Question: 3 Weeks Left--What to do?

"There's about 3 weeks left, any advice on outlining, memorizing, or practicing?"

First, you might want to refer to my post on my schedule last year for memorization. http://cabaradvice.blogspot.com/2007/06/memorization-schedule-last-3-weeks.html

You really should finish outlining as soon as possible. If you really are not going to finish, I would advise you to just memorize off of Conviser. Figure out the rules and what you need to know and go from there. Skim or skip the rest.

After Barbri, you should divide your days up into memorizing the practicing. You really shouldn't be outlining anymore. I tended to spend more time on memorization, maybe like 2-3 hours on practicing and 6-7 hours on memorization a day. But, you can adjust.

For practicing, you should do at least 1 hour of MBE questions. I did 34 questions each day and timed myself to make sure I hit the 1 hour time mark and then went over questions. I also tried to write out a full essay a day in a one hour time period. If I didn't write out a full essay, I would outline and issue spot 3-4 essays (15 minutes each essay).

Just keep up the hard work...the end is near!

Failing Barbri Essays

Here's the question: "I failed 2 barbri essays. I am really stressed now. Can you give me some advice? Do you know anyone who failed barbri essays and still passed the bar exam? Thank you."

First of all, almost everyone I know failed at least one, if not more, of their Barbri essays. I know I failed the PT and a few others.

You should take a look at the essays and see why you are failing.
1) If you fail the rules section, that's not a big deal because you probably haven't memorized anything at this point.
2) If you fail the issue spotting, I highly recommend you outline many essays. Take a past essay, spend 10-15 minutes doing an outline, and see which issues you missed. Note that Barbri is much more strict than the actual bar. If you look, Barbri requires you to spot way more issues than the actual bar, but you must spot the major ones to pass.
3) If you fail the analysis portion, you might want to see what comments you are getting, and you may need to develop your analysis more.
4) I think the last one is organization, so if you use a ton of headers, you should be fine on this.

Barbri is not perfect, and I have heard of someone just copying the model answer and turning it it. They got a fail. I think you are required to fail most people in the beginning so they will work harder.

However, if someone isn't seeing something on your essays or analysis, maybe you need to be more clear in your writing. Yes, the grader probably spends less than 5 minutes on your essay, but so will the bar exam reader. So, make everything as clear as possible and use tons of headers for every issue. Don't hide a subissue in your analysis. It's helpful to have someone from Barbri read your essays because you may think you fully analyzed an issue, but if someone can't see it, then maybe you need to add a header or make it more clear.

So, don't worry about failing, but you should be improving. So, if you got all Fs in the first essay and are getting Ps on the later essays, that's a good sign. Just keep at it!

Bar Exam Gear: Earplugs + Clock or watch

EARPLUGS:

I really think it is a good idea to have earplugs (the kind you wear for swimming) and use them during the bar exam. I used them during all my law school exams, so I didn't need to get used to them for the bar. However, for those of you who don't use them, practice wearing them and getting used to them when you do practice essays. You definitely want to use them because there may be a lot of strange noises or your neighbor may have a habit of tapping their pencil or something like that, which can get on your nerves.

CLOCK OR WATCH:

I think you should invest on a clock or watch that you will use for the bar. You need to read the bar exam instructions, which tell you the exact dimensions that are allowed. Also, I think it has to be one with no alarm function or else you get "written up" (Yup, I witnessed this first hand). But, use the clock to keep track of your own time.

I will do a future post on other things to bring and my bar exam experience as time gets closer...

Barbri + Other Study Courses: Necessary?

This post is mostly for people in law school who aren't taking the bar yet. I recently read a post by a reader who claimed that Barbri and PMBR are a waste of time, and that people can pass the bar without taking a study course. I'd have to agree, but I'm strongly against it.

It is true that we do most of the studying ourselves, and that the Barbri lectures are not that helpful. But, I think Barbri or another study course is necessary to keep us on track. Also, it helps reduces our stress because someone hand-feeds a lot of stuff to us.

Honestly, I'm pretty self-disciplined, to the point where I was able to follow the paced program the entire time with the deviation in the last 3 weeks, and I was able to be ahead of the schedule most of the time (so I could have my Sundays off). Still, even I don't think I would have stayed on schedule if I hadn't taken Barbri, and my guess is 95% of the people taking the bar won't be able to do it (maybe 99%). Yes, most of the people won't be able to stay with Barbri's program, which means these people most certainly won't be able to follow a self-study program. It's too easy to decide to wake up at 10:00 a.m. or to skip studying for a day when you don't have lectures or homework you know you need to go to or complete. It's kind of a guilt-trip thing.

So, in conclusion, if you are in the 1% of the super-self-disciplined bunch, don't take any course. However, I have to say that the majority need some kind of course to keep him on track.

PMBR ? Question

Here is the question: "How important is it to do PMBR Qs? If I am doing well with the BarBri ones, including ADs, is that enough? Bottom line, am I missing something by not doing PMBR? I don't plan to do the 3-day, so my option is basically to buy a book on e-Bay. But it's not like I have any spare time to do extra stuff."

Like I posted in one of my first posts, DO NOT sign up for PMBR if you haven't done so already. It is a waste of time.

For me, I chose to do PMBR questions because I was doing mostly Barbri questions for the first month and a half. I noticed that the PMBR questions are significantly differently worded than Barbri questions. I just didn't want to get too comfortable doing one type of questions (Barbri). Plus, I was not putting my PMBR books to use.

To answer your question, I think doing Barbri questions is good enough, but remember to keep practicing and doing MBE questions into your last few weeks. I'm not sure if you will run out of Barbri questions or not. But, if you can buy PMBR questions or other MBE question books for cheap, you might consider it. It's not necessary, especially if you are doing well on the Barbri ones, but it will help for you too look at different types of questions.

Memorization Schedule: The Last 3 Weeks

I just found my old Barbri Paced Program schedule for last year, so I thought I would post what my schedule looked like for the last 3 weeks. As you know, I did not start memorizing anything until the last 3 weeks. Here was what my schedule looked last:

3 Weeks prior to Exam)
WED) I started to memorize Remedies
FRI) I started to memorize Wills/Trust

2 Weeks prior to Exam)
MON) Memorize Professional Responsibility and Corporations
TUES) Memorize Professional Responsibility and Torts (Last day of Barbri Lecture)
WED) (I think I had PMBR this day)
THURS) Memorize Evidence and Criminal Law
FRI) Memorize Con Law and Property
SAT) Memorize Contracts and Civ Pro
SUN) Memorize Community Property (half day)

1 Week prior to Exam)
MON) Memorize Wills/Trust & Property & Remedies
TUES) Memorize Criminal Law, Torts & Prof. Responsibility
WED) Memorize Contract, Corporation, Evidence
THURS) Memorize Con Law, Civ. Pro, & Community Property
FRI) Memorize Wills/Trust, Contract, Torts, Remedies, and Property
SAT) Memorize Criminal Law, Civ Pro, Community Property, Corporations & Evidence
SUN) Memorize Con Law & Professional Responsibility

MONDAY before Exam: Very light studying, go over Performance Exam Checklist

With the schedule above, I was essentially able to memorize and go over my outlines at least 3 times for each subject. I scheduled it so that the subjects with longer outlines are on the same day as the ones with shorter outlines so I would be going over/memorizing the same number of pages each day.

Also, I totally went on a different schedule after Barbri lectures ended. Instead of doing the Barbri AD MBE questions (which were ridiculously hard), I did the mixed ones and the PMBR mixed ones. I figured how many super-hard questions would I actually get on the bar (probably not very many). I also tried to outline some more essays during this time period.

Here is my advice for the last few weeks:
1) Keep on doing MBEs in timed conditions daily. I think I did them for 1 hour each day and checked the answer. Remember, you don't have any more lectures, so you have more free time.
2) Try to write out or at the very least outline different essays. If you are having timing issues, then you definitely need to practice writing out full essays under timed conditions. If not, you can write one essay out every one or two days and then outline and issue-spot the rest.
3) Memorizing is less important than #1 & #2. If you can't remember everything, when you are doing #2 (writing out essays), practicing BSing or making up the law.

Be at ease that you will not learn everything

One of the best advice I got from my super smart friend who took the bar a year before me was: Be at ease that you will not learn everything for the bar. He was top 1%, graduated law school at 22, and scored in the 1% tile on the Barbri Simulated MBE. He knew more than some law professors because he did so much outside reading. Even he admitted that he did not know/learn everything required for the bar.

So, some point along the line, especially during the last one or two weeks of studying, be at ease that you cannot learn everything. Just do the best you can.

However, don't get into that mentality right now. That's for the last one or two weeks, and you are not there yet. So, keep doing those practice MBEs and practice essays.

Barbri PT Workshop Question

Question: "Is it necessary to attend the PT workshops in BarBri?"

This one is a toss up. If I had to do it all over again, I would still attend, although I admit it may be an overkill on my part. I would say that you can probably get away with not attending, with the caveat that you take or outline extra performance exams during that time period.

For me, the PT workshops forced me to outline and look at some extra PT that I otherwise would not have on my own. If you are someone who is not disciplined enough to spend the 3-4 hours of the workshop time outlining extra PTs or writing up extra PTs, then you should attend the workshop. Also, even though that guy is pretty crazy, he does give some helpful advice. I think he tells you that you need to format "letter PTs" with headings and all like a letter, and that you have to start a declaration with a particular sentence. This, you may not get by just looking at the model answers. I do feel that he did waste a lot of time.

If you do not attend or choose to skip PT workshop, you definitely need to be outlining extra PTs or writing extra PT out. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, I did an extra 3-4 performance exams on my own that were not on the Barbri schedule and looked thru the format of many more. I felt that performance exam teaching was Barbri's weakest point, although I'm not sure you can actually teach this. It's one of those things that you really need to practice and be flexible.

Memorization Questions: Part II

Here is the question: "Sakai has some bare bones ones in the essay workshop class handout. I was thinking about using those as my model, making sure I had a rule for each subheading, and leaving it at that. Do I need to memorize more than that for the essays?"

I made my outlines for each subject. Some outlines were 5 pages, and others were as long as 10-15 pages. I tried my best to keep them short. I essentially memorized everything on those outlines, but I am pretty good at memorizing stuff. However, for some smaller issues or issues that the professor said were not going to be on the exam or things that I didn't think were important, I put (SKIM) on the outline. When I was memorizing and studying my outlines, I would just read and skim those issues and not memorize them.

At the very basic level, you should memorize all the major rules and exceptions. I probably memorized all the smaller rules too, but like I said, you might be able to get away with skimming and being familiar with some rules. You will find out that many people "make up" rules on the bar exam. You don't remember a rule, or you don't know it, so essentially, you b.s. and write down what you think the rule is. You should practice this when you do your practice essays.

Barbri MBE Simulated Exam

I'm not sure where everyone is in Barbri, but I assume the MBE Simulated whole day exam is coming up soon. Here's my advice:

1) Make sure you go to class and do the full-day MBE exam. It's really helpful to sit in a room with a ton of other people and try to take the MBE exam. You will get distractions and annoying sounds that you will not get if you do this at home. Also, there is a timer for you. So, definitely do this.
2) Skip the review. Most people I spoke to who attended said it was useless (I didn't go). My one caveat may be to go if you are scoring extremely low (under 50 percentile), but still, I'm not sure if going will help your scores. You might be better off doing more practice MBEs during that time frame or carefully reviewing and figuring out why and what you missed. The explanations for Barbri answers are quite good.

On the same note, for those of you who signed up for the 3-day PMBR, I would tell you to go take exam on the 1st day and skip the next 2 days. If you haven't signed up for the 3-day, don't bother. Save your $300+.