For MEE issue spotting, there is an MEE Issue Spotting Practice outline that consists of the last 225+ MEE questions along with the actual issues tested plus with a short answer summary (to enable efficient MEE issue review). The outline lets you read each MEE question and then quickly issue spot and see if you hit the issues which are on the next page with a short answer explanation. This gives you the same instant gratification as doing an MBE question and checking the answer. If you are very limited in time, there is are MP3 audio files of this issue spotting outline to test yourself as you commute, cook, or work out. I regard issue spotting as the most important part of a passing MEE answer so this outline should significantly contribute to an above-passing MEE score on the upcoming exam. If you do not spot at least half the issues, it is difficult to score enough points to have a passing essay. The best way to learn essay issue spotting is to practice with past MEE questions. Since fact patterns frequently repeat themselves in some form or another, the more fact patterns you examine, the easier issue spotting will become. Accordingly, this outline should significantly contribute to an above-passing MEE score on the upcoming exam.
This Seperac MEE Issue Spotting compendium serves as an excellent way to familiarize yourself with how the questions for each subject are posed, what issues are at play, and what the outcomes are, along with a brief discussion of the answer. For examinees that have practiced essays and are confident their writing and analysis will be satisfactory, this Issue Spotting compendium enables an examinee to efficiently review a wide range of past MEE essays (most likely the most important ones) and their corresponding issues/answers to improve their issue spotting and knowledge. For example, in a post-exam follow-up, in asking what examinees found “LEAST helpful” in their studies, one examinee told me: “I spent a long time writing out whole essays for grading by a “professor”… Because I felt that I was being evaluated by someone and I was submitting a work product, I ended up spending too much time making every essay as perfect as possible. Some of the essays were not MEE style, but simply more complicated with tons more issues. I don’t think that this was a good use of my time. I would have preferred to outline essays or practice spotting issues.”
This compendium contains every released MEE question from 2002 to July 2017 (with the exception of Negotiable Instruments/Commercial Paper questions which are no longer tested on the MEE exam). This compendium contains 224 MEE questions on the 14 testable MEE subjects: Agency & Partnership, Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Corporations & LLCs, Criminal Law & Procedure, Evidence, Family Law, Real Property, Secured Transactions, Torts, Trusts, and Wills & Estates. Please note that MEE testing of the MBE subjects (with the exception of Civil Procedure) only began in July 2007, so there are fewer MEE questions for these subjects.
The MEE questions in this Issue Spotting Compendium are grouped by subject, with the questions sorted from newest to oldest. Examinees should focus on one subject at a time, reading each question from that subject and then attempting to issue spot (either on paper or in your head). The questions and short answers in this compendium are separated by a page break so an examinee can read each question without any hint of the answer, and the examinee can then go to the answer explanation on the next page to self-assess. The questions for each subject are sorted from most recent to least recent because I regard the more recent exam questions as more important (much like the recently released MBE questions in the OPE 1-4 exams better reflect the current MBE, the recently released MEE questions from 2011-2017 better reflect the current MEE).
The Answer Analysis section contains a list of the relevant legal problems tested in the question (which are referred to as “Issues”) along with an answer to each legal problem, and then an Answer Discussion which consists of a brief overview of the answer. The Issue answers are color coded so examinees can quickly determine how the issue was resolved (Red for No, Green for Yes and Blue means Not Applicable). Each Issue reports its assigned score value which provides some insight into how much knowledge and analysis is required for each Issue. For example “POINT 1 (25%)” means that this issue was worth 25% of an examinee’s total score for that essay (and generally should represent about 25% of your writing).
If you go to View from the WORD menu, if you check “Navigation pane” in the Show menu, you will see a hyperlinked navigation pane on the left side of the document. This enables you to quickly jump around between questions. As a word document, the document is editable – you can make this document your own by adding or removing text, increasing the font size, changing the margins, or adding comments, special formatting/highlighting. The default font is Times New Roman because this is the font NCBE uses for the MEE questions, but feel free to change it if you prefer something more readable. In addition, examinees can search the document for keywords in the past essay questions and answers. On the Menu/Ribbon, if you go to View, there is a macro button called “Count Words.” If you click on the button, a dialog box will ask “What word do you want to count?” Enter a word or a phrase and then press OK.
This MEE Issue Spotting Compendium serves as a well-organized way to familiarize yourself with how the questions for each subject are posed, what issues are at play, and what the outcomes are, along with a brief discussion of the answer. For examinees that have practiced essays and are confident in their writing and analysis, this MEE Issue Spotting Compendium enables an examinee to efficiently review a wide range of past MEE essays (likely the most important ones) and their corresponding issues/answers to improve their issue spotting and knowledge. In addition, there are MP3s of this compendium for each subject on the subscription site. I recommend that examinees alternate between reading this outline and listen to the MP3s of this outline since it is a great way to create different memory impressions in your studies.