National Chocolate Milkshake Day: Blending Your Way to Bar Exam Success
Today is National Chocolate Milkshake Day.
Let’s talk about the perfect blend—not just in your favorite sweet treat, but in your bar exam preparation. A chocolate milkshake comes together when ice cream, milk, and chocolate are blended in just the right proportions. Similarly, the Uniform Bar Exam requires a balance between its components: 50% Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), 30% Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), and 20% Multistate Performance Test (MPT). These percentages represent the makeup of the entire UBE, and focusing too much on any one part—especially the MBE—can leave your preparation incomplete. It’s just like making a milkshake with too much ice cream or too much chocolate; it won’t come together smoothly.
The Ease of Focusing on the MBE
Many students focus heavily on the MBE's multiple-choice questions, and it’s easy to understand why. Practicing MBE questions feels productive because each question has a clear, objective answer—you’re either right or wrong. The feedback is immediate, and you can review explanations to improve your understanding. It's like the chocolate syrup in your milkshake: strong, straightforward, and satisfying.
An MBE question takes about 1.8 minutes to answer, using standard bar testing time. During practice, you should take, on average, another 1.8 minutes to review the explanatory answer thoroughly. Completing MBE questions is quick and efficient, which makes it appealing when you’re pressed for time. But focusing solely on the MBE, which is 50% of the exam, can lead to an imbalance in your preparation—like a milkshake with too much chocolate and not enough ice cream or milk.
The Neglected Components—MEE and MPT
Many students neglect the MEE and MPT because they take significantly more time to complete and assess. Writing a single MEE essay takes 30 minutes, and a single MPT task takes 90 minutes. But that’s just the beginning—self-assessment and grading can take even longer. Unlike the MBE, where the answers are objective, writing requires deeper analysis, more effort, and often feedback from others to assess accurately. This extra time commitment makes it easy for students to procrastinate or avoid these sections.
However, the MEE and MPT together make up 50% of your total bar exam score. Neglecting them is like adding too much ice cream and leaving out the milk in your milkshake, resulting in a thick, unbalanced mess. Both the MEE, which tests your ability to write structured legal essays, and the MPT, which assesses your practical skills in performing lawyer-like tasks, are crucial to passing the bar exam. They demand focused preparation, even though it’s harder to self-assess.
Achieving the Perfect Blend
Just like a milkshake needs the right balance of ice cream, milk, and chocolate, your bar exam preparation must include a mix of MBE practice, essay writing for the MEE, and practical problem-solving for the MPT. Skipping or under-preparing for the writing components can leave you with a preparation strategy that’s uneven and incomplete.
On this National Chocolate Milkshake Day, enjoy your sweet treat, but also remember that bar exam success requires a smooth blend of effort in all areas.
