The MPRE runs two hours.
In that time you answer 60 multiple-choice questions — 50 scored, 10 unscored pretest — on a computer at a Pearson testing center, in one of the three administrations NCBE offers each year.
Scores are typically released within five weeks.
Below: the exam's length, the question count, the format, and what the published rules say about breaks.
MPRE length: two hours on the clock
The MPRE is a two-hour exam: 60 multiple-choice questions under a two-hour clock.
NCBE develops and administers the test and offers it three times a year, so the question is never whether the exam runs long — two hours is the whole thing.
The exam is also the shortest part of the timeline.
Scores are typically released within five weeks of the test, in your NCBE Account — a wait to plan around if the jurisdiction you are seeking admission in wants the result on file by a certain date.
What fills those two hours is one subject.
NCBE is explicit that the exam "is not a test to determine an individual's personal ethical values" — it measures knowledge of the established standards of lawyer conduct, tested in 60 multiple-choice questions.
How many questions are on the MPRE?
There are 60 questions on the MPRE, and not all of them count.
Fifty are scored questions; the other 10 are unscored pretest questions.
Every question, scored or not, offers four answer choices.
The pretest questions carry no weight in your result, so the graded exam inside the two hours is effectively 50 questions long — but all 60 sit under the same clock.
There is no penalty for a wrong answer, either — no deduction to avoid, and therefore no scoring reason to leave anything blank.
Those 50 scored questions produce a scaled score from 50 (low) to 150 (high).
There is no national passing score on that scale — passing scores are established by each jurisdiction.
MPRE format: computer-based, multiple choice
The format is multiple choice end to end — 60 questions with four answer choices each.
You take the exam on a computer Pearson provides, at a Pearson testing center; the network includes locations in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
One exam, many thresholds.
NCBE's pages state that the MPRE is required for admission to the bars of all but two U.S. jurisdictions — Wisconsin and Puerto Rico — and each jurisdiction that requires it sets its own passing score on the same exam.
Connecticut and New Jersey also accept a law-school professional responsibility course in place of a passing score.
For what the exam covers, how it is scored and where it fits into admission, see the MPRE guide.
Are there breaks during the MPRE?
Length, question count and test-center format are all published; the break policy is not spelled out on the NCBE pages our review relied on.
Test-day details — arrival and check-in timing, what may come into the testing room, whether a break is available during the two hours — are not spelled out on those pages either.
Confirm them with NCBE before your testing window rather than planning around an assumption.
Career information, not legal advice. Confirm the MPRE's current rules with NCBE, and your jurisdiction's requirement with its bar admission authority.
Exam rules move — confirm before you book