Results dropped this morning and I passed. Scaled MBE was 141, MEE came in around 155, and the MPT pulled my overall score above the 266 combined threshold. I'd been checking the NJBOE portal every hour since 8 AM. The February pass rate historically runs around 45–48% for first-time takers so I was bracing for bad news.
I used Themis for bar prep and studied full-time for 9 weeks starting right after my last semester exams — about 8–9 hours a day, 6 days a week. The NJ-specific content — family law, professional responsibility with NJ RPC distinctions, and NJ civil practice — isn't something you can skip. At least 20% of my MEE points came from questions that had a New Jersey-specific wrinkle that changed the analysis from the general MBE rule.
The MPT is really what separates people who've practiced the format from those who haven't. I did 12 full MPT sets under timed conditions before exam day. The task memo format and how you organize a library memo versus a client letter matters — graders are pattern-matching your structure before they even read the analysis. If you're sitting in July, start MPT practice at week 2, not week 7.
Failed by 4 points. The MEE is what got me — I ran out of time on question 6 and wrote maybe half of what I needed. Sitting again in July. Any advice on MEE time management? I'm averaging 38 minutes per question in practice but need to get to 30.
For July sitters: NJ civil practice has come up in 3 of the last 5 administrations. If you know Rule 4 service requirements and summary judgment standards cold, you're banking easy points on something a lot of people underprep.
Passed too, barely — 268 combined. The NJ RPC distinctions hit me harder than I expected on the professional responsibility questions. The MPRE and NJ bar PR content overlap but there are enough differences that you can't rely on your MPRE prep alone.
The MPT format advice is spot on. I've seen people with strong legal analysis fail the MPT because they wrote it like a law school memo instead of following the specific task memo structure. Read the library documents in the order they're given — the sequencing usually tells you what's most important.