MPT Audio Crash Course COMPLETE TEST PREP AND REVIEW FOR THE NCBE MULTISTATE PERFORMANCE TEST
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Disclaimer This study guide is designed to assist you in studying for and improving your score on the Uniform Bar Exam. The following pages will provide you with the tools that you need to succeed, by overviewing the point-getting techniques and types of legal writing that the MPT most frequently tests. That said, the following pages are not a prediction of what will be asked on the upcoming UBE. No warranty or guarantee is made here as to what rules of law the National Conference of Bar Examiners will test on the upcoming UBE or any future examinations. Similarly, while we are confident that the materials contained here will help you improve your UBE scores, no warranty or guarantee is made here that you will pass the upcoming bar exam or any future bar examination. As such, under no circumstances shall we be liable for any losses or damages whatsoever, including direct, indirect, incidental and consequential damages, resulting from the use of this Study Guide, whether based on contract, tort, or any other legal theory. This Study Guide and the materials contained herein are provided “as is,” and there are no representations or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the use of this Study Guide, or its contents. The content of this Study Guide is not intended to and does not constitute legal advice, nor is it intended to establish any attorney-client relationship. Reading beyond this point constitutes your acceptance of the terms above.
TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Introduction to this Audiobook .............................................................. 3 Chapter Two: Introduction to the MPT ........................................................................ 5 Chapter Three: Introduction to Scoring on the MPT .................................................... 9 PART TWO: SUBSTANTIVE CHAPTERS ......................................................................... 13 Chapter Four: Dissecting An MPT Question ............................................................... 15 Chapter Four: Key Takeaways .................................................................................... 21 Chapter Five: Mastering the Process of Essay Writing ............................................... 23 Chapter Five: Key Takeaways...................................................................................... 29 Chapter Six: The Most Common Kinds of Questions .................................................. 31 Chapter Seven: Frequency Analysis ............................................................................ 63 PART THREE: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 65 Chapter Eight: Practice Test 1 ..................................................................................... 69 Chapter Nine: Practice Test 2 ..................................................................................... 93 Chapter Ten: Practice Test 3 ..................................................................................... 113 Chapter Eleven: Practice Test 4 ................................................................................ 129
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THIS AUDIOBOOK There is no shortage of MPT books on the marketplace, because the MPT is a multimilliondollar industry, and that industry happens to revolve around a highly standardized and predictable test. But with even just a cursory review of the materials, you’ll find a stunning lack of diversity among the bar exam books on the marketplace. Just about every MPT book out there will review, with enormous depth, what the MPT is and how it is graded, then offer a few pages of generic essay-writing advice, and then throw hundreds and hundreds of practice exams at you. This is not that kind of MPT guide. Instead, what we seek to accomplish with this audiolearn book is to truly dissect the core of what makes the MPT tick, then provide you with a serious, deep dive into how to squeeze the most amount of points out of the essays you get on Exam Day. That is why this audiolearn book will focus less on burying you under a mountain of practice questions, and focus much more on discussing specific test-taking techniques and giving you ample opportunity to practice recognizing and responding to common exam tactics. To that end, this audiolearn book is structured as follows: First, we will introduce you to the MPT: what topics it tests, how it tests them, where the test itself comes from, and what makes it “hard.” Maybe people skip this part of the exam because they think it is easy, then find out the hard way that it is hard when they get an average or below-average score back on the MPT We will also cover how to read MPT questions, and how to determine what they are asking of you. Second, we will explore a number of proven techniques that can help you dissect any given question in any area of law, then we will explore topic-specific techniques. Test-taking advice
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will only be useful to you if you have a firm understanding of the rules of law in each area of law, after all. But make no mistake: we are not dealing with dry, encyclopedic outlines here. Instead, we will review the areas of law with an eye toward what you will actually encounter on Exam Day, so we will show you the most commonly tested rules in action instead of simply reviewing the rules in the abstract. Third, this audiolearn book ends with an analysis of all MPTs between 2006 and 2018 and the subjects tested on these tests, as well as thorough practice tests with sample answers. Specifically, here is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of our audiolearn book: Chapter One, of course, is the following introduction. Chapter Two explores how the Multistate Practice Exam is structured, what is it about this structure that makes it difficult, and what its goals are for you. Keeping all of this in mind will help you properly prepare for it, since you need to know not only the information being tested, but also the kind of test that you can expect. Chapter Three focuses on the most important goal you can have on the MPT, which is scoring points. This chapter discusses how points are scored, how grading works, and what the average range of scores are. Chapter Four dissects the outline of the typical MPT question, breaking down each section and explaining the role of each section. Misunderstanding the test is an easy way to lose points, and the MPT can make all the difference between a passing score and a failing score on the MPT. Chapter Five explains the process of essay-writing, and why the MPT essay is unlike any other your essay you’ve ever written, in college, in law school, and even on the MBE. The MPT essay is a unique essay, borne of unique rules. Chapter Six offers the most common types of MPT essays. Chapter Seven offers an analysis of all MPT essays between 2006 and 2018. The final chapter is made up of a series of simulated MPTs. Let’s begin!
CHAPTER TWO: INTRODUCTION TO THE MPT A. DESCRIPTION OF THE MPT The Multistate Performance Test (MPT) is a standardized test of just two essay questions, administered over the course of three hours. Different jurisdictions present this essay at different times, with some jurisdictions presenting it in the afternoon (New York, for instance), and other jurisdictions presenting it in the morning (Colorado, for instance). The MPT is administered in every state that administers the Uniform Bar Examination, and it is administered in almost every other bar exam as well. For all intents and purposes, this is an unavoidable part of the bar exam. That said, it is also the easiest part of the bar exam, as long as you know how to properly take this exam.
B, MAKEUP OF THE MPT The MPT is administered on the last Tuesday of July and February in every UBE state. The questions can test any area of law, including areas not covered on the bar exam. Typically, the questions will test a familiar area of law, like a personal injury case or a divorce, and typically only one area of law appears on each MPT question. The hard part, here, is not the breadth of law at your fingertips, but the depth and clarity of the analysis that the graders are expecting from you. The above guidelines are the only consistent parts of the exact makeup of the MPT. Aside from the fact that you are receiving two questions, with one area of law per question, everything else is highly variable. Sometimes you will be asked to write a memo. Sometimes you will be asked to draft a contract, or a last will and testament. No booklet can fully prepare you for what kind of legal analysis to engage in on the MPT, but this audiobook will show you how to apply a consistently high-scoring legal analysis, no matter what context you will be applying that analysis to.
No changes to the testable areas of law appear imminent, but it would be in your best interest to verify this on the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ website.
C. DIFFICULTY OF THE MPT The MPT is going to be a far more difficult test than what you expect. The MPT is so difficult because you are expecting so little of it, and it will catch you off guard. It is “only” a matter of legal analysis, and there are no subjects for you to study in order to prepare for the MPT. Because of this, you will probably not study for it as hard as you should. You will probably underestimate the intensity of the exam, and overestimate your own abilities. Your best way to understand and approach the MPT is to regard it as a mock trial or moot court competition. If you have ever participated in either event, then you know how much more important presentation is over substance. The MPT runs along the same attitude. Your presentation skills will determine your grade. The substance of your answers is important as well, but as long as you analyze the issues correctly, the substance of your answers will be identical to the answers that everyone else is submitting as well. So, the difficulty lies in not only correctly spotting the issues, but also presenting your analysis in a way that is clean-cut and laid out step by step. The skipping around, the machine-gunned answers, the typos and grammar issues, and the poorly phrased sentence that you got away with on law school exams are not tolerated on the MPT. Graders will roll their eyes to the back of their heads and then punish you severely for submitting answers that are not “pretty.” You want to approach this like a legal writing competition, where the flow of your answers, your word choice, and the overall presentation are as important as the ideas being presented. Another difficulty lies in the scope of the MPT. You will receive all of the law that you need to write an answer, but you will need to carefully read the law presented to you and ensure that your answer strictly falls within it. If you are given a familiar area of law, like torts, then the law that you receive will probably deviate from the normal rules in some subtle way. Watch out for
that deviation. If you are given an unfamiliar area of law, like election law, then you will need to quickly read and understand the ins and outs of that area of law, and apply it step by step. Clearly, the MPT greatly rewards pre-writing, editing, and carefully thinking about your answers before you write them and while you are writing them. You will do this for one essay, and then apply the same rigorous legal analysis on the next analysis, into another area of law entirely.
D. GOAL OF THE MPT The MPT is the one area of the bar exam that actually tests your abilities as an attorney. While the essays test your understanding of state laws and the multiple-choice portion tests your understanding of common law, the MPT tests your ability to hear a realistic set of facts and apply an area of law to those facts, in order to solve a problem. That problem is generally either very straightforward or very open-ended. For the straightforward answers (for instance, “No, this person cannot hold two public offices at the same time, under this jurisdiction election laws”), you must be extra careful to apply each of the elements or steps in the analysis instead of rushing to the conclusion. For the open-ended questions (for instance, “Please draft a contract, in accordance with the terms set above”), you need to stick closely to the requests and the confines of the law. Always remember the goal of the MPT, which is to test your ability to apply facts and law to issues. The goal is definitively not to test your legal reasoning skills. This is a key distinction. On the law school exam, your legal reasoning was being tested, and that is why your presentation skills were ignored and your creative and unusual answers were rewarded. On the MPT, the opposite is expected: the graders want to see traditional, “normal” answers and a spotless presentation. Don’t talk yourself into believing that you can self-intuitively navigate around this test. Nothing short of brute regurgitation of information will help you pass. That is where this audiolearn book should come into the equation. With this one study aid, you will have all the resources you need to learn how to succeed on the MPT, both in terms of testtaking techniques and in terms of knowing the rules of legal analysis that have been most commonly tested.
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