MBE PREP

Kaplan purchased PMBR, a supplemental bar exam prep provider, in 2006. PMBR was mostly known for its MBE focus, specifically its content review and multiple-choice practice questions. It has continued to live on its own, but is now being brought in and made available through our Kaplan bar prep site.

For your MBE prep, we recommend you cover 33 to 50 questions a day for 6 to 8 weeks. First, you should focus on understanding the questions and answers, rather than speed. As you become more familiar with the question format, your speed with naturally increase.

As you work through your MBE study plan, remember that it’s also important to identify and prioritize heavily tested topics, which account for about 50% of the questions. They include First Amendment rights, formation issues, mortgages, hearsay, crimes, and negligence.

There are 175 scored questions on the MBE exam, and each question is worth one point. Your unscaled MBE score is then put in a range between 0 and 200. Each year, scores are further modified by the NCBE to account for test difficulty across MBE administration. The average MBE score from 2020 to 2024 was 138, but a scaled score of 140 or higher is considered a good MBE score. A perfect score on the MBE would be the top score of 200. According to the NCBE, the national mean scaled score for the February 2025 MBE was 130.8.

Source: The Bar Examiner, MBE National Summary Statistics (Based on Scaled Scores), Total Median Scores from 2020-2024, https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/2020-statistics/the-multistate-bar-examination-mbe/#step3; https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/2021-statistics/the-multistate-bar-examination-mbe/#step3; https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/2022-statistics/the-multistate-bar-examination-mbe/#step3; https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/2023-statistics/the-multistate-bar-examination-mbe/#step2; https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/2024-statistics/the-multistate-bar-examination-mbe/.

The 7 MBE subjects tested on the exam are Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts. In the table below, we break down the MBE topics included in each subject.

• Civil Procedure: Jurisdiction and venue; law applied by federal courts; pretrial procedures; jury trials; motions; verdicts and judgments; appealability and review
• Constitutional Law: The nature of judicial review; the separation of powers; the relation of nations and states in the federal system;  individual rights
• Contracts: Formation of contracts; defenses to enforceability; contract content and meaning; performance, breach, and discharge; remedies; third-party rights
• Criminal Law and Procedure: Homicide; other crimes; inchoate crimes and parties; general principles; constitutional protection of accused persons
• Evidence: Presentation of evidence; relevancy and reasons for excluding relevant evidence; privileges and other policy exclusions; writings, recordings, and photographs; hearsay and circumstances of its admissibility
• Real Property: Ownership of real property; rights in real property; real estate contracts; mortgages/security devices; titles
• Torts: Intentional torts; negligence; strict liability and products liability; other torts

Students may find the MBE exam difficult. Despite it being a multiple-choice exam, it’s still 6 hours long and includes 200 questions. In addition to the volume of questions, you’ll need to apply your legal knowledge to complex questions. The answers aren’t always simple because of the way questions are worded. That’s why it’s important to learn how to pass the MBE exam, understand MBE topics, and improve your time management skills.

Kaplan PMBR is a dedicated MBE review that not only focuses on questions and answers, but also on highly tested topics. You’ll gain test-taking strategies designed to help you excel on exam day.