Getting ready for the July bar exam? You're not alone: next month, thousands of aspiring attorneys will sit for a bar examination, just like more than 45,000 applicants did in July 2022. (The National Conference of Bar Examiners publishes annual statistics on bar exam administration in its Bar Examiner magazine and website.)
The majority of jurisdictions now administer the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), a two-day exam that allows test-takers to more easily transfer their score from one UBE jurisdiction in order to seek admission to another. UBE components include the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), a set of brief essays; the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), an analytical writing simulation; and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), a 200-question multiple-choice portion. UBE jurisdictions may also separately require a state-specific essay component. In addition, nearly every US jurisdiction (excepting Wisconsin and Puerto Rico) requires bar-takers to pass the separate Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), a multiple-choice legal ethics exam that is administered by NCBE three times a year.
The NCBE's website includes a limited set of free study aids for each test component, under the link labeled "Preparing." These resources include recent essay questions for the MEE along with sample answers; model questions for the MBE multiple-choice portion, and past MPT packets with point sheets. (NCBE also sells additional study aids on its eLearning platform.) Many test-takers use a commercial study program such as BARBRI or Themis, which provide their own prep materials. However, additional bar exam study aids are available to the Duke Law and Duke University community in print and online formats.
The West Academic Library Study Aids database includes a section of "Bar Exam Success" titles. These include titles in the Nutshell and Short & Happy Guide series on bar exam preparation, as well as an audio "Office Hours" session of advice on bar study from Professor and Assistant Dean Sara Berman of Touro Law. Some titles are specific to individual components of the exam, such as the Short & Happy Guide to Conquering the MBE, The Weekend MPRE, or a Short & Happy Guide to the Bar Exam’s Multistate Essay Examination (MEE). Others are more general overviews, such as Bar Exam Success: A Comprehensive Guide, which is also available in the library’s print collection at KF303 .B452 2019.
Additional books in our print collection include Strategies & Tactics for the MBE: Multistate Bar Exam and Strategies & Tactics for the MPRE: Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. To locate these or other print and electronic titles in our collection, try a subject search of the Duke Libraries catalog for “Bar examinations – United States”.
Note that incoming law students will be preparing for a different bar exam altogether: the NCBE's NextGen Bar Exam is set to debut in July 2026 after years of planning. Updates on the development of the new bar exam, including subjects and skills to be tested and various reports, can be found at the NextGen Bar Exam site.
For help locating materials listed in this guide or other information about bar examinations, be sure to Ask a Librarian.
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