NextGen UBE® preparation by law professors and attorneys · Not affiliated with NCBE
The bar exam just changed.
Prepare for the one that exists.
Founding access · $199 through August 31, then it rises to $399 · One payment, everything through the July 2028 exam.
The NextGen UBE arrived in July 2026 and reaches California, New York, Texas, and Florida in 2028. The MBE advice you inherited no longer describes the exam. But For is the practice half of your prep, professor and attorney authored and overseen. It sits beside whatever outlines or course you already use, and it’s built to the three formats that are new:
- Select-two:six options, exactly two right, real partial credit
- Integrated sets:one client’s case, with new facts arriving as you work and your earlier answers locking
- Performance tasks:two formats, the 60-minute memo and the new legal-research task
Three real questions are below, live and free, in the exam’s own formats. The app’s screens are shown at full size on Our Method and Formats.
The new bar exam doesn’t just test what you memorized. It hands you a statute you’ve never seen and grades what you do with it. Rereading outlines makes the law feel familiar. But knowing a rule when you see it and being able to use it are two different skills, and the exam only grades the second one.
Our law professors and attorneys took the new exam apart, format by format. We worked out what each question type actually tests, how its wrong answers are built, and the move that beats each one. All of that analysis is published free, on the formats page and how to work them.
But For trains that second skill, and only that: no videos, no lectures, no tutors. What you get is the bench. That’s our name for the practice app that comes with membership: the question bank, the sets, the tasks, the grader, and your record, in one place. It’s the practice half of bar prep, built to sit beside whatever outlines or course you already use. The rest of this page shows you what’s on the bench, what it looks like, and what it costs.
What you get, and where to see it
The question bank
530original questions, written by our team, all set in one made-up state, Meridian
8tested subjects, every one covered by at least 44 questions and mapped to NCBE’s published outline
215select-two questions, scored with the exam’s real partial credit, alongside 315 select-one
18integrated sets, one client’s case each, where new facts keep arriving and your earlier answers lock
12performance tasks, split between the standard task and the new legal-research task
3difficulty tiers, Foundation, Administration and Stretch, each with its own time target per question
The free pages
14pages published free, no account needed: the exam, the formats, how to work them, the study plan, and the rest
45questions answered at length, including the ones where the honest answer is “it depends”
1report on the first exam, July 2026, with a source shown for every claim
56jurisdictions, one timeline: pick yours and see when the new exam reaches it
0licensed questions, bought-in content, or filler
The checks
7checks every question has to pass before it reaches you; failing even one keeps it out
3questions on doctrines NCBE’s published outline leaves out, each labeled as extra practice and kept out of scored sets
6editorial rules every question is written to, published in full on the method page
1check of every fact pattern against NCBE’s official samples, so nothing echoes them
0pass-rate claims, score guarantees, countdown clocks, or fake “seats left” counters
Every number in these three columns can be checked against a published page.
Four things to look at on this page
- One Three questions Three questions from the bank, scored the way the exam scores them, with real partial credit. One tap records how sure you were. Answer them →
- Two A graded answer A real written answer, marked point by point: one point given, one refused, each with the reason, in the writer’s own words. Read the grade →
- Three Your record What the bench keeps on you: points, pace, accuracy by difficulty, and how your sure answers compare with your unsure ones. See the record →
- Four The weekly Benchmark The Readiness Benchmark, a short timed exam you take once a week. You get a score band (not a pass prediction), your pace, and your sure-and-wrong count, week over week. See the Benchmark →
The integrated-set and performance-task screens are in § 6, and at full size on the Formats page.
Try three questions from the bank
The questionSelect-two, scored 2 / 1 / 0
Moments after a loud collision at an intersection, a bystander shouted, “That truck ran the red light!” A witness who heard the shout will testify to it; the bystander cannot be located. You anticipate a hearsay objection.
Which of the following legal topics are the most important for you to research to determine admissibility?
Select two.
One right pick still earns a point, which is why you never leave a select-two blank.
Keys: excited utterance and present sense impression. A startled shout describing an event as it happens sits at the exact junction of both exceptions: stress of the moment for one, contemporaneity for the other. Either can carry the statement in. Dying declaration fails on every element; the best evidence rule governs writings, not shouts; privilege and habit have no footing.
The one line to remember: the missing bystander is a red herring. Neither exception requires the person who spoke to be unavailable.
Every question in the bank comes like this: an original fact pattern, wrong options written to be near misses on purpose, an explanation for every option, and one line to remember it by. These three stay free for good. The other 527 are on the bench.
How your written answers get graded
Performance tasks alone are roughly a third of your score, and the integrated sets add short and medium written answers on top of that. Written work is where it’s easiest to fool yourself: you read a model answer, nod along, and it feels as if you could have written it.
So on the method page we show a real grade from the grader members use. One point was given, and the grader quoted the writer’s own words to show why. The other point was refused, and the reason is written out where you can read it.
Read the whole grade, mark by mark, on the method page. And you don’t have to take our word for the grader: on the try page it will grade an answer you write, before you spend anything.
Your record shows where you’re sure and wrong
Every answer you give on the bench records how sure you were. Your record then compares how you score when you’re sure with how you score when you’re not. Being sure and wrong is the most dangerous mistake in bar prep, because it never feels like a mistake, so you never go back to check it.
You can see the full record on the method page: the numbers it keeps, the sure-versus-unsure gap, and the practice session it builds from your worst answers.
One short exam a week shows whether you’re improving
The Readiness Benchmark is a short timed exam you take once a week: questions from every difficulty level, plus one written answer the AI grades. You get a score band and the numbers behind it. The band says how you did on that test, not how you’ll do on the bar; nobody can honestly predict that from it, so we don’t. What matters is watching it move week over week.
The results screen and a five-week trend are shown at full size on the method page.
The four parts of the bench
Everything above comes from four parts: the question bank, the integrated sets, the performance tasks, and your record. The two new formats are shown at reading size on the Formats page. Both arrived with the July 2026 exam, so there’s no archive of old questions to learn them from.
Multiple choice · both formats
The familiar pick-one-of-four, and the new six-option pick-two. No old question bank has the pick-two, because it didn’t exist before July 2026. We drill both, scored the way the exam scores them.
Rule one: never leave a select-two blank.
Integrated Question Sets
One client’s case, and the facts keep arriving as you work. The app enforces the exam’s own rule: once new facts appear, your earlier answers lock.
The app locks your earlier answers for you. It isn’t an honor system.
Twelve performance tasks
The 60-minute standard task, plus the new legal-research task. That one tests whether you can rank authorities, pull out holdings, and notice when the library you’re handed doesn’t answer the question.
Family law and trusts & estates included; they enter the exam in July 2028, mostly through questions that hand you the law.
Your record · the numbers that tell you what to fix
It keeps how you score when you feel sure versus when you’re guessing, how long each question takes you, and how you do at each difficulty level. One tap builds a practice session from the questions most likely to hurt you on exam day.
Feeling sure and being right aren’t the same thing. Your record shows you exactly where they differ, and the practice session starts with those questions.
Know the exam you’re actually taking
The NextGen UBE isn’t the MBE with a new name. It runs nine hours over a day and a half: three three-hour sessions, on your own laptop, through NCBE’s secure platform. Scores come back on a 500 to 750 scale, and each jurisdiction sets its own passing line.
Three types of question make up the whole exam.
Standalone multiple choice
Two formats: the familiar pick-one-of-four, and a six-option question where you pick exactly two. Partial credit on the select-twos is real: one right pick earns a point and a blank earns nothing, so there’s never a reason to leave one unanswered. The early administrations deliberately resemble MBE-style questions; more variety comes later.
Integrated question sets
This one is genuinely new. You get one client’s matter and one role, say a solo practitioner, a public defender, or an associate. The set is built on realistic documents: interview notes, a lease, a police report, a deposition excerpt, sometimes part of a statute or an edited opinion. Inside it you work through a mix of multiple choice, short answers, and medium-length written analysis, and the facts keep arriving as the matter develops. Some sets test the law itself. Others have you draft or edit a document, or counsel a client whose stated goals and limits you’re expected to actually use.
Performance tasks · two kinds
The standard task comes from the MPT: a file, a library of authorities, and one long writing assignment, with instructions and formatting rules that are themselves graded. The legal-research task is new: four multiple-choice questions, a short answer, and a medium-length writing assignment. It tests your research judgment directly: which authority is primary and which is secondary, and which one binds the court and which only persuades it. It also asks what a case actually held, as opposed to what it said in passing, and whether the library you were handed even answers the client’s question.
What actually changed
The rollout, year by year
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Jul 2026
The first NextGen exam ever given. Ten jurisdictions (Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) with roughly 2,624 examinees scheduled. One state never got to start; our full report is free to read.
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2027
Thirteen more jurisdictions join at the July 2027 exam: Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
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Feb 2028
The last time the old MBE-based exam is ever given.
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Jul 2028
The big wave. California, New York, Texas, and Florida switch over, and from here most American bar candidates take the NextGen. Founding membership covers you through this exam. California’s added state-specific component arrives no earlier than July 2029.
All fifty-six jurisdictions on one timeline: pick yours on the Exam page. Every date above comes from NCBE’s published materials.
| Page | What it is |
|---|---|
| The Exam | The whole exam: nine hours over a day and a half, three types of question, the law they hand you, and how it’s scored. |
| Formats | Every question type taken apart: what it rewards, how its six options are built to catch you, and what leaving a select-two blank actually costs. |
| Where Students Go Wrong | One hundred twenty-nine recurring mistakes across nine subjects: the trap, how it hides in a wrong answer, and the move that beats it. |
| How to Work Them | How to work each question type, step by step: what to do first, how much time each question is built for, and what to do when the clock is winning. |
| Method | How the questions get made: the rules we write to, and the checks every question must pass before it reaches you. |
| The Plan | Twelve weeks, scheduled: one subject a week, every set and task assigned, a Sunday benchmark, and the eight-week retaker version. |
| FAQ | Forty-five real questions, answered at length, across five parts. |
| The Report | What actually happened at the first exam, with a source shown for every claim. |
| The Wi-Fi Question | What the exam software does with your answers if the room’s Wi-Fi fails, with the official answers quoted and dated. |
| About | The company: what it is, who makes it, and how the product is built. |
| Fourteen pages published in all, free and open, no account required. Terms and Privacy are there too, and you can read all of it before you spend anything. | |
If your outlines were built for the MBE, they’re getting you ready for an exam you won’t take.
How the questions are made
Every question on the bench was written by our team for this exam and its formats, not adapted from an MBE bank. Here’s how we work, and what every question has to pass before you see it.
Sure-and-wrong comes first.
Every answer records how sure you were, and review starts with the misses you were sure about. Those are the ones you’d never go back to on your own.
Provided law beats memorized law.
The NextGen hands you statutes and expects you to apply that text, even when it cuts against what you memorized. Our sets are built around that trap, because it’s where this exam separates who scores well from who doesn’t.
Where we’re not sure, we say so.
Score bands stay marked provisional until enough real results exist to trust them. AI grading shows its reasons, and on sets and tasks you can overrule it: the score you give is the one your record keeps.
Seven checks before you ever see a question
Every new question has to pass seven checks before it reaches you. If it fails even one, we fix it or throw it out. Here’s what each one asks.
Is it complete?
Does it teach something new?
Could you confuse it with another question?
Can the answers be gamed?
Does everything still fit together?
Is it actually on your exam?
Are the wrong answers honest?
The rules we write to and all seven checks are published on the method page. So is what we won’t claim: no pass guarantees, no predicted questions, and no certainty about a curve nobody has seen yet.
Founding membership
This isn’t a preorder; the bench is live. Founding members get everything now and everything we add. Founding runs through August 31; on September 1 the price becomes $399, and the founding price never returns. One payment covers every update we publish through the July 2028 exam, the first one for California, New York, Texas, and Florida. No countdown clocks and no fake seat counters; a date you can hold us to is the whole point.
- All 530 original questions, including the 215 six-option pick-two questions with real partial credit, plus all eighteen integrated sets and all twelve performance tasks
- Your record: every answer split by how sure you felt, your pace against each question’s time target, your accuracy by difficulty tier, and one-tap sessions built from your own mistakes
- The Readiness Benchmark: a timed test that mixes all three difficulty levels, with one written question the grader marks. You get a band, you can run it again each week, and the trend stays on your dashboard. The bands stay marked provisional until enough real results exist to trust them
- The free 90-minute practice session, plus every new session we add
- Every written answer graded point by point, with the reason for each point shown; on integrated sets and performance tasks, your own score is the one that counts
- Our report on how the first exam actually went, plus every content update through the July 2028 exam
- A Founding Member mark on your account, permanently
A week inside the bench
Day one: take the Readiness Benchmark once, cold. It gives you a starting band and your first sure-and-wrong count, and your record begins with your first answer.
Through the week: timed sets and practice on your gaps. The facts arrive, earlier answers lock, every answer records how sure you felt, and one tap drills the questions most likely to hurt you.
One written task a week, graded point by point. Read the reason behind every point, then set your own score; yours is the one that counts.
Sunday: run the Benchmark again. One band tells you how the week went, and the trend tells you whether the gap is closing. That’s the whole method, and it repeats until exam day.
All twelve weeks are scheduled, subject by subject, set by set: the full plan is published free, with an eight-week version for retakers.
To be plain about what it isn’t: this is the bench, not a lecture course. No videos, no live classes, no tutors. It’s built to sit beside whatever outlines you already use, on any device with a browser.
Founding membership is $199 once. That is twenty-three months and four administrations, February 2027 through July 2028, for one payment, and nothing renews.
Every question is written by our team and checked against NCBE’s published samples before it reaches you. Every written answer is graded point by point, with your own words quoted as the reason.
If your exam is still a year away, access runs through the July 2028 exam, so the bench fits whatever calendar you’re on.
$199
One payment. Everything above. Never a subscription.
- No renewal to forget to cancel
- Rises to $399 on September 1; the founding price never returns
But For is professor and attorney authored and overseen. No set of questions reaches you until our editors have read it through.
Three real questions, and one written answer graded by the same grader members use, are free before you pay anything.
This isn’t a preorder. Everything unlocks the minute you sign in.
- Pay once with Stripe
- Sign in with the purchase email (a one-tap link, no password)
- Everything unlocks: the question bank, the sets, the tasks, the grading, your stats. Yours through July 2028
- Your first ten minutes: take the Benchmark cold, and your record starts with your first answer
Secure checkout by Stripe. Sign in with the same email and you’re answering questions about a minute later.
Questions we get asked
10.1What exactly is included for $199?
Everything on the bench, now and as it grows: all 530 questions including the 215 six-option pick-twos, all eighteen integrated sets, and all twelve performance tasks. Plus the free 90-minute practice session and every new practice session we add. Written answers are graded point by point, with the reasons shown. Your record turns into one-tap practice on your gaps. The weekly Readiness Benchmark keeps your trend. Our report on how the first exam actually went is in too. Every content update through the July 2028 exam is included, for one payment, and nothing recurs. To be plain about what it isn’t: no videos, no live classes, no tutors. This is the bench, built to sit beside whatever outlines you already use.
10.2When does the NextGen UBE reach my jurisdiction?
It arrived in July 2026 in ten jurisdictions: Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Thirteen more join in 2027, and the 2028 wave brings California, New York, Texas, and Florida, the majority of American bar candidates. By February 2028, the MBE era ends entirely.
10.3Is But For affiliated with the NCBE?
No. But For is “not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners,” and it’s an independent study product. We use the name “NextGen UBE” only to identify the exam. Every claim we make about how the exam is built comes from NCBE’s published materials, and we tell you when something is our own inference.
10.4How does the AI grading work, and can I overrule it?
Every written answer is graded against a rubric, point by point, and the grader shows its reason for each point it gives or refuses, quoting your own words. There’s a real one on the method page, and the try page will grade an answer you write. On integrated sets and performance tasks you set your own score against the rubric, and that number replaces the model’s in every total that follows. The grade is there to help; your score is the one that counts.
10.5Is the content original?
Yes. Every fact pattern, statute, and answer option is written from scratch and checked against NCBE’s official samples so nothing echoes them. And we write about what taking the exam was like, never about the questions themselves; that’s a confidentiality line we hold voluntarily and absolutely.
10.6How long does access last?
Access runs through the July 2028 exam, which is the first NextGen exam for California, New York, Texas, and Florida. Every update we publish between now and then is included, and one payment covers the whole run.
10.7How is the NextGen UBE scored?
Scores come back on a 500 to 750 scale, each jurisdiction sets its own passing line, and results have historically arrived months after the exam. That’s why our difficulty estimates and score bands stay labeled provisional until real data exists. We’re not going to pretend to know something nobody knows yet.
Forty-five are answered at length on the full FAQ, these seven among them. The other free pages are there too: the exam, the formats, the method, the report. No account needed.
Anything else, write support@butfor.ai; a human reads every message.
By email · our report on each exam
Our reports on each exam, by email
Our report on the July 2026 exam is free to read right here. Leave your email and a copy comes to your inbox. When the February 2027 exam happens, we’ll write it up the same way and send you that too. You’ll also get the score release when it lands, and every content update. Unsubscribe anytime.
The July 2026 report arrives right away. The February 2027 report follows once that exam has happened.
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