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If you are taking the UBE, the MEE sample answers your examiners publish are likely longer than you can type in the time. We counted every MEE sample answer New York published from 2016 to 2025, 221 answers in all, and the median is about 950 words. Each MEE essay on the UBE must be finished in 30 minutes.
Almost no jurisdiction lets you see how long real answers run. New York is one that does: it publishes MEE sample answers every administration. These are strong, high-scoring answers chosen to illustrate, not to mark where passing begins, so their length is a ceiling, not a target. We extracted the text of 221 of them and counted the words.
Each MEE essay gives you 30 minutes, not 30 minutes of writing. Reading the facts, spotting the issues, and planning realistically take part of the window, leaving closer to 20 minutes to write. About 950 words in a 20-minute window is over 45 words per minute of finished, organized prose, averaged across every pause to check a fact or think through the next element. Even in the hypothetical case where the whole 30 minutes went to typing and none to reading, it is still about 32 words per minute. These are strong sample answers, published as references. They are not the passing standard, so they are not a realistic target.
A passing length is easier to estimate for California, and in our view that is what sets the target for both exams. California is unusual: it returns graded answers to unsuccessful candidates along with their scores, so real answers at the passing line circulate. From that shared body of essays, the commonly cited, though unofficial, estimate for a passing California answer is around 700 words in its one-hour essay.
The MEE essay runs 30 minutes, about half a California essay. By the same proportion, the workable MEE target is likely smaller, on the order of 300 to 350 words. That is an inference, not a published number, but it matches the data: New York's MEE median sits about three times above it, the same multiple by which California's selected median sits above its 700-word estimate.
The same arithmetic sets a typing-speed floor that applies whichever exam you take. A target you can actually write, around 700 words in California's 40-minute writing window or around 325 in the MEE's 20-minute one, comes out to roughly 16 to 18 words per minute of finished prose, in bursts of about 25 to 30 between pauses. That is sustainable when your raw typing speed is around 50. Measure your own speed, set your word target from it, and plan your answer, and your training, around that number instead of around what the samples look like.
A slower typing speed is not a verdict.
If your speed comes out below this, it does not mean you cannot pass. These word counts are estimates, not a passing line. By the examiners' own published standards, a passing answer is allowed to be incomplete and imperfect: both grade to minimum competence, not to length. Handwritten answers usually run shorter than typed ones, yet some still pass. An answer under the target range may still pass when the reasoning is clear, the writing is efficient, and the structure is easy to follow. No word count guarantees a result either way, and how any answer scores is up to the graders.
California is the deeper dataset behind that floor. We counted 298 selected answers the State Bar published from 2012 to 2025, going back further and with more answers per year than most jurisdictions publish.
Whether any of these answers, California or MEE, was written in an ordinary session on a standard keyboard is not something anyone can check. New York and California publish these answers anonymously and do not disclose testing conditions. The arithmetic is why the question matters. Averaging over 45 words per minute of finished prose across a 20-minute MEE window, while doing the legal analysis at the same time, is out of reach for almost anyone typing under standard conditions. So you cannot assume a given published answer was written under the conditions you will face. It may have been, or the author may have had extra time or other accommodations, which are that candidate's conditions, not the ones you will face. Either way, the pace these lengths imply is high enough that they are not a safe target to plan for.
Length is not what a passing answer is measured by. California has said in plain terms what it expects, and it is not word count. Its standard-setting study defines a minimally competent answer as one that shows meaningful knowledge and legal reasoning but "will likely provide incomplete responses that contain some errors of both fact and judgment." Similarly, NCBE builds the coming NextGen exam around a "minimally qualified candidate." Thus, an answer may be incomplete and imperfect yet receive a passing score.
The published samples run long because they are strong answers chosen to illustrate, not because length is what earns points.
Text extracted from the official published answer PDFs: 221 New York MEE sample answers (2016 to 2025) and 298 California selected answers (2012 to 2025), counted with the same method so the two are comparable. Counts include answer headings and are approximate because PDF extraction is imperfect. The 700-word California figure is a commonly cited estimate, not an official Bar number, and the 300-to-350 MEE figure is our own inference by proportion, not a published or official threshold.
The realistic target is rules stated fast and correctly, at a pace you can hold for the whole exam.
See where your typing speed stands. The demo times you on real Quick Rules, no account needed. Bengos is typing practice built on these rule statements: you type them until you can get the core of each rule down fast, enough to engage the facts, so more of your exam time is left for applying the law.
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