BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam Forum

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PirateCap'n

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by PirateCap'n » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:02 pm

moandersen wrote:
BCLS wrote:
moandersen wrote:Just finished the NCBE MBE first set of 100. Got a score pretty much in line with my average of the MPQ2 mixed set. I guess thats good as long as it really is representative of the real MBE. The answers are worded differently than barbri, so that took some adjusting to. Not sure whether its worth the time to do the next two.
prob not worth it at this point.
Youre probably right. I hate studying for the essays though...
Yep. Studying for these NC essays is dreadful. I'm just trying to think of reasons now to do something that doesn't involve essays or MBE questions. My hope is that giving a bunch of definitions/procedural stuff is going to get me a decent number of points on the essays because, if they grade based mostly on the correct response and not on the BLL/analysis, I'm screwed.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by keg411 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:18 pm

I've been focusing on the essays all day and I'm so much more comfortable doing that then the MBE/Multiple choice. Probably helps that I suffered through all of these awful classes in law school, so I get the general gist of the rule application. Although, doing a ton of these helps you get used to kind of making stuff up if you're not 100% sure of law. That and BarBri repeats a bunch of the same concepts, so it can be easy to drill something into your head after the same needed rule shows up a few times (hello conversion divorce).

On the other hand, staring at another #6 problem set, the MPQ2's and the SFE give me legit nightmares. So I guess it evens out :lol:.

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Mroberts3

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by Mroberts3 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:35 pm

PitchO20 wrote:I just did the 100Q NCBEX Practice Exam 2 and got a 174. I have no idea about what any of the scaling means. Can someone just tell me if I'm in good shape?
Go back into the exam and click view feedback. One link takes you to the score report with the 174 number and the bands for each subject. There should be another link that will bring up a pdf of all 100 questions showing you which ones you got wrong and explanations as to why. It wont tell you which one is the right answer, but the explanation usually makes it pretty obvious which one is correct. It won't count them for you so just click thru and keep track of how many red explanations you see.

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sundevil77

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by sundevil77 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:42 pm

ninereal wrote:Evidence Essay #1 because I have not done enough evidence essays.

Subpart 2: why the fuck is this not admission by a party opponent? Model answer only has excited utterance, which might apply, but I see no reason whatsoever why it wouldn't be a party opponent admission. Also, I'm not even sure excited utterance applies because there seems to have been a good amount of time between the accident and the statement.
Yeah, I definitely didn't think this was an excited utterance. There's no indication it's excited, and it sure as hell appears there was some time for "reflection." Whatever. I analyzed under party admission and concluded it doesn't come in because I don't think the statement of the wife can be imputed to the husband, the party on trial. Hth.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by ninereal » Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:00 pm

sundevil77 wrote:
ninereal wrote:Evidence Essay #1 because I have not done enough evidence essays.

Subpart 2: why the fuck is this not admission by a party opponent? Model answer only has excited utterance, which might apply, but I see no reason whatsoever why it wouldn't be a party opponent admission. Also, I'm not even sure excited utterance applies because there seems to have been a good amount of time between the accident and the statement.
Yeah, I definitely didn't think this was an excited utterance. There's no indication it's excited, and it sure as hell appears there was some time for "reflection." Whatever. I analyzed under party admission and concluded it doesn't come in because I don't think the statement of the wife can be imputed to the husband, the party on trial. Hth.
Ah, that's a good point - I sort of glossed over the imputation part. Good to know someone agrees with me on the other stuff, though.

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clashjones87

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by clashjones87 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:20 pm

For those who purchased the online MBE pack, is the first question on Exam 1 about a summer camp? I've mixed up my papers and want to make sure they're in order. Thanks.

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bgdddymtty

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by bgdddymtty » Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:55 pm

bgdddymtty wrote:
BeenDidThat wrote:
traehekat wrote:
knickfan wrote:Can someone explain hearsay to me in plain english? I feel somewhat comfortable with the hearsay exceptions but I can't tell hearsay from non hearsay. I flag everything as hearsay.
Easiest way for me to keep it straight is to just look at the content of the statement and ask whether it matters if it is true or not in the context of the rest of the problem. If it looks like it is being offered for its truth, its hearsay. If it looks like it's being offered for some other reason, it's not hearsay.

"Dan killed your wife." to show that Dan actually killed your wife? Hearsay, because it's value depends on whether it is true or not.
"Dan killed your wife." to show adequate provocation for second murder? Not hearsay, because it's value doesn't depend on whether it is true or not, it's value is the effect on the listener and whether it would reasonably provoke him.
And to tack on (though the above is very good), I had this problem before, so the way I attack it is to ask: is the person offering it trying to get the jury/judge to believe what the out-of-court declarant said, or is the person offering it trying to get the jury/judge to believe that the out-of-court declarant said it? If the 2nd, non-hearsay.
One additional problem, though, for the purposes of the MBE, is that there are a bunch of statements that meet the general definition but are classified under the FRE as "nonhearsay" (e.g., statements by a criminal defendant). There's nothing you can do there but memorize the rules (and use process of elimination).
Just ran across the following in reviewing my notes from the simulated MBE:
Classic MBE non-hearsay:
1. "Verbal acts" (i.e. statements that are in some way legally operative). For example, testimony that non-party person X said "I accept your offer" is not hearsay even if it is being offered expressly to prove that X accepted the offer.
2. Statements that show that someone had knowledge/notice of something. These can be tricky because it often seems like they're being offered for the truth of the statement. For example, in a slip-and-fall case, a witness's statement that he or someone else told a store employee, "there's a spill on aisle 3." This is not being used to prove that there actually was a spill on aisle 3, but that someone at the store had notice that he should go and check that aisle for a spill.
3. Prior inconsistent statements used to impeach a witness. These can also come in as substantive evidence if they meet one of the hearsay exceptions. However, if they're only being used to show that a witness has said two mutually exclusive things at two different times, then it really doesn't matter which one of them is true. The purpose is not to prove the facts asserted in the prior statement, but rather to tell the jury that this witness is not trustworthy.

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sundevil77

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by sundevil77 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:02 pm

So many of these essays just freak me out. For example Civ Pro #33 has an entire answer based on exceptions to the "final judgment on the merits" rule for appeals. There are several paragraphs discussing how collateral claims, writs of mandamus, and the Interlocutory Appeals Act may circumvent the traditional appeals rules. I would literally get 0 points on that question for test day, and there's no way I have the ability to retain that type of information. :oops: Panic setting in again.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by BCLS » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:05 pm

sundevil77 wrote:So many of these essays just freak me out. For example Civ Pro #33 has an entire answer based on exceptions to the "final judgment on the merits" rule for appeals. There are several paragraphs discussing how collateral claims, writs of mandamus, and the Interlocutory Appeals Act may circumvent the traditional appeals rules. I would literally get 0 points on that question for test day, and there's no way I have the i ability to retain that type of information. :oops: Panic setting in again.
I remember this one. I literally made flash cards for those. I didn't know any of them at the time.

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ace_of_spades

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by ace_of_spades » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:10 pm

Commercial paper essays are owning me right now.

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sundevil77

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by sundevil77 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:15 pm

BCLS wrote:
sundevil77 wrote:So many of these essays just freak me out. For example Civ Pro #33 has an entire answer based on exceptions to the "final judgment on the merits" rule for appeals. There are several paragraphs discussing how collateral claims, writs of mandamus, and the Interlocutory Appeals Act may circumvent the traditional appeals rules. I would literally get 0 points on that question for test day, and there's no way I have the i ability to retain that type of information. :oops: Panic setting in again.
I remember this one. I literally made flash cards for those. I didn't know any of them at the time.
Wow, you made flashcards on those? I'm taking a gamble -- a relatively safe one, I hope -- that they're not going to be testing that again. Or at least a majority of people will be as clueless as I am.

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bgdddymtty

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by bgdddymtty » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:16 pm

ace_of_spades wrote:Commercial paper essays are owning me right now.
Something worth keeping in mind for all of us: this ain't mediocre-law-schools.com. For the most part, the folks who hang out here are good students at good schools. If we're all getting pwned on essays, chances are that the bar (no pun intended) is going to be fairly low on test day. That's not to say don't study hard, but don't freak out.

kaiser

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by kaiser » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:19 pm

After spending all day on NY topics (the commonly-tested points within), I feel a bit better hitting these essays. Sure, if I hit a one-off issue that they rarely test, I have to do a combination of writing down buzzwords, and making up a rule. But after looking at the sub-issue frequency chart, it really does suffice for almost any essay on corporations, domestic relations, wills/trusts, PR, etc.

Now, about that commercial paper (which I haven't watched the video of or read a single CMR page on...)

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sundevil77

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by sundevil77 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:20 pm

bgdddymtty wrote:
ace_of_spades wrote:Commercial paper essays are owning me right now.
Something worth keeping in mind for all of us: this ain't mediocre-law-schools.com. For the most part, the folks who hang out here are good students at good schools. If we're all getting pwned on essays, chances are that the bar (no pun intended) is going to be fairly low on test day. That's not to say don't study hard, but don't freak out.
I can back this up anecdotally. My dad was assigned by his supervising attorney to grade some bar essays back in the day. He said the essays were generally pretty bad, and the first go around had a 30% pass rate. When he handed them back to the attorney (who was on the bar exam committee), he told him to go back and do it again because the pass rate was too low. He said he needed the passage rate up to at least 50%. By the end of the whole ordeal, my dad said the pass rate was at 65%, and every mediocre essay got a passing grade. Take hope in that.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by blong4133 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:30 pm

sundevil77 wrote:
bgdddymtty wrote:
ace_of_spades wrote:Commercial paper essays are owning me right now.
Something worth keeping in mind for all of us: this ain't mediocre-law-schools.com. For the most part, the folks who hang out here are good students at good schools. If we're all getting pwned on essays, chances are that the bar (no pun intended) is going to be fairly low on test day. That's not to say don't study hard, but don't freak out.
I can back this up anecdotally. My dad was assigned by his supervising attorney to grade some bar essays back in the day. He said the essays were generally pretty bad, and the first go around had a 30% pass rate. When he handed them back to the attorney (who was on the bar exam committee), he told him to go back and do it again because the pass rate was too low. He said he needed the passage rate up to at least 50%. By the end of the whole ordeal, my dad said the pass rate was at 65%, and every mediocre essay got a passing grade. Take hope in that.
This makes me feel a little better. While I feel like I have a general understanding of the main concepts, there are a lot of times where I feel like I'm just throwing crap at a wall and hoping that at least part of it will be right.

I did notice that when I took the half day MEE essay in the back of the barbri essay book that there were a few where I had no idea and just B.S.d something. On the crim pro essay, I completely screwed up the last issue and according to barbri's grading sheet, still got enough to be considered a "passing" answer.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by Twistersodacan » Fri Jul 26, 2013 8:50 pm

How similar is the MPQ2 Full Day Exam to the real MBE?
I found that extremely brutal and has killed my confidence....

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by blong4133 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:08 pm

Twistersodacan wrote:How similar is the MPQ2 Full Day Exam to the real MBE?
I found that extremely brutal and has killed my confidence....

I think most people did. I only did the first 100 (that's all barbri assigned) and got killed.

I wouldn't worry about it. Just go over the missed questions and try to figure out where you messed up.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by Glock » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:12 pm

PitchO20 wrote:I just did the 100Q NCBEX Practice Exam 2 and got a 174. I have no idea about what any of the scaling means. Can someone just tell me if I'm in good shape?

This is why I don't trust these fucking NCBE test's difficulty. I just got a scaled score that is a full 8 points higher than the top score in my state's last administration. I don't think this is realistic.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by phonepro » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:38 pm

I just did the SFE and got a 64.

I got a 135 on simulated MBE, and was banking on killing the MBE b/c I suck significantly at the essays, and have put them off the entire 2 months. Now I don't feel confident at all.

Le sigh.

10x in both con law and property O_o

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by kaiser » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:53 pm

Glock wrote:
PitchO20 wrote:I just did the 100Q NCBEX Practice Exam 2 and got a 174. I have no idea about what any of the scaling means. Can someone just tell me if I'm in good shape?

This is why I don't trust these fucking NCBE test's difficulty. I just got a scaled score that is a full 8 points higher than the top score in my state's last administration. I don't think this is realistic.
You must be confused about something, since those tests are made to be highly representative, as per NCBE themselves, and the scaling is based on real data. What was your raw score on the NCBE test?

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by clashjones87 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:57 pm

For UBE jurisdictions, do we need to know both common law and UPC for Wills or just UPC? Thank you

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by phonepro » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:05 pm

I am tempted to buy a NCBE test after my poor performance on Barbri's SFE (64).

I just read a few pages back that the strategies and tactics book has the same Qs? Is this true? B/c i have that book from Emanuel, and never cracked it up - I'll just do that and save the 50 bucks lol.

If not, any suggestions on which NCBE test to take? I'm only doing one.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by Glock » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:11 pm

kaiser wrote:
Glock wrote:
PitchO20 wrote:I just did the 100Q NCBEX Practice Exam 2 and got a 174. I have no idea about what any of the scaling means. Can someone just tell me if I'm in good shape?

This is why I don't trust these fucking NCBE test's difficulty. I just got a scaled score that is a full 8 points higher than the top score in my state's last administration. I don't think this is realistic.
You must be confused about something, since those tests are made to be highly representative, as per NCBE themselves, and the scaling is based on real data. What was your raw score on the NCBE test?

I very well may be confused about the raw vs scaled or something. The only thing for sure that I know is that my state's top MBE score was 177 scaled for the last numbers they released.

I went 93/100 raw on NCBE set 2. That gave me a 185 scaled (their one-page print out said 185, which I assume is scaled).

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by kaiser » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:13 pm

Glock wrote:
kaiser wrote:
Glock wrote:
PitchO20 wrote:I just did the 100Q NCBEX Practice Exam 2 and got a 174. I have no idea about what any of the scaling means. Can someone just tell me if I'm in good shape?

This is why I don't trust these fucking NCBE test's difficulty. I just got a scaled score that is a full 8 points higher than the top score in my state's last administration. I don't think this is realistic.
You must be confused about something, since those tests are made to be highly representative, as per NCBE themselves, and the scaling is based on real data. What was your raw score on the NCBE test?

I very well may be confused about the raw vs scaled or something. The only thing for sure that I know is that my state's top MBE score was 177 scaled for the last numbers they released.

I went 93/100 raw on NCBE set 2. That gave me a 185 scaled (their one-page print out said 185, which I assume is scaled).
From everyone I spoke to, and from NCBE themselves, that is a highly representative test. And if anything, I'd say #2 was the most difficult of the 3. In other words, you are gonna destroy the MBE, and I wouldn't waste another second studying for that component.

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Re: BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam

Post by Rowinguy2009 » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:18 pm

For those trying to save money with iphones/ipads, I bought the "MBE Study Buddy" app a couple weeks ago for ten bucks. It has 300 questions on it. Today I bought the first NCBE test and realized that a significant number (at least 15 I'd say) were the exact same questions available on the study buddy app.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!


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