Please take a NY specific prep !!! It's important !
1. check out
http://www.nybarexam.org for the format of the exams
2. you can post the questions you don't understand on studyfor.com (worked for me) or just buy outlines that have explanation.
to answer your question: the essays deal with NY subjects. In fact the
essay questions are given on what is called the "NY
day" , i.e Tuesday 24th of July, the first day. The
next day is the MBE day and tests Multistate subjects. The essays can deal with any of the 23 subjects this
NY bar has total. They can all come up. Of
course, the essays can be on Torts, or Contracts, or
Criminal Law, which are also multistate subjects. However
on the NY day, you will have to give the NY Law. For
example, in criminal law, you'll give the NY criminal law.
You gotta know the distinctions specific to the NY
law. If you don't know and give the multistate law you
can make huge mistakes. I already gave examples of
differences in other messages, but here's more. Example: in
NY, a defendant CAN comspire with a police officer
(whereas on MS, it's the contrary). Or a defendant can
actually withdraw from a conspiracy in NY under some
speficis terms, and it's not the case for MS, you can't
withdraw from a conspiracy. NY Torts have very tricky and
specific rules for damages to prove in slander and libel
cases which really have nothing to do with MS
etc.<br>So since I am talking about it here, since you have
to know the NY Law for the essays (and for the NY
MCQs)...I'd say there is almost no way you can pass this bar
without taking the Barbri prep. PMBR will prepare you
only for the multistate portion. <br>If you want to be
greedy now and avoid the Barbri prep, it's not a good
investment. I think you'll be spending time and money for
nothing. You'll be spending money to get to NY, Hotel,
PMBR etc. all that probably for nothing.
3. With regard to study schedules - 7 to 8 hours a day *minimum*. If
you are taking BarBri, they will provide you with a
detailed and comprehensive day-by-day study schedule which
you should not vary from. If you cannot take BarBri,
you need to come up with your own day-by-day
schedule, spending 2-3 days on each subject, doing essays,
performance tests, and MBE questions each day. You should
plan on doing 3-4 essays, at least one performence
test, and 50 MBE questions each day (although with
performance tests, you can do one every 2-3 days - one per
day is probably overkill). I think 7-8 hours of solid
studying per day is a minimum.
Example in
http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pa...m/agheebar.htm