The MBE isn’t just a mixed bag of questions. It’s actually not even an evenly distributed bag of questions.
There are some topics that are tested disproportionately and more frequently on the MBE! Not all questions are equally important.
💡 There are just THREE highest-priority areas you NEED to know for the MBE…
💡 These top 3 tested topics EACH account for over a whopping 7% of your MBE score.
💡 Over 21% of your MBE score will come from just these three topics!
But these takeaways are not that obvious if you simply skim through the NCBE’s subject matter outline. The language isn’t as clear or intuitive. Let’s break this down into charts so we can visualize it better.
HIGHEST PRIORITY CHART
There are three areas that are the most highly tested:
- Torts negligence
- Con Law individual rights (1st, 5th, 14th Amendments)
- Crim Pro (constitutional protection of accused persons)
Note that “constitutional protection of accused persons” is just Crim Pro, including 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments. So Crim Law and Crim Pro are evenly divided.
But we can still see that if you aren’t great at distinguishing first-degree and second-degree murder no matter how much you look at them, there’s no need to agonize too long. You can instead move on to Crim Pro topics like searches and seizures.
Where do we get these percentages? Let’s break down Torts as an example.
The NCBE says in the subject matter outline: “Approximately half of the Torts questions on the MBE will be based on category II, and approximately half will be based on the remaining categories—I, III, and IV.”
“175 scored questions on the MBE are distributed evenly, with 25 questions from each of the seven subject areas: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts.” https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mbe/preparing/
In other words, about 50% of the 25 Torts questions tested are based on category II, which is all about negligence.
Based on this information, for each category or topic, we can summarize the number of questions that will count toward your score the percentage occupied within a given subject, and the percentage occupied out of the 175 scored questions:
We can immediately see that negligence takes up the biggest slice (“approximately half”) of the Torts questions. Further, there will be 12-13 questions on negligence—7.14% of the tested questions on the whole exam—while intentional torts will show up 4 or maybe 5 times in the exam.
Read that again: A whopping 7% of the MBE will test solely on negligence and count toward your score. There may be extra experimental questions on negligence, though.
Hmm, interesting! If you’re short on time, perhaps you’d want to make sure you’ve nailed at least this area down cold. Use the interactive MBE frequency chart and coverage calculator to track your progress.
MEDIUM PRIORITY CHART
The yellow highlights below won’t show up as much as the top three areas above, but still, a significant number of questions will hit these areas. About 5-9 questions will come from these areas.
These include relevancy, hearsay, formation of contracts, and others shown above.
Incidentally, and unfortunately, Real Property includes topics that are evenly tested. It’s a subject you won’t want to avoid.
Other topics only appear 2-4 times each, and account for just over a third of the 175 scored questions (35.71%).
Now in pie chart format
So which are the biggest areas of the MBE to focus on?
These are the top three tested topics on the MBE (high priority):
- Torts – Negligence
- Con Law – Individual rights (1st Amendment, 5th Amendment, 14th Amendment)
- Crim Pro – Constitutional protection of accused persons (basically the whole subject of Crim Pro)
The NCBE tells us straight up that there WILL be 12-13 questions for EACH of these areas. That’s a whopping 36-39 questions just on the above topics.
Each of these high-priority topics accounts for 7.14% of your score. That’s a total of 21.43% in just these three topics.
(These are the topics highlighted red above.)
This next set of topics (highlighted yellow above) appear will appear on the MBE in at least 5-8 questions each (medium priority):
- Relevancy and reasons for excluding relevant evidence
- Presentation of evidence
- Hearsay and circumstances of its admissibility
- Formation of contracts
- Performance, breach, and discharge
- Jurisdiction and venue
- Pretrial procedures
- Motions
- Ownership of real property
- Rights in real property
- Real estate contracts
- Mortgages and security devices
- Titles
These are medium-priority topics that each range between 2.86% and 4.76% of your score. These make up 42.86% in total.
The rest of the topics account for 35.71% of your score. These topics only appear 2-4 times out of the 175 scored questions.
(Magicsheets and Passer’s Playbook come with the spreadsheet where I pulled out the above tables and graphs. It tells you the exact frequency breakdowns of all the MBE subtopics.)
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
A: Three topics account for over 21% of the scored MBE:
* Negligence (Torts)
* Individual Rights (Con Law 1st, 5th, 14th Amendments)
* Constitutional Protection of Accused Persons (Crim Pro 4th, 5th, 6th Amendments)
Each makes up roughly 7.14% of the exam, with 12-13 scored questions per topic.
A: 175 of the 200 MBE questions are scored. The remaining 25 are unscored experimental questions, and they can come from any subject.
A: Yes at the subject level. Each of the seven MBE subjects (Civ Pro, Con Law, Contracts, Crim Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, Torts) gets exactly 25 scored questions. But the topics within each subject are not tested equally, as shown above.
A: Negligence makes up about half of the 25 Torts questions, which works out to roughly 7.14% of the scored MBE. That’s 12-13 questions.
A: Real Property. Its topics (Ownership, Rights in Real Property, Real Estate Contracts, Mortgages, Titles) each appear in roughly equal numbers, which means you can’t shortcut it the way you can with Torts or Con Law.
A: Study everything, but try to allocate study time proportional to topic frequency. That is, spend the most time on Negligence, Individual Rights, and Crim Pro. Allocate medium time to the 13 medium-priority topics. Cover but don’t dwell on the rest.
A: Yes. The charts above reflect the current NCBE subject matter outline, which hasn’t changed.
A: Probably not a good idea unless you’re looking for a Hail Mary. The low-frequency topics still account for about 35% of the scored exam collectively. They’re LOWER priority (not LOW priority) and shouldn’t be completely neglected.
The exceptions are triage scenarios:
* You’re stuck on a concept that isn’t “worth it.” If you notice that you’re spending a lot of time struggling with a question that isn’t a high-priority or medium-priority topic, make a note of it, and move on. Come back to it when you have some breathing space.
* You’re short on time. Say it’s the week before the exam and you’re overwhelmed and falling behind. It’s now time to triage and focus most of your efforts on the high-priority and medium-priority areas. You may be able to nail at least these frequently tested topics on the exam while hoping that you catch a glimpse of the rules for the other topics in your visions as life flashes before your eyes.
But, I mean, it’s your life. Don’t let me tell you what to do.
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