Asked as one question — is it harder? — the answer is a hedge, because "harder" isn't one variable. Asked as five separate questions, it has real answers. Here they are, graded dimension by dimension, followed by the part that matters more than any of them: the exam was explicitly engineered not to move the pass bar, and the design evidence says so.
The five dimensions, graded
| Dimension | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Memorization load | Easier | 8 fully tested subjects instead of 12; recall confined to starred topics; two subjects hand you the law |
| Practice-material depth | Harder, temporarily | No decades of released past exams — the first cohorts train on samples and new banks |
| Writing weight | Harder if writing is your weakness | ~51% of the score is written work, and it appears in every single session |
| MCQ format | Harder guessing math | Select-two questions resist elimination tactics; partial credit only cushions it |
| Length & stamina | Shorter, but tricky | 9 hours vs 12 — but Day 1 runs two 3-hour sessions back to back |
Now the substance behind each verdict.
Memorization got genuinely lighter. The MEE could reach subjects the NextGen scope doesn't test standalone — Conflict of Laws and Secured Transactions are gone as standalone subjects — and within the 8 foundational subjects, pure recall is confined to starred topics, roughly two-thirds of the map. Family Law and Trusts & Estates appear with the law provided through February 2028. If the legacy bar's mountain of memorization was your nightmare, the new exam is objectively kinder.
The practice-material gap is the real first-cohort cost. A 2024 MBE candidate could drill thousands of released, battle-tested questions. A 2026 NextGen candidate has NCBE's sample set plus new-built banks — ours included. That's a genuine disadvantage versus what previous cohorts enjoyed, with two mitigations: everyone in your cohort shares it, and the exam's scoring accounts for it (below).
The writing weight is the quiet difficulty shift. On the legacy UBE you could be an MBE machine and survive the written day. NextGen makes written work 51% of the score — and structurally inescapable: every 3-hour session contains two integrated question sets and a performance task. There is no sequencing strategy that hides a writing weakness anymore. For strong writers this is the easiest bar exam in decades; for weak ones it's the hardest — that single sentence is most of the honest answer to this post's title.
Select-two changes the elimination math. On a 4-option MCQ, killing three options wins. On a 6-option select-two, eliminating two obvious losers still leaves four candidates for two slots — six possible pairs. You need affirmative reasons for both picks, and partial credit rewards knowing one of them. It's a fairer format for real knowledge and a crueler one for test-taking tricks. Our question-type strategy guide covers the tactics that do transfer.
Stamina is redistributed, not removed. Twelve hours became nine — but the Day 1 double-session (two 3-hour blocks with a break between) is a specific endurance profile most candidates have never practiced. Simulate it once before exam week and it's a non-event; meet it for the first time on July 28 and it isn't.
The part the difficulty debate misses: it was engineered for continuity
The empirical question "will the same quality of candidate still pass?" has a design answer. Before launch, NCBE ran standard-setting studies with more than 80 panelists from 43 jurisdictions, concordance analyses linking legacy-UBE and NextGen performance, and outcome modeling that explicitly examined how candidate pass rates would move under different cut scores. The recommended passing band that came out — 610–620 on the 500–750 scale — is described by NCBE as corresponding to the familiar 260–270 on the legacy scale, and the scores states actually announced map onto their old cuts almost one-to-one.
Translation: the bar was calibrated to stay where it was. The exam changes what mix of skills clears it, not how many candidates are expected to. And because scores are equated across administrations, the July 2026 first cohort isn't graded on a harsher curve for going first. The first real pass rates — tracked here as they land this fall — will test that design promise against reality, and we'll update this post when they do.
What the first takers said (July 2026)
The five verdicts above were written before anyone had sat the exam. On July 28–29, 2026, about 2,643 candidates did, and their reports line up with the table more than they contradict it — with one emphasis the table underplays.
- Pacing was the dominant complaint. The most consistent post-exam report was the clock: in the r/barexam timing thread, takers described finishing with seconds left or not finishing at all, on items that individually felt manageable. "Shorter, but tricky" understated it.
- The multiple-choice block surprised more people than the written formats. Pre-exam anxiety was about question sets; afterwards, several takers described the sets and performance tasks as fine and the standalone questions as the harder part. One post-exam thread called the exam different from what they'd been told would be tested — the practice-material gap, felt from inside.
- The overall tone was steady. The day-after thread Next Gen: how are we feeling? drew dozens of replies; a retaker called it "weirdly okay," others said it felt fine in some ways and frightening in others. Not a cohort that thought the exam was broken.
- The venues were the story, not the exam. Washington's sitting was cancelled by a site failure and Missouri's was delayed by inadequate Wi-Fi — both attributed by the courts and NCBE to the venues, not the platform. The full account is in what happened at the first NextGen bar exam.
Whether "harder" turns into a lower pass rate is a question the first results answer from October 2026; the results tracker carries each state's number as it publishes.
So: harder for whom?
You'll likely find NextGen easier if you:
- struggle with brute memorization but reason well from provided material
- read fast and extract rules from statutes and cases without panic
- write competently under time pressure
- think like a practicing lawyer — client letters, next steps, what-do-we-need-to-find-out
You'll likely find it harder if you:
- were counting on MBE-style elimination tactics to carry weak doctrine
- have avoided timed writing since 1L legal writing
- read provided materials slowly — the resource-based questions are reading-speed tests wearing law costumes
- planned to prep by grinding decades of past papers, because those don't exist yet
Notice what both lists are: skill profiles, not ability levels. The exam moved the difficulty; it didn't raise or lower it uniformly.
Stop debating it in the abstract
Your difficulty is an empirical question with a ten-minute answer: the free diagnostic mixes both MCQ formats at the real 1.8-minute pace and shows you exactly which side of each list above you're on. If select-two questions or a subject's starred rules turn out to be your gap, that's not bad news — it's a study plan with your name on it, four months before it matters.
