Most bar takers obsess over the MBE and the essays.
And for good reason! There’s a lot to cover and memorize all at once.
But there’s a section of the bar exam that a lot of candidates take for granted until it’s too late… the performance test (PT).
I know you didn’t want to hear this, but that’s exactly why you shouldn’t forget about it. This could be your edge.
Why are you trying to draw astrology charts to divine which subjects are going to show up on the essays, when you know the PT is right there? You keep meaning to deal with it. You even see other people talking about it.
Then you figure you can panic-cram or wing it. Why are you doing that? That’s just as much gambling as studying the “predicted” subjects.
Here’s why you need to master the performance tests ASAP.
The performance test is a low-hanging fruit.
PTs are purely skill-based tasks. You won’t forget how to read and answer a PT once you learn it, like swimming.
No memorization or pre-knowledge of rules is required. The rules are handed to you. Your hypothetical supervisor has already done the research for you, how nice!
Despite that, or because of that, bar takers tend to deprioritize PT preparation. So they end up missing out on points because they make mistakes that would have been correctable with prep:
- They run out of time
- They overlook it as a concentrated source of points
- They use the wrong tone (e.g., objective vs. subjective, memo vs. brief vs. client letter)
You could agonize over which subjects will be tested or try to memorize some obscure rule that has a marginal probability of appearing on the exam…
Or you could make sure to nail the PT and have room to make up a few reasonable rules that you can’t remember.
Learn the PT once. Know how to handle it before it’s too late. Let everyone else stress out over predictions.
You only get one or two shots at it.
Can you imagine a solid chunk of your bar exam score hinging on 1 or 2 multiple-choice questions?
You don’t get many chances, so make the PT count.
The PT is worth more than you think.
In California, the sole PT is worth 14% of your total score. It’s worth 2x an essay and gets 1.5x the time for an essay (90 mins vs 60 mins).
If you’re taking the UBE, there are two MPT (Multistate Performance Test) questions worth a total of 20% of your score.
That’s a high concentration of points for a lay-up portion of the exam! Not only that, they can make or break the end result.
Let’s do some math to illustrate. Numbers aren’t scary if they help you make better sense of things.
You can make disproportionate gains by nailing the PT.
Say you miss an issue or forget a rule in a California essay.
→ That might drop you 5 raw points = about 20 scaled written points = 10 total after averaging with MBE.
Big deal (sarcastic).
Now say you brush over the PT (or make one of the mistakes listed above) because you forgot to tend to it during prep like the pet goldfish your mom learned not to get you again.
→ You might end up with a raw score of 50 when you could have gotten a 65 (based on actual score reports of CBX takers who would have passed otherwise). A 15-point difference, equivalent to 30 raw written points for the PT.
→ 30 raw points potentially lost = about 120 scaled written points = 60 total.
BIG DEAL (not sarcastic). That’s a lot of points left on the table. In fact, it’s 6x worse than missing an issue in an essay.
Would you rather agonize over marginal essay gains… or make sure you lock in 50 extra points with the PT?
(BTW this is why the PT score is the first thing I check when reviewing score reports, and why the PT is second important in my five-layer priority list for the California Bar Exam.)
Taking the UBE? The math is a little different, but the conclusion is the same.
The UBE has two MPT questions, each worth 10% of your total score. The MEE has 6 essays, each worth 5%.
Let’s do a quick estimation and say that you lose 2 points on an MEE essay (3 instead of 5) because you blank on a question. On a 6-point scale, that’s one-third of 5% lost, or about 1.67% of your total score.
Now say you nail both MPTs and gain 2 points you might have lost (say 5s instead of 3s). That’s a 6.67% swing (one-third of 20%).
That’s a 4:1 ratio in favor of MPT prep over chasing marginal MEE gains.
The point is that you can make disproportionate gains with the portion of the bar exam that’s governed almost entirely by rule spotting and time management rather than rule memorization.
The PT is not as mysterious as it looks.
Here’s what the PT actually is. You get three things:
- Instructions. A memo that tells you exactly what you need to produce. Follow these.
- File. The facts laid out in document form, e.g., transcripts, letters, memos, court documents.
- Library. The legal research, already done for you. The law is right in front of you inside the cases and statutes.
Your job: Extract the principles from the Library. Apply them to the relevant facts from the File to answer the Instructions.
Why are PTs so much trouble? What’s the catch?
One reason bar takers neglect the PT might be that there’s nothing to memorize.
So it gets pushed aside in favor of more outlines and more flashcards. And then the PT ends up feeling unfamiliar.
It also takes too long to look at when they already have MBE and essay materials to juggle. I get it, dude.
Ironically, the candidates who struggle with the PT aren’t the ones who don’t know the law. They could have put in so much effort to perfectly memorize the issues and rules for the essays. But they might not quite know how to manage their time to synthesize the volume of materials in the PT and end up retaking the exam.
Reading comprehension and organization matter here as much as legal writing. It emphasizes a different skill from essays or MBE.
This is why you can’t just wing the PT.
You won’t know what it’s like to solve a PT without sitting down with at least a few past exams under timed conditions. There’s not a whole lot of time to absorb the packets of information and produce an organized product.
But this is a learnable skill. Why not take the easier route and lock this in for leveraged points?
What to do from here
Now you know the PT matters more than you think 😳
Start with the PT cheat sheet I’ve put together for a framework and a step-by-step approach you can use.
Pair this with plenty of past exam questions, and you’ll know how to move through the PT efficiently and format it correctly so it doesn’t drag your score down.
The PT rewards preparation disproportionately. A few focused practice sessions moves the needle more than the equivalent time spent trying to remember a fringe rule.
If you remember that the performance tests are your biggest scoring opportunity, it won’t be a mistake you regret.