The MBE on the NC Bar
The Multistate Bar Examination is the objective half of the North Carolina bar: two three-hour batteries of multiple-choice questions from Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts, with a small number of unscored pretest items. The MBE is 50% of the UBE score, so a weak MBE day is difficult to offset with essays.
What the questions test
- The majority rule unless the call specifies otherwise (for example, 'under the common law' or a named statute).
- One best answer; the distractors are usually true statements that do not resolve the call.
- Fact patterns of a paragraph or two, often with the discriminating fact in the final sentence.
Approach
- Read the call first; it tells you whether you need elements, a defense, or an outcome.
- Map the facts onto the elements and identify which element is contested.
- Eliminate on doctrine rather than instinct; if two answers survive, re-read the call and the facts for the discriminator - a date, a signature, a state line.
- Answer every question; there is no penalty for a wrong choice.
Worked example
A question states that Seller mailed an acceptance after Buyer's offer lapsed at midnight; the letter arrived at 12:05 a.m. The mailbox rule does not help because the offer had already terminated. The correct choice is that no contract formed when the offer lapsed, even though 'acceptance by mail is effective on dispatch' is a true statement of law.
Traps
Applying UCC rules to a services contract; assuming the Fifth Amendment privilege protects a corporation's records; answering the question you wish had been asked rather than the one on the page; changing a correct first answer without a doctrinal reason.