Marysol11

Is it a good idea to take a seperate course solely for the performance tests? If so what has worked for you guys?

Category: CA - California Bar Exam

sweetlg

I took the Barbri's all-in-one package for the Cal bar exam, and it totally helped. not that they are great or anything, but the fact that they force you to practice really helped. My point is, you need to figure out your way of reading, organizing, and writing a good paper. That means some good instruction which you can get from multiple books and some quality practice.

in short, I won't pay anything more than $50 for a PT class, but I will put in a good 8-hour practice to prepare for the PT section.

cabartutor

Hi sweetlg,

Are you a first time taker-- it seems that you are... As a first timer I would reccommend making sure you do plenty of practice PTs (and essays of course). So many people leave PTs as the last thing they tackle (if at all) during prep. and it is like no one seems to catch onto the fact that one PT is worth the same as TWO essays!!! You can gain (or lose) a lot of points there. That being said, the PT is not rocket science. It IS however all about organization, answering the question asked in the format the examiners request, and doing a good job picking out the pertinent facts and laying out some good analysis. The PT is not about black letter. It is essentially a "digestion" type exercise-- "here, read these directions, read all this case law and the fact pattern, and come out with a coherent and well thought out answer." Just with the rest of the bar, people do poorly on the PTs because they neglect to PRACTICE them and instead spend hours re-writing outlines or just reading over some PT q & a's. You do not need an expensive course, you just need to sit down and do the work-- do PTs (samples free on the CA Bar site-- old exams--- or buy some used PT sample books (BarBri, etc.) on craiglist or ebay and you will do fine. :)

Practice makes you eligible TO practice. remember that and good luck in your studies!

__________________
CABarTutor
~recent grad ('06), admittee MA/CA, and Tutor in the Los Angeles area.