MBE Strategy

As people start to prep for the February bar exam, I'll give a piece of advice that I think, if internalized and practiced, is among the best ways to improve at the MBE. When the test writers create these questions, they have one important limitation. No wrong answer can be arguable as the correct choice. They get to skirt the line on the essays; on the MBE, not so much. That's to say, if it's reasonable to argue that a wrong answer is the best choice given, then the question is fatally flawed. These questions work their way through multiple rounds to avoid these types of flaws that would cause the question to be discarded. Because this limit exists, the test writers must place something in each wrong answer that prevents it from reasonably being argued that it's the best answer. Seek out that thing. Look at each answer with an eye towards finding the thing that was placed within the answer to make it wrong. When you find it, cross it out. Even when you're down to two (and, the most common thing I hear from prospective students is "I can get it down to 2!"), find what's wrong with one of the two. Don't set out hunting for the right answer because the only thing that makes it right is that it's better than the others. Kill off the other answers until just one of them survives.