I'm sitting for the Texas Bar in July and I'm 8 weeks out. My Barbri diagnostic put me at a 133 scaled MBE score — I need 135+ to feel safe given Texas's overall passing threshold. Essays are where I'm hoping to make up points but I genuinely don't know how Texas-specific rules differ from MBE law in enough areas to feel confident.
The Texas-tested subjects I keep stumbling on are oil and gas, family law community property rules, and Texas procedure. There's almost no Barbri content for oil and gas specifically and I've been supplementing with outlines from TexasBarPrepPro. Has anyone found a better resource for the Texas-specific subjects?
I'm scoring about 55–60% on MEE-style essay practice, which translates to a 3–4 on grading rubrics. I've heard Texas graders reward IRAC structure heavily and that a well-organized incomplete answer beats a disorganized complete one. Is that accurate from people who've graded or been graded?
Also — the PT component. I've been avoiding it because I hate the format. Is it really worth practicing or does it mostly sort itself out on exam day?
Texas graders absolutely reward structure over completeness. I passed in February 2025 and my essay grader feedback (which you can request post-exam) showed I got full marks on one essay where I'd left a subissue blank but my IRAC on the issues I addressed was clean. Don't ramble trying to cover everything.
Do not skip PT practice. I made that mistake and the PT format genuinely tripped me up during the real exam. The TX PT is 90 minutes and you need to be disciplined about how you allocate time between reading the file and writing. Practice at least 3 full PTs before exam day.
For oil and gas specifically, the University of Texas Law School publishes a free bar prep outline through their academic resources page. It's written by a professor who focuses on exactly the tested areas. Way better than any commercial outline I found.
A 133 MBE with 8 weeks left is very fixable. Identify your 2 weakest MBE subjects — probably Evidence and Civ Pro for most people — and drill only those for 3 weeks. Targeted improvement in weak subjects moves your scaled score faster than reviewing subjects you already know.
I was in almost the exact same spot six months ago — MBE borderline, banking on essays to carry me. Honestly, the thing that clicked for me was stopping trying to memorize Texas-specific rules in isolation and instead treating every essay prompt like a comparison exercise: write the MBE rule first, then flag the Texas deviation right after it. For community property and family law especially, graders seem to reward showing you *know* there's a difference, not just that you landed on the right answer. It sounds obvious but I wasn't doing it until week six.
Also don't obsess over your MBE score the way I did. I spent two weeks drilling practice sets trying to get from 133 to 140 and my essays suffered. A 133 is close enough that a solid essay performance gets you there. Stay consistent, keep checking the texas bar exam results release date so you have a mental finish line to work toward, and trust that the essay points are more predictable than MBE points once you learn the format Texas actually rewards. You've got time.
Just wanted to share a quick update since I'm in basically the same boat. I took a full practice set last Thursday and pulled a 138 scaled — up from 131 two weeks ago, so it's moving. I'm sitting for the July administration too, and I've been stressing about exactly this split. For what it's worth, I've noticed Texas essays reward spotting the issue fast and then dumping organized rule statements, even if your analysis isn't super deep.
One thing I didn't expect is how much time I'd spend just tracking when scores come out and what that means for my timeline. I bookmarked this page on the texas bar exam results release date so I'm not refreshing the Board of Law Examiners site every day. Honestly at this point I think your MBE score is closer than it feels — two points isn't much with 8 weeks left.
Honestly, your MBE score being that close to where you need it tells me you probably know the rules -- you're just not seeing why the wrong answers are wrong. That was my whole issue. I stopped doing practice sets on a timer for a week and just sat with every wrong answer until I could explain exactly what made each distractor tempting. Felt like wasted time at first but my score jumped faster than it did during the weeks I was grinding through question banks at full speed.
On the Texas essays, the biggest shift is that Texas still tests community property and a few procedural rules that flat-out contradict MBE defaults, so you can't autopilot your common law instincts. Pick two or three of those Texas-specific topics and drill them until the exception feels like the rule. Eight weeks is genuinely enough time if you don't spread yourself too thin trying to master everything equally.
Quick update from someone in almost the same boat — I was at a 131 on my first Barbri diagnostic and just hit 138 on my most recent MBE set, so the needle does move if you grind the questions consistently. I'm sitting the July exam too, so I've been checking the texas bar exam results release date way too often already.
On the Texas essays, what helped me most was realizing the state-specific distinctions aren't as deep as I feared. Texas community property rules and the family law stuff are the main traps. I didn't ignore MBE law though because the essays still test majority rule plenty, so I wasn't starting from scratch either way. Keep your MBE practice going and layer the Texas distinctions on top rather than treating them as a separate subject.