MT Bar common mistakes
MT Bar · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reads the long fact pattern first and only then reads the call of the question, then answers the issue they expected to see rather than the one actually asked.
Candidates want to start absorbing facts immediately, and fact patterns are written to prime several issues; by the time the call is read, a preferred theory is already fixed, and the call's limiting language (a specific party, a procedural posture, a 'if the court finds X' hypothetical) gets ignored.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed order: call of the question, then facts, then re-read the call and underline the party and the procedural stage before touching the choices. Train this on every practice question until it is automatic, since the call frequently narrows a broad fact pattern to one narrow issue.
Selects an answer because the legal rule it recites is accurate, without checking that the rule actually resolves the facts given.
Several distractors are true statements of black-letter law that are irrelevant to the question asked or are defeated by a single fact in the pattern; under time pressure a true-sounding rule feels safe, and candidates stop reading once they recognise a familiar doctrine.
What to do instead
Before selecting, write a one-sentence bridge naming the specific fact that makes the choice correct. If no fact in the pattern supports the bridge, eliminate the choice even if the rule is correct. Treat every true-but-unconnected rule statement as a deliberate trap.
Applies the rule remembered from a law school course where the MBE tests a different default, most visibly in criminal law, where the majority common-law rule governs unless the question expressly invokes the Model Penal Code.
Law school courses vary widely and many are taught from the Model Penal Code or from a professor's minority position; candidates then apply the MPC's mens rea hierarchy, its broader attempt standard, or its treatment of intoxication to questions written on common-law assumptions.
What to do instead
Build a two-column table for every topic where the default diverges (mens rea, attempt, accomplice liability, felony murder, voluntary intoxication, self-defence) and drill it until the default is reflexive. Read the call for the word 'Model Penal Code' before applying any of it.
Spends four or more minutes grinding on one early hard question, then has to fill in the final fifteen answers in the last two minutes of the session.
Sunk-cost pressure: the candidate has already invested time and believes the answer is one insight away, while the clock cost of that insight is invisible until the end of the block when whole questions are being guessed blind.
What to do instead
Run two passes. Cap the first pass at roughly 1.8 minutes per question, flag anything unresolved, and move on; return to flagged items only after every question has an answer recorded. Practise on timed blocks of 33 questions in 60 minutes so the pacing becomes physical habit rather than a plan.
Writes a full rule-statement paragraph for every doctrine the facts touch, then runs out of time before applying any rule to the facts.
Law school issue-spotters reward showing what you know, and rule recall is the part candidates feel most confident producing; writing rules feels productive and low-risk, while analysis requires commitment to a conclusion that could be wrong.
What to do instead
Budget the answer: roughly one third rule, two thirds application. If a doctrine is not genuinely triggered by a fact, give it one sentence or leave it out. Outline first with a timer, then write only the issues on the outline, which forces the surplus doctrine out before any prose is generated.
States a conclusion without connecting it to the facts, producing lines like 'Therefore, the contract is enforceable' with no fact-based reasoning in between.
Under a thirty-minute clock, application is the part that feels expendable because it consumes the most words and requires a judgment call; candidates also mistake conclusory assertions for analysis because they read as confident and professional.
What to do instead
Force a 'because' clause for every element: name the element, name the fact, and explain why the fact satisfies or defeats the element. Where the facts cut both ways, state the counter-argument and resolve it, since the graders award points for acknowledged tension, not for certainty.
Answers only the first of several questions in a multi-part call, or ignores the call's requested format, such as writing a general discussion when the call asks which party should prevail and why.
Calls are dense and often contain two or three sub-questions separated by semicolons or numbered paragraphs; under time pressure the candidate reads until the first verb, starts writing, and never returns to the rest of the sentence.
What to do instead
On reading the call, number each discrete question in the margin and use those numbers as the headings of the answer, answering in that order. Follow a fixed clock per essay - about five minutes outlining, twenty writing, five reviewing - and leave nothing unanswered, since a short paragraph beats a blank.
Drafts the document from memorised law instead of the materials provided, citing rules and cases that appear nowhere in the Library.
The bar habit of recalled doctrine is hard to suppress, and a Library that contradicts the remembered common-law rule feels like a trap rather than the controlling authority; candidates also skim the Library late, after the outline is already drafted.
What to do instead
Read the Library before drafting and outline each document's holding and its relationship to the others, noting which statute displaces the common-law default. Then enforce a trace rule: every legal proposition in the draft must be attributable to a named document in the Library, and anything else is deleted.
Produces the wrong document type or omits required components - an objective memorandum when the task memo requests a persuasive letter to an adverse party, or a letter with no addressee, no statement of facts, and the wrong tone.
The task memorandum is long and its formatting instructions are buried among background narrative, so candidates extract the legal question and start writing immediately, defaulting to the memo format they practised most in law school.
What to do instead
Before drafting, extract a one-line checklist from the task memo covering document type, audience, tone, required headings, and any length or citation limits, and tick each item before finishing. Tone in particular must be set deliberately: objective analysis for a supervising attorney, advocacy for a brief or demand letter.
Spends forty-five or fifty minutes reading and outlining, leaving too little time to actually write, then hands in a truncated document or pads it with facts that were never in the File.
The File and Library are unfamiliar and reading feels safer than committing to prose, so the writing phase is compressed; when the draft falls short, inventing a fact or a rule is the quickest way to finish a sentence.
What to do instead
Impose a hard split, roughly forty-five minutes to read, digest, and outline, and forty-five to write and review, and practise it on full-length items. When the record is silent on a point, say so expressly and analyse the consequence rather than fabricating a fact, since a flagged gap earns credit and an invented fact destroys it.