Anyone out there passed the bar after failing it for more than 3 times? What did you do different to not fail the bar again? What bar review course/book/tutor did you use to help you get through it? Thank you in advance.
Anyone out there passed the bar after failing it for more than 3 times? What did you do different to not fail the bar again? What bar review course/book/tutor did you use to help you get through it? Thank you in advance.
strategy that helped some pass
For those interested in what I did differently this time, here goes:
First, I realized that all of my previous study partners who had passed the bar had studied full-time, while I had only been able to study evenings and weekends as I was working full-time, and while I was working, they were sitting home writing out essay answers. So I made the decision to quit my job of ten years in mid-January and live off my 401k fund while I studied.
Second, I asked a professor at Loyola who tutors repeat exam takers to read my answers and give me her feedback. She told me the only thing she saw missing from my answers was any discussion of both sides of an argument where it was possible to argue both sides. It turned out that when I was initially told "no ping-ponging during the analysis" by the first bar course I took, I interpreted that to mean "don't discuss both sides of an issue." What it really meant was don't use the `plaintiff will argue? Defendant will argue?#39; style of writing, which annoys the graders. Instead, use phrases like "on the other hand." Of course, this is only used where there are really two sides to an argument. When discussing damages, for example, they either exist or they don't, so you wouldn't waste time arguing both sides of that issue. So while I was writing out essays, I practiced looking for issues where the writer had legitimately argued both sides of the issue and paid attention to how that was handled.
Third, I read Jay Wiseman's post after the last bar exam describing how writing out a LOT of model answers helped him become familiar with the writing style the bar graders are looking for, and I bought the Tim Tyler series of books and did just that. (Thank you for that suggestion, Jay.) When I had written out all of the Tim Tyler model answers, in the time remaining I started going through the BARBRI California Essay Workbook and writing out sections of answers that
discussed issues I hadn't covered yet.
Fourth, I took Tim Tyler's advice that we memorize the seven basic ConLaw statements verbatim (I also received similar advice from a former bar grader, who said the bar graders look for more exact rule statements in ConLaw answers). During the final ten days before the bar exam I wrote out all seven of the ConLaw statements from Tim Tyler's book by hand, over and over, until I could write them all out without having to stop and think. (The "by hand" bit is important, because we remember far more of what we write than what we read or hear.) For the first time EVER on a bar exam I was able to state the exact case the applicable rule came from (Central Hudson - that name will probably stay in my head forever). And just for good measure I threw in all of the other Freedom of Speech rules and the names of the cases THEY were drawn from.
Fifth, I analyzed my performance on past exams, and realized that even though I am usually very calm in emergencies, on bar exams I tended to get a little panicky when I couldn't remember the exact rule for an issue or spot enough issues to write about, and the creeping panic caused my memory to shut down until I couldn't remember anything. So this time around I resolved to make a conscious effort to remain calm, knowing what panic would do to my ability to recall information.
Sixth, about two weeks before the exam, I was thinking about the "best" student answers released by the bar examiners, as it still bugged me that they would release "best" answers with clearly incorrect statements of the law. It hit me that ?
and this is the biggie, folks ?the message they were trying to send was that they didn't care as much about letter-perfect statements of the rule as they cared about the analysis that followed. When I went back and looked at the released answers, I saw that every single one of them spent a LOT of time on analysis. This meant, of course, that all of my energy spent worrying about not being able to remember all the elements of a rule or the exact phrasing of a rule had been misplaced. I also realized that even though I had been told many times that if I couldn't remember a rule, just make up a rule that sounded plausible and then apply the facts to the made-up rule, when it came time to follow that advice, I hadn't been doing it. For example, on last summer's bar exam there was a ConLaw question where I could have discussed obscenity. However, I could only remember a few elements of the rule for obscenity, and because I started getting panicky (see number five above), I ended up not discussing the issue at all. Granted, this was ConLaw, where they look for more exact statements of the law, but in failing to discuss the issue at all, I lost ANY possible points. To remedy this, I decided to go through the one-page outlines I got from BarGraders and write out a rule for each issue, and if I
couldn't remember the exact rule, to practice making something up. This is a lot harder than it sounds, guys, so I highly recommend spending some time doing this until you can do it without going back and tweaking your made-up rule and thereby losing time. Of course, if you
get halfway through your analysis and another element pops into your head, by all means go back and insert it into your made-up rule.
Well, that about covers what I did differently this time around. Truthfully, I'm glad I passed this time, because I was starting to understand how people can just give up on the bar exam after putting so much effort into it numerous times and not passing. But I also knew it would have bothered me for the rest of my life if I had given up, and I'm glad I didn't quit after the fourth try.
I hope someone finds the above helpful, and if anyone has any questions, just ask. And to my fellow repeat-takers who passed, my hat is off to you (and me too, I guess) for sticking it out. GREAT job!
Source: westlahere
My advice is to get all your emotions out of the way first!
I just wanted to post encouragement to those of you who are facing the possibility of re-taking the CA bar. I just passed, after failing the July 2006 exam (which I thought was pretty easy even though I failed!; the Feb. 2007 exam was much harder). Don't let anyone discourage you and tell you how much harder it is as a repeat taker and don't let the statistics get you down either....it' s all a bunch of crap anyways.
My advice is to get all your emotions out of the way first and do whatever it takes to purge all disappointment, sadness, anger, etc and then focus on studying again. I recommend studying full time your second time around (I took time off from work to study again full time) and approach it all as if it is your first time taking the bar. I think re-takers often make the mistake of trying to concentrate on one's "weaknesses" too much based upon the failed scores and can often miss the big picture of how comprehensive the entire exam is. I've heard that the reason why the passage rate for retakers is so low is because most retakers have to work and study for the bar which decreases their chances because you need to put more time into studying.
I was close to passing the July 2006 exam. My problem areas where the PTs and MBE's by slight margins. For my second time, I re-took BarBri because I had some black letter law issues and knew that I needed a disciplined paced program to study to every day; on the July 2006 exam, I passed most of the essays and failed only the ones where I did not remember/know the law.
I really didn't remember all that much from studying over the summer as I had mentally purged everything I had learned so I felt as though retaking BarBri would be fine for me....and it worked! I thought about taking something else but since I knew my problem was more about memorizing law rather than technique, I knew BarBri would be fine. Do not let BarBri try to convince you that you need to take their special essays class; they use the same essays/books as they do in their normal class and charge like 3 times more than to just retake BarBri.
I also took John Holtz's Performance Exam seminar. Words cannot express how highly I think of his technique and I am firmly convinced this seminar pushed my score into the pass range as I only scored 60s on both PTs on the July 2006 exam. BarBri does not teach you how to take PT's; they teach to how to barely get by on the PTs, if at all. Scoring a 60 on a PT just makes it that much harder for you to pass, but with a little bit of effort, you can really push
your score way higher using John's method and that just takes the pressure off your essays or the MBE's if you are struggling with those. His class is really overwhelming at first but if you practice his technique on your own, you will get it.
And by the way, my computer crashed during President's Day Holiday...that was like 11 days prior to the exam and I had a total freak out and lost around 5 days of studying because I could not get anyone to fix my computer and I had to face the prospect of writing the exam by hand with my atrocious handwriting. I got my computer fixed just in time and I passed!
Source: Steve Davis
This is a story shared by an online user, Westlahere
I took the bar exam five times and used Bargraders while preparing for my third try (although I also asked them to grade a few essays while preparing for my fourth attempt). Unfortunately for me the process of completely revamping my legal writing style was a long, drawn-out and painful process. I very much resented having to learn to write in the simplistic style required to pass the bar exam, and even though I did try very hard, my ego (which is apparently made
from granite and about the size of a large office building) kept me focused on the details (such as whether the person who wrote the model answer had interpreted the question correctly) instead of the larger concepts. As a consequence, I spent a good deal of time arguing with Bargraders personnel over those details (something I blush to admit now). Looking back, I can now compare the process I had to go through to constructing a building out of blocks -- I had to start with the foundation and add one or two blocks at a time.
Bargrader's process involves having your assigned tutor first review your past essays and give you feedback during a long conference call. You then write practice essays and submit them online, and get your graded answers back within 24 hours, along with the checklist used by the tutor so you can see where your weak points are. You can speak with the tutor by phone if you have particular questions -- a friend of mine who also used them spoke with his tutor quite a bit,
but I was fine with communicating via e-mails. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I recently ran across my notes from my original conversation with Robyn Sembenini (my assigned tutor), I realized she had in fact discussed everything I finally managed to do on this past February's exam. Even now I find it hard to explain why I didn't grasp what I was being told. The best explanation I can come up with is that I wasn't willing or able to do something just because someone told me I should (again, an ongoing theme in my life), but had to understand exactly why I needed to do things that way.
Re the books I used for essays, I found Adachi's Barbreaker books very helpful in that they gave me the approach for each different subject. The problem I had with his books was that he almost immediately goes into the "blended" writing style, while I needed to stick with the strict IRAC format so I didn't forget to discuss elements. (I also have been told that if you use the "blended" style you run the risk of getting a grader who doesn't take the time to
carefully read your answer to see if you in fact did discuss all of the elements.) I did like Tim Tyler's books, which I used when preparing for this last exam, as his model answers are the clearest and cleanest I have found and I was able to easily understand his writing process.
As for what works best for you in essay preparation, that depends on where your weaknesses lie. For example, if your IRACing is fine, but you have problems spotting issues, then outlining model answers is a good way to practice spotting issues. However, if you are good at spotting issues but your IRACing is weak, then you need to write out exams (I recommend attempting to answer a couple of questions on your own and comparing them to the model answer, and then rewriting the model answers, and writing out a few more model answers so you get used to how to transition from one issue to another, and how and when to discuss both sides of an issue). Hopefully you have had a tutor review your past essay answers and give you feedback as to where your weaknesses are -- if not, I strongly recommend it, because without that feedback you are basically trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (I believe that is Alcoholics Anonymous' definition of insanity). Again, Bargraders can do this for you if you don't already know of someone.
I used MicroMash for my MBEs for a couple of reasons. First, I hated flipping back and forth in the PMBR books to see the correct answer each time, and the alternative -- doing 30-50 questions at a time and looking at the answers afterward -- was not an effective teaching tool for me. Second, I found MicroMash's explanations to be very instructive -- they tell you why each answer is correct or incorrect, rather than saying "Choice D was just stupid," as the Princeton Review materials did. Finally, I really liked the automatic tracking feature MicroMash uses -- it tracks your weaknesses and keeps throwing questions at you in that area until you learn the distinctions. It also repeats questions you missed the first time around, and it was surprising to me how many times I had read the correct answer yet completely forgotten it by the next day (again showing that I had failed to grasp the concept being taught). I did 30 questions per day using MicroMash (approximately one hour per day) and trusted that the process would work, even though at the beginning I was getting less than 50% correct, and it did work.
You might want to try the newest course designed just for those repeating the bar exam:
visit Repeat Takers
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