Customer Reviews

Strategies & Tactics for the MBE (Multistate Bar Exam)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides a strategic way to take MBE questions with an intro of what topics are tested within each subject and then an exam tactics section of what to look for in the questions. Then there are detailed answers for each question so you can look to see why the wrong answers are not correct. I would recommend this to anyone preparing for the Bar Exam, my bar study professor recommended to begin using this book our last semester of school before we actually began heavily studying for the exam, it was good advice!

Contrary to what another reviewer said, this book doesn't have two full-length exams, or at least not the edition I have (2005). It has the AM and PM sections of a full-length exam.

Other reviews also mention the tips in this book, but the real value in this book is all the actual MBE questions from past exams as well as the explanation to those questions (including the full-length exam). I have found that the barbri and PMBR questions and answer choices are noticeably different much of the time from these past questions and their answer choices. Both companies make their questions long, and barbri's are unnecessarily long. But most actual questions are short. Barbri's explanations are also long and repetitive, whereas the explanations in this book are more concise. Most importantly, these questions are harder than the ones you're doing from barbri and even PMBR. Even the majority of the questions in the one barbri book that has past MBE questions in it are easier in comparison. If you can understand the questions/explanations in this book, you will be prepared for the bar.

As for the tips, I have found around two or three extremely valuable ones in each section that I've read so far. This is not to say the majority of the tips/writing in the book is helpful or that you can use this book without barbri/subject outlines. But the helpful tips that I got out of this book are ones that barbri doesn't spell out and I wouldn't have figured out on my own. Those tips alone really will raise your score, because you will get at least a few more questions right in every single subject from them.

I agree that this book is pricey, but if you can find a cheaper copy somewhere then that's your best bet because you need this book.

I have yet to take the MBE, but my initial take on this book is very positive. Although I think it could do a better job of giving a more detailed summary of each of the sections of the test, it does have roughly 50 multiple choice for each section, and each answer (right or wrong) does spell out the black letter law. It also has a full 200-question MBE at the end of the book. To supplement PMBR/Barbri (or even supplant one of them), this may be the best option. For the price, I believe it's money well spent (and what's another forty on top of a hundred thousand anyway?).

The advice in this book is invaluable. It helps you to learn what answer choices are never correct on the bar exam, how the bar examiners try to confuse you (by using analogous situations, for example, that sound a lot like exception-situations, but where the exceptions don't actually apply), strategies for eliminating answer choices when you have no idea, and the main topics tested on the Bar Exam.

The book is set up to help you whether you prepare way ahead of time (and helps you concentrate on the more asked subjects) or prepare way late in the game (tells you what subjects to "punt" if you do not have enough time).

I found the questions they ask are a bit more straight forward than actual bar exam questions, but were very useful for explaining the material. The explanations were the most thorough I've found of any bar exam prep, and the wrong answers are all explained up through the logic of that answer choice being included.

What distracted me while using this were the typos. For the brand (Emmanuel), the typos seemed a bit unusual, and were time consuming. Sometimes, when I was going through some questions quickly, I was confused by all answers being listed as "incorrect" in the back. I had to do a double take at the explanation to realize which ones of these were actually the right answer. The typos aren't rampant, but enough for me to notice and be annoyed at.

Overall, I think this is a great tool for organizing your studying, learning what material to concentrate on and for developing question answering strategies. It does not work alone, and I highly recommend exploring outside of this book to learn the substantive law.

I bought this book to help me prepare for the MA Bar examination and am so glad that I did. It offers a full length practice exam with real MBE questions. I thought the questions were a good approximation of the type of questions actually on the exam and I found the strategies section at the front of the book to be very helpful. (I appreciate Kim Alayne's sense of humor too). The answer explanations for each question offered at the end of each test were clear and concise and, in my opinion, far better than those offered by Barbri and PMBR.

I bought this in addition to taking a BarBri course and using a set of PMBR books and found it to be a very valuable supplement.

I absolutely loved this book. When preparing for my bar examination, I READ the explanations on each MBE subject and completed every single question in that book. I then worked on the PMBR blue book and completed almost all of it.

I scored high enough to waive into D.C. after passing the IL bar exam. It was very useful to me and I recommend it to anyone preparing for the bar exam. I believe that the PMBR questions used in addition to this book is all the MBE prep you need.

Very good resource--excellent tips on the nuances of how the bar examiners are trying to trick you. Before PMBR and BarBri, this was the only book many people used to study. I would highly recommend it

This book is awesome. It has a very detailed explanation of what to expect in the MBE portion of the Bar. Also includes questions actually used in the Bar & explanations to those questions.

One downside is that it only includes a bare bones outline of each subject- not as detailed as I would have liked BUT other than that- it is an AWESOME book.

I highly recommend this book for Bar Prep.

This book provided some very helpful tips on how to succeed in each of the six subjects, such as how to quickly spot and eliminate wrong answers and what tricks to expect from the test makers on each topic of the six subjects. I'm really glad I read this book and worked through its sample questions and tests!

I think this will be useful. The questions appear to be a little easier and longer in some cases than what has been on the MBE lately. The book arrived very quickly and was in very good condition. There are quite a few examples for each subject (although in a few cases in the intro material, you are not told what the correct answer is). You are alerted about what topics to concentrate on.