NextGen Bar Exam Sample Questions: Every Format, Answered

There are two problems with NextGen sample questions in 2026. The official set is small — NCBE's page has eight multiple-choice items plus a handful of question sets and performance tasks — and most of what circulates elsewhere is either a rewritten MBE question with a new label or a PDF behind an email gate. Candidates who sat the first administration in July 2026 came out talking about time pressure and formats that felt different from the practice they'd done.

So here are five, in the five shapes the exam actually uses, each answered and explained: a select-one multiple-choice question, a multiple-choice question that hands you a statute, a select-two-of-six, an excerpt from an integrated question set, and an excerpt from a legal research performance task. They're real items from our bank — the three multiple-choice questions come from the free first topics of their subjects; the question set and the performance task are from the paid bank, excerpted here with their answers — and the exam facts around them come from NCBE's own Examinees' Guide.

How the real exam is built

Before the questions, the shape they fit into. Per NCBE's Examinees' Guide for July 2026–February 2027, the exam is three sections of three hours, over a day and a half, and every section contains all three item types:

Three details from that table drive how you should read what follows. The multiple-choice questions cover the eight doctrinal subjects in roughly equal numbers and are independent of each other. Partial credit is available on select-two questions and on every written response. And the times are NCBE's expectations, not limits — a section is one three-hour pool, so a slow performance task is paid for in multiple-choice minutes. More on the structure in the four question types; here, the questions.

Sample 1 — select one of four (Evidence)

Scenario. Darla is charged under a statute making it a felony to possess a firearm after any prior felony conviction. Her only prior is a conviction for felony child abuse. Darla offers to stipulate that she has a qualifying felony conviction and asks the judge to tell the jury merely that the status element is satisfied. The prosecutor refuses the stipulation and insists on introducing the full record showing the prior conviction was for child abuse, even though the name of the crime is not otherwise at issue.

How should the court rule on the prosecutor's refusal to accept the stipulation? Select one.

• A. It should require the State to accept the stipulation and keep out the name of the prior crime.
• B. It should let the State prove the specific prior crime, because a party may always refuse a stipulation.
• C. It should exclude the prior conviction entirely, because the stipulation makes it irrelevant.
• D. It should admit the full record, because the nature of the prior is an element the State must prove.

Answer: A. This is the narrow exception to the no-forced-stipulation rule. When a prior conviction matters only because it establishes the defendant's legal status — as in felon-in-possession — the name and nature of the old crime add no probative value on the status element while sharply raising the risk of a propensity conviction. Refusing the defendant's stipulation is then an abuse of discretion under Rule 403, so the court should make the State accept it and keep out the child-abuse label. B states the general rule but ignores this recognized exception. C goes too far — the prior conviction is still relevant to prove the status element; only the prejudicial naming detail is excluded, not the fact of a qualifying felony. D misreads the statute: the element is having any qualifying felony, not the particular crime, so its specific nature adds nothing the State needs.

What it's testing. The item looks like an MBE question and is graded like one, but notice the move: the general rule (a party may prove its case its own way) is the trap, and the exception is the answer. NextGen's multiple-choice pool is built on the starred topics of eight subjects, and Rule 403 is the spine of Evidence. Budget: 1.8 minutes.

Sample 2 — select one, with the statute supplied (Torts)

Scenario. A store security guard sees a shopper slip a scarf into her bag and walk toward the exit without paying. The guard stops her just outside the door, brings her to a small office, and holds her about fifteen minutes while confirming with the cashier that the scarf was unpaid, then calls police. The scarf was in fact stolen. The shopper sues for false imprisonment. The jurisdiction's statute provides: "A merchant with reasonable cause to believe a person has unlawfully taken merchandise may detain that person, on or near the premises, for a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner to investigate."

Applying the statute, is the store protected from the false-imprisonment claim? Select one.

• A. No, because any detention without a completed arrest is unlawful confinement.
• B. Yes, because the guard had reasonable cause and detained her reasonably.
• C. No, because the guard detained her outside rather than inside the store.
• D. Yes, because a store may detain any shopper it chooses to question.

Answer: B. When a governing statute is supplied, you apply its terms to the facts. This merchant-detention statute privileges a detention supported by reasonable cause, for a reasonable time, in a reasonable manner. The guard saw the shopper conceal a scarf and leave without paying (reasonable cause) and held her about fifteen minutes to verify (reasonable time and manner), so the detention is privileged. A misreads the statute, which requires no completed arrest and expressly authorizes a detention to investigate. C misapplies the location term: the statute allows detention "on or near the premises," and stopping her just outside the door qualifies. D ignores the statute's limits — a store may not detain "any shopper it chooses"; it needs reasonable cause and reasonable execution, which happen to be present here.

What it's testing. This is the habit that separates NextGen from the MBE: the rule is often given, and the points are for reading it precisely and applying it to the facts — the same skill the performance tasks and question sets test at length. Candidates who answer from memory ("shopkeeper's privilege — I know this") and skip the statute's words are the ones who pick C.

Sample 3 — select two of six (Evidence)

Scenario. You are prosecuting a defendant for a brutal killing. The medical examiner has already testified, using three clear photographs, to the cause of death and the number and location of the fatal wounds. You would also like to introduce twenty-seven additional autopsy photographs — extreme close-ups of the same wounds from slightly different angles — because you believe their sheer impact will drive home the savagery of the attack. Defense counsel objects that the extra images are grisly, add nothing the jury has not already seen, and are calculated mainly to horrify. The trial judge asks both sides for authority before ruling on the objection.

Which of the following legal topics are the most important for you to research before the trial judge rules? Select two.

• A. Confusing the issues.
• B. Cumulative evidence.
• C. Logical relevance.
• D. Present sense impression.
• E. Public records.
• F. Unfair prejudice.

Answer: B and F. The photographs plainly bear on the cause of death and the wounds, so relevance is settled — the real research is Rule 403. Unfair prejudice (F): twenty-seven extreme close-ups offered mainly for shock value risk pushing the jury to decide on horror rather than proof, the core unfair-prejudice concern. Cumulative evidence (B): because three photographs already established the cause, number and location of the wounds, the additional images are needlessly cumulative, so their slight added probative value is easily outweighed and the surplus can be excluded. The distractors miss: logical relevance (C) is not in doubt — the low bar is met, so it isn't what to research; confusing the issues (A) is the wrong 403 danger, since repetitive photos don't send the jury onto tangents; and present sense impression (D) and public records (E) are hearsay doctrines with no bearing on authenticated photographs offered as demonstrative proof.

What it's testing. The "which two topics would you research" stem is one of the forms in NCBE's own sample set, and it rewards a specific discipline: first eliminate what is already settled on the facts (relevance), then eliminate the doctrines from the wrong chapter (hearsay), and the two that remain are the two in play. Scoring matters here too — NCBE confirms partial credit on select-two items, so one right pick is worth taking even when the second is a coin flip. Select-two items are a minority of the standalone pool (just under one in five of ours), but they're the ones takers report guessing on.

Sample 4 — an integrated question set, excerpted (Torts + Evidence)

A counseling-type question set is a fact scenario plus materials — provided legal principles, a document or two — followed by six components mixing multiple-choice and short answers, worth about 24 minutes together. This is the opening of The Aisle Spill, one of the 30 sets on our platform, and its first two components.

Scenario. You are an associate at a plaintiff's-side personal-injury firm. Your supervising partner asks you to advise a new client, Morgan Reyes, who broke her wrist in a fall at a Kesler Home Supply warehouse store and must decide whether to pursue a negligence claim and how to respond to the store's early settlement offer. Six weeks ago, Morgan was shopping in the flooring aisle when she slipped in a puddle of clear liquid on the concrete floor, fell, and fractured her left wrist. The liquid had leaked from a cracked bottle of floor cleaner on a low shelf nearby. Morgan was carrying a large boxed faucet with both hands and looking up at the aisle signs, not down at the floor, when she stepped in the puddle. … Kesler keeps an aisle inspection log in which staff are supposed to record a walk-through of each aisle every thirty minutes. The store has produced the log for the day of the fall, and Kesler's liability insurer has already sent Morgan a written offer to settle all of her claims.

The materials tab holds the provided premises-liability principles, provided Rules of Evidence excerpts, the interview transcript, the inspection log (walked at 11:30 and 12:00, no entry until after the 1:50 fall) and the insurer's offer.

Component 1. On the facts now known, which statement best describes what Morgan must show about Kesler's knowledge of the puddle to prove that Kesler breached its duty of care? Select one.

• A. Nothing about knowledge — because Kesler is a business open to the public, it is liable for any injury a customer suffers on its floor.
• B. That Kesler created the puddle, actually knew of it, or should have discovered it through a reasonable inspection.
• C. That a Kesler employee actually saw the puddle before Morgan fell, because constructive knowledge is not enough.
• D. That the puddle existed for at least an hour, the minimum time the law requires before a business is charged with notice.

Answer: B. Under the provided principles, a business is liable for a transitory hazard only if it created the condition, actually knew of it, or should have known of it — constructive notice, because the condition existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it. A business is not an insurer of its customers' safety (A); constructive notice is enough, so no employee need have seen the puddle (C); and the law fixes no bright-line time, so there is no one-hour minimum (D).

Component 2 (short answer, two fields, about one sentence each). You are assessing whether Kesler had constructive notice of the puddle. Identify two facts in the file that show Kesler should have discovered and removed the puddle before Morgan fell.

Model answer. (1) The inspection log shows the flooring aisle was walked at noon and then not again until after the 1:50 fall, so the store's own 30-minute inspection was missed by well over an hour — long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found the puddle. (2) The puddle was about two feet across and its edge had already turned sticky, indicating the cleaner had leaked from the cracked bottle and sat on the floor long enough to be discovered. Grading note: credit any two facts that bear on how long the condition existed or on the inadequacy of the inspection — the log gap, the last logged walk, the puddle's size, its sticky edge, the cracked bottle.

What it's testing. Nothing in those two components is exotic law; the points are for finding the right facts in the materials and tying each one to the rule you were given. That's the whole character of question sets — one pre-exam thread called them the NextGen format nobody is practicing — and our full walkthrough covers the anatomy. Four minutes per component is the arithmetic, and the file is where the time goes.

Sample 5 — a legal research performance task, excerpted (Evidence)

Performance tasks come in two kinds. Standard tasks are one long writing assignment from a file and a library; legal research performance tasks front-load several multiple-choice and short-answer research questions before a medium-length assignment. Both are budgeted at about an hour. This is The Excited Utterance, one of the four legal research tasks among the 15 on our platform.

To: Associate · From: Supervising Attorney · Re: Okafor v. Larkspur Market — admissibility of the plaintiff's statement

Our client, Dara Okafor, slipped on a spilled liquid at Larkspur Market and was injured. Right after she fell, she exclaimed to a store employee that the puddle "had been sitting here" and that "someone should have cleaned it up." That statement matters — it helps establish both what she slipped on and that the hazard had been present. Larkspur will argue it is inadmissible hearsay; I think it qualifies as an excited utterance, but I want your research first. The File contains my interview with Okafor and Larkspur's guest incident report. The Library contains Franklin Rule of Evidence 803, Nowak v. Trans-City Transit Authority, and Delgado v. Coastal Mall Partners. First answer the research questions. Then draft an email analyzing whether Okafor's statement is admissible as an excited utterance under Rule 803(2). Litigation will be in Franklin District Court.

Research question 1. Before analyzing the merits, you assess the authorities in the Library. Which two statements about their weight are accurate? Select two.

• A. Rule 803(2) is primary, mandatory authority that the trial court must apply.
• B. Nowak, as a Franklin Supreme Court decision, is binding on the Franklin District Court.
• C. Delgado, a Court of Appeals decision, may be disregarded because only Supreme Court cases bind the trial court.
• D. The excited-utterance exception is secondary authority because it merely restates the common law.
• E. Nowak and Delgado are persuasive but not binding, because only statutes bind a trial court.
• F. Because Delgado is more recent than Nowak, it is the higher authority of the two.

Answer: A and B. A rule of evidence is primary, mandatory authority a court must apply. A decision of the state's highest court binds the trial courts of that state, so Nowak binds the Franklin District Court. C is wrong because decisions of an intermediate appellate court also bind the trial courts within the jurisdiction. D is wrong because a codified rule is primary authority whatever its common-law roots. E is wrong because binding case law, not just statutes, controls a trial court. F is wrong because recency does not lift a Court of Appeals decision above the Supreme Court.

The writing assignment (after the research questions): in an email, analyze whether Okafor's statement is admissible as an excited utterance under Franklin Rule 803(2), applying only the Library, assuming the statement is hearsay offered for its truth. The model answer opens with the bottom line — likely admissible, but the timing dispute makes it contestable — then states the three requirements from Nowak (a startling event; a statement made while still under the stress of excitement it caused; a statement relating to the event), notes that Nowak sets no fixed time limit and allows a statement made in answer to a question, contrasts Delgado's reflective statement made after the excitement subsided, and applies each requirement to the file's facts in turn.

What it's testing. The research questions are graded like multiple-choice — you can see the hierarchy-of-authority point being tested directly — and the assignment is graded against a rubric that rewards stating the rule from the library, applying it fact by fact, and reaching a conclusion. The 60-minute attack method covers the pacing; the point here is that in a research task, the first ten minutes are questions with right answers, and they're worth collecting before the writing starts.

Why the samples can feel easier than the exam

Three things are true at once. NCBE says pretest items on the live exam are indistinguishable from scored ones, so the form of its samples is the form you'll see. The official sample pool is small, so it can't show you the spread of difficulty an exam draws from. And the first cohort's most consistent report was the clock: finishing with seconds to spare, or not finishing, on items that individually looked manageable. A sample question read at leisure is a different task from the same question at minute 160 of a section.

The calibration that works is volume under time, with explanations that teach why each distractor is wrong rather than just which letter is right — the shape of every explanation above. Track accuracy by subject and by format, because select-two and provided-rule items fail in different ways from classic MBE-style items, and the practice-score benchmarks only mean something once you've done enough of each.

Where to get more

• NCBE, free: the official sample questions in every format, plus the content scope. Do them once early, then again the week before the exam, under the clock.
• NCBE, paid: official study aids delivered in the real exam platform, at ngstudyaids.ncbex.org — the only practice that shows you the actual interface.
• Every other source, compared: our guide to free NextGen practice questions rates each one.
• Here, free: the 10-question diagnostic with no account, then a free account for the first topic of every subject, the first question set and the first performance task in full, plus five premium questions a day.
• Here, $99 once: 2,900+ standalone questions in both formats, 30 integrated question sets and 15 performance tasks with model answers and rubrics, timed by item and tracked by subject, with lifetime access and a 14-day money-back guarantee. Details on the pricing page.