Brainscape’s certified MBE flashcards are built for law grads who need a fast, effective way to master the most heavily tested concepts on the Multistate Bar Exam. This is a high-stakes test that demands total recall and critical thinking across a huge body of legal knowledge. Our flashcards will cut your knowledge retention time IN HALF.
If you feel like bar prep is an exercise in pushing a boulder up a mountain, it’s time you enlisted the help of a hyper-efficient, systematic study method to learn and remember all of the law content tested by the three MBE components.
So, whether you’re using BARBRI, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, Critical Pass, or any other bar review course, these flashcards cover all the facts you need to know to answer the complex questions posed by the MBE.
What You Get With Brainscape’s MBE Flashcards
Our certified MBE flashcards were shaped by the input of hundreds of educators, students, and bar prep professionals, but we're proud to partner with two outstanding legal minds as our lead authors. Grace Bowden, a Law graduate from UCLA and licensed attorney with experience at Reed Smith and KPMG, brought her expertise in law and compliance to the early development of this collection.
Brianne Holland-Stergar, also a Law alum from UCLA and now a law professor who has clerked in federal courts and practiced at top firms like Davis Polk and Munger Tolles, carried that torch forward to expand and refine the material. Their combined experience, alongside Brainscape’s rigorous vetting process and continuous user feedback, ensures that these flashcards reflect the highest-yield black letter law concepts across all MBE subjects.
Under their stewardship, our team has condensed the entire BARBRI, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, and Critical Pass prep courses into the 2,600 highest yield concepts you MUST know to confidently take any of the MBE's three assessments: the MBE, MEE, and MPT.
- 2,600+ Multistate Bar Exam flashcards that cover the highest-yield law concepts in every MBE subject.
- Peace of mind as we’ve covered the most important MBE concepts taught by the top bar exam courses, such as BARBRI, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, and Critical Pass.
- A hyper-efficient system for learning and remembering all of the major subject areas on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE): Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts.
- A Rapid Fire Deck to quickly test you on the fundamentals of the black letter law for each subject.
- Over 400 Multistate Bar Exam flashcards enabled with online resources for deep-dive learning.
- Ongoing feedback, statistics, and visualization tools to help you track your progress.
- A carefully tailored Universal Bar Exam curriculum that builds on previous concepts and guides you from definition to legal analysis.
- In-sync studying across Brainscape’s website and all your iOS and Android devices.
- Unbridled access to our library of bar exam study guides
With Brainscape, you’ll have both the structure and the flexibility to master the black-letter law and walk into the MBE with confidence.
What Is the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE)?
The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) is a standardized, multiple-choice test developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). It’s used by nearly every U.S. jurisdiction as a core part of the bar exam, helping to assess a candidate’s ability to apply legal principles to fact patterns. Most states combine the MBE with essay-based sections like the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) and Multistate Performance Test (MPT) to calculate your final bar exam score.
The MBE format includes 200 multiple-choice questions, split evenly across two 3-hour sessions in a single day. Of these, 175 questions are scored, while 25 are unscored. The questions are distributed evenly across seven subjects:
- Civil Procedure
- Constitutional Law
- Contracts
- Criminal Law & Procedure
- Evidence
- Real Property
- Torts
Your MBE score is scaled on a 200-point scale to account for variations in test difficulty. Most jurisdictions combine this score with your performance on other components (like the MEE or MPT) to determine your overall bar passage. Understanding the MBE overview, format, and scoring system is essential for building a focused MBE study plan.
High-Yield MBE Subjects and Topic Breakdown
Each MBE subject requires you to understand specific legal doctrines, rules, and exceptions, and apply this knowledge under time pressure. Brainscape’s flashcards have been created to mirror and target this content structure, drilling you on the core knowledge contained by each of the following topical areas:
- Civil Procedure: personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, pretrial procedures, and Erie doctrine
- Constitutional Law: powers of government, individual rights, and First Amendment issues
- Contracts: formation, defenses, performance, breach, and remedies—often paired with UCC sales questions
- Criminal Law & Procedure: mens rea, inchoate offenses, constitutional protections, and Fourth/Fifth Amendment procedures
- Evidence: relevance, character evidence, impeachment, and heavily-tested hearsay exceptions
- Real Property: estates, future interests, mortgages, landlord-tenant law, and recording statutes
- Torts: negligence, strict liability, intentional torts, and causation
The MBE topic breakdown follows a strict distribution: 25 scored questions per subject, totaling 175 scored questions. This equal weighting means you can’t afford to skip any subject. Furthermore, many questions are crossovers, requiring knowledge from multiple subjects. For instance, evidence issues often appear in criminal procedure fact patterns, and contract scenarios may hinge on understanding UCC vs. common law.
Knowing where these traps lie is critical to mastering the high-yield topics most likely to appear on test day. That’s why you need to be proficient in every MBE subject in order to score well on the exam. Brainscape’s flashcards are engineered to help you do just that.
Proven MBE Study Plan: Methods, Milestones, and Metrics
The best way to study for the MBE is with a consistent weekly schedule that builds knowledge, critical thinking, and test-day stamina. Plan for daily mixed-subject practice sets, using timed blocks that simulate the real exam. That means a rate of around 33 questions per hour. Keep a detailed error log to track missed concepts and patterns over time.
Build an MBE Study Plan
Your MBE study plan should be driven by data. Track your accuracy by subject and subtopic so you can drill your weakest areas and improve retention with focused flashcard review or practice sets. This helps ensure you're not just studying hard, but actually making progress.
Use Flashcards to Efficiently Bank the Facts
Flashcards are the most useful tool for efficient review. Brainscape’s flashcards provide precise, up-to-date data on your progress, including your confidence levels in each subject and time left until 100% mastery. By using flashcards, you practice your brain’s ability to actively recall the content. This means that instead of passively reading notes or choosing from multiple-choice options, you force yourself to generate the answer from scratch. This builds deep, lasting memory.
Digital flashcards also automate the process of spaced repetition, which involves reviewing that material at carefully timed intervals, just before you're likely to forget it. Together, active recall and spaced repetition help you memorize complex legal language TWICE as fast as traditional study methods.
Take Timed Practice Tests
When completing practice tests, keep a bit of exam strategy in the back of your mind. Aim to answer each question in under 1.8 minutes (on average). Read the call of the question first, learn to eliminate distractors, and watch for familiar fact pattern traps. These test-taking skills are as important as the content itself.
Passing the MBE is not just about memorizing black-letter law. Bar exam questions are their own puzzle, and learning how to crack them is a skill that takes time, repetition, and plenty of wrong turns. Expect to get things wrong, and use those misses as rocket fuel to learn and do better. Keep a detailed error log of what you got right, what you missed, and why each answer choice was tempting or misleading.
Over time, this record will become a personal playbook that will make you sharper with every set of questions.
Read How to Study for the Bar Exam More Efficiently
Using Flashcards to Master Black-Letter Law and Speed
The MBE is a memory test as much as it is a reasoning test, which makes flashcards one of the most effective tools for preparation. Brainscape’s expert-created and vetted MBE flashcards zero in on the essentials: the rule itself, its elements, the key exceptions, and maybe a quick hypothetical to illustrate how it works. Many students also build mnemonics or notes about “closest confusers” (the wrong answers that look almost right) so they’re less likely to be fooled on test day.
Daily review with Brainscape’s flashcards takes the guesswork out of what to study next. Our algorithm adapts to your learning style and pace, presenting you with exactly what you need to study today for optimal progress.
In addition to our comprehensive flashcard decks, you can make your own flashcards after practice exams. For example, you can turn your missed practice questions into flashcards. Write out the correct rule clearly, then add a note about why the wrong answer was tempting. Over time, this builds both your legal knowledge and your instinct for spotting traps.
In the final four to six weeks before the exam, multiple daily flashcard “micro-sessions” of just 10 to 15 minutes each can keep your recall sharp without exhausting you. These quick reviews maintain momentum, boost confidence, and give you steady gains right up to test day.
FAQs on the MBE Exam
How Many Questions Are On The MBE?
The MBE consists of 200 multiple-choice questions. Of these, 175 are scored and 25 are questions that do not count toward your final score.
How Long Is The MBE Exam?
The exam lasts six hours, split into two three-hour sessions. You’ll answer 100 questions in the morning and 100 questions in the afternoon.
How Is The MBE Administered?
The MBE is a multiple-choice exam developed by the NCBE and typically administered on paper at official testing centers during bar exam days.
How Many Times Can You Take The MBE If You Don’t Pass?
There is no national limit on retaking the MBE. However, some states impose restrictions on the number of attempts, so check with your jurisdiction’s bar rules.
What Is A Passing Score For The MBE?
There is no single national passing score. Most jurisdictions require a scaled score between 130 and 145, but the exact cutoff depends on your state.
Additional Resources for MBE Learners
