Representative Good Answers

The Minnesota Board of Law Examiners (Board) historically published the representative good answers to provide candidates with guidance on sample questions that have appeared on prior examinations, and the type of answers graders have considered representative strong responses.  When the Board began to publish these questions and answers, the essay portion of the examination was comprised of questions drafted by law professors that were administered specifically on the Minnesota bar exam.  There was no other source of information for candidates regarding typical exam questions or the drafters’ and graders’ expected responses to them.

Since 2014, the Board has been administering the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), a test instrument developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE).  The NCBE now offers test questions and grading materials on the NCBE’s website and has authorized the Board to provide certain grading materials to unsuccessful Minnesota examinees.  Unsuccessful Minnesota examinees who request a copy of their essay answers within the time frame specified in their results letter will now receive those grading materials with their answers.  For the foregoing reasons, and because the representative good (but not perfect) answers could potentially mislead future examinees on the accuracy of the law, the Board determined that it would discontinue the process of publishing representative good answers to the Board’s website and would instead refer candidates to the NCBE’s materials.