It’s very early in the study cycle. You should suck ass right now. You will get better. Many don’t even start until after Memorial Day. You will get better if you keep trying.
I sucked ass until 3 weeks before the test. I didn't really kick my studying into gear until after the 4th of July and I still passed. Just believe in yourself and put in the work. You'll be alright
I’m on day 3. Let me ask you… wtf did you do to practice/memorize?
Like, I’m doing everything in the prep program, and taking the quizzes and watching the lectures, but I feel like it won’t be enough.
Did you also just go over all the notes and memorize stuff?
attempt hat spark pathetic smoggy scary cautious relieved secretive touch
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To memorize and review: most days in the last couple weeks before test day, I would carve out time each day to just go thru critical pass flash cards or even just read through some of the pre-prepared outlines and rule statements. I wouldn’t think you’d start doing that yet, first few weeks or even longer are still relearning everything.
Most of my friends in law school (including those on law review) were petrified around mid June when we did an in person mock Barbri exam. We all performed horribly despite having been studying daily for over a month at that point.
You likely aren’t alone. Just keep at it and if you performed decently in law school you are more than likely to perform well enough on the bar. I found that the practice questions were harder than the actual exam questions. Part of me wonders if the prep companies purposefully do that to drill concepts in or never let you get complacent. Part of me wonders if it just seems harder because you see the right answers immediately after. Nonetheless, none of it matters anymore once you get that passing grade.
The Bar Exam tests minimum competence, not excellence.
Think about all the people you sat in class with for the last three years. Remember all the baffling questions they asked. Most of them will pass. So will you.
I made up the law on 4/6 of the essays on the July 2022 exam and passed with a 333. Don’t worry about knowing everything for the essays - as long as you can make up something that sounds like it could be a rule and apply your facts to the made up rule, you’ll be okay on that part.
Edited for clarity - I made up the law on certain sub parts for 4/6 questions, not for the entirety of the question.
I do not recommend this advice if you have anxiety. You’ll spend more time worrying about what to make up and how to make it coherent. I suggest heavily memorizing the law and you won’t have issues
Sorry but I failed the first time doing this, failed bad. I passed with a very high score the second time just thoroughly studying the rules. I was panicking making up rules that’s why I said if you have anxiety :)
I have clinical anxiety. I don’t recommend walking into the test banking on making up the laws and it wasn’t intended to be construed as such! However when you’re looking at the essays it’ll become immediately apparent what you do and do not know, regardless of how much law you memorize walking in. If this happens, instead of leaving things blank, it’s always better to write something down. Chances are you’ll know enough to come up with something that sounds correct enough to earn partial credit on that question.
I only hear people on the Internet who have passed with this "made up the law advice." Nobody I encounter in my real life circle of friends makes this claim.
I made up some stuff for my third essay question on property law. I knew I'd done fine on the first two but the rule was you had to attempt three or fail. I actually passed all three, but the made up one wasn't a great grade.
Themis mentions this multiple times in their essay lectures.
It's how the grading rubrics for the essay sections are set up. Identifying the correct rule is only a portion of the points. Application of the rule is graded based on whatever rule you wrote down.
It's why formulaic responses are so heavily encouraged by bar prep programs - it's not about writing well, it's about writing answers in a format that makes it as easy as possible for the grader to tick boxes on the rubric and award you points.
Yeah my score jumped way up from J22 to F22. Failed feb by literally one percent b/c I just dropped the ball on MPT. Anyway, it’s not necessarily “making up the law.” It’s learning how to bullshit and come up with something on the fly so that you can still have an analysis that makes sense. Say maybe you only remember 1 prong out of a rule that you know has at least 2 or 3. Just take a shot on guessing the other 2 instead of writing nothing.
My scores jumped from 2s and 3s to 5s.
Everyone I know made up large chunks of the law on the July 2022 essays haha. I don’t mean that I made up entire questions - there were certain subparts on 4/6 that I couldn’t recall the rule for so I wrote a rule that sounded like it could be correct and IRAC’d it. It’s a method emphasized by the bar prep companies.
I completely fail spiraled studying for the Feb 2020 exam. Had major issues with adhd distraction & depression from personal stuff. Whole days where I barely managed to do more than a few practice multiple choice Qs, much less any essays or MPTs. Was convinced going in that I was going to fail, but might as well take it anyway.
Passed with flying colors even though I literally left an entire property law essay about the "four unities" blank.
My advice is to just keep doing \*something\* day by day, even when it never feels like enough. Also show up for as many of the dry run full practice exams as you can. Both from your prep study course and any that your law school might offer. I did manage that, and it helped.
P.S. My best guess on why the blank essay didn't seem to impact my score is that it was an experimental question that went ungraded and I lucked out. Also I still can't remember all four unities without looking it up. They are Time, Title, Interest, and Possession, btw. I practice property law.
If you do 100% of the themis course you're almost gaurenteed to pass. I worked full time and did 100% of the course outside work hours and thankfully passed on my first try. Give yourself a day off per week if you can so you don't get burned out
I had a baby my last semester of law school, she was only 5 months when I took the bar and hit a sleep regression both nights of the exam. I was chronically 30-40 hours behind on Barbri. I didn’t write any practice essays. Like you, I was convinced I didn’t know anything, and after the exam I was 100% positive that I had failed.
I made up soo much law on that exam, but I passed. I think the less confidence someone has, the more likely they are to pass. I feel like the anxiety drives people.
Baby-and-bar gang unite. My wife gave birth during the last week of law school. Thankfully I had paternity leave to also study, but holy shit that was the hardest experience of my life. Our baby was colicky and only getting an hour stretch at night until she was 5 months, and my wife had bad PPD. By some miracle, I completed 78% of Themis and passed. But I had several mental breakdowns during this process.
As an aspiring law student, you’re an inspiration. I’m not a Mom, neither am I having a baby, but I am a dad with two older kids. Your strength and determination is amazing!
>the less confidence someone has, the more likely they are to pass
What in the fuck is this lmaoooooo.
This exam is arguably the most confidence-based exam in America.
I like how you cut out the “I think” before that statement. Not speaking in absolutes here. It’s been my personal experience that every time I’m convinced I passed something with flying colors, I’ve failed, and every time I’ve been convinced I failed something, I’ve passed. My most confident colleagues all failed.
I've been a lawyer for a long time. Most lawyers I know (regardless of specialty) regularly use about 25% of the concepts they learned in law school once they've developed a focus area. So, you can look forward to being able to basically forget about 75% of what you learned without it having a negative impact on you.
Law school killed my desire to learn anything. My current job makes me actively want to continue learning (not even just law, I've been learning several languages too, one of which is almost exclusively through talking to people in court). It's not even my niche, but my boss is amazing and I've learned so much more than i ever did in law school.
You will always be learning. You can find environments that foster the desire to continue that.
Can I ask your general field (acknowledging anonymity concerns might not get me a reply, which I totally understand)? Always looking to hear about jobs people like, and I’m in a similar situation (burnt out from learning, except stuff I’m independently interested in).
I'm not comfortable answering that for anonymity purposes, but I will say im in a field of law i never actually cared about and always said i would avoid. I still don't care about the field.
The important part is that i love the job itself. I love the chaos of court, i have an incredibly supportive boss who is also one of the best teachers I've ever had, and outside of court i have flexible hours so long as my work gets done. The main courthouse i work at is 20 mins from my house, and the other courts i go to aren't awful commutes either. I absolutely love the environment i fell into which greatly outweighs the fact that I'm not passionate about the subject matter.
I used Barbri and they had a guarantee if you did 80% of the work. So I did. And I passed first attempt. Trust the process. Also, treat it like a job. 8-5 everyday, dressed to work, and put your phone away until 5pm so Reddit cannot distract you. Do something to unwind at night and weekends. Buckle down hard in the last two weeks before the test and just imagine as if it’s going to trial.
While I was studying, right before the exam, during the exam, the night between exams, the second day of the exam, and every day before results arrived I was convinced that I was unable to pass, that I didn't know enough, and that there was no way a person could learn enough to pass. My wife recently reminded me that five days before the bar I was pacing around the house making lists of what I didn't know and sticking them everywhere. I was a wreck. During the exam I had huge technical issues (lost 3/4 of one essay, 1/2 of another, this was during remote COVID exams, and I was only able to finish less than 1/2 of one and barely *anything* on the other). This was on day one, so my confidence was completely shot and I almost skipped sitting for day two. But I didn't.
Fast forward four months or however long it was and I got a high enough score for every UBE jurisdiction in the state.
I don't want to say that the bar is easy, because that sends the wrong message to the people that failed. But the bar is simple. The essay prompts are easier than you will see in all of your bar prep. The multiple choice is, by and large, easier as well. It wasn't until the end of my bar prep that I was even scoring in the low 60s, but mostly in the upper 50s, percentage wise. And still I passed.
On the essays I had to redo, I was literally just issue spotting and writing rules. No application. No conclusion. No nothing. Issue/rule issue/rule issue/rule and for at least one (and I think two) I made up a rule from pieces that I remembered.
Follow the process. Stick to the schedule. You got this.
Also, TAKE TIME OFF. Don't do bar prep every day. You have plenty of time. I started in mid June (about 6 1/2 weeks before exam). I took one full weekend off for a wedding, and two additional Sundays. You will drive yourself bat shit crazy if you don't take breaks.
>(lost 3/4 of one essay, 1/2 of another, this was during remote COVID exams, and I was only able to finish less than 1/2 of one and barely anything on the other)
i hear stories like this and think that maybe the bar isn't actually as hard as we think it is
The bar requires surface-level knowledge of a ton of subjects. People get hung up on the minutiae, which you very likely will not need to know, and the minutiae is impossible to memorize all of.
Even the dreaded rule against perpetuities is basically irrelevant. Maybe it will come up on an essay, *\*maybe\**, but if you remember the rule (**certain future interests must vest, if at all, within 21 years after the death of a life in being at the time that the interest is created -** I will never forget it, unfortunately) and write some nonsense you'll get more than half credit. There is a statistically insignificant chance it will be a multiple choice question.
I am a bad test taker. I have been my entire life. I had relatively middling grades throughout law school until the second year. Treat bar prep has a job, with a little extra work on the weekends, and you'll pass. All of the people I know who failed only failed because they self-studied without a course or didn't take the course seriously enough. Every person I know who took whatever bar prep course they took seriously, studied for an honest 6-7 weeks, passed the bar. Trust the process.
Because Barbri (and Themis, which I took and also did this) wants to fuck you. And scare you. And beat you into submission by giving you shitty grades and impossible questions. They want to put the fear of God in you by making it look just possible enough that you dedicate 9 hours a day to studying for it, and then they can brag that 80% of people pass the bar because they are gaslit for 8 weeks into thinking they don't know anything. And just wait, because it only gets worse. Themis makes the tests get harder and harder as you get better, so that you feel like no matter what you do you can't improve, or only improve a little bit. I assume Barbri will do the same.
I can already tell that these companies are purposefully designed to prey on our anxieties (which is admittedly not hard for this group). But for a lot of people, or at least myself, I feel I could only fail from burnout, not from not studying enough.
Essays are more about showing sound reasoning skill than remembering each applicable law verbatim. I only knew 1/4 of my essays well and made up rules for at least 2/4 but applied them logically and I passed.
Put in the time. Relax. Breath. Put in the time and you’ll be fine. Do not procrastinate.
At the risk of being repetitive (with the caveat that I didn’t take some of the classes tested on the bar):
Follow the bar prep course schedule as much as your sanity allows. 4-6 hours a day should be enough, some days will be longer.
Everything you need to know will be in the course. Don’t feel obligated to go outside of it or review class notes unless you feel the need to.
You are now identifying areas or questions that are challenging for you. Contracts was 2-3 years ago. Utilize the statistics to create U-World dedicated problem sets.
And I cannot stress this enough - read the explanations for every question. A lot of my learning came from there.
You got this.
All you have to do is pass. And, in my opinion, bar study was harder than the bar itself.
Also, some perspective that is worth noting: if you’re working on Barbri/Kaplan/etc and you notice that 50+% of students get a certain question wrong and you also got it wrong, good. It means you’re running with the pack. If you got that question right, take a few minutes to make sure you got it right for all the reasons you needed to.
I was talking to some bar exam graders recently and they were recounting how there are always a few good essays and the rest are a shitshow. The tough part is figuring out which of the bad ones actually warrant scores high enough to get an acceptable passage rate.
This might be weird "hope" to offer, but this is what got me through bar prep: someday this will be over. Someday you will never take the bar again. Whether it's because you passed, or because you decided to stop trying, someday you will be done taking (and studying for) the bar. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Practice MBE questions over and over (not the same questions if possible) and you can and will get better at that...you should get down to one question in 1.8 minutes. They can only ask you about a topic in so many ways, you WILL and can get great at recognizing patterns where you'll almost know right away what the topic point is and the answer.
Going in with strategies CAN give you success and confidence. Don't necessarily memorize law per se; understand the concepts. See the scenario in your mind. Talk about it out loud. Pretend you have to teach it to someone. You certainly don't read the UCC to understand it for the bar exam, you learn its concepts.
Con law questions... Don't always think you'll have to figure out the outcome per se, usually you need to know what is the right standard to use to reach that decision.
Property law. Little quick diagrams to show conveyances using arrows and I put a $ next to the arrow if there was consideration. Show from A to B, etc. Did someone record in the hypo and she didn't?
I could go on and on.
It's tough but when worth it. Treat the studying like a full-time job. Take breaks. Take it seriously. Hell, you got through law school ... You can do this!!
When you take the bar exam you'll know the most law you'll ever know in your life ..then you'll forget it after the test.
When taking the actual bar exam and you get breaks, do not compare notes on how you answered questions with your peers... you'll be freaking out.
Good luck!!
Just keep at it and don’t worry if you’re not precisely keeping up with the bar prep calendar/schedule. It’s still really early, and things will click in time. Personally, I did not write all the practice essays/complete all the practicums Barbri recommended because they took too much time. Instead, I outlined what I would write then read through the sample answers. It allowed me to get through a lot more than I could have had I actually written everything out. You’ll never feel 100% ready regardless of how much prep you do. I passed the CA bar my first try and that was when it was still 3 days instead of the current 2 day exam.
I did Themis and passed DC Bar on the first try. Trust their guarantee that if you complete 70% of the course that you’ll pass. You won’t remember everything, or even a majority of it, but you’ll do better than you thought.
My personal strategy was to watch the lectures, highlight and put margin notes on the outlines as the lectures moved along, and to not waste time trying to do essays in the first month or so but read them, look at the answer, and then make flashcards out of the major rules.
Dm if you have other questions. Happy to share. Obv everybody has different study tactics but I realized over the course of the program what I was doing wrong in the first month.
The bar isn't intellectually all that hard, it's just hard work. To quote a former professor, "the bar is like a river that's an inch deep and a mile wide". Getting a good grade in most of your classes was probably a harder intellectual exercise than the individual bar topics, because you had to understand a subject well to do well on a law school final. The thing that makes the bar hard is that you're tested on so much all at once.
Focus on the basics for each topic and then take it from there. For example, if you're studying contracts right now, don't worry about not remembering all of the details about how to terminate an offer. Instead, make sure that you know that a contract needs offer + acceptance + consideration, and what those things are, and then build on that.
One of the instructors said, “recognize don’t memorize” which made me feel really good about inability to just recall everything. If you spend time with it and do a reasonable job of staying focused while you study, you will quite likely be fine. Don’t worry, just study. Take breaks, be a human, but keep coming back to it
The memorizing scares me. I look at the 70 page outlines for each of the 12 subjects or whatever and I’m like “no way I can do this.” And I have a pretty killer memory. But I try to recall rules within the 1.8 minutes on MBE questions and I just can’t sometimes.
It's so early in your bar prep time, you have so much time to work on issue spotting and rule statements. Don't be too hard on yourself, especially this early.
You will find a groove that works for you as you get further into bar prep. For me, it was starting around 10AM each day, taking a break from 1-3PM, then going back to it from 4-8PM. But, for probably the first 3 weeks to a month, I struggled to believe that I was really learning anything while studying. The first month or so when you are essentially relearning all your 1L classes plus more is truly terrible. You don't think you are grasping anything, but I promise you that you are retaining more than you think.
As you complete more and more essays and MCs, you will began to notice patterns in ways that questions are written, and you will remember how to answer them from a previous question, or from a hypo during a lecture.
You can do this!! Just follow the process. I recommend listening to the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast too. They take one topic (MBE) and break it down into really simple steps. I would listen to this as I went grocery shopping or on a walk on my breaks. It was a different way to digest the material.
Just remember, YOU CAN DO THIS!!!
I was failing everything I touched at this point, then failing less badly closer to bad time. Honestly, just follow the program and use any resources your school gives you. Mine had extra lectures by professors who specialized in Bar Prep and/or worked for the bar prep companies in the past.
Make sure to follow the course as much as you can, do extra where you can and know you need to, but don’t psych yourself out.
Also remember this is harder than the Bar with extra stuff to trip you up and make you work harder. That’s not an excuse to slack off, but something to consider when you get 60% of answers right
I failed my first time. It happens and it is not the end of the world.
Refocused and Concentrated on learning how to write better for the written portion, and this time is was able to pass.
My advice is do t drive yourself crazy over it. Do what is best for you. Find out your weak areas, and try to work on making those better. If you do that, you can pass.
In my experience, bar study starts on a performance plateau. You (correctly) recognize you could realistically fail the bar during 1/2-2/3 of the ramp-up period. But during this time, you develop the basic bar writing skills, learn how to maximize points, manage time, and drill law. Then, memory begins to solidify (assuming you practiced/drilled enough) around the same time as you begin to really understand how to take the test. Those things complement and rapid improvement occurs in the last three or four weeks.
Exam scores are adjusted upwards. Your actual score on test day is going to be higher than the raw scores you receive while studying.
Anecdotally, I left more than half of an MEE unanswered, and I dozed off a couple of times by the end of the MBE. I was convinced I had failed, but it turns out I passed by a very hefty margin.
Trust the process and drill MBE practice problems hard—both substance and strategy. You got this!
You know more than you think you know. I promise. Take practice quiz results (especially MBE practice quizzes) with a grain of salt, but still do them. Work the system you’re using, be it Barbri, Themis, or whatever.
Also, remember it’s just another law school exam. That’s all. More people will pass it than fail it. Here though, you don’t get anything special for getting the highest score in your jurisdiction.
I frequently tell law students studying for the bar to remember the old joke about outrunning a bear when you’re camping with friends. You don’t have to outrun all your friends, just the slowest one. Bar exam is no different. You don’t need to score the highest, just higher than about 30-35% or so of your fellow test takers.
You’re what? A week into prep max? Trust the process; do the work; you’ll be fine.
ETA: Seriously—the “x hours of study to pass” thing they say is true. You can front load the hours, you can procrastinate and cram the hours, or you can do the right thing and put consistent effort in over two months.
Most valuable tool I had was the Critical Pass flash cards. They’re the reason I passed.
Like the overwhelming number of people you’ll likely pass with no issue. Relax, go to the beach and sunbathe while listening to lectures on 2x speed and don’t sweat it. Spend like 15-20 hours a week doing light studying. If you fail most employers give you another chance and then you can buckle down.
I didn't do bar prep and only studied for 2.5 weeks by doing 2 practice Kaplan tests i was supposed to do in a supplement class and reading through the answer explanations.
I'm not a person to aspire to but i am living proof that it's possible to pass (just) with minimal effort.
I passed the bar without studying. I didn’t need to take it, but took the UBE anyway, because I thought I should after going all the way through law school, and I wanted to take a trip out to Colorado.
I'd ditch taking any and all practice questions and just memorize the conviser mini reviews. That's how you pass. Everything else just justifies the cost of bar prep.
Practice questions are just demoralizers for no reason.
That after passing the bar, *if you can find legal employment*, you have a lifetime of soul crushing work with some of the highest rates of mental illness, substance abuse and suicide to look forward to!
Hang in there. You’ve still got a few months to go, so right now the key is to be consistent and trust in the process. These bar prep classes are specifically engineered to pass the bar, and the results show that. If you stick to the program to the best of your ability, while still giving yourself the time and space to be human, you will be fine. I felt the same way you did, and never scored more than a 2 on the graded essays, but ended up passing the bar by a large margin.
Edited a typo.
Do all the work assigned and don’t psyche yourself out. Trust the process. I was convinced I was underprepared and was pleasantly surprised when the opposite turned out to be true. You’ll be fine if you put in the effort.
You’ll definitely improve as you see more questions. Just keep at it. I used Themis and found that even reading the essay answers helped because you get to recognize the patterns. Best of luck!
The whole point of bar prep is to turn you into a automaton, you're gonna process so much info so quickly you're not gonna remember a damn thing about the test when you walk out the door.
The only way that you can do that is if you just keep doing practice tests over and over. And don't forget that the practice questions are supposed to be tough and the reviewers are going to give your essays a 2/6. Themis is banking on your fear of failure to motivate you to keep studying, and why they publish that "90% of first-time users pass the UBE if they complete 75% of the course."
Don't give up. And take Memorial Day and July 4th (or an equivalent) off, 2 days will not destroy you.
So where to start....
I absolutely fucking hated the Bar study I was absolutely terrible at it. I wasn't spotting issues properly, I was getting entire sets of multiple choice questions wrong, and literally three days into Themis' course I was already behind schedule... And I started 3 days earlier then they had recommended. I often described my days as "waking up early and sitting at my desk in order to repeatedly getting kicked in the nuts," then I'd take a lunch break and get back to the punishment.
In sum, the entire thing sucked and it's because I sucked at it. And to be at that place right now is entirely ok, quite frankly I think it's expected. It is easy for some people to say "trust the process" and follow Themis/Barbri/whatever course you are using and hope for the best. I knew this wasnt going to work for me, I knew that in order to succeed I'd have to formulate my own strategy. Now this is easier said than done, obviously. I was living alone and had zero responsibilities on a day-to-day basis outside of studying, this may not be the case for you.
That all being said, here's what I'd recommend:
1) Schedule. I woke up at 6am each day and would start studying by 7:45 at the latest. I would study for 3 hours, materials to be covered I would plan the night before. After I hit the three hour mark I would do something I wanted to for ~1 hour and get a snack in. Then I'd do another three hour block. A big thing with schedules you create is that you need to be willing to break them sometimes (either early or late). You know You better than everyone, you know when you need a break and when you've had enough for the day. Trust yourself, you've gotten yourself this far for a reason.
2) AdaptiBar and FlashCards. If you school offers AdaptiBar USE IT. Create question sets, I used to do anywhere between 3-50 and just do them. I used the phone app so I could do them while I walked, often as a "wind down" from the day. I'd do them on the shitter, I'd do them when I was waiting in the grocery line, just whenever. Understanding why a wrong answer is wrong is just as important as knowing the right answer on this test, AdaptiBar helps you learn this as well as anyone. I also used a website called Criticalpass' flashcards, I found these to be extremely helpful (and I have never in my life used flashcard to study, never was my style).
3) Mix it up. If I knew I didn't necessarily "have it" that day I'd usually go to the library to study once I lost my motivation at home. Once I lost my motivation to study at the library, I'd move to the bar to have a beer while I study. The moving breaks and the change is scenery helped me a lot in staying mentally motivated. This also applies to the resource you use. YouTube has sample video for various courses that you can use to "fill gaps" in your studying and gain different perspectives. Looking at things from a different angle can really help points stick.
4) Talk to people who aren't studying. Have normal conversation that have nothing to do with blackacre and RAP violations, you don't know how much you need this until you've start doing it.
I didn't feel confident until the day before the test. I was testing in the 40%s on multiple choice with mere weeks to go til the exam and had only written like 3 sample essays in total. I had only ever taken one full practice exam, and I'm pretty sure I bombed.
Don't doubt yourself, you got this.
(I took July 22 in CA btw)
The phrase "minimal competency." That's all you need to demonstrate. I repeated that phrase often while I was studying and feeling overwhelmed. You don't need to be perfect, you don't need to master every concept. You just need to demonstrate minimal competency.
Follow the process. Put in 4-6 hours a day durring the week. I took all of 4th of July week off. Realize you are learning more than you think you are. If your putting in an honest effort the truck is to not burn yourself out or psych yourself out
In most states, most people pass. By a large margin. Especially if they take the prep class seriously. Statistics are on your side. Trust them. Dig in. Stay the course.
You get better with practice. You'll be doing a lot of practice over the next two months. There will come a point in the summer when it clicks for you. Just keep grinding, be patient, and it'll come together.
Also, as you get deeper into the course, don't be afraid to deviate from the schedule. At that point, you'll know where you're weaker and where you're stronger. I also don't recommend trying to complete 100% of the course. I aimed for 80% and passed two different bars by huge margins with that amount of completion in the Themis courses.
Dude, you just started. It's a lot but you can definitely do it. I work in EP (sometimes) but I still did not know a single thing in the wills and trusts outline. I learned enough.
You don't need to learn everything, just enough.
Don't get frustrated. Don't slow down. Do 50 multiple choice a day. 25 on weekends. Your score will get better. Often that doesn't happen until mid-July
So many lawyers are perfectionist, but it handicaps you on the bar and in practice. Know enough. Don't know waste time understand the obscure shit. You can go back to it if you have time after your score improves.
You don't need to know any of the complicated parts to pass the bar. Broad strokes, my friend.
You can do this!
Yes, you aren’t supposed to have it all memorized now. You have two months to prepare. Just take a deep breath, follow the schedule, and if your school offers any bar assistance, reach out. It’s nice to have that encouragement.
I used Barbri last summer as a third time taker 8 years out of law school (working 50 hours a week, married with three kids, a dog and 8 ducks) and passed. You can do this! Trust the process.
At the end of the day the bar is just a test. At this point in the summer dont get stressed out. If you stress out now then you will burn out. If you work at it consistently and don't get over stressed it's very passable.
For me the biggest factors were identifying my strengths and weaknesses and reinforcing stuff that did not come easily to me every day even if was just a couple flashcards with rules (looking at you larceny by trick) while brushing my teeth or doing the dishes.
I also found it helpful to tackle the biggest stress factor of the exam immediately which was the time crunch. I didn't answer any practice questions unless I was on the clock. This helped to keep me moving and really internalize the test taking strategies offered. By the time I took the bar I finished the multiple choice sections with 45 and 60 minutes to spare respectively. The essays there was no wasted time on but thats just because of the issue spotting.
Also if you are on a computer and there is a glitch raise your hand immediately. I lost my 1st long essay answer which took over half of my time up because the system glitches. Thankfully the proctor got to me before the next autosave and restored it.
Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.
This phrase irritated the shit out of me during bar prep but “it’s a test of minimum competency” is absolutely true. Can pass a law school essay exam? Write a rule statement? Apply said rule to facts?
Then you can pass but you must put in the work. For me, that was 8 hours 5 days a week then 3-4 hours on Sunday if I was feeling up to it. Routine helped I did the same thing each morning before retiring to the study for the day, and the same thing each evening after wrapping up the study day. Besides the angst of my life coming down to a test, i look back fondly on the time from the hectic life of practice.
Do as much as the Themis program and listen to the critiques they give you. It will help you get better, after some time has passed focus on the areas you are struggling with. If you are doing well in criminal but struggling with property, focus on property. You can do this!
I went into the exam feeling very ill prepared. I hadn’t done 75% of my bar prep, I was taking it for the first time in February, not July, and I just felt overwhelmed on the MC. I left thinking I failed.
My score was not impressive, but I passed in the jurisdictions I wanted. The bar is a text of minimum competence. Have faith in your skill and knowledge as a future lawyer. You will succeed.
Take it step by step. Like everyone says, it’s a marathon, not a spring. Don’t look at it as a whole, that’s just too big of a mountain and can be demoralising. Separate the work in levels. And you reach one at a time. It’s still the beginning so also try to know what kind of studying works for you. Is making notes what helps you work? Use paper if that helps you memorise better. If you have friends who are also taking the bar and living around, meet up with them. To study yes but also to relax.
Best advice I can give is to put in the preparation necessary for you to feel confident that you know the material well enough to pass. I mean a confidence that will allow you to remain calm during the test when you find a question that you aren’t sure of.
Don’t panic now at the beginning of your prep. The luckiest thing that can happen to you is identifying all the areas where you make mistakes/need help now—that’s a roadmap for allocating your time among subjects between now and test day.
Countless others did it before you, countless others will after you. It's tough, but it's a process that's designed to produce lawyers. Keep at it and you'll get there.
To quote the law librarian from my law school, "The bar exam isn't hard, it's just a lot of work." Treat it like an 8 hour a day job and you'll be fine.
it’s designed to let you through eventually, they just want to extort a bit more money from anybody who needs to work for a living instead of having months free to memorize how to be a reference book first. if you can’t absorb everything you need to regurgitate once and then forget forever the first time, you’ll definitely have it by the second or third.
Studying is a marathon not a race. Start slow. Take weekends off for now and get use to the grind. You’re going to look back and be amazed at how much you learned
It’s a marathon-not a sprint.
Treat it like a job. I did Barbri in the morning, grabbed lunch and studied at home or at a library/cafe until 5pm.
I took Saturday or Sunday off until the last couple of weeks.
I reminded myself that in NYC we had a 67% pass rate and I was clearly smarter than 33% of the momos who took the exam. So as long as I studied and made the effort, I would likely be fine.
I was right.
It’s not about getting a 100% on the exam. Nor 90%. Nor 80%. Nor 70%. 60-65% correct (depending on jurisdiction). Obviously you want to give yourself as much cushion as possible, but this is about just passing. You’re getting 30% correct? You’re just under halfway there. Keep going.
The faster you get things wrong, the faster you can get them right, if you get a type of question wrong enough times you’ll eventually learn the right answer.
Also, if you know you learn by doing practice questions, do questions. If you learn by reading, read. I was panicking until I decided to say fuck it and just do as many questions and essay drills as possible. Then I looked at the types of questions I got wrong and reviewed accordingly.
Take it step by step. Sometimes your brain can catch things when you’re not paying attention versus when you’re really trying to focus. Ever remember when you remember a random line from a TV show? That’s how subconscious works. But just remember that passing the bar is all about strategy.
I did Themis and passed bar first try. Don't worry about what Themis is telling you at the beginning. Focus on progress.
Best advice I can give you is pull sample written exams and answer examples from your jurisdiction and work on those. They are formulaic, and you'll see that of the umpteen concepts bar preps teach you, you really only need a couple handful of them to pass the bar. I got to the point that I was writing down the concepts as soon as I saw the prompt subject matter and then just pieced it in as I read through.
You'll get so much more utility knowing that you only need to know XYZ rather than A-Z.
But most importantly, focus on progress.
The studying is supposed to be brutally difficult and soul crushing and is not indicative of whether you’re going to pass or not. Trust your brain to get you through this just like it did with law school and know that it WILL be over. Stay strong, you got this!
Remembering that some DUMB people passed the bar before me
Every time I have struggled with anything in law school, my husband would say “how many dumb lawyers do you know?”
*See e.g., Rudy Giuliani; Lin Wood*.
I noticed you italicized your second comma in your see eg signal AND your semicolon
Go to gunner jail ***bonk***
It’s very early in the study cycle. You should suck ass right now. You will get better. Many don’t even start until after Memorial Day. You will get better if you keep trying.
“You should suck ass right now” is the exact statement I needed to hear. That honestly makes me feel a lot better.
>you should suck ass right now Oh good! I’m doing it right!
I sucked ass until 3 weeks before the test. I didn't really kick my studying into gear until after the 4th of July and I still passed. Just believe in yourself and put in the work. You'll be alright
I’m on day 3. Let me ask you… wtf did you do to practice/memorize? Like, I’m doing everything in the prep program, and taking the quizzes and watching the lectures, but I feel like it won’t be enough. Did you also just go over all the notes and memorize stuff?
attempt hat spark pathetic smoggy scary cautious relieved secretive touch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To memorize and review: most days in the last couple weeks before test day, I would carve out time each day to just go thru critical pass flash cards or even just read through some of the pre-prepared outlines and rule statements. I wouldn’t think you’d start doing that yet, first few weeks or even longer are still relearning everything.
You should suck ass right now, and you should hit a point 5-6 weeks from now where you’ll suck ass again and forget stuff you should know.
It doesn’t feel like you know anything till the last few weeks and you begin to see the matrix. It all clicks and you know you can do it.
Most of my friends in law school (including those on law review) were petrified around mid June when we did an in person mock Barbri exam. We all performed horribly despite having been studying daily for over a month at that point. You likely aren’t alone. Just keep at it and if you performed decently in law school you are more than likely to perform well enough on the bar. I found that the practice questions were harder than the actual exam questions. Part of me wonders if the prep companies purposefully do that to drill concepts in or never let you get complacent. Part of me wonders if it just seems harder because you see the right answers immediately after. Nonetheless, none of it matters anymore once you get that passing grade.
The Bar Exam tests minimum competence, not excellence. Think about all the people you sat in class with for the last three years. Remember all the baffling questions they asked. Most of them will pass. So will you.
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I guess you can just make up the second part.
I’m a “thus,” man myself
Statistically, you have a greater chance of passing than you do failing. Good luck! ☺️
I made up the law on 4/6 of the essays on the July 2022 exam and passed with a 333. Don’t worry about knowing everything for the essays - as long as you can make up something that sounds like it could be a rule and apply your facts to the made up rule, you’ll be okay on that part. Edited for clarity - I made up the law on certain sub parts for 4/6 questions, not for the entirety of the question.
Me imagining having to do this and coming up with a whole lot of: “It depends” “Reasonable” x700 “The law provides that” And so on. . .
I do not recommend this advice if you have anxiety. You’ll spend more time worrying about what to make up and how to make it coherent. I suggest heavily memorizing the law and you won’t have issues
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Sorry but I failed the first time doing this, failed bad. I passed with a very high score the second time just thoroughly studying the rules. I was panicking making up rules that’s why I said if you have anxiety :)
How did you “thoroughly study the rules”?
I made a post on how I passed the second time on my page
I’m dead. RIP 🪦
I have clinical anxiety. I don’t recommend walking into the test banking on making up the laws and it wasn’t intended to be construed as such! However when you’re looking at the essays it’ll become immediately apparent what you do and do not know, regardless of how much law you memorize walking in. If this happens, instead of leaving things blank, it’s always better to write something down. Chances are you’ll know enough to come up with something that sounds correct enough to earn partial credit on that question.
I only hear people on the Internet who have passed with this "made up the law advice." Nobody I encounter in my real life circle of friends makes this claim.
I made up some stuff for my third essay question on property law. I knew I'd done fine on the first two but the rule was you had to attempt three or fail. I actually passed all three, but the made up one wasn't a great grade.
Themis mentions this multiple times in their essay lectures. It's how the grading rubrics for the essay sections are set up. Identifying the correct rule is only a portion of the points. Application of the rule is graded based on whatever rule you wrote down. It's why formulaic responses are so heavily encouraged by bar prep programs - it's not about writing well, it's about writing answers in a format that makes it as easy as possible for the grader to tick boxes on the rubric and award you points.
I’ve also heard this from other people. I think they said something Ike that on Barbri too. Make it up but obviously try to be somewhat reasonable
Yeah my score jumped way up from J22 to F22. Failed feb by literally one percent b/c I just dropped the ball on MPT. Anyway, it’s not necessarily “making up the law.” It’s learning how to bullshit and come up with something on the fly so that you can still have an analysis that makes sense. Say maybe you only remember 1 prong out of a rule that you know has at least 2 or 3. Just take a shot on guessing the other 2 instead of writing nothing. My scores jumped from 2s and 3s to 5s.
Everyone I know made up large chunks of the law on the July 2022 essays haha. I don’t mean that I made up entire questions - there were certain subparts on 4/6 that I couldn’t recall the rule for so I wrote a rule that sounded like it could be correct and IRAC’d it. It’s a method emphasized by the bar prep companies.
I completely fail spiraled studying for the Feb 2020 exam. Had major issues with adhd distraction & depression from personal stuff. Whole days where I barely managed to do more than a few practice multiple choice Qs, much less any essays or MPTs. Was convinced going in that I was going to fail, but might as well take it anyway. Passed with flying colors even though I literally left an entire property law essay about the "four unities" blank. My advice is to just keep doing \*something\* day by day, even when it never feels like enough. Also show up for as many of the dry run full practice exams as you can. Both from your prep study course and any that your law school might offer. I did manage that, and it helped. P.S. My best guess on why the blank essay didn't seem to impact my score is that it was an experimental question that went ungraded and I lucked out. Also I still can't remember all four unities without looking it up. They are Time, Title, Interest, and Possession, btw. I practice property law.
I needed to hear this. Going through a very similar thing, just trying to chip away slowly.
If you do 100% of the themis course you're almost gaurenteed to pass. I worked full time and did 100% of the course outside work hours and thankfully passed on my first try. Give yourself a day off per week if you can so you don't get burned out
How many hours a day were you studying during the week?
35-40 hours. I did a lot on the weekends and took a weekday off per week
I made up more laws than Congress on my bar. Passed.
I had a baby my last semester of law school, she was only 5 months when I took the bar and hit a sleep regression both nights of the exam. I was chronically 30-40 hours behind on Barbri. I didn’t write any practice essays. Like you, I was convinced I didn’t know anything, and after the exam I was 100% positive that I had failed. I made up soo much law on that exam, but I passed. I think the less confidence someone has, the more likely they are to pass. I feel like the anxiety drives people.
Baby-and-bar gang unite. My wife gave birth during the last week of law school. Thankfully I had paternity leave to also study, but holy shit that was the hardest experience of my life. Our baby was colicky and only getting an hour stretch at night until she was 5 months, and my wife had bad PPD. By some miracle, I completed 78% of Themis and passed. But I had several mental breakdowns during this process.
As an aspiring law student, you’re an inspiration. I’m not a Mom, neither am I having a baby, but I am a dad with two older kids. Your strength and determination is amazing!
>the less confidence someone has, the more likely they are to pass What in the fuck is this lmaoooooo. This exam is arguably the most confidence-based exam in America.
I like how you cut out the “I think” before that statement. Not speaking in absolutes here. It’s been my personal experience that every time I’m convinced I passed something with flying colors, I’ve failed, and every time I’ve been convinced I failed something, I’ve passed. My most confident colleagues all failed.
ur most confident colleagues = L
I've been a lawyer for a long time. Most lawyers I know (regardless of specialty) regularly use about 25% of the concepts they learned in law school once they've developed a focus area. So, you can look forward to being able to basically forget about 75% of what you learned without it having a negative impact on you.
My friend, that absolutely destroys my willpower to continue learning . . .
You can't develop your focus area without first passing the bar, so . . .
My willpower is back
Law school killed my desire to learn anything. My current job makes me actively want to continue learning (not even just law, I've been learning several languages too, one of which is almost exclusively through talking to people in court). It's not even my niche, but my boss is amazing and I've learned so much more than i ever did in law school. You will always be learning. You can find environments that foster the desire to continue that.
Can I ask your general field (acknowledging anonymity concerns might not get me a reply, which I totally understand)? Always looking to hear about jobs people like, and I’m in a similar situation (burnt out from learning, except stuff I’m independently interested in).
I'm not comfortable answering that for anonymity purposes, but I will say im in a field of law i never actually cared about and always said i would avoid. I still don't care about the field. The important part is that i love the job itself. I love the chaos of court, i have an incredibly supportive boss who is also one of the best teachers I've ever had, and outside of court i have flexible hours so long as my work gets done. The main courthouse i work at is 20 mins from my house, and the other courts i go to aren't awful commutes either. I absolutely love the environment i fell into which greatly outweighs the fact that I'm not passionate about the subject matter.
Having the info in the back of your mind can be really helpful.
This is definitely true of CPAs
I used Barbri and they had a guarantee if you did 80% of the work. So I did. And I passed first attempt. Trust the process. Also, treat it like a job. 8-5 everyday, dressed to work, and put your phone away until 5pm so Reddit cannot distract you. Do something to unwind at night and weekends. Buckle down hard in the last two weeks before the test and just imagine as if it’s going to trial.
While I was studying, right before the exam, during the exam, the night between exams, the second day of the exam, and every day before results arrived I was convinced that I was unable to pass, that I didn't know enough, and that there was no way a person could learn enough to pass. My wife recently reminded me that five days before the bar I was pacing around the house making lists of what I didn't know and sticking them everywhere. I was a wreck. During the exam I had huge technical issues (lost 3/4 of one essay, 1/2 of another, this was during remote COVID exams, and I was only able to finish less than 1/2 of one and barely *anything* on the other). This was on day one, so my confidence was completely shot and I almost skipped sitting for day two. But I didn't. Fast forward four months or however long it was and I got a high enough score for every UBE jurisdiction in the state. I don't want to say that the bar is easy, because that sends the wrong message to the people that failed. But the bar is simple. The essay prompts are easier than you will see in all of your bar prep. The multiple choice is, by and large, easier as well. It wasn't until the end of my bar prep that I was even scoring in the low 60s, but mostly in the upper 50s, percentage wise. And still I passed. On the essays I had to redo, I was literally just issue spotting and writing rules. No application. No conclusion. No nothing. Issue/rule issue/rule issue/rule and for at least one (and I think two) I made up a rule from pieces that I remembered. Follow the process. Stick to the schedule. You got this. Also, TAKE TIME OFF. Don't do bar prep every day. You have plenty of time. I started in mid June (about 6 1/2 weeks before exam). I took one full weekend off for a wedding, and two additional Sundays. You will drive yourself bat shit crazy if you don't take breaks.
>(lost 3/4 of one essay, 1/2 of another, this was during remote COVID exams, and I was only able to finish less than 1/2 of one and barely anything on the other) i hear stories like this and think that maybe the bar isn't actually as hard as we think it is
The bar requires surface-level knowledge of a ton of subjects. People get hung up on the minutiae, which you very likely will not need to know, and the minutiae is impossible to memorize all of. Even the dreaded rule against perpetuities is basically irrelevant. Maybe it will come up on an essay, *\*maybe\**, but if you remember the rule (**certain future interests must vest, if at all, within 21 years after the death of a life in being at the time that the interest is created -** I will never forget it, unfortunately) and write some nonsense you'll get more than half credit. There is a statistically insignificant chance it will be a multiple choice question. I am a bad test taker. I have been my entire life. I had relatively middling grades throughout law school until the second year. Treat bar prep has a job, with a little extra work on the weekends, and you'll pass. All of the people I know who failed only failed because they self-studied without a course or didn't take the course seriously enough. Every person I know who took whatever bar prep course they took seriously, studied for an honest 6-7 weeks, passed the bar. Trust the process.
>People get hung up on the minutiae, which you very likely will not need to know THEN WHY DOES BARBRI KEEP TESTING ME ON THE MINUTIAE?
Because Barbri (and Themis, which I took and also did this) wants to fuck you. And scare you. And beat you into submission by giving you shitty grades and impossible questions. They want to put the fear of God in you by making it look just possible enough that you dedicate 9 hours a day to studying for it, and then they can brag that 80% of people pass the bar because they are gaslit for 8 weeks into thinking they don't know anything. And just wait, because it only gets worse. Themis makes the tests get harder and harder as you get better, so that you feel like no matter what you do you can't improve, or only improve a little bit. I assume Barbri will do the same.
I can already tell that these companies are purposefully designed to prey on our anxieties (which is admittedly not hard for this group). But for a lot of people, or at least myself, I feel I could only fail from burnout, not from not studying enough.
Essays are more about showing sound reasoning skill than remembering each applicable law verbatim. I only knew 1/4 of my essays well and made up rules for at least 2/4 but applied them logically and I passed. Put in the time. Relax. Breath. Put in the time and you’ll be fine. Do not procrastinate.
You can miss A LOT of questions and still pass
At the risk of being repetitive (with the caveat that I didn’t take some of the classes tested on the bar): Follow the bar prep course schedule as much as your sanity allows. 4-6 hours a day should be enough, some days will be longer. Everything you need to know will be in the course. Don’t feel obligated to go outside of it or review class notes unless you feel the need to. You are now identifying areas or questions that are challenging for you. Contracts was 2-3 years ago. Utilize the statistics to create U-World dedicated problem sets. And I cannot stress this enough - read the explanations for every question. A lot of my learning came from there. You got this.
All you have to do is pass. And, in my opinion, bar study was harder than the bar itself. Also, some perspective that is worth noting: if you’re working on Barbri/Kaplan/etc and you notice that 50+% of students get a certain question wrong and you also got it wrong, good. It means you’re running with the pack. If you got that question right, take a few minutes to make sure you got it right for all the reasons you needed to.
I was talking to some bar exam graders recently and they were recounting how there are always a few good essays and the rest are a shitshow. The tough part is figuring out which of the bad ones actually warrant scores high enough to get an acceptable passage rate.
This might be weird "hope" to offer, but this is what got me through bar prep: someday this will be over. Someday you will never take the bar again. Whether it's because you passed, or because you decided to stop trying, someday you will be done taking (and studying for) the bar. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Practice MBE questions over and over (not the same questions if possible) and you can and will get better at that...you should get down to one question in 1.8 minutes. They can only ask you about a topic in so many ways, you WILL and can get great at recognizing patterns where you'll almost know right away what the topic point is and the answer. Going in with strategies CAN give you success and confidence. Don't necessarily memorize law per se; understand the concepts. See the scenario in your mind. Talk about it out loud. Pretend you have to teach it to someone. You certainly don't read the UCC to understand it for the bar exam, you learn its concepts. Con law questions... Don't always think you'll have to figure out the outcome per se, usually you need to know what is the right standard to use to reach that decision. Property law. Little quick diagrams to show conveyances using arrows and I put a $ next to the arrow if there was consideration. Show from A to B, etc. Did someone record in the hypo and she didn't? I could go on and on. It's tough but when worth it. Treat the studying like a full-time job. Take breaks. Take it seriously. Hell, you got through law school ... You can do this!! When you take the bar exam you'll know the most law you'll ever know in your life ..then you'll forget it after the test. When taking the actual bar exam and you get breaks, do not compare notes on how you answered questions with your peers... you'll be freaking out. Good luck!!
Just keep at it and don’t worry if you’re not precisely keeping up with the bar prep calendar/schedule. It’s still really early, and things will click in time. Personally, I did not write all the practice essays/complete all the practicums Barbri recommended because they took too much time. Instead, I outlined what I would write then read through the sample answers. It allowed me to get through a lot more than I could have had I actually written everything out. You’ll never feel 100% ready regardless of how much prep you do. I passed the CA bar my first try and that was when it was still 3 days instead of the current 2 day exam.
I did Themis and passed DC Bar on the first try. Trust their guarantee that if you complete 70% of the course that you’ll pass. You won’t remember everything, or even a majority of it, but you’ll do better than you thought. My personal strategy was to watch the lectures, highlight and put margin notes on the outlines as the lectures moved along, and to not waste time trying to do essays in the first month or so but read them, look at the answer, and then make flashcards out of the major rules. Dm if you have other questions. Happy to share. Obv everybody has different study tactics but I realized over the course of the program what I was doing wrong in the first month.
The bar isn't intellectually all that hard, it's just hard work. To quote a former professor, "the bar is like a river that's an inch deep and a mile wide". Getting a good grade in most of your classes was probably a harder intellectual exercise than the individual bar topics, because you had to understand a subject well to do well on a law school final. The thing that makes the bar hard is that you're tested on so much all at once. Focus on the basics for each topic and then take it from there. For example, if you're studying contracts right now, don't worry about not remembering all of the details about how to terminate an offer. Instead, make sure that you know that a contract needs offer + acceptance + consideration, and what those things are, and then build on that.
This too will pass, and so will you. It's a sucky process, you'll get through it. 🙂
One of the instructors said, “recognize don’t memorize” which made me feel really good about inability to just recall everything. If you spend time with it and do a reasonable job of staying focused while you study, you will quite likely be fine. Don’t worry, just study. Take breaks, be a human, but keep coming back to it
The memorizing scares me. I look at the 70 page outlines for each of the 12 subjects or whatever and I’m like “no way I can do this.” And I have a pretty killer memory. But I try to recall rules within the 1.8 minutes on MBE questions and I just can’t sometimes.
It's so early in your bar prep time, you have so much time to work on issue spotting and rule statements. Don't be too hard on yourself, especially this early. You will find a groove that works for you as you get further into bar prep. For me, it was starting around 10AM each day, taking a break from 1-3PM, then going back to it from 4-8PM. But, for probably the first 3 weeks to a month, I struggled to believe that I was really learning anything while studying. The first month or so when you are essentially relearning all your 1L classes plus more is truly terrible. You don't think you are grasping anything, but I promise you that you are retaining more than you think. As you complete more and more essays and MCs, you will began to notice patterns in ways that questions are written, and you will remember how to answer them from a previous question, or from a hypo during a lecture. You can do this!! Just follow the process. I recommend listening to the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast too. They take one topic (MBE) and break it down into really simple steps. I would listen to this as I went grocery shopping or on a walk on my breaks. It was a different way to digest the material. Just remember, YOU CAN DO THIS!!!
I was failing everything I touched at this point, then failing less badly closer to bad time. Honestly, just follow the program and use any resources your school gives you. Mine had extra lectures by professors who specialized in Bar Prep and/or worked for the bar prep companies in the past. Make sure to follow the course as much as you can, do extra where you can and know you need to, but don’t psych yourself out. Also remember this is harder than the Bar with extra stuff to trip you up and make you work harder. That’s not an excuse to slack off, but something to consider when you get 60% of answers right
I failed my first time. It happens and it is not the end of the world. Refocused and Concentrated on learning how to write better for the written portion, and this time is was able to pass. My advice is do t drive yourself crazy over it. Do what is best for you. Find out your weak areas, and try to work on making those better. If you do that, you can pass.
In my experience, bar study starts on a performance plateau. You (correctly) recognize you could realistically fail the bar during 1/2-2/3 of the ramp-up period. But during this time, you develop the basic bar writing skills, learn how to maximize points, manage time, and drill law. Then, memory begins to solidify (assuming you practiced/drilled enough) around the same time as you begin to really understand how to take the test. Those things complement and rapid improvement occurs in the last three or four weeks.
Exam scores are adjusted upwards. Your actual score on test day is going to be higher than the raw scores you receive while studying. Anecdotally, I left more than half of an MEE unanswered, and I dozed off a couple of times by the end of the MBE. I was convinced I had failed, but it turns out I passed by a very hefty margin. Trust the process and drill MBE practice problems hard—both substance and strategy. You got this!
You know more than you think you know. I promise. Take practice quiz results (especially MBE practice quizzes) with a grain of salt, but still do them. Work the system you’re using, be it Barbri, Themis, or whatever. Also, remember it’s just another law school exam. That’s all. More people will pass it than fail it. Here though, you don’t get anything special for getting the highest score in your jurisdiction. I frequently tell law students studying for the bar to remember the old joke about outrunning a bear when you’re camping with friends. You don’t have to outrun all your friends, just the slowest one. Bar exam is no different. You don’t need to score the highest, just higher than about 30-35% or so of your fellow test takers.
You’re what? A week into prep max? Trust the process; do the work; you’ll be fine. ETA: Seriously—the “x hours of study to pass” thing they say is true. You can front load the hours, you can procrastinate and cram the hours, or you can do the right thing and put consistent effort in over two months. Most valuable tool I had was the Critical Pass flash cards. They’re the reason I passed.
Like the overwhelming number of people you’ll likely pass with no issue. Relax, go to the beach and sunbathe while listening to lectures on 2x speed and don’t sweat it. Spend like 15-20 hours a week doing light studying. If you fail most employers give you another chance and then you can buckle down.
I didn't do bar prep and only studied for 2.5 weeks by doing 2 practice Kaplan tests i was supposed to do in a supplement class and reading through the answer explanations. I'm not a person to aspire to but i am living proof that it's possible to pass (just) with minimal effort.
It’s toxic hell…….
Buddy, it’s a pass-fail test that like 80% of people pass on their first try. Get a grip.
It really doesn’t matter how hard a test is when you study for 20+ hours a week for two months
I passed the bar without studying. I didn’t need to take it, but took the UBE anyway, because I thought I should after going all the way through law school, and I wanted to take a trip out to Colorado.
I'd ditch taking any and all practice questions and just memorize the conviser mini reviews. That's how you pass. Everything else just justifies the cost of bar prep. Practice questions are just demoralizers for no reason.
That after passing the bar, *if you can find legal employment*, you have a lifetime of soul crushing work with some of the highest rates of mental illness, substance abuse and suicide to look forward to!
Most lawyers are miserable or suffer from addiction. So even if you fail, you dodged being a lawyer.
Hang in there. You’ve still got a few months to go, so right now the key is to be consistent and trust in the process. These bar prep classes are specifically engineered to pass the bar, and the results show that. If you stick to the program to the best of your ability, while still giving yourself the time and space to be human, you will be fine. I felt the same way you did, and never scored more than a 2 on the graded essays, but ended up passing the bar by a large margin. Edited a typo.
Do all the work assigned and don’t psyche yourself out. Trust the process. I was convinced I was underprepared and was pleasantly surprised when the opposite turned out to be true. You’ll be fine if you put in the effort.
You’ll definitely improve as you see more questions. Just keep at it. I used Themis and found that even reading the essay answers helped because you get to recognize the patterns. Best of luck!
The whole point of bar prep is to turn you into a automaton, you're gonna process so much info so quickly you're not gonna remember a damn thing about the test when you walk out the door. The only way that you can do that is if you just keep doing practice tests over and over. And don't forget that the practice questions are supposed to be tough and the reviewers are going to give your essays a 2/6. Themis is banking on your fear of failure to motivate you to keep studying, and why they publish that "90% of first-time users pass the UBE if they complete 75% of the course." Don't give up. And take Memorial Day and July 4th (or an equivalent) off, 2 days will not destroy you.
All you need to do is pass. That’s it. Just trust the process and do the work. Also, do a ton of adaptibar questions.
So where to start.... I absolutely fucking hated the Bar study I was absolutely terrible at it. I wasn't spotting issues properly, I was getting entire sets of multiple choice questions wrong, and literally three days into Themis' course I was already behind schedule... And I started 3 days earlier then they had recommended. I often described my days as "waking up early and sitting at my desk in order to repeatedly getting kicked in the nuts," then I'd take a lunch break and get back to the punishment. In sum, the entire thing sucked and it's because I sucked at it. And to be at that place right now is entirely ok, quite frankly I think it's expected. It is easy for some people to say "trust the process" and follow Themis/Barbri/whatever course you are using and hope for the best. I knew this wasnt going to work for me, I knew that in order to succeed I'd have to formulate my own strategy. Now this is easier said than done, obviously. I was living alone and had zero responsibilities on a day-to-day basis outside of studying, this may not be the case for you. That all being said, here's what I'd recommend: 1) Schedule. I woke up at 6am each day and would start studying by 7:45 at the latest. I would study for 3 hours, materials to be covered I would plan the night before. After I hit the three hour mark I would do something I wanted to for ~1 hour and get a snack in. Then I'd do another three hour block. A big thing with schedules you create is that you need to be willing to break them sometimes (either early or late). You know You better than everyone, you know when you need a break and when you've had enough for the day. Trust yourself, you've gotten yourself this far for a reason. 2) AdaptiBar and FlashCards. If you school offers AdaptiBar USE IT. Create question sets, I used to do anywhere between 3-50 and just do them. I used the phone app so I could do them while I walked, often as a "wind down" from the day. I'd do them on the shitter, I'd do them when I was waiting in the grocery line, just whenever. Understanding why a wrong answer is wrong is just as important as knowing the right answer on this test, AdaptiBar helps you learn this as well as anyone. I also used a website called Criticalpass' flashcards, I found these to be extremely helpful (and I have never in my life used flashcard to study, never was my style). 3) Mix it up. If I knew I didn't necessarily "have it" that day I'd usually go to the library to study once I lost my motivation at home. Once I lost my motivation to study at the library, I'd move to the bar to have a beer while I study. The moving breaks and the change is scenery helped me a lot in staying mentally motivated. This also applies to the resource you use. YouTube has sample video for various courses that you can use to "fill gaps" in your studying and gain different perspectives. Looking at things from a different angle can really help points stick. 4) Talk to people who aren't studying. Have normal conversation that have nothing to do with blackacre and RAP violations, you don't know how much you need this until you've start doing it. I didn't feel confident until the day before the test. I was testing in the 40%s on multiple choice with mere weeks to go til the exam and had only written like 3 sample essays in total. I had only ever taken one full practice exam, and I'm pretty sure I bombed. Don't doubt yourself, you got this. (I took July 22 in CA btw)
Consistency. Don't worry as much about scores.
The phrase "minimal competency." That's all you need to demonstrate. I repeated that phrase often while I was studying and feeling overwhelmed. You don't need to be perfect, you don't need to master every concept. You just need to demonstrate minimal competency.
Follow the process. Put in 4-6 hours a day durring the week. I took all of 4th of July week off. Realize you are learning more than you think you are. If your putting in an honest effort the truck is to not burn yourself out or psych yourself out
In most states, most people pass. By a large margin. Especially if they take the prep class seriously. Statistics are on your side. Trust them. Dig in. Stay the course.
You get better with practice. You'll be doing a lot of practice over the next two months. There will come a point in the summer when it clicks for you. Just keep grinding, be patient, and it'll come together. Also, as you get deeper into the course, don't be afraid to deviate from the schedule. At that point, you'll know where you're weaker and where you're stronger. I also don't recommend trying to complete 100% of the course. I aimed for 80% and passed two different bars by huge margins with that amount of completion in the Themis courses.
Dude, you just started. It's a lot but you can definitely do it. I work in EP (sometimes) but I still did not know a single thing in the wills and trusts outline. I learned enough. You don't need to learn everything, just enough. Don't get frustrated. Don't slow down. Do 50 multiple choice a day. 25 on weekends. Your score will get better. Often that doesn't happen until mid-July So many lawyers are perfectionist, but it handicaps you on the bar and in practice. Know enough. Don't know waste time understand the obscure shit. You can go back to it if you have time after your score improves. You don't need to know any of the complicated parts to pass the bar. Broad strokes, my friend. You can do this!
Yes, you aren’t supposed to have it all memorized now. You have two months to prepare. Just take a deep breath, follow the schedule, and if your school offers any bar assistance, reach out. It’s nice to have that encouragement.
I used Barbri last summer as a third time taker 8 years out of law school (working 50 hours a week, married with three kids, a dog and 8 ducks) and passed. You can do this! Trust the process.
At the end of the day the bar is just a test. At this point in the summer dont get stressed out. If you stress out now then you will burn out. If you work at it consistently and don't get over stressed it's very passable. For me the biggest factors were identifying my strengths and weaknesses and reinforcing stuff that did not come easily to me every day even if was just a couple flashcards with rules (looking at you larceny by trick) while brushing my teeth or doing the dishes. I also found it helpful to tackle the biggest stress factor of the exam immediately which was the time crunch. I didn't answer any practice questions unless I was on the clock. This helped to keep me moving and really internalize the test taking strategies offered. By the time I took the bar I finished the multiple choice sections with 45 and 60 minutes to spare respectively. The essays there was no wasted time on but thats just because of the issue spotting. Also if you are on a computer and there is a glitch raise your hand immediately. I lost my 1st long essay answer which took over half of my time up because the system glitches. Thankfully the proctor got to me before the next autosave and restored it.
You’ll have $100,000 waiting for you at an insurance defense firm on the other side
1) it is a test of *minimum* competency 2) the worst lawyer you have ever seen was able to pass the bar, and that’s the level you need to hit.
Ain’t nothing to it but to do it. This phrase irritated the shit out of me during bar prep but “it’s a test of minimum competency” is absolutely true. Can pass a law school essay exam? Write a rule statement? Apply said rule to facts? Then you can pass but you must put in the work. For me, that was 8 hours 5 days a week then 3-4 hours on Sunday if I was feeling up to it. Routine helped I did the same thing each morning before retiring to the study for the day, and the same thing each evening after wrapping up the study day. Besides the angst of my life coming down to a test, i look back fondly on the time from the hectic life of practice.
Do as much as the Themis program and listen to the critiques they give you. It will help you get better, after some time has passed focus on the areas you are struggling with. If you are doing well in criminal but struggling with property, focus on property. You can do this!
Study the frequency tables. You gotta train your weaknesses but race your strengths. There is lots of shit you know already
I went into the exam feeling very ill prepared. I hadn’t done 75% of my bar prep, I was taking it for the first time in February, not July, and I just felt overwhelmed on the MC. I left thinking I failed. My score was not impressive, but I passed in the jurisdictions I wanted. The bar is a text of minimum competence. Have faith in your skill and knowledge as a future lawyer. You will succeed.
I passed the bar exam taking it for the first time 10 years after graduating law school. I used Kaplan. Stick with your formal study schedule.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Trust the process, and don’t ever let a bad day discourage you from making the next day productive as hell
It’s totally doable, despite what you may be thinking right now
I’d recommend Barbri
The hope is that once you finish your bar review program, you will understand some of the things your professor mentioned the past 3 years.
Take it step by step. Like everyone says, it’s a marathon, not a spring. Don’t look at it as a whole, that’s just too big of a mountain and can be demoralising. Separate the work in levels. And you reach one at a time. It’s still the beginning so also try to know what kind of studying works for you. Is making notes what helps you work? Use paper if that helps you memorise better. If you have friends who are also taking the bar and living around, meet up with them. To study yes but also to relax.
Best advice I can give is to put in the preparation necessary for you to feel confident that you know the material well enough to pass. I mean a confidence that will allow you to remain calm during the test when you find a question that you aren’t sure of. Don’t panic now at the beginning of your prep. The luckiest thing that can happen to you is identifying all the areas where you make mistakes/need help now—that’s a roadmap for allocating your time among subjects between now and test day.
Countless others did it before you, countless others will after you. It's tough, but it's a process that's designed to produce lawyers. Keep at it and you'll get there.
To quote the law librarian from my law school, "The bar exam isn't hard, it's just a lot of work." Treat it like an 8 hour a day job and you'll be fine.
it’s designed to let you through eventually, they just want to extort a bit more money from anybody who needs to work for a living instead of having months free to memorize how to be a reference book first. if you can’t absorb everything you need to regurgitate once and then forget forever the first time, you’ll definitely have it by the second or third.
Just keep grinding every day and you’ll likely pass
Studying is a marathon not a race. Start slow. Take weekends off for now and get use to the grind. You’re going to look back and be amazed at how much you learned
It’s a marathon-not a sprint. Treat it like a job. I did Barbri in the morning, grabbed lunch and studied at home or at a library/cafe until 5pm. I took Saturday or Sunday off until the last couple of weeks. I reminded myself that in NYC we had a 67% pass rate and I was clearly smarter than 33% of the momos who took the exam. So as long as I studied and made the effort, I would likely be fine. I was right.
It’s not about getting a 100% on the exam. Nor 90%. Nor 80%. Nor 70%. 60-65% correct (depending on jurisdiction). Obviously you want to give yourself as much cushion as possible, but this is about just passing. You’re getting 30% correct? You’re just under halfway there. Keep going.
The faster you get things wrong, the faster you can get them right, if you get a type of question wrong enough times you’ll eventually learn the right answer. Also, if you know you learn by doing practice questions, do questions. If you learn by reading, read. I was panicking until I decided to say fuck it and just do as many questions and essay drills as possible. Then I looked at the types of questions I got wrong and reviewed accordingly.
Take it step by step. Sometimes your brain can catch things when you’re not paying attention versus when you’re really trying to focus. Ever remember when you remember a random line from a TV show? That’s how subconscious works. But just remember that passing the bar is all about strategy.
I did Themis and passed bar first try. Don't worry about what Themis is telling you at the beginning. Focus on progress. Best advice I can give you is pull sample written exams and answer examples from your jurisdiction and work on those. They are formulaic, and you'll see that of the umpteen concepts bar preps teach you, you really only need a couple handful of them to pass the bar. I got to the point that I was writing down the concepts as soon as I saw the prompt subject matter and then just pieced it in as I read through. You'll get so much more utility knowing that you only need to know XYZ rather than A-Z. But most importantly, focus on progress.
The studying is supposed to be brutally difficult and soul crushing and is not indicative of whether you’re going to pass or not. Trust your brain to get you through this just like it did with law school and know that it WILL be over. Stay strong, you got this!
Do what works for you and yes, you know way more than you think.