You decided to retake the bar exam. This time you need a better strategy.

It is important that you do well on your next attempt, because some jurisdictions limit how many times you may sit for the exam.

The limits vary. Maryland, a Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) jurisdiction, sets no limit on the number of times you may retake the UBE. New York has no cap, but after four unsuccessful attempts an applicant may apply to retake only in the February administration. Texas limits an applicant to a combined total of five examinations without passing. After that, the applicant cannot take the Texas exam again or be admitted on a transferred UBE score unless the Board waives the limit for good cause. Some jurisdictions count attempts made in other jurisdictions toward their own limits. Check the current rules of each jurisdiction.

If it feels overwhelming, we understand. The score report said what happened without saying what to do about it. The notes below cover the essays, the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), and the performance test, and how to study each differently this time.

Some of you were close. If you were close in any section, that is a base to build on, and a few adjustments to how you study may be enough. If you were not close, meaning you did poorly in more than one part of the exam, there are notes for you at the end of this page.

Score reports differ by jurisdiction, so a few notes start with "if your report shows."

The essays

Why an essay score is hard to read

An essay score below passing can have many causes. They include missing an issue, stating a rule loosely or incorrectly (not knowing the law, to be frank), spending the time on the wrong issue, writing too little, and being conclusory in the analysis. Another cause is running out of time because the time went to other things, such as reading and rereading the facts or writing the rule statements too slowly or too carefully. The score alone does not say which.

Attempt real past questions

Chances are you still remember the essays from exam day. That is probably because you made a real attempt to work them. Study the same way, now that you can see how much the effort is worth. Merely reading outlines and sample answers is passive, because law in the abstract gives the mind nothing to hold onto. Most people learn through examples. Attempting to answer a question with a fact pattern of suitable complexity puts your mind to work and engages the material more actively.

Start with real past questions, open notes, no time pressure. Answer each question as thoroughly as you can. When you are done, review the published sample answer and judge your own answer strictly against it. The point is to surface blind spots in issue spotting and rule choice, and to start to appreciate how difficult and convoluted a bar exam essay question can be. Also note how long it took you to answer the question to your satisfaction. The exam does not afford you that much time, so you need to hone what you focus on and write efficiently.

There are many things to sort out. Some takers may underappreciate the facts and what they signal; others may try to address every minor and tangential issue and run out of time before answering the primary question that matters.

After you become accustomed to the essay writing and review process, add a time limit, still with open notes. You can only write so much, so you decide which issues get your precious time. You should also practice phrasing so that each sentence does more.

Once you know your limits and the usual difficulty of a question, outline the response on scratch paper instead of writing out the entire essay. This is the practice phase: work through many past questions. The essay strategy page has more.

By studying this way, you may find you have already learned and memorized many of the rules in the process.

Where Bengos fits

Essay resources may be harder to find than MBE resources. Outlines and a stack of sample answers may not be enough on their own.

Some questions to consider about your last exam:

• Did you run out of time?
• Do you have the typing speed to support a passing answer?
• Was the outline too much to digest without a strategy for it?

Bengos was built for people who need extra help preparing for the essay portion of the exam. You can study the rules by typing them or on flashcards, and both follow the same review schedule.

Bengos uses spaced repetition, which means reviews timed to the forgetting curve. The schedule is set by your own ratings. The rules you rate low come back sooner, so your review time tends to go to the rules you are least sure of. The schedule lets you memorize the rules as you go, rather than cram them in the last two weeks. How much time a day Bengos takes depends on how you study; the FAQ has estimates.

For typing practice, you type the rule statements for the essay subjects, and your speed and accuracy are measured on each passage. As with attempting an essay, typing a rule is more active than merely reading it. Typing is also a skill you can use in any job, whatever your exam result. If your typing speed is already where it needs to be, you can study the rules on flashcards alone.

The MBE

If your MBE score was below passing

Bluntly: you do not know the law well enough yet, and you may not be reading the questions and answer choices carefully enough. The same work addresses both. The MBE is a standardized, objective test, and it responds well to learning how the exam is designed and to deliberate study. The learning should be slow at first; then a practice phase sharpens your MBE test-taking skills.

Learn how the MBE is built

Simply knowing the law may not be enough to do well on the MBE. There is a method to reading the call first, eliminating choices, and keeping pace. Work through an MBE strategy book, such as Strategies & Tactics for the MBE or Strategies & Tactics for the Finz Multistate Method, from start to finish, before or alongside real question sets. If your report shows a low MBE score and you have never read such a book, start there.

Work real MBE questions

The questions the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) has released are real questions from past exams that NCBE has retired. Good questions are hard to write, which is what makes these valuable. Working them teaches you how the law is tested. It also builds a pace that needs to become second nature. Real questions and their answer choices have qualities that are hard to name or measure. The way to learn those is to work the real questions with the real answer choices.

Several products are built on released questions: NCBE's own practice exams and Strategies & Tactics for the MBE. Web apps such as AdaptiBar add performance statistics as you work and adjust the questions to your results. These are merely examples, not a shortlist. Bengos does not endorse any particular product and is not affiliated with these companies or publishers.

The performance test

UBE jurisdictions call it the Multistate Performance Test (MPT); the California Bar Exam calls it the Performance Test (PT). It is a closed-universe test: the file and the library give you everything you need to write the answer, and the rule comes from the library, not from memory. If your report shows a low score here, you probably do not yet know how to take the file apart, synthesize that rule, and write efficiently. Compared with the essays and the MBE, this is quick to address: two or three practice runs against sample answers may be enough to show the gap.

Read several sample answers and look for what they have in common:

• See how the samples build the rule from the library before applying the facts. Reading a library quickly takes practice.
• You need to provide a complete rule statement. You probably found the substantive law on point, like the doctrinal law you memorized for the essays and the MBE. But did you also find the standard of review (if any) and the burden of proof or persuasion, and see how the samples set them up? If you miss them, your rule statement may not be the complete expression of the law at issue. Your analysis may then lead to the wrong conclusion, and the advice the task asks for will be of questionable quality.
• See how the samples address each element with the relevant facts and arrive at the conclusion. Note any hedging language in the conclusion or advice.

You need not match the length or polish of a high-scoring answer, but you do need to cover each item in the list above. Each difference you find between your attempt and the sample is a mistake you are less likely to repeat on the next exam.

Your study plan

Plan all the way to test day. Build up to studying at least five days a week in the last two months before the exam, and every day if you can. Start small, so your stamina for study builds over time. Studying regularly matters more than studying for long hours on a few days.

Take an inventory of what you have: the question sets, the books, the outlines, the past essays, and the time between now and the exam. Then write the plan down. A stack of materials and no plan wastes the weeks you have.

As an example, not a recommendation, here is one shape for a study day: three blocks of three hours. In the first hour of each block, work MBE questions. In the second, attempt one past essay. In the third, compare your answer to the sample answer and look for blind spots and mistakes: misreading the facts, misunderstanding how a rule works, or missing how several rules interact and which takes priority. Do not try to match the sample answer's word count or style. Many takers try, but they think and type too slowly in the attempt and do not finish the way they intended. How long the published samples run, and a realistic target, is on the word-counts page.

If the MBE is your stronger section, you can give it less time. Fit any other study tools you use, such as AdaptiBar or Bengos, into the plan as shorter sessions spread through the day rather than one long sitting.

Many candidates leave memorization to the last two weeks. As you may have experienced, what is crammed at the last minute tends not to stay. The alternative is to memorize as you go, so that the last two weeks are review rather than first memorization.

Rest matters as much as the active study blocks. The breaks keep your attention sharp and give your brain a moment to process what you are learning. Try to get a full night's sleep, so the learning can continue the next day. Sleep research suggests the brain sorts and stores the day's learning during sleep. For more, see this short TED-Ed video on sleep and learning.

If you are not already exercising, it is in your best interest to start, preferably in the morning so you are awake and ready to learn when your study day begins. Ease in with morning walks, months before your exam. You are training your body to support your mind through the exam. Like learning, it is a slow process that cannot be crammed.

Lastly, watch what you eat. Sweets, junk food, and constant snacking while studying are common, but they can leave your energy uneven throughout the day and may disturb your sleep. Balanced meals of real food keep you full for longer, and not eating for several hours before bedtime may help you sleep better. Remember, you are training your body for exam day too; it takes time to adjust, so start now.

If your score was not close to passing

You have difficult choices to make. As mentioned at the top of this page, some jurisdictions limit the number of times a candidate may sit for the bar exam. Plan with care, with the aim that your next bar exam is your last.

Consider a longer-term plan rather than the next administration, which may be too soon. If you have taken the exam several times and are still not close, a different study plan alone is unlikely to fix it.

One thing to look at is time away from law school, which can soften professional communication skills. The exam asks for an objective, professional tone throughout, even in the performance test, where you may take an advocate's position. You may need to work on reading, analyzing, writing, and communication skills beyond bar study.

If you are still committed to becoming a lawyer, consider some of these options:

• Another jurisdiction. Passing scores differ by jurisdiction. If you took the UBE, your score can be transferred to another UBE jurisdiction. Each sets its own minimum score and decides how old a score it will accept, commonly two to five years. If your score is at or above another jurisdiction's minimum, you may be able to seek admission in that jurisdiction without sitting for the exam again. Some jurisdictions also accept a transferred MBE score, on their own conditions. Check each jurisdiction's current rules.
• Federal practice. Under federal law (5 U.S.C. § 500), a lawyer in good standing in any U.S. state may generally represent clients before federal agencies. Those include the immigration agencies and the immigration courts, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in trademark matters. So a license from any U.S. state can support a federal agency practice such as immigration or trademark law. Federal courts set their own admission rules, and patent practice before the USPTO requires a separate registration exam. Check the rules of the state where you live and work, as well as those of the agencies you plan to work with.
• A tutor. A tutor costs more, but one may address a mental block or give you a strategy specific to you. A tutor is a personal resource, but no one can guarantee a result, since many things can be at issue.