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starchinkilt wrote:

Silverback wrote:The teaching format for Evidence is rough. Looks like I will have to be doing a lot of leg work when I go to outline the material on my own.

+1. This is awful. Luckily I got last years CMR from a friend, and that helped with a lot of the confusion.

Yeah, he is the first Kaplan prof whose video I had to turn off. I'm just studying the notes and reviewing my outline from law school.

ArthurEdens wrote:

starchinkilt wrote:

Silverback wrote:The teaching format for Evidence is rough. Looks like I will have to be doing a lot of leg work when I go to outline the material on my own.

+1. This is awful. Luckily I got last years CMR from a friend, and that helped with a lot of the confusion.

Yeah, he is the first Kaplan prof whose video I had to turn off. I'm just studying the notes and reviewing my outline from law school.

+1 more. Even with 99% of the outline pre-filled for us, I had trouble following along...he kept going off on tangents or over-explaining aspects that didn't need it. I finally just closed him out and skimmed the rest of the bar notes / bar points.

I enjoyed the Richard Belzer torts guy.

if you havent taken the evidence CPQ don't look










way for Kaplan to have the correct response be "A" around 20/25 of the questions

SAOJD10 wrote:if you havent taken the evidence CPQ don't look

Yeah, it was my worst quiz by far. Then again, the video lecture was useless, and I didn't really study my notes beforehand.

the conlaw guy has such a lilted, clipped way of speaking, he sounds like the SNL obama parody.

Every time I get an essay back they complain that I didn't follow IRAC like a robot and give me a failing score. In law school, we were discouraged from answering an essay by saying "The issue is X. The Rule is Y." Is this REALLY what bar examiners want to see, or is this just Kaplan's weird idiosyncrasy?

Also, they seem to blatantly ignore things I say in my essay and give me zero point for "missing" issues that I did, in fact, talk about.

How did people do on the Mid Term? I got a 141 but I can't figure out what that translates to for the NY bar. What should I be aiming for?

mness wrote:Every time I get an essay back they complain that I didn't follow IRAC like a robot and give me a failing score. In law school, we were discouraged from answering an essay by saying "The issue is X. The Rule is Y." Is this REALLY what bar examiners want to see, or is this just Kaplan's weird idiosyncrasy?

Also, they seem to blatantly ignore things I say in my essay and give me zero point for "missing" issues that I did, in fact, talk about.

Yeah, they've been weird with mine. I hit an issue 100% and used IRAC, and they only gave me 50% credit for that issue on their grading and gave me a failing grade. I have a book on my state's essays with the actual model answers and past student answers. I looked up the essay I did and hit every point on the model answer and hit way more points than actual student answers that received 10/10 for that essay. Kaplan is just trying to scare us and its annoying.

PhillyLaw2010 wrote:How did people do on the Mid Term? I got a 141 but I can't figure out what that translates to for the NY bar. What should I be aiming for?

I got tired from doing them (the fact that 90% of them were long ass fact patterns made me tired), but I got 70/100 for the first half. I figure that's good for now. The video said that your score translates directly to what you'd receive, but there's no way thats true. Kaplan seems to not incude gimmes like they do on the real MBE. So you're probably in great shape with a 141.

So I'm now starting my state specific lectures, and the way Kaplan is doing this is weird. Like in my personal property notes it'll say: Under common law, this was the rule. Under Michigan, this is the different rule by statute/court decision. If this is only tested on the state specific essays, why do they bother to tell me the inapplicable common law rule.

120, awful. Was doing well and kind of fatigued towards the end.

Just lol at Kaplan requiring me to do No Fault, Workers Comp, and Creditors Rights in just one day. While there isn't much page-wise in the outlines, there are definitely some nuances that Kaplan just glosses over that are key based on past essays, especially since WC usually gets its own whole essay.

ndirish2010 wrote:120, awful. Was doing well and kind of fatigued towards the end.

I don't think that is all that bad. Remember, the bar questions will probably not have as many questions with such a high difficulty rating as the ones that were in the midterm. As for me, I was worn down near the end, but I think on the real exam you will have some adrenaline pumping to keep you focused until you finish. So, if you account the fact that Kaplan questions tend to be more difficult in nature and the score was raw, you will probably be fine on the real thing if you were to take it right now. However, keep in mind, you could have scored much higher on a different set of questions. There are many variables, and there is no need to get discouraged at this point. You probably started this entire course with about 60 days to the bar exam. Think about how much information you have reviewed and retained at this point only after being less than halfway through the bar course, and be aware, you will have even more time to drill down on the exact areas of law that you may need additional review on.

In our school library, there were a bunch of students freaking out over the midterm. A kind lawyer informed the students that she received 20% on the her midterm and passed on the real bar exam.


I don't know how I feel about my the state section that I had today. During the actual lecture, I felt that the professor was very good and that he effectively delivered the law. However, after taking the quiz, I felt that he missed many nuances that the quiz tested you on. On the real exam, I have been told that the state bar examiners, at least in my state, tend to stick to MBE questions and seldom write state specific essays.

How are you guys doing on the online-submitted "graded" essays?

Also, I think I've found some incorrect statements of law throughout their material. One evidence flashcard said that a impeachment by a crime involving dishonesty/fraud within the last ten years was only admissible subject to 403 balancing.

How'd you guys and gals do on the midterm?

Just saw a video in the "study guru" section that said that the national average is 115-117, which is reassuring.

PhillyLaw2010 wrote:Just saw a video in the "study guru" section that said that the national average is 115-117, which is reassuring.

If you are reading this forum, you obviously care about how you are preparing for the exam, and therefore, it is more than likely that you will have done enough work to pass. Think about it. You have just been presented with an enormous amount of information for an exam that tests difficult intricacies. If you got fifty percent correct on the midterm, you most likely absorbed all of the major concepts, and now, you have over a month to put together the leftover details. All is well.

As for the essays, I was getting poor scores initially and felt extremely frustrated by the minimal feedback and somewhat arbitrary grading system. However, my fiance, who is also studying for the bar exam, told me that she adhered to the Kaplan expectations precisely and has been receiving positive feedback. Reluctantly, I submitted what I would consider a "cookie cutter" essay answer to Kaplan, and in return, they gave me an "above the standard score," which placed the "meter" well within the green area. If you follow all of their sign posting criteria, such as using headers, stating "the issue is," beginning your rule statement with "Under PA law," and starting your application with "here," you will get a good score. I guess it more about making everything blatantly obvious to the grader and having an essay that is easy to assign points to rather than developing a sophisticated response. On the actual exam, I suppose this approach will be beneficial when you are in a time crunch and need to complete your answers before the end of each session.

Hope this helps those frustrated with the essays....

PhillyLaw2010 wrote:Just saw a video in the "study guru" section that said that the national average is 115-117, which is reassuring.

How did you get a MBE type score? Kaplan is only giving me a percentage score.

my bar notes are so out of synch with the videos for some of these subjects. crimpro is all over the place; this guy isn't even going off the same outline in my book.

Kaplan just got the law entirely wrong on an essay question (I have the actual model answer from my state's BLE). It makes me wonder why Kaplan doesn't get access to past model answers (they're all published or obtainable for at least the past 10 years) to base their answers off of when they use actual past questions. I'm done with their essay service. I can write my own essays and compare them to the real model answers, not some kaplan outline that has a chance of being wrong.

courtneylove wrote:my bar notes are so out of synch with the videos for some of these subjects. crimpro is all over the place; this guy isn't even going off the same outline in my book.

The VA criminal law and crim pro lecture was rough. It seemed like she was just shootin' from the hip.

Also, regarding the essays. I did a few and despite getting the law 90% right (per the model answer) they said I failed. I've heard that's a common theme so I wouldn't get too discouraged just keep doing the essays and comparing them to the model answer

By the way, from what I've read your scaled score is what matters and you will get a 14-16 point bump to your raw score that you got on the practice MBE. You just need a 140 scaled whoops forgot not everyone is taking the same bar as me

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BruceWayne wrote:

PhillyLaw2010 wrote:Just saw a video in the "study guru" section that said that the national average is 115-117, which is reassuring.

How did you get a MBE type score? Kaplan is only giving me a percentage score.

Out of the 200 question test, the number you got right is your raw score.

When you guys are sharing your midterm scores, are you sharing the raw score out of 200? Since there were 200 midterm questions, I'm wondering if our raw scores are inflated. I got 142/200.

mness wrote:When you guys are sharing your midterm scores, are you sharing the raw score out of 200? Since there were 200 midterm questions, I'm wondering if our raw scores are inflated.

Yeah, I think everyone's raw score is out of 200. Are you saying they are inflated because it doesn't account for the 10 experimental? Those 10 could all be the ones that you missed so your score could actually be higher.