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NYLE Exam Day Guide: What to Expect and How to Approach the Exam

NYLE Exam Day: What You Need to Know

You have spent time preparing your materials, practicing questions, and organizing your tabs. Now comes exam day.

The New York Law Exam (NYLE) is a 50-question, two-hour, open-book, multiple-choice exam administered online through Examplify. You need 30 correct answers out of 50 to pass.

Since you have only about 2.4 minutes per question, your goal is to know where to find the rule, find it efficiently, and use your time wisely.

Before the Exam Starts

1. Get Your Computer Ready

Do not wait until the last few minutes before the exam to deal with technical issues.

Before exam day, make sure:

• Examplify is installed and registered.
• You have downloaded the required exam file.
• Your computer meets the current ExamSoft requirements.
• Your computer is charged or connected to power.
• Your internet connection is working.
• Your required device settings are working properly.

Do this before exam day. You do not want to discover a technical problem five minutes before the exam begins.

2. Have Your Materials Ready

Your course materials should be organized before the exam begins.

You should be able to go quickly from:

Question → Subject → Subtopic → Rule

without spending several minutes flipping through pages.

Important: BOLE specifically prohibits electronically searching the NYLC/NYLE Course Materials during the NYLE.

This makes your tabs, highlighting, and familiarity with the materials especially important.

During the Exam

3. Know Your Timing

You have 120 minutes for 50 questions, which works out to approximately 2 minutes and 24 seconds per question.

This is a useful reference point, not a rule that every question must take exactly 2.4 minutes. Some questions will take less time. Others will take more.

As a general reference:

Use these checkpoints to make sure you are not consistently falling behind.

4. Read the Question Before Opening Your Materials

When you see a question, first ask: What subject is this testing?

Then: What specific issue is being tested?

Only then start looking through your materials.

Instead of searching the entire Course Materials for an answer, you are looking for a specific rule in a specific section.

And when you find the rule, don’t automatically read several pages. Look for the part that actually answers the question.

5. Do Not Get Stuck on One Question

This is one of the most important rules for exam day.

If you cannot find the answer after a reasonable amount of searching, do not let one question consume several minutes.

Remember: there are 50 questions, and every question is worth the same.

If you are close to finding the answer and have already invested some time, it may make sense to continue. But if you are spending several minutes going in circles, make your best choice and move on.

Keep the clock moving.

6. Remember: You Cannot Go Back

One of the most important things to understand about the NYLE software is that backward navigation is blocked.

Once you move to the next question, you cannot return to the previous question. You must also select an answer before moving forward.

So before clicking Next: make sure you have selected your answer. There is no going back.

7. Use the 30-Answer Strategy

Here’s a strategy you can use to monitor your progress.

Before the exam begins, take a small piece of paper and write the numbers 1 through 30.

As you move through the exam, cross off a number whenever you are highly confident that you answered a question correctly.

For example, you might consider an answer highly confident when:

• You know the rule; or
• You have confidently eliminated two choices and have a clear reason for choosing one of the remaining two.

Remember: you only need 30 correct answers to pass.

The purpose of this strategy is not to predict your score. You cannot know with certainty which answers you got right. Instead, use it as a way to monitor your confidence and prevent yourself from spending an unreasonable amount of time on one difficult question.

8. Use the Exam Timer

Examplify provides a timer, and you can set reminder alarms during the exam.

Consider checking your progress at a few points:

• 60 minutes remaining → Check your pace
• 30 minutes remaining → Check how many questions you have left
• 10 minutes remaining → Make sure you have enough time to answer everything

The exact checkpoints are up to you. The important thing is to keep track of the clock throughout the exam.

9. Pay Attention to the Facts and Exceptions

The NYLE is not simply asking you to identify rules. Questions may give you a factual scenario and ask which rule applies.

Before searching your materials, ask: What happened? What legal issue does that create? What rule governs this situation?

And when you find the rule, ask: Is there an exception? Is there a deadline? Is there a special New York rule?

One fact can change the answer.

10. Don’t Leave Unanswered Questions

As you approach the final five minutes, ask yourself: How many questions do I have left? Have I answered every question?

Make sure you leave enough time to select an answer for every remaining question.

Do not let time expire with unanswered questions. The exam closes automatically when the 120-minute time limit is reached.

11. When the Exam Ends

When you finish, follow the Examplify instructions to submit your exam.

Do not simply close your computer and assume everything has been submitted.

After submitting, make sure you receive the appropriate confirmation that your exam has been uploaded.

Do not leave the submission process until the last possible moment.

Your NYLE Exam-Day Checklist

Before you start, make sure:

• ☐ Examplify is installed and registered
• ☐ Your exam file has been downloaded
• ☐ Your computer is charged or connected to power
• ☐ Your required device settings are working
• ☐ Your NYLE materials are organized
• ☐ Your tabs are easy to find
• ☐ Your table of contents/index is ready
• ☐ You know how to use the Examplify timer
• ☐ You have a timing strategy
• ☐ You have a way to track your confident answers
• ☐ You understand that you cannot return to previous questions
• ☐ You know that electronic searching of the Course Materials is prohibited

Good luck!