Frequently asked questions

Why typing? I already know how to type.

Typing a rule can make you slow down and read it word by word, so you see how that rule is structured. Typing a rule is more active than rereading an outline. It is still no substitute for working real past questions: writing out the rule statements, doing the analysis, comparing your answer with a published one, and building a sense of timing.

Many people type prose at 40 to 60 words per minute, but writing a bar essay is not copy-typing. Your speed collapses because you are doing several things at once: reading the facts and thinking them through, recalling the rule, composing the sentence and reworking it as you go, and making sure the point is stated accurately and with enough substance to score. On the essay portion time is short, 30 minutes per essay on the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) and 60 minutes per essay on the California Bar Exam, and every second spent trying to remember the wording of a rule is a second not spent on analysis. Typing a rule statement until it comes quickly reduces that pause. It also quiets the doubt that makes a writer hesitate, whether the rule came out accurately and whether you have written enough, so the time goes to analysis instead of second-guessing.

Which exams do you cover?

Bengos has rule libraries for the essays on the UBE, which are the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), and for the essays on the California Bar Exam. It also has one for the integrated question sets on the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam (NextGen UBE), in the jurisdictions that give it. If you are taking the California Attorneys' Examination, the essay practice applies to you directly since that exam has no multiple-choice portion.

The NextGen exam has no standalone essays: the written answers come as shorter items inside integrated question sets, and it also has performance tasks, which Bengos does not cover. Those written answers still call for rule statements as part of the legal analysis, which is what the NextGen library drills.

Here is every jurisdiction, the exam it gives, and the library Bengos has for it. The last row is the jurisdictions Bengos does not cover.

Jurisdictions may change which exam they adopt and administer. Bengos updates this table and the app when a change takes effect. Confirm your exam with your jurisdiction's bar admissions office.

Does Bengos cover every rule I could need on the essays?

No. Bengos is a selected library of rule statements for the essay subjects. An essay can still raise an issue Bengos does not cover, and Bengos is not a substitute for a complete outline of the law.

No study tool can promise full coverage, because the examiners do not publish a complete list of the issues they may test. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) says its MEE outline "is not intended to list every aspect of a topic mentioned." The State Bar of California's content map for each essay subject says, "The topics listed below are illustrative of those covered in [the subject], but are not exhaustive." NCBE's NextGen content scope marks some topics with a star. In NCBE's words, starred topics "require an examinee to rely solely on recalled knowledge and understanding of the topic; they will be tested without provision of legal resources." For those topics you need to know the law from memory, which is the part Bengos drills. You can read each outline at the following links:

• NCBE, MEE Subject Matter Outline
• State Bar of California, Scope of the California Bar Examination (content maps for each subject)
• NCBE, NextGen UBE Content Scope

Because the outlines leave the scope of possible issues open, looking at past exams is one practical way to narrow what you study. Released essay questions show that big-picture doctrines tend to be tested. Many of the same issues come back across administrations. That is why Bengos shows how often each issue has been tested.

NCBE has not released questions from a past NextGen administration, so there is no testing history to guide you the way past exams do for the UBE and California. The NextGen library holds Bengos rules for the starred topics. NCBE stars whole topics, while each Bengos rule covers one issue inside a topic. The library does not hold a rule for every issue a starred topic can raise, so some starred topics are covered in part.

How many rule statements are there?

One library per exam, each with its own set of rules.

These counts are approximate and may change over time.

How much time does this take each day?

It depends on how long you have before the exam and which scope you practice. The table is for the California library at an average typing speed. The UBE and NextGen libraries hold fewer rules, so those days are shorter.

Once Learn has no new rules left, the day is just the review deck, which runs about 50 minutes for the full scope and about 25 minutes for previously tested rules only.

These are estimates only, for time spent typing in Bengos. A faster typist finishes sooner and a slower one takes longer, and the figures assume you clear the review deck each day. If your own days run longer or shorter, adjust your study time to match.

The daily totals can look long, but they do not have to happen in one sitting. We encourage you to split the day into shorter sessions, take frequent breaks, and mix in other study between them, such as your bar prep course, multiple-choice practice, and full essays and performance tests. Answering past questions on an issue and reading the published answers are important study of their own, and they take their own time.

Can I practice only the rules that have been tested before?

Yes, on the UBE and California libraries. You pick a scope when you sign up and can change it later in your preferences.

Full scope of essay topics gives you every rule in your library, which is intended to cover the topics the examining boards list as testable on the essays. Previously tested rules only narrows it to the rules a released exam has actually tested, which is roughly half of each library. The narrow scope suits a short window, since it is about half the typing. The full scope suits a longer one, because an issue that has not been tested yet can still be tested this time.

The scope changes what new material Learn gives you. It does not take away access to the rest of the library, and it does not remove rules you are already reviewing.

The NextGen library has no scope choice, because it carries no testing history to narrow by.

What is the difference between Learn and Review?

Learn is your first pass on a rule. You type the full rule statement, the longer of the two editions, and the Info tab beside it shows how often the issue has been tested and which exams tested it, when the issue has a testing history. Learn is the slower mode on purpose. It is where you meet the rule and work out what else you need to study about that issue.

Review is the return visit. You type the Quick Rule, a shorter version of the same rule written for exam day, and then rate how comfortable you felt with the law. That rating sets when the rule comes back. A review pass is short, which is why a day of review takes much less time than a day of Learn.

What do the flames and the past exam dates mean?

The flames rate how often released exams have tested that issue, from Occasionally Tested up to Highly Tested. Below them, Past Exams lists the administrations that tested it, such as July 2017 Question 5.

Those dates are there so you can go and read the question. Bengos gives you the rule and tells you where the issue came up. The Info tab links to an archive where you can find past exams, see how the issue was tested, and see what a strong answer looked like. Bengos does not reproduce exam questions or published answers.

More than half the UBE rules and about half the California rules have no testing history. Those show no flames and no dates, and practicing only the ones that do is the previously tested scope. The NextGen library shows no flames, no dates, and no archive link at all, because the exam is new and NCBE has not released questions from a past administration.

How does the review scheduling work?

Bengos schedules reviews by spaced repetition. Memory tends to fade fastest right after you learn something, and each time you come back to the material it fades more slowly. Spaced repetition uses that pattern: instead of rereading everything on a fixed cycle, each rule returns at a gap that grows as long as you keep knowing it. The practical effect is that most of your review time goes to the rules you are least sure of, and the ones you already know take very little of it.

Your rating is what drives the schedule. After each review pass you rate the law Not Comfortable, Familiar, or Know It Well. Rate a rule well and the gap before it returns keeps widening. Rate it Not Comfortable and it comes back soon and starts over. Each passage carries its own history of how you have rated it, which is why two people working through the same library end up on different schedules.

That rating is the only input. Typing speed and accuracy are recorded for you, but they never move the schedule. Typing a passage in Learn does not move it either: the Learn pass records the attempt, and the passage becomes due for its first review the same day.

Each day Review gives you what is due, most overdue first. Missing a day costs you nothing in the schedule. Passages that came due stay due and wait at the front of the queue, so a break means a longer session when you return, not lost work.

Where do the rule statements come from?

Each rule statement is grounded in black-letter law from controlling authority: statutes, Restatements, uniform codes, and leading cases. How often each rule has been tested is drawn from past exam questions and the released answers that graders selected as high scoring. UBE and NextGen UBE content follows general law. California content follows California law where the exam requires it.

Is it too late to start close to the exam?

A short window is not enough time to learn the law from zero, and it is not enough time to become a faster typist in general. It is enough time to make writing out some rule statements automatic. Much of the speed lost on an essay is not slow fingers; it is hesitation, pausing to recall how a rule is worded. Repetition reduces the hesitation on the rules you drill, and that is what Bengos trains.

I am not a native English speaker. Will this help?

Typing rule statements verbatim is repeated practice with correct legal English: the phrasing, the connectors, and the sentence patterns graders expect. It will not replace English study, but users working in a second language can get repeated language practice and rule recall in the same minutes.

Should I try to write like the published answers?

No. Published answers are top outliers, meant as references, and some sample essays may not have been written under the conditions a typical exam taker faces (more on that here). Check the word counts against what you can type in the time your exam gives you for each essay. The grading standard is minimum competence, not length, so an answer under the commonly cited target range may still pass when it is clear, efficient, and well organized. No word count decides the result; how an answer scores is up to the graders. Many candidates run out of time trying to write like these examples.

How is this different from my bar prep course?

It is not a replacement for one. Courses teach the law and give you practice questions. They also help you build a broad mental map of the law, a strategy for the exam, and a sense of timing for each part of it.

Bengos drills one narrow part: getting the rules into memory and out through your hands at speed. Use it as a supplement alongside a course. If you are self-studying, the built-in subject order gives you a clear path to follow.

The Bengos library is not built for the multiple-choice section of the bar exam, such as the Multistate Bar Examination. That section tests detailed knowledge of the law and its exceptions across a wide scope. The library is aimed at the essays, which tend to test the main doctrines and whether you can apply the law to the facts at the level of minimum competence expected of a new lawyer.

Does Bengos cover the performance test (PT)?

No. Bengos trains rule statements and typing fluency for the questions you answer from memory. The PT is open materials and does not depend on memorized rules. The NextGen exam's performance tasks work the same way and are not covered either.

How does Bengos measure typing speed?

Like most typing tools, Bengos counts a word as five characters. You see three numbers. Raw speed is how fast you type before errors are counted. WPM is that raw speed minus the errors you left uncorrected, so fixing a mistake as you go costs you time but not accuracy credit. Accuracy is the share of words you typed with every character correct.

WPM and accuracy count errors differently, which is why they can look out of step. Accuracy works word by word, so one wrong character marks the whole word wrong; WPM works character by character, so the same mistake costs a single error. A steady typist with scattered small mistakes can show a high raw speed and a much lower accuracy at the same time.

WPM is the main number. Your goal, your starting baseline, and the improvement figure on your dashboard all track it.

What happens when the trial ends?

Your account pauses. Your history stays. If you buy access, you pick up where you left off.

Who runs Bengos?

Bengos LLC, a California company. For general questions, email hello@bengos.io; for account and billing help, email support@bengos.io.