it's just their perception or whether they were taking the other set than you took. PS: There are ten different tests. The questions are all mixed up on those ten, so that nobody with the same test is sitting around you. The equators, all 60 of them, 30 of which appeared on the previous February test, and 30 of which appeared on the July test, will be in EXACTLY the same slot for everybody. If equator number one is the fifth question on the am test, it will appear as the fifth question on the test for the other group in the pm.

[Smiddywesson]

I can confidently guess that this will be the worst passing rate in bar exam history. I have been away from the law for 30 years, so I gave myself a year. I did over 3800 practice questions and took notes on the law and every species of trick employed by the examiners. I logged my study, spending over 1500 hours over the course of this year. Here's what I observed during my tortureous two days. I was averaging between 91%-94% raw on the practice questions going in, and even I struggled. First of all, forget that baloney about the questions resembling the OPE Exams or the Study Aids. Although these questions were not as long as the old released questions, they are not nearly as short as the 610 OPE/Study Aid questions. As some of you have noted, they were very tricky. I normally guess in one or two questions out of 100, I flat out guessed five times in each session on exam day. Some of the tricks included testing two bodies of law in one question, and providing answers from both subjects. Yes, cross subject answers. Is it Property or is it Evidence, it's two great tastes in one dandy bar. However, upon reflection, I believe all of these were unscored pretest questions or we would have heard people complain about them before, and we haven't. Forget them, they won't count. If that's not enough to unsettle your nerves, they made liberal use of the Captain Obvious answer. That's the answer you can only justify by eliminating all other answers, these are short and to the point answers like: "yes, because it is unconstitutional." I HATE Captain Obvious. Interestingly enough, there were many questions that just reused old released questions, almost frigging verbatum. Those cost me some time because I smelled a rat, thinking it can't be this easy. It was, they just rewrote the old question and there you go. Bottom Line: If I wasn't so overprepared I wouldn't have any frigging idea how I did on this test, it was that bad. My best guess is my actual score is going to be 7%-10% lower than in practice. This means the scale is out the window, it will only restore to you what the actual test took away because it was so quirky and difficult, so you can take your raw score on the practice tests and there you go folks. In my case, that would put me near 190 scaled, however I did the work and was overprepared so I deserve it, and I'm going to need it because I royally f'd up the essays, to include time mismanagement and a touchpad that kept moving my cursor around the page while I was typing, my font kept changing on its own, and a cursor button that didn't work so I couldn't cut and paste without losing a lot of time. I almost threw my laptop across the room and definitely dropped a few f-bombs during the test. What a frigging nightmare. We all suffer in some respects during this cruel rite of initiation folks. I downed a liter and a half of chardonnay last night, and it's back to business today. THAT was a very nasty experience I wouldn't care to repeat. Let's hope I don't have to.

[Smiddywesson]

Morning was as expected. The afternoon session left me feeling like I prepped for a different exam altogether. We’ll see ... results for CO come out 5/2. It’s going to be a long 2 months.

Missouri comes out by April 17 so I'll update everyone - I don't know if there is a national curve or a state curve but at least I can tell everyone how many I got right/wrong for the MBE.

It's a national curve on the MBE score, but a local curve on the essay scores, meaning they play a game of musical chairs, the #1 set of essays gets the equivalent of the top MBE score in your state.

[JakeTappers]

I can confidently guess that this will be the worst passing rate in bar exam history. I have been away from the law for 30 years, so I gave myself a year. I did over 3800 practice questions and took notes on the law and every species of trick employed by the examiners. I logged my study, spending over 1500 hours over the course of this year. Here's what I observed during my tortureous two days. I was averaging between 91%-94% raw on the practice questions going in, and even I struggled. First of all, forget that baloney about the questions resembling the OPE Exams or the Study Aids. Although these questions were not as long as the old released questions, they are not nearly as short as the 610 OPE/Study Aid questions. As some of you have noted, they were very tricky. I normally guess in one or two questions out of 100, I flat out guessed five times in each session on exam day. Some of the tricks included testing two bodies of law in one question, and providing answers from both subjects. Yes, cross subject answers. Is it Property or is it Evidence, it's two great tastes in one dandy bar. However, upon reflection, I believe all of these were unscored pretest questions or we would have heard people complain about them before, and we haven't. Forget them, they won't count. If that's not enough to unsettle your nerves, they made liberal use of the Captain Obvious answer. That's the answer you can only justify by eliminating all other answers, these are short and to the point answers like: "yes, because it is unconstitutional." I HATE Captain Obvious. Interestingly enough, there were many questions that just reused old released questions, almost frigging verbatum. Those cost me some time because I smelled a rat, thinking it can't be this easy. It was, they just rewrote the old question and there you go. Bottom Line: If I wasn't so overprepared I wouldn't have any frigging idea how I did on this test, it was that bad. My best guess is my actual score is going to be 7%-10% lower than in practice. This means the scale is out the window, it will only restore to you what the actual test took away because it was so quirky and difficult, so you can take your raw score on the practice tests and there you go folks. In my case, that would put me near 190 scaled, however I did the work and was overprepared so I deserve it, and I'm going to need it because I royally f'd up the essays, to include time mismanagement and a touchpad that kept moving my cursor around the page while I was typing, my font kept changing on its own, and a cursor button that didn't work so I couldn't cut and paste without losing a lot of time. I almost threw my laptop across the room and definitely dropped a few f-bombs during the test. What a frigging nightmare. We all suffer in some respects during this cruel rite of initiation folks. I downed a liter and a half of chardonnay last night, and it's back to business today. THAT was a very nasty experience I wouldn't care to repeat. Let's hope I don't have to.

Been asking around on here, but I really can't figure out how this thing is actually curved. I'm in CA but am just talking about the MBE portion. Can't understand what the presumed difficulty of the questions will mean for the rest of us. FWIW, I wasn't nearly as prepared as you, but still did 2000 adaptibar (just under 70% overall, 77+ on all OPE exams, 75% in february, probably 80+ on last 200).

[supermario26]

Does a more difficult exam mean the curve will be wider or is the curve pre-determined based on the questions that were selected? I took it in DC if that matters at all.

This is my first Bar exam, so I'm not sure how this exam compares to other real-life exams. I felt like the MBE was significantly more difficult than I was expecting even after putting in a lot of effort studying. Not sure if that's any consolation for other people feeling bad.

[KunAgnis]

I can confidently guess that this will be the worst passing rate in bar exam history. I have been away from the law for 30 years, so I gave myself a year. I did over 3800 practice questions and took notes on the law and every species of trick employed by the examiners. I logged my study, spending over 1500 hours over the course of this year. Here's what I observed during my tortureous two days. I was averaging between 91%-94% raw on the practice questions going in, and even I struggled. First of all, forget that baloney about the questions resembling the OPE Exams or the Study Aids. Although these questions were not as long as the old released questions, they are not nearly as short as the 610 OPE/Study Aid questions. As some of you have noted, they were very tricky. I normally guess in one or two questions out of 100, I flat out guessed five times in each session on exam day. Some of the tricks included testing two bodies of law in one question, and providing answers from both subjects. Yes, cross subject answers. Is it Property or is it Evidence, it's two great tastes in one dandy bar. However, upon reflection, I believe all of these were unscored pretest questions or we would have heard people complain about them before, and we haven't. Forget them, they won't count. If that's not enough to unsettle your nerves, they made liberal use of the Captain Obvious answer. That's the answer you can only justify by eliminating all other answers, these are short and to the point answers like: "yes, because it is unconstitutional." I HATE Captain Obvious. Interestingly enough, there were many questions that just reused old released questions, almost frigging verbatum. Those cost me some time because I smelled a rat, thinking it can't be this easy. It was, they just rewrote the old question and there you go. Bottom Line: If I wasn't so overprepared I wouldn't have any frigging idea how I did on this test, it was that bad. My best guess is my actual score is going to be 7%-10% lower than in practice. This means the scale is out the window, it will only restore to you what the actual test took away because it was so quirky and difficult, so you can take your raw score on the practice tests and there you go folks. In my case, that would put me near 190 scaled, however I did the work and was overprepared so I deserve it, and I'm going to need it because I royally f'd up the essays, to include time mismanagement and a touchpad that kept moving my cursor around the page while I was typing, my font kept changing on its own, and a cursor button that didn't work so I couldn't cut and paste without losing a lot of time. I almost threw my laptop across the room and definitely dropped a few f-bombs during the test. What a frigging nightmare. We all suffer in some respects during this cruel rite of initiation folks. I downed a liter and a half of chardonnay last night, and it's back to business today. THAT was a very nasty experience I wouldn't care to repeat. Let's hope I don't have to.

I'm just impressed with your level of commitment to passing. I only completed like 39% of the Barbri course.

[Houstonttt]

I personally knew no one who said the exam like adaptibar
Only few online :$
Are you getting commission hahahhaha MAJORITY THINK mbe was noting like what they study !!

[paperplanes22]

I personally knew no one who said the exam like adaptibar
Only few online :$
Are you getting commission hahahhaha MAJORITY THINK mbe was noting like what they study !!

In case you haven't been paying attention to this thread, this particular administration of the MBE was nothing like what *anyone* studied through their bar prep, not just Adaptibar. For what it's worth, the questions I felt very confident about, I learned how to answer them properly through Adaptibar, despite also taking the Kaplan course. So even if I didn't do well, I know for a fact that I would have done even worse had it not been for Adaptibar. You said earlier that you didn't use Adaptibar, so why rag on something you know nothing about?