2015 February California Bar Exam Forum

[Carryon]

Any attorney applicants wish to share how they are going about studying for the two-exam. My second run at this with a 1380 score. Also, anyone can recommend an inexpensive prep that concentrates on essays and PTs.

I used barmax for around $1000 which includes a mini
iPad and baressays.com with premium subscription version for $150 and Flemings pt kit for around $100.

[a male human]

In case anyone missed it, PM me for a $20 off code to bar essays.

[Carryon]

My work fired me because I failed the CA bar exam. Anyone else have this beautiful experience?

That's fucking bullshit. Don't they usually give you two bites?

But I didn't have a real FT job until after I passed, so you're still in a better position than a lot of people who've been jobless from the start.

It was a small firm, so it was basically like we cannot bill you so we cannot afford you.

Sorry to hear that. That seems pretty harsh.

[LawJunky]

What was the value in using Barbri MBE questions for you? I stopped doing them (except, perhaps, to drill for a particular area where I saw extreme incorrect rates) because they were made up and not representative of the feel of the questions you'd get on the real thing.

Hi Male Human.

I have spoken with 2 barbri students, and have not had the opportunity to ask you until now. My Barbri MBE book is entitled Multistate Testing Practice Questions Volume 2 - MPQ2 - 2013. This book is not the one that those two other Barbri students have. They have a book where half of it is testing methodology, with 18-question sections. The questions seemed unrepresentative according to a person who did not pass in July.

The book I've got has 10 50-question tests, one 100 question test, and one 200 question test. I don't seem to know anyone who has this book. It was very representative of the questions on the July test. It was a level more difficult. The style of the questions were spot-on, and the answer analysis is absolutely killer-good.

So I don't understand why my buddies don't have this book while actively enrolled in Barbri. I highly recommend this book.

I hope you are doing very well

LawJunky

[LawJunky]

With only a few more days to decide whether to re-take in February, I'm still on the fence!

I don't have a strong desire to practice law in the future and I currently have a full-time job that's not law-related. However, I do want to keep my options open and I think it'd be a waste not to have my license, after enduring 3 years of law school. My concern is whether I can pass next time, having been 19 points shy of passing in July.

Any thoughts are appreciated .


Also, does anyone have advice on how to tackle an essay when you've forgotten the law? Is it even possible to get a decent score? I should have spent more time memorizing the CA distinctions...


Q1: 60
Q2: 67.5
Q3: 52.5
Q4: 67.5
Q5: 52.5
Q6: 60

PTA: 55
PTB: 65

Raw Written: 600
Scaled Written 1396.44
Scaled MBE: 1469

Total scaled score: 1421.84

Check the below link that has a video that reviews the July exam. If you are going to take it again, the speaker recommends taking it again in February especially for examinees that almost passed.

http://www.barbri.com/states/california ... r-exam.jsp

This is a very good video to watch. This speaker could really convince me to take a Barbri course, by the way he analyzed the 6 exams and the 2 PTs.

Thank you for posting the video link Carryon.

[a male human]

What was the value in using Barbri MBE questions for you? I stopped doing them (except, perhaps, to drill for a particular area where I saw extreme incorrect rates) because they were made up and not representative of the feel of the questions you'd get on the real thing.

Hi Male Human.

I have spoken with 2 barbri students, and have not had the opportunity to ask you until now. My Barbri MBE book is entitled Multistate Testing Practice Questions Volume 2 - MPQ2 - 2013. This book is not the one that those two other Barbri students have. They have a book where half of it is testing methodology, with 18-question sections. The questions seemed unrepresentative according to a person who did not pass in July.

The book I've got has 10 50-question tests, one 100 question test, and one 200 question test. I don't seem to know anyone who has this book. It was very representative of the questions on the July test. It was a level more difficult. The style of the questions were spot-on, and the answer analysis is absolutely killer-good.

So I don't understand why my buddies don't have this book while actively enrolled in Barbri. I highly recommend this book.

I hope you are doing very well

LawJunky

Sounds like you have a special book that others don't have? I am not familiar with it. Hope you're doing well too and good luck.

[s1m4]

Whats everybody's schedule so far?

Ive been working this past month but have managed to get through about 1k questions on adaptibar, without much reviewing, though.

On a side note -- I found the civ pro questions on adaptibar to be ridiculously hard and convoluted. They aren't past bar questions so adaptibar has written them itself. I don't know if it would be useful to go over all of them, or just bite the bullet as I progress onto the barbri questions as I enter the 2 months prep.

[underthirty]

.

[lifeafterlawschool]

With only a few more days to decide whether to re-take in February, I'm still on the fence!

I don't have a strong desire to practice law in the future and I currently have a full-time job that's not law-related. However, I do want to keep my options open and I think it'd be a waste not to have my license, after enduring 3 years of law school. My concern is whether I can pass next time, having been 19 points shy of passing in July.

Any thoughts are appreciated .


Also, does anyone have advice on how to tackle an essay when you've forgotten the law? Is it even possible to get a decent score? I should have spent more time memorizing the CA distinctions...


Q1: 60
Q2: 67.5
Q3: 52.5
Q4: 67.5
Q5: 52.5
Q6: 60

PTA: 55
PTB: 65

Raw Written: 600
Scaled Written 1396.44
Scaled MBE: 1469

Total scaled score: 1421.84

Check the below link that has a video that reviews the July exam. If you are going to take it again, the speaker recommends taking it again in February especially for examinees that almost passed.

http://www.barbri.com/states/california ... r-exam.jsp

This is a very good video to watch. This speaker could really convince me to take a Barbri course, by the way he analyzed the 6 exams and the 2 PTs.

Thank you for posting the video link Carryon.

Thank you so much!!

I have been studying for about 2 hours each weekday and probably 12 hours over the weekend. So far just doing some Barbri AMP questions, re-writing my notes (making flashcards), and reviewing the material. Still waiting for my test to be mailed back so I know how to improve my essays. Ugh...they're taking their sweet time aren't they?

[partyrock]

I received alot of good advice when I was prepping for the July 2014 CBX, and I think it had alot to do with my success. I think this test is very passable if you effectively study the substantive law and use a clear system to relay your knowledge to the graders.

Bar Prep Program
I took BarBri. For a few weeks I weighed my options between Themis and BarBri: BarBri is much more expensive, however, Themis only offers an online program. The majority of my classmates seemed to be taking BarBri, so I decided to go with the crowd. For about the first two weeks I attended the live sessions. Classes started around 8am, but there were so many people trying to get seats in the live room (there were other lecture halls that were just streaming a live feed from the main lecture hall) that people would arrive an hour early to get a seat with the lecturer for that day. I wasn't motivated to get to class that early, so I ended up getting stuck in one of the live streaming rooms. Occasionally there would be a technical problem, for instance, the audio cut out one day, but for the most part it seemed fine. But as I was sitting in the room watching a large projection of the live feed, it dawned on me that I could be watching the online lectures at home, in my pajamas, without having to deal with 300 stressed out bar preppers every morning. So for the rest of the summer (probably 8 out of 10 weeks) I watched the live lectures at home.

Not having to leave my apartment was nice, but it does have its drawbacks. If you are the type of person that will surf the web while listening to a lecture, or put the lecture on 1.5x or 2.0x speed and turn your brain off, then it might not be for you. This happened to me a couple times a weeks, and I would realize what I was doing and would have to re-watch a lecture or parts of a lecture.

I think where BarBri really excels are its materials. Listening to lectures is passive learning at best, and I honestly didn't feel like it played a big part in my success. I think the difference between someone that passes and someone that doesn't pass the exam is whether or not they took active responsibility of their own study program. YOU have to decide what you will do everyday, and what will help YOU learn the material. There is no way around it, you MUST learn the black letter law for each subject. You graduated law school, so you can definitely do it, its just a matter of making your own program and sticking to it.

MBE
I strongly recommend AdaptiBar. I did the BarBri MBE questions that were recommended each day; the questions were tough, but helpful. About 4 or 5 weeks into the summer I purchased AdaptiBar because I felt like my MBE scores were not improving and that I needed more practice. The great thing about AdaptiBar is its simple user interface. Unlike BarBri, which has a sort of clunky system for getting through MBE questions, AdaptiBar just lets you log on, pick the subjects you want to study in, and go. You can track how many you are getting right as you go, what you are averaging, what the state/national averages are. It's great.

The July MBE was tough, and I honestly came out of the MBE day feeling like I guessed on 90% of the questions. But your bar prep will get you to the point where you can grab the easy points, and make educated guesses on the hard ones to get you above the threshold. The week before the exam I was getting roughly 70-73% right on AdaptiBar, and between BarBri and AdaptiBar I did about 1500 questions.

Subject Matter Essays
The Conviser SME Outline book became my bible for 10 weeks. Alot of people complain that it is too long, too dense, and that the language is inaccessible. I disagree. It has everything you need, in one place. I never made my own outlines in law school, and I wasn't about to reinvent the wheel for bar prep. I highlighted, tabbed, and memorized as much as I could of each outline. It got to the point where I could remember the order of the outlines, and I could picture the black letter law almost exactly how it looked on the page. This level of memorization is probably more than you need to meet the CBX threshold, but its what I became comfortable with.

Buy a http://www.baressays.com account. You've heard this from everyone else, and you'll hear it from me: you MUST do practice essays. That being said, before the exam I probably did fewer than 10 full blown, timed, actual essay answers. HOWEVER, I outlined every essay I could get a hold of. I did every essay in the BarBri books, and I did at least half of the essays offered on Baressays.com. You will start to notice patterns in how subjects are tested. You will learn how and when to use certain issues. You will develop a structure for answer certain questions (evidence and contracts come to mind) for which you need to have prepared essay structure.

Have a general essay structure. I was reading TLS while I was bar prepping, and someone posted a small essay structure on the July CBX 2014 forum. It's awesome, simple, and easy to memorize. This is the original thread post - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=213457&start=1375 It goes like this:

The first issue is whether x

Generally, the rule about x is blah

Here, this happened and that happened, and the rule applies such that whatever.

Therefore, Y

I had a minor panic attack when we started the first subject matter essay. This is what got me through it. I had a simple system, its easy to start, and its what got me going. If you panic, have no idea what the law is, or don't know what to do, just start writing this and try to grab some points. Bold and underline your headings. Keep the same IRAC structure for each issue. Make the bar examiners job as easy as possible.

Performance Test

I did two performance tests before the exam. If this is a weak area for you, certainly do more, but this felt like enough for me. My system was to read the cases first, jot down notes on what each case was about. Then I read the file, wrote down some notes about each document in the file. Wrote out a structure in my exam software, and started writing.

One thing that is critical (as I'm sure you've heard) is to FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. On my first practice PT, I didn't realize that the instructor memo told the examinee exactly what the issue headings should be. I made my own. They were wrong. Don't be like me, read the instructions, highlight them, burn them into your memory. They will be your saving grace.

Conclusion
Good luck, you can do it. If you graduated from law school, you can pass this test. It's only a matter of taking responsibility of you own bar prep program.

*edit for typo

[Elms]

Thanks, partyrock, for taking time to write that out. Super helpful!

[mhub172]

Need some advice as a first-time repeater. I took Barbri for the July '14 exam and am using the Barbri free re-take for the February '15 exam, supplementing with baressays.com, BarMax MBE, and Emanuel Strategies & Tactics.

What are people's thoughts on listening to the lectures for the second time around? The lecture handouts are exactly the same for this exam prep as they were in the summer. Necessary or waste of time?

[partyrock]

Need some advice as a first-time repeater. I took Barbri for the July '14 exam and am using the Barbri free re-take for the February '15 exam, supplementing with baressays.com, BarMax MBE, and Emanuel Strategies & Tactics.

What are people's thoughts on listening to the lectures for the second time around? The lecture handouts are exactly the same for this exam prep as they were in the summer. Necessary or waste of time?

At the very beginning of my BarBri class last May, the instructor questioned why anyone that had watched the lectures the first time around would watch them again. He seemed to imply that if it didn't work the first time, then you should probably try something else.

Did you watch them for the July 14 CBX? Do you feel like they helped? There's no right or wrong answer, you just need to figure out what works for you. If the lectures didn't do it for you, then try memorizing outlines, or making flashcards.

[melvinIII]

thanks partyrock for writing that up.

[gaagoots]

Need some advice as a first-time repeater. I took Barbri for the July '14 exam and am using the Barbri free re-take for the February '15 exam, supplementing with baressays.com, BarMax MBE, and Emanuel Strategies & Tactics.

What are people's thoughts on listening to the lectures for the second time around? The lecture handouts are exactly the same for this exam prep as they were in the summer. Necessary or waste of time?

I'm watching Michael Waterstone again regardless He's adorkable.

[mhub172]

Need some advice as a first-time repeater. I took Barbri for the July '14 exam and am using the Barbri free re-take for the February '15 exam, supplementing with baressays.com, BarMax MBE, and Emanuel Strategies & Tactics.

What are people's thoughts on listening to the lectures for the second time around? The lecture handouts are exactly the same for this exam prep as they were in the summer. Necessary or waste of time?

At the very beginning of my BarBri class last May, the instructor questioned why anyone that had watched the lectures the first time around would watch them again. He seemed to imply that if it didn't work the first time, then you should probably try something else.

Did you watch them for the July 14 CBX? Do you feel like they helped? There's no right or wrong answer, you just need to figure out what works for you. If the lectures didn't do it for you, then try memorizing outlines, or making flashcards.

Thanks for this partyrock. That's a good point. Yes, I watched the lectures for July 14 CBX and honestly I did not think they were helpful for me. I'm a more visual learner, so I think I will stick with outlining and flashcards. Also, like you pointed out earlier, I would watch them on 2x speed, which was probably not the most beneficial. I'll probably stick to the visual things and then watch the lectures on my weakest subjects only. Thanks again for your input!

[ginger root]

Have any retakers out there received their graded essays back?

[a male human]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

[cndounda1985]

Has anyone started doing practice exams? I've started and I still feel like my answers are not concise and all over the place. Any tips? I hate practice exams but everyone who passed said they did a number of them. I know it's still December but I'm praying that my writing improves. (fingers crossed).

[cndounda1985]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

I've been doing MBEs, and i've been outlining and doing practice exams. I'm working with a tutor so he's kinda forcing me to practice everything. I've also written two CA PTs. Did you write a lot the second time you studied? or did you focus more on MBEs..? I got a 65 and 55 on my PTs and I've been told that i can def improve on those. I hope that my writing improves by exam time...i'm kinda getting frustrated.

[a male human]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

I've been doing MBEs, and i've been outlining and doing practice exams. I'm working with a tutor so he's kinda forcing me to practice everything. I've also written two CA PTs. Did you write a lot the second time you studied? or did you focus more on MBEs..? I got a 65 and 55 on my PTs and I've been told that i can def improve on those. I hope that my writing improves by exam time...i'm kinda getting frustrated.

I did practice a lot...but I didn't necessarily write out everything.

I call it essay cooking, but simply, most of my essay practice was outlining issues and writing rules, spending about 15-20 minutes. Then checking against model or actual answers (from BarEssays for example).

This doubled or tripled my practice rate. People say you need to grind out essays, but do musicians play an entire piece to practice particularly problematic sections? Once you know how apply rules to the facts, that's the easy part. Identifying relevant issues and reciting the rules concisely and correctly are the hardest parts, which is why I spent most of my time doing that. It's good to do maybe 25% of your practice essays writing it out in full, though, just to confirm that you can still do it in 1 hour.

Writing out full PTs is recommended, however, because PTs test your application and whether you can organize your answer within 3 hours. I would not do TOO many full ones: 20+ is definitely overkill...but if your tutor says you need to practice more PTs, then I would probably defer to your tutor. 2 PTs is already more than what some people will do, so you're that much closer to securing a good score on the PTs (which is very important!). For your reference, I did 7 PTs for Feb.

Of course, you're welcome to mix it up by only outlining a PT if you only want to practice organization, for example.

For MBEs, a disproportionate amount of practice came from real questions. I highly recommend Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics for the MBE Vol. 1 (which I read cover to cover) and Vol. 2 for extra drilling (questions were organized by subtopics for me to pick). http://amzn.to/1tVlw53 (2012) http://amzn.to/1hH1vzq (2009) -- either ver. works for Vol. 1

[cndounda1985]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

I've been doing MBEs, and i've been outlining and doing practice exams. I'm working with a tutor so he's kinda forcing me to practice everything. I've also written two CA PTs. Did you write a lot the second time you studied? or did you focus more on MBEs..? I got a 65 and 55 on my PTs and I've been told that i can def improve on those. I hope that my writing improves by exam time...i'm kinda getting frustrated.

I did practice a lot...but I didn't necessarily write out everything.

I call it essay cooking, but simply, most of my essay practice was outlining issues and writing rules, spending about 15-20 minutes. Then checking against model or actual answers (from BarEssays for example).

This doubled or tripled my practice rate. People say you need to grind out essays, but do musicians play an entire piece to practice particularly problematic sections? Once you know how apply rules to the facts, that's the easy part. Identifying relevant issues and reciting the rules concisely and correctly are the hardest parts, which is why I spent most of my time doing that. It's good to do maybe 25% of your practice essays writing it out in full, though, just to confirm that you can still do it in 1 hour.

Writing out full PTs is recommended, however, because PTs test your application and whether you can organize your answer within 3 hours. I would not do TOO many full ones: 20+ is definitely overkill...but if your tutor says you need to practice more PTs, then I would probably defer to your tutor. 2 PTs is already more than what some people will do, so you're that much closer to securing a good score on the PTs (which is very important!). For your reference, I did 7 PTs for Feb.

Of course, you're welcome to mix it up by only outlining a PT if you only want to practice organization, for example.

For MBEs, a disproportionate amount of practice came from real questions. I highly recommend Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics for the MBE Vol. 1 (which I read cover to cover) and Vol. 2 for extra drilling (questions were organized by subtopics for me to pick). http://amzn.to/1tVlw53 (2012) http://amzn.to/1hH1vzq (2009) -- either ver. works for Vol. 1

Thank you! I appreciate your feedback. One of my main issues was issue spotting and writing down actual rules, so I'm going to continue to practice that. I think that will help me when I actually start writing out more essays. I also, actually already have the Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics Vol. 1 and this time around, I've actually have had time to read it and take notes. I'll try and buy Vol. 2 as well. I also have the Kaplan PMBR redbook vol 1, i think is what it's called. Hopefully, this is enough for the MBEs.

[s1m4]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

I've been doing MBEs, and i've been outlining and doing practice exams. I'm working with a tutor so he's kinda forcing me to practice everything. I've also written two CA PTs. Did you write a lot the second time you studied? or did you focus more on MBEs..? I got a 65 and 55 on my PTs and I've been told that i can def improve on those. I hope that my writing improves by exam time...i'm kinda getting frustrated.

I did practice a lot...but I didn't necessarily write out everything.

I call it essay cooking, but simply, most of my essay practice was outlining issues and writing rules, spending about 15-20 minutes. Then checking against model or actual answers (from BarEssays for example).

This doubled or tripled my practice rate. People say you need to grind out essays, but do musicians play an entire piece to practice particularly problematic sections? Once you know how apply rules to the facts, that's the easy part. Identifying relevant issues and reciting the rules concisely and correctly are the hardest parts, which is why I spent most of my time doing that. It's good to do maybe 25% of your practice essays writing it out in full, though, just to confirm that you can still do it in 1 hour.

Writing out full PTs is recommended, however, because PTs test your application and whether you can organize your answer within 3 hours. I would not do TOO many full ones: 20+ is definitely overkill...but if your tutor says you need to practice more PTs, then I would probably defer to your tutor. 2 PTs is already more than what some people will do, so you're that much closer to securing a good score on the PTs (which is very important!). For your reference, I did 7 PTs for Feb.

Of course, you're welcome to mix it up by only outlining a PT if you only want to practice organization, for example.

For MBEs, a disproportionate amount of practice came from real questions. I highly recommend Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics for the MBE Vol. 1 (which I read cover to cover) and Vol. 2 for extra drilling (questions were organized by subtopics for me to pick). http://amzn.to/1tVlw53 (2012) http://amzn.to/1hH1vzq (2009) -- either ver. works for Vol. 1

Thank you! I appreciate your feedback. One of my main issues was issue spotting and writing down actual rules, so I'm going to continue to practice that. I think that will help me when I actually start writing out more essays. I also, actually already have the Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics Vol. 1 and this time around, I've actually have had time to read it and take notes. I'll try and buy Vol. 2 as well. I also have the Kaplan PMBR redbook vol 1, i think is what it's called. Hopefully, this is enough for the MBEs.

Just curious -- what is your plan for the Civ Pro portion of the MBE?

[melvinIII]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

For December I'm doing 20 MBEs every morning and every evening and writing out all the rule statements I get wrong. I'm spending the rest of my time making exhaustive outlines for each subject. The outlining is taking me quite while, I've spent a few days on contracts and I'm still not done with the outline, which is already 30 pages long. My thought process on the outlining is making my own course outlines is how I learned best in law school, and I didn't make any outlines the first time I took the bar so I'm hoping it helps. I hope to finish outlining all the MBE subjects by the end of December.

I haven't started doing essays yet because I don't want to run out of questions. My plan is to start doing one essay per day in January, in addition to my daily MBEs, and then start doing daily three essay simulated practice tests for the first few weeks of February.

[kdesq]

What are people up to at this point of the process? Reviewing MBE? Doing essays? Studying the material first? Preparing to study and getting amped up??

For December I'm doing 20 MBEs every morning and every evening and writing out all the rule statements I get wrong. I'm spending the rest of my time making exhaustive outlines for each subject. The outlining is taking me quite while, I've spent a few days on contracts and I'm still not done with the outline, which is already 30 pages long. My thought process on the outlining is making my own course outlines is how I learned best in law school, and I didn't make any outlines the first time I took the bar so I'm hoping it helps. I hope to finish outlining all the MBE subjects by the end of December.

I haven't started doing essays yet because I don't want to run out of questions. My plan is to start doing one essay per day in January, in addition to my daily MBEs, and then start doing daily three essay simulated practice tests for the first few weeks of February.

I spent way too much time watching the lectures and working on my outlines last time, and as a result, I did not find enough time to practice and memorize. This time around, I am not reinventing my wheels and will use my old outlines, not gonna watch the lectures, and practice more on MBE's and Essays.

I have been doing daily MBE's and writing essays daily. I did well on my PT for last time, so that is my least concern. y biggest concern is MBE.