Hello,
I've been a lurker in this group since July. I am a first-time taker
who passed in July. I've seen a number of requests for people who
passed to state what they did. My approach was quite unorthodox, so I
am volunteering it, in the remote chance that it might be useful to
someone - particularly anyone who might need or choose to work full
time when studying for the bar.
I chose to work full-time while studying for the bar until after July
4th, so my full-time studying was limited to three weeks. Here is a
summary of what I did and did not do.
Overall:
- Took Barbri
- Did not take PMBR or any other supplemental course
- Did not use any other supplemental books, CDs, or other resources
- Did use Barbri's Study Smart software
June:
I did:
- Attend all of Barbri's subject specific classes. I attended Barbri
from 6-10 PM at the end of a long day. Most of my classmates had been
studying all day. I realized that the ONLY way to compensate for the
huge advantage that they had was to be "completely on" during every
minute I was in bar class. I had to focus completely on the lectures
and retaining as many of the "key points" that the lecturers discussed
as I could. I tried "memorize as you go" - to see how much I could
internalize right as I heard it. I noticed that many of my classmates
would bring Ethernet cables and surf the web during class; this was
off-limits for me.
- Go over my notes after each class in detail.
- Go through and annotate the CMR in detail for each of the MBE
subjects, except Sales (which I felt was too detailed for bar purposes)
- Focus on MBE questions. I did all of the beginning and virtually all
of the intermediate MBE questions that Barbri provided, as well as the
drills. Because I was working full time at a law firm, I downloaded
the Study Smart software onto my work computer (with permission), so
that I could do MBE questions as I ate breakfast or lunch or if on
hold during a conference call. Still, I did only a relatively
manageable number of MBEs; I'd estimate 800-1000 total.
I did not:
- Look at the Barbri long outlines at all
- Follow the paced program after Day 1. It was overwhelming and
entirely undoable for someone who has 45-50 hours of the week blocked
off for work. Once I realized that there was no way that I could
follow that, and decided to focus on what I COULD do, I relaxed
considerably.
- Write a single essay in the month of June, except for Barbri graded
essays (in total, I submitted four out of seven graded essays and the
graded performance test)
- Attend Barbri's essay workshops after the second, or performance
test workshops after the first. The essay workshops were doing little
besides forcing me to practice essays (which I wasn't ready to do),
and the performance test workshops... were doing little (sorry,
Honigsberg). For me, that was "premium time" - I used the time when I
was not in class to study with double the intensity. I even chose to
sit right outside where the class was taking place, to motivate me to
study.
At the end of the month, I had received three or four essays back from
Barbri that said "Fail." My work was cut out for me in July. However,
I received a "High Pass" on the graded performance test and a 163 raw
on the practice MBE. At that point, I essentially tabled my study for
the MBE. To say I "tabled" my study for the performance tests would be
too strong a term, as I never really began it.
July:
I did:
- Go to the remaining Barbri subject specific lectures
- Between July 1-10, I focused on compiling outlines of each subject
on the Bar Exam. I used two sources: CMR and my notes from class.
- Take two hours per day (between 10-12 PM, when I could no longer
focus on essays) to pull up my StudySmart software and review MBE
questions, to stay fresh.
- Study 13-15 hours per day after July 4th. I would arrive at the
library between 8-9 AM, having stopped on my way to buy both breakfast
and lunch. I ate lunch in the library. Around 3 PM, I would leave for
my first break - Jamba Juice. I normally called friends or family
around then for a quick fifteen minute check in with the real world. I
then returned to the library. Between 5 and 9 PM, I would come to the
high point of the day - I would drive to my gym, which was five
minutes away from the library, for a fifteen minute rendezvous with
the eucalyptus steam room. (This really did become key to sanity and
relaxation by the week before the bar.) I'd shower, grab dinner, drive
back to the library, eat there, and remain there until they expelled
us at midnight.
- Around July 10, I opened my Barbri essay book for the first time.
(Disclaimer: If I had failed the bar, obviously this would have been
why. The only people to whom I would recommend waiting this long to
start practicing essays are those who (a) are working full time until
July and (b) know that they are weaker in multiple choice than in
essays (thus meriting the earlier focus on MBEs).) I knew from having
"failed" four Barbri essays that my writing was not in the correct format.
I quickly realized that I had had some systemic (mostly IRAC related)
formatting problems that were causing me to have "failed" those early
essays. More importantly, I realized that there were certain types of
statements that Barbri was recommending that we include in certain
types of essays. (A random example: see Barbri's recommendations for
addressing the issues of hearsay and relevance in evidence essays.)
So, what I wanted to do was to see how Barbri recommended that we
address as many different types of situations as possible.
I began working subject by subject as follows. I would take my
just-prepared subject outline (13-17 typed single-spaced pages each)
and condense it twice - first, into a 5-7 page "intermediate" outline
which removed all the fluff while reminding me of the essential
details. The second condensation was into a 3-5 page "skeleton"
outline - not quite a checklist, but close. (Note: if anyone wants to
see how these outlines looked, I could probably email you a couple.)
This process took 2-3 hours per subject. Then, with the subject fresh
in my mind, I did "timed issue spotting" with two or three practice
essays. What I mean by this is, I gave myself 15-20 minutes (the same
as I ultimately gave myself on the bar) to outline all of the issues
in a format that I could use to write an essay. Once I had done enough
"timed issue spotting" to be seeing most of the issues, I wrote out a
single timed essay in one hour. I then moved on to "issue spot"
(untimed) 1-2 more essays as time permitted.
After doing this for the first four subjects that I tackled, I
realized that the timed essays (in which I actually took an hour to
write out the whole thing) were taking too much time. I also realized
that by this point, my essays were looking quite similar to Barbri's
sample answers in structure (obviously, without the same ridiculous
amount of detail as they include.) So, I did something that every test
prep place counsels you not to do - having written a grand total of
eight essays (four "failing" ones for Barbri and four during my
private preparation) ...I stopped writing out essays for the California
bar. Instead, I focused on "timed issue spotting" - I could issue spot
three essays in the time it took me to write out one fully.
Again, a disclaimer: if I had failed the bar, I would have naturally
suspected my decision not to write out more practice essays. And, of
course, I don't know whether I passed by one point or two hundred; it
could be that this strategy actually jeopardized my ability to pass,
and I don't know it. Caveat emptor, of course, especially if you are
less than confident in your own writing ability.
What I realized, though, is that I had not had the same time as my
Barbri peers in June to become truly familiar with the subject matter,
thanks to my working full time. Those eight essays were all it took
for me to be confident that I could come up with correctly structured
essays on the bar exam. What I was not confident about, though, was my
familiar with different types of essays (by subject matter), and it
was most important to me that I see (e.g.) how Barbri recommended
handling a First Amendment question, an equal protection question, a
Commerce Clause question, standing and political question issues,
etc., than to have the experience of writing any of those questions
out all the way. So, I sprinted my way through as much of the essay
book as I possibly could in the second two weeks of July. And then it
was D-day.
I did not:
- Go to any more Barbri essay or performance test workshops
- Go to Barbri's practice test (essay/PT) day
- Open the Barbri PT book (or, more accurately, I opened it, glanced
at the first test for half an hour without actually doing it, and then
closed it again.)
- Look at the NCBE's sample MBE questions
- Look at Calbar's sample released questions and answers. (Given more
time, I would have done this, but with such limited time, I felt that
I was getting more out of Barbri's unrealistically complete answers
than I would from student answers written under time constraints. )
By July 25, I had studied (both in terms of number of hours and in
terms of types of studying done) far less than everyone else I knew. I
was convinced that regardless of what I knew, I was destined to fail
simply for reduced effort put in. (I think it is very easy to fall
into the trap of figuring out who "deserves" to pass or fail. Indeed,
I would bet that at least one person reading this is shaking their
head and thinking that I "should" have failed, given how relatively
little I did, and they "deserved" to pass because they put in so much
more effort. I think it is critical to get yourself out of that
mindset, whether you believe you "deserve" not to pass because you
didn't try enough, or "deserved" to pass (but didn't) because of all
the work you put in. This is a pass-fail licensing exam administered
to almost 9000 people at a single sitting. The only thing that matters
is how you can hold yourself out to the bar examiners for three days.
Everything that comes before is irrelevant except to the extent that
it helps you to do that. The bar examiners don't care how much you
studied or how much you know apart from what they are asking you. And
so, neither should anyone else's focus be on how they did too much and
didn't pass despite "deserving" it, or didn't do enough to "merit" a
pass and yet made it.)
The Exam
I did:
- Come up with a mental strategy to get myself through the first day.
I was so hung up on not "deserving" to pass that I was convinced that
I would fail, going into the test. Still, since I intended to take it,
I wanted to find a way to calm down and make myself confident. I
elected the following. I informed everyone I was in touch with -
family, friends, people at work - that I didn't think I could pass
July, and that I was nonetheless going to sit for the exam as a
"diagnostic" test for February. Why do this? I wanted to reduce the
pressure on me from well-meaning people who neither understood the bar
exam or my situation, as someone who had only had three weeks of full
time study. In July, I had felt more nervous about their expectations
than anything else about the test, so I wanted to get rid of that.
With the weight of their expectations reduced (but not removed), I
focused inward. Secretly, I thought I had a reasonable chance at
passing July. But, I knew that the most important thing would be to
hold it absolutely together on Tuesday morning. And so, I used a
rather weird strategy to stay calm as I sat in the testing center
Tuesday morning - I looked around at the hundreds of people around me
and felt superior to them. I told myself, "These people are so nervous
because they all have to pass this exam right now. I am just here as a
diagnostic, to see where my weak spots are for February. So really, I
am the only person in this entire building who doesn't have any reason
to be nervous right now." Call it legal fiction (especially since most
of my brain was intently focused on passing in July.) But it kept me
calm and cool enough to go into the Tuesday morning session. This was
especially important because at my location, we were delayed for more
than an hour in beginning the exam (until around 10:20 AM). As we sat
there waiting to begin for so long, it was critical to have something,
anything, to dissipate the stress.
The moment that we were told, "You may begin," I went after that exam
with everything I had. All legal fictions were gone. I was going to
pass that darn exam, and I was going to pass it in July. All
nervousness was gone, and the entire world disappeared around me. I
did not leave a single thing blank or unaddressed. If I knew there was
an issue but did not know the rule, I invented the rule on the spot
(at one point, I told the bar examiners that the standard for First
Amendment constitutional review was a "hybrid intermediate scrutiny
standard" (which I pulled from thin air, but using reasonably credible
words; still have no idea what I was trying to get at with "hybrid").
At another point, I invented the elements of dependent relative
revocation.) Much like "no child left behind," I made sure that there
was "no fact left behind" on the essays and PTs - if they gave it to
us, I figured out how to incorporate it into my answer.
I similarly went after the MBE. If I didn't know the answer, I filled
in my best guess, circled the question, and returned to it. I did not
leave a single question unanswered, and there was no question about
which I was uncertain that I did not consider twice.
Although the performance tests were the easiest part, they were the
part for which I was least prepared. I therefore went after them with
the greatest intensity, trying to spot every angle the examiners might
have been looking for. (Note: I saw the discussion here some months
ago about "phantom
PR issues" and the PTs. I was not aware we were
supposed to look for
PR issues on PTs, possibly because I skipped
three of the PT workshops. So, I did not address those, FWIW.)
...and then, it was all over, and hundreds of us were clapping and
cheering and celebrating as the proctors collected our materials on
July 27th. In the months of waiting, the main thing that concerned me
was, again, how little I had done relative to everyone I knew.
- Others may prefer to avoid people while taking the bar exam, but I
found it immensely helpful to make plans to reconnect with a couple of
my friends during lunch and at the end of the day. I felt less alone -
as though I was going through the devilish process with the same
people with whom I had tackled law school. For me, it was a reassuring
thought. I would recommend it. My one suggestion is - decide with your
friends beforehand whether or not you want to discuss the exam. We
ultimately decided to discuss it, and it was very helpful to us.
Although we each realized that we missed a few small things, we also
realized that we were doing well enough that it bolstered our
confidence level (and we all passed). It is easy to see how those
discussions could have gone differently. :) If you don't want to
discuss the exam during lunch breaks, be sure to make that very clear
to your friends beforehand.
Now that the full passlist is out, I see that one of my friends is not
on it. She attended every Barbri class, did every assignment in the
paced program, submitted all graded assignments, did PMBR, did most of
the PMBR questions, etc. She was the first name I checked for this
morning, because I was more certain that she passed than anyone else.
I actually searched for her name about ten times, in disbelief, before
accepting that she was not on it (and even now, I feel that it *must*
have been an administrative oversight.) Assuming that it was not,
though...the difference between her situation and mine underscores the
reality that the quantity of your preparation may have little to do
with how those three days in July go. Figure out what MBE strategy
works for you, learn how to structure your essays, and do enough
practice that you will not be at a loss during the exam. But if you do
find yourself at a loss during the exam, MAKE UP anything that you do
not know. Invent the law that you do not know as you go. You have
nothing to lose...and a law license to gain. :)
Best of luck!
Originally Posted by norton11
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