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What is the MPRE: 60 multiple-choice questions in two hours, 50 of them scored, on an equated 50 to 150 scale, given three times a year at Pearson VUE centers. It is required in all but two jurisdictions, and NCBE states NextGen is not expected to replace it.
The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination: 60 multiple-choice questions in two hours, administered three times a year by NCBE and delivered at Pearson VUE testing centers (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre).
Fifty of the 60 are scored and ten are unscored pretest items, each with four answer choices.
Testing time is two hours; total time from arrival to completion is approximately two and a half to three hours.
It is required in all but two jurisdictions and is a separate hurdle from the bar exam itself (https://help.ncbex.org/hc/en-us/articles/22969275289627-Which-jurisdictions-require-the-MPRE).
On a scaled score from 50 to 150 (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/mpre-scores).
Raw scores are converted by equating, so a given scaled score represents the same level of performance from one test date to another.
NCBE states plainly that it is not possible to determine in advance how many questions must be answered correctly to achieve a specific scaled score. Anyone selling you a raw-score target is guessing.
Scores are released approximately five weeks after the examination, posted to your NCBE Account, and NCBE reports the score to one designated jurisdiction at no cost.
FeatureMPREQuestions60, of which 50 are scoredAnswer choicesFourTesting time2 hoursTotal time at the centerApproximately 2.5 to 3 hoursScore scale50 to 150, equatedAdministrations per yearThreeFee, 2026$185Score releaseApproximately five weeks after the exam
From NCBE's MPRE pages (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre, https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/mpre-scores, https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/registering-mpre). Verified July 27, 2026.
No. NCBE states that most jurisdictions require the MPRE and that this is not expected to change for jurisdictions administering the NextGen UBE (https://help.ncbex.org/hc/en-us/articles/39896137942299).
Professional responsibility content does appear inside NextGen integrated question sets, but explicitly not as standalone multiple-choice, and it does not displace the MPRE.
Note the hedge in NCBE's own wording. 'Not expected to change' is forward-looking rather than a guarantee, so it is a strong signal rather than a settled rule.
Practically: plan for the MPRE regardless of which exam format your jurisdiction uses.
Three fees are worth knowing before you need them (https://www.ncbex.org/score-services/mpre-score-services).
An MPRE Score Report to an additional jurisdiction is $30. An Unofficial Score Transcript is $30.
Score Verification, which is a recheck, is $50, must be requested within two months of the test date, and takes six to eight weeks.
Every fact here was read on NCBE's own pages or the jurisdiction's own board or supreme court pages on July 27, 2026. No prep company, no aggregator, no forum and no news summary was used as a source for anything.
Where a jurisdiction's own site was unreachable, robots-blocked or JavaScript-gated, we say the fact rests on NCBE alone rather than presenting it as confirmed. That happened more often than you would expect and it is named on the page each time.
Where two official sources disagree, we publish the conflict and name which one we treat as operational. We do not pick quietly and we do not average them.
Where nothing is published, the page says not yet published by the board. It never says a number we worked out ourselves, because an estimate that looks like a disclosure is worse than a gap.
It cannot tell you what your own board will do. Jurisdictions set their own dates, fees, cut scores, deadlines and admission rules, and NCBE compiles those decisions rather than making them.
It cannot substitute for reading your jurisdiction's rule text. Compilation charts are an index into the rules, not the rules, and every material decision should be checked against the authority itself.
It cannot tell you the raw score you need, because NCBE says that number cannot be determined in advance.
This page is one spoke of a cluster. The hub is our NextGen bar exam pillar, which carries the whole transition in one place and links every spoke including this one.
The two most closely related pages here are mpre passing score by state and when to take the mpre.
Everything across the cluster is drawn from the same verified fact set and carries the same verified-as-of date, so the numbers agree with each other by construction rather than by coincidence.
The first is adoption. Supreme courts issue orders on their own schedule and NCBE's compilation pages lag them, which is exactly what happened with California in July 2026.
The second is the calendar. Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or 2027 fees at verification, and several were serving prior-cycle pages without saying so.
The third is cut scores. NCBE states on its own page that jurisdictions are currently evaluating its recommended NextGen range (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores), so that list grows month by month.
None of those three settles before autumn. Treat September as the re-check point for anything on this page that carries a date or a number.
Start at NCBE's jurisdiction index (https://www.ncbex.org/jurisdictions) to find the name of your admitting authority, which is often not the state bar association and is sometimes a board sitting under the supreme court.
Then go to that authority's own site and look for a dated page. A page with no cycle label is the warning sign, not the exception; several boards serve prior-cycle information with no year on it anywhere.
Cross-check the deadlines page against the program page, because they disagree more often than they should. We found boards contradicting themselves on dates in the same week.
If the two disagree and you cannot tell which is current, email the board and keep the reply. A dated email from the board is better evidence than any table, including this one.
One framing point that governs this whole page. The first NextGen administration was July 28 and 29, 2026 (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen), so at the time of writing no NextGen exam had been sat anywhere in the world and no results existed. There is no NextGen pass rate, no score distribution, no repeater data and no retrospective on how it went, and anyone offering you one is inventing it.
That matters on this page specifically, because the transition is the reason any of it is moving. Structure, dates and published policy are reportable now; outcomes are not.
NCBE has not published a NextGen mean or standard deviation either. The figures are absent from the Guidance Brief, the Examinees' Guide, the Blueprint and every scoring page (https://www.ncbex.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/FOR%20RELEASE%20NCBE%20NextGen%20Guidance%20Brief-Recommended%20Passing%20Score%20Range-2.pdf), which is worth knowing before you read anyone's confident claim about difficulty.
Open your own jurisdiction's board page and confirm every date and number on this page against it.
Where this page says not yet published, check again in September, which is when most boards refresh.
If your plan turns on a figure here, get it from the board in writing rather than from any table.
Everything on this page about the MPRE was read on the source pages listed inline on July 27, 2026, and the date is on the page rather than buried in a footer because this material moves faster than anything else we publish.
Three separate clocks are running against it. Supreme courts issue adoption orders and NCBE's own pages lag them.
Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or fees. NextGen passing scores are being set jurisdiction by jurisdiction right now, and NCBE says so on its own page (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores).
Re-check your own jurisdiction's board before you rely on any date or number here, including ours. A figure quoted anywhere without a cycle label and a date attached is unverified by definition.
A 60-question, two-hour multiple-choice exam on professional responsibility, 50 questions scored, given three times a year at Pearson VUE centers and required in all but two jurisdictions.
On an equated 50 to 150 scale. NCBE states you cannot determine in advance how many questions a given scaled score requires. Scores arrive about five weeks after the exam.
No. NCBE says most jurisdictions require it and this is not expected to change for NextGen jurisdictions. Professional responsibility appears inside integrated question sets but does not displace the MPRE.
Only Wisconsin and Puerto Rico. Connecticut and New Jersey allow a law school professional responsibility course to substitute.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
July 30, 2026
July 30, 2026