This MBE cheat sheet distills the Multistate Bar Examination's seven equally weighted subjects into a printable rundown of the rules the NCBE tests most. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free MBE toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
MBE exam at a glance
- Questions: 200 multiple-choice (175 scored + 25 unscored pretest)
- Time: 6 hours — two 3-hour sessions of 100 questions each
- Scoring: Scaled score on a 200-point scale, equated across test forms
- Score target: No national cut line; counts as 50% of the UBE, where states commonly set 260-280
- Certifying body: National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE)
- Cost: Set by your jurisdiction's bar application; no separate national MBE fee — verify with your board
What’s on the MBE cheat sheet
- Civil Procedure (~14%) — federal jurisdiction (complete diversity + $75,000), Erie, pleadings, summary judgment, and preclusion.
- Constitutional Law (~14%) — standing, the scrutiny ladder, the Dormant Commerce Clause, and individual rights.
- Contracts incl. UCC Art. 2 (~14%) — goods-vs-services classification, the mailbox rule, Statute of Frauds (MY LEGS), and remedies.
- Criminal Law & Procedure (~14%) — mens rea tiers, felony-murder predicates (BARRK), merger, Miranda, and the exclusionary rule.
- Evidence (~14%) — relevance and FRE 403, character (MIMIC), and the hearsay decision tree with FRE 803/804 exceptions.
- Real Property & Torts (~28%) — estates, future interests, the recording acts, joint tenancy — plus negligence, strict products liability, and defamation.
How to use it in your final week
- Rotate through all seven subjects daily — they are weighted equally at about 25 scored questions each, so a weak subject drags your scaled score as hard as a strong one lifts it.
- Front-load the trap-heavy rules: hearsay exceptions (FRE 803 vs. 804), the scrutiny tiers, complete diversity plus the $75,000 threshold, and the felony-murder predicates (BARRK).
- Read the sheet the morning of test day for a final pass on memory hooks — MY LEGS for the Statute of Frauds, MIMIC for character evidence, and the mailbox rule's exceptions.
- Pair every review pass with a short timed set at roughly 1.8 minutes per question, so exam-day pacing across the six-hour, 200-question format feels routine.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your MBE practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
MBE cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the MBE cheat sheet downloads as a PDF at no cost and with no sign-up. It rides alongside Career Employer's free MBE practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so your entire prep stack stays free.
It condenses the black-letter rules the NCBE tests most across all seven equally weighted subjects: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts (with UCC Article 2), Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts. Think of it as the rule statements and memory hooks you want loaded the morning you sit.
The MBE reports a scaled score on a 200-point scale, and there is no single national cut line. In Uniform Bar Examination jurisdictions the scaled MBE counts as 50% of the 400-point UBE total, and states set their own minimums — commonly 260 to 280 — so target a scaled MBE score that clears the jurisdiction where you plan to be admitted.
Your raw score (correct answers out of the 175 scored questions) is converted to a scaled score through equating, a statistical adjustment for slight difficulty differences between test forms. Equating is why a given scaled score signals the same performance regardless of which administration you sat, and the 25 pretest questions never count.
No — the MBE rewards fast, accurate rule application under time pressure, and only timed practice builds that. Use the sheet to lock in the rules, then drill full-length, subject-weighted questions to push your scaled score toward your jurisdiction's target.
References
- 1.National Conference of Bar Examiners. “Multistate Bar Examination (MBE).” NCBE (ncbex.org), 2026. ↑
- 2.National Conference of Bar Examiners. “MBE Subject Matter Outline.” NCBE (ncbex.org), 2026. ↑
- 3.National Conference of Bar Examiners. “MBE Scores.” NCBE (ncbex.org), 2026. ↑
- 4.National Conference of Bar Examiners. “Uniform Bar Examination (UBE).” NCBE (ncbex.org), 2026. ↑
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