Unbiased Reviews by Real People
|
|
Unbiased Reviews by Real People
Advice on How to Pass the MPRE from Someone Who Just Did Last Monthby Michelle ChelledunDec 21, 2006 (Updated Dec 19, 2007) Write an essay on this topic. The Bottom Line Passing the MPRE means your a tiny bit of the way done with the BAR! I just passed the MPRE! This is a rather important milestone in my law student’s life, although one that, quite frankly, I wasted too much time preparing for. The following are my suggestions on how you can pass the MPRE as efficiently as possible, thereby saving time that can be used on more important things. What Is This “MPRE?” The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination is basically the “ethics” portion of the BAR exam for wanna-be lawyers. Most states require MPRE passage as a prerequisite to practice. The MPRE consists of 60 multiple-choice questions based on the rules of Professional Conduct. Only 50 are scored, and 10 are test questions. As with the LSAT, will not be able to distinguish which questions are being scored and which are being tested. Although standardized in form, this is a content-based test that covers material similar to that discussed in a Professional Responsibility class. Students from all states take the MPRE exam. When and Where Do I Take the MPRE? The MPRE can be taken in March, August, and November. You can retake it until you pass. If you have a May graduation date and July bar date, I suggest taking the MPRE by the previous November at the latest just in case you need to retake it. You can register for the MPRE online at http://www.ncbex.org/multistate-tests/mpre/guidelines/registration/ or may be able to do so directly through your law school. Most testing centers are located at law schools or other local colleges. How Well Must I Do On the MPRE? Put your traditional law school thinking aside. The MPRE is not a competition, you just must pass. There are no bonus points for a perfect score. Naturally, though, you don’t want to cut it too close. My friends and I overstudied for this test in part due to a lack of understanding on the scoring system. Each state has a different minimum score. Indiana’s minimum is 80, some states require only 70 or 75 and others 85. My friends and I were under the impression this number was a percentage of 100. This is NOT accurate. It is a scaled score that is required out of 150. Scores start at 50. Depending on your test group, you may only have to get half of the problems right. At my review class, the number 32-36 was thrown out as a number of correct answers necessary. This uncertainty does make it difficult to assess how well you are doing on practice tests, which threw me into freak out mode. I suggest just trusting your knowledge of the material and learning from the practice tests without worrying about the numbers. Ways To Prepare for the MPRE 1. Take a Professional Responsibility Course at your law school. - If your school requires professional responsibility or if you take it as an elective, this may be all the prep you need. I do suggest going through a couple of practice exams to familiarize yourself with the question types. My school’s ethics curriculum does not focus on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, so I had to use alternative methods of preparation. 2. Purchase a Professional Responsibility outline. - I think out of all the preparation I did, my time spent reading Emanuel’s Professional Responsibility was the most helpful. Most professional outlines have long and short versions of the information and questions to quiz yourself as you go. 3. Order Official Practice Tests - If you want to do practice tests, go straight to the source and order them from the National Conference of Bar Examiners website. These tests were a much more accurate representation of actual modern MPRE tests than those I received from Barbri. 4. Take a half-day course with BAR/BRI. - I received a free half-day MPRE course for signing up early for BAR/BRI’s summer bar review. Honestly, I hope the quality of the MPRE course is not indicative of how good the bar review will be. Basic information such as the scaled scoring system was never even explained. This class was taught via video and its focus was far too general to help with the specific information tested on the MPRE. Most of the material presented in the video was common sense and I would have been better off at home studying Emanuel. 5. Use BAR/BRI’s at home materials. I obtained a BAR/BRI outline and practice tests to work through at home. The outline was decent, but the practice tests were more stress-inducing than helpful. They contained primarily complex questions with roman numerals and more than one correct answer. I did not see anything like this on the actual MPRE. If you decide to use these materials at all, consider foregoing the practice tests to avoid unnecessary freak-outs. 6. Study the Rules of Professional Conduct directly. I know a few people did this, but quite frankly I find it unnecessary and truly time-consuming. There is no need to know what rule something is found in or to cite specific language. Just let someone explain the rules to you via a commercial outline. A Few Suggestions… I don’t feel like I did everything right with regard to the MPRE, but I did learn from my experience. Here are some ideas to make your testing day more efficient and less stressful than mine. A. Try to avoid taking the test at your law school. There will be a hundred stressed out students trying to do the same thing on the same day. My best friend and I did do this one right, we booked our test at a local community college and had relaxed proctors and only thirty or so students in our room. It’s a good thing, too, because it turned out that a home football game was actually going on at our campus on the day of the exam. B. Don’t overprepare. I suggest working through a commercial outline, taking some practice tests, and calling it a day. Studying for a whole week like I did was completely unnecessary. All of my friends and I scored way, way above the minimum score required. C. Wear a watch. Time is a bit of an issue with this test, as you are only given two hours. Our exam room did not have a clock and this drove me crazy. Even if you are a speedy test taker, you will probably not finish much ahead of time. D. If I had it to do over, I think I actually would have taken the MPRE this August, almost a year before taking the bar. I didn’t like taking time away from school to study for the MPRE. It would have been easy to study in the evenings while I was working. Final Thoughts Don’t sweat it like I did. You’re probably going to pass the MPRE. If you don’t, you can just try again! Just don’t give up weeks of your life preparing for this two hour exam. Now the actual BAR, well, that will be another story… Here's the book I recommend. *Don't forget, you still need to pass the actual Bar!  |
| Read all comments (11)|Write your own comment |
