Bar Exam Study Notes: Evidence, Contracts, Torts and Property
How to use these pages
- Start with Bar Exam Mnemonics That Hold Under the Clock and learn the loop: expand each letter, say the rule cold, run a short timed hypo.
- Pick one subject below and one lesson. Before you read, try to write the mnemonic's letters from memory.
- Read the rule once, then cover the page and say it back in a sentence or two.
- Do the lesson's quiz or practice questions on a timer. Write down every miss and why you missed it.
- A few days later, redo only the misses before you start a new lesson.
Exam facts on this page come from the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), and rule quotes come from the rule text on Cornell LII. Verified 2026-10-20.
Start here: the method
- Bar Exam Mnemonics That Hold Under the Clock
The loop every other page leans on: expand each letter into a plain cue, say the rule without peeking, then run a 3 to 5 minute hypo. It ends with a 10-minute drill and a four-question timed quiz whose trap is opening the mnemonic before you've spotted the issue. - Why Smart People Fail the Bar
An essay rather than a drill: a five-level ladder from knowing a rule to using it on the clock. It closes with a 10-minute "Try it today" exercise built on the hearsay rule.
Evidence
- Hearsay and the FRE 801(d) "Not Hearsay" Exclusions
Some statements that look like hearsay aren't: FRE 801(d) sets out conditions under which a statement "is not hearsay" (FRE 801, Cornell LII, verified 2026-10-20). Two original practice questions, starting with a bookkeeper repeating what her company's sales director told her. - One Hearsay Exceptions Mnemonic That Survives the Exam
PESMRB ("pez-merb") walks the first six FRE 803 exceptions in rule order: Present sense impression, Excited utterance, State of mind, Medical diagnosis or treatment, Recorded recollection, Business records (FRE 803, Cornell LII, verified 2026-10-20). A five-minute, four-question quiz ends on a trap that mixes up exclusions and exceptions. - FRE 404: Character Evidence ("Who You Are" vs. "What You Did")
DOOR, then PURPOSE: in a criminal case the Defendant Opens the character door and the Opponent Rebuts, and for other acts you ask whether there's a real purpose besides propensity. FRE 404(b) keeps out other-act evidence offered to show someone acted in character but lets it in "for another purpose" (FRE 404, Cornell LII, verified 2026-10-20).
Contracts
- Contract Formation: Offer, Acceptance, the Mailbox Rule, and UCC 2-207
No acronym on this one. It walks offer, acceptance, the mailbox rule and the goods-versus-common-law split with a small timeline diagram, then two original practice questions: a mailed acceptance racing an emailed revocation, and a merchant's 1.5% late-fee clause. - UCC 2-207: The Battle of the Forms
FORMS (Find an acceptance, Only-if language, Role check, Material alteration or objection, Shared terms plus gap-fillers) sorts out whose fine print wins. Under UCC ยง2-207(1) a definite acceptance can work "even though it states terms additional to or different from those offered" (UCC 2-207, Cornell LII, verified 2026-10-20), and the four-question quiz ends on a services-contract trap. - Parol Evidence Rule Mnemonic That Survives the Clock
FACE IT asks six questions in order, from "Is this writing final?" to trade usage and course of dealing in goods deals, before you let earlier talk anywhere near your answer. A five-minute, four-question quiz finishes on the trap of treating ambiguity as an open door for every earlier promise.
Torts
- Negligence: Duty, Breach, Causation, Damages (and the Standards of Care)
Built on the common D-B-C-D ordering (Duty, Breach, Causation, Damages). Two original practice questions: a 15-year-old on a jet ski, and a leash law that was written for bites, not collisions. - Intentional Torts: The Seven You Must Know Cold
BAFIE-TC ("Baffy, Tee-See," a golfer who hits all seven) covers Battery, Assault, False imprisonment, IIED, Entry onto land, Trespass to chattels and Conversion. The one-page cheat sheet runs three questions in order: intent, which interest was hit, then elements and defenses.
Real Property
- OCEAN: Adverse Possession Mnemonics That Stick
Open, Continuous, Exclusive, Actual, Notorious, with hostility (no permission) checked as its own step. A 10-minute drill and a four-question quiz, including a trap where an essay reaches for the personality-test OCEAN instead.
How the bar exam is set up, from NCBE
These lessons were written with the Multistate Bar Examination in mind. Here is how NCBE describes it. Your jurisdiction's bar admission office has the final word on which exam you'll sit for.
| Exam fact | Source |
|---|---|
| The MBE has 200 multiple-choice questions: 175 scored and 25 unscored pretest questions. It runs in a three-hour morning session and a three-hour afternoon session of 100 questions each. | NCBE: Preparing for the MBE, verified 2026-10-20 |
| The 175 scored questions are split evenly, 25 each, across seven subjects: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts. | NCBE: Preparing for the MBE, verified 2026-10-20 |
| The Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) combines the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), two Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tasks and the MBE. The MBE counts for 50%, the MEE 30% and the MPT 20%. | NCBE: Uniform Bar Examination, verified 2026-10-20 |
| Between July 2026 and July 2028, most jurisdictions are moving from the MBE, MEE and MPT to the NextGen UBE. | NCBE: MBE and NCBE: NextGen, verified 2026-10-20 |
These notes cover parts of four MBE subjects: Evidence, Contracts, Torts and Real Property. Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Criminal Law and Procedure aren't covered here.
MBE, MEE, MPT and UBE are NCBE marks (NCBE website terms, verified 2026-10-20). LearnFun isn't affiliated with or endorsed by NCBE or any bar-review course.
Study methods behind these pages
Every bar lesson here uses the same three habits, and each one has its own page: active recall instead of rereading, spaced repetition for exams, and IRAC answers under time for the essay side.