Not Every Question Counts: A Halloween Lesson About the Bar Exam
Halloween is here, and tonight I have an important responsibility: Distributing candy to trick-or-treaters.
Our candy of choice? A 145-piece variety pack containing Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, M&M's, and 3 Musketeers.
As I emptied the bag into our candy bowl, something caught my attention. There seemed to be an unusually large number of Snickers and Twix, but hardly any M&M's or 3 Musketeers.
Now, most normal people would simply shrug and start handing out candy.
But what does an overly analytical law professor do?
I counted every single piece.
Here are the results:
Candy | Pieces | Percentage |
Snickers | 46 | 31.7% |
Twix | 43 | 29.7% |
Milky Way | 29 | 20.0% |
M&M's | 14 | 9.7% |
3 Musketeers | 13 | 9.0% |
Total | 145 | 100% |
My suspicions were confirmed. Snickers and Twix accounted for more than 61% of the entire bag, while M&M's and 3 Musketeers combined accounted for less than 19%.
To be fair, the package promised 145 pieces of assorted candy, not an equal number of each variety. And there were exactly 145 pieces.
So technically, no promises were broken.
But as I stared at my carefully counted piles of candy (yes, I really did this), I realized something: What we see isn't always what we expect. And sometimes, the numbers tell a different story than we might assume.
That brings me to the bar exam.
The Legacy MBE: 200 Questions, But Only 175 Count
If you're preparing for the Legacy Uniform Bar Examination, you probably know that the Multistate Bar Examination contains 200 multiple-choice questions.
But here's something important: Only 175 of those questions count toward your score.
The other 25 are unscored pretest questions used to evaluate questions for possible use on future examinations.
The 175 scored questions are divided equally among the seven MBE subjects:
Civil Procedure
Constitutional Law
Contracts
Criminal Law and Procedure
Evidence
Real Property
Torts
That's exactly 25 scored questions per subject.
Unlike my Halloween candy bag, the MBE guarantees an equal distribution of scored questions across its seven subjects.
But here's where things get interesting.
The 25 unscored questions can make the overall distribution appear uneven.
Suppose you finish the MBE and think, "There were SO MANY Evidence questions!"
You might be right. You might have encountered more Evidence questions than questions from another subject. But that doesn't mean Evidence counted more toward your score.
You still received exactly 25 scored Evidence questions, just as you received 25 scored questions in every other subject.
Some of those additional Evidence questions may have been unscored pretest questions.
And here's the catch: You have no way of knowing which questions are scored and which are not.
What About the NextGen UBE?
If you're preparing for the NextGen UBE, the numbers are different, but the underlying lesson is the same.
The NextGen UBE includes 120 standalone multiple-choice questions. However, only 100 of those questions are scored. The other 20 are unscored pretest questions.
Like the Legacy MBE, the NextGen UBE provides balanced coverage of its foundational subjects. While the Legacy MBE guarantees exactly 25 scored questions in each of seven subjects, NextGen distributes its 100 scored multiple-choice questions approximately equally across eight subjects.
But because both exams include unscored pretest questions, the number of questions you encounter in a subject may not reflect the number that actually counts.
Don't Let Perception Become Reality
Imagine you're halfway through the multiple-choice portion of your bar exam and feel like you've encountered one Contracts question after another.
You might be right. But does that mean Contracts is being tested more heavily? Not necessarily.
Our brains naturally look for patterns. We notice clusters and sometimes draw conclusions based on incomplete information.
But what you perceive during an examination isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of what's happening.ing.
On the Legacy MBE, questions aren't presented in neat groups of 25 by subject. And on both examinations, unscored questions are mixed in with scored questions.
Rather than trying to figure out which subjects are appearing most frequently—or which questions might be unscored—focus on the only question that matters: The one directly in front of you.
Read the facts carefully. Identify the legal issue. Recall the applicable rule. Apply that rule to the facts. Select the best answer.
Then move on.
The Sweetest Takeaway
My Halloween candy investigation confirmed that my suspicions were correct: There really were a lot more Snickers and Twix than M&M's and 3 Musketeers.
But on the bar exam, your suspicions about the distribution of questions may not tell the whole story. Not every question counts toward your score, but you must treat every question as though it does.
So don't waste time counting questions by subject or trying to identify which ones might be unscored. Focus on the question in front of you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some trick-or-treaters to attend to. And perhaps a few Snickers to eat. After all, I have 46 of them.
