July 2015 California Bar Exam Forum

[redblueyellow]

AAAHHHHHH

[SpAcEmAn SpLiFF]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

[My_name_is_jimmothy]

I took the bar exam twice. I passed the second time, but the first time I missed by less than 10 points. I spent the night before day 3 stressing about cal civ pro. Had I ignored it, I probably would have passed the first time.

I think if it gets tested it'll be a crossover. Freer was the barbri lecturer last year for civ pro and he sounded like he knew what the likely test hypo would look like in the event cal civ pro were tested- if I remember he said it'd likely be a PJ/motion to quash service/demurrer and some other stuff...

I'd spend a couple hours studying it- 2-3% of your overall study time IMO

[cndounda1985]

I have a study buddy looking for the Bar Code Cheat Sheets, anyone have one they are willing to sell?

[Zaizei]

Is it such a big deal to pass the exam the first time? What happens if you pass the second or third time? I mean, I've heard and read that passing the bar the first time you take the exam is like the number one thing that law office look at while hiring, I'm I wrong? :/

[Tabirks]

Has anyone heard of The Bar Code Cheat Sheets in Action, by Whitney Roberts?

[crumpetsandtea]

Any suggestions for flash cards to practice MBE questions with?

[a male human]

Not exactly MBE but found Law in a Flash helpful for certain MBE subjects like Evidence and Civil Procedure (before it was an MBE subject).

[Calicakes]

Any suggestions for flash cards to practice MBE questions with?

I just bought the Critical pass flashcards. They sent me a 10.00 off code if you want it, I can pass it along.

[Charger]

Does anyone know where I can find an outline of the Barbri CA Professional Responsibility lecture?

[s1m4]

Is it such a big deal to pass the exam the first time? What happens if you pass the second or third time? I mean, I've heard and read that passing the bar the first time you take the exam is like the number one thing that law office look at while hiring, I'm I wrong? :/

I failed the first time - It was awkward coming in to work that Monday, but everyone was supportive and told me : "Take as much time off as you need."
I studied my ass off and thankfully passed take #2. People understand this exam is a shitshow.

[crumpetsandtea]

Holy fuck, MBE questions are fucking crushing me. This is so depressing.

[LawIsPrettyCool]

Holy fuck, MBE questions are fucking crushing me. This is so depressing.

I did horribly in July on MBE, my boss told me to get adaptibar, I listened, and crushed the MBE in Feb. Unfortunately my essays and PT were a bit off and I didn't pass (got a second read though). If you want a $50 discount on adaptibar PM me, I have a coupon code.

[TheLegalOne]

Holy fuck, MBE questions are fucking crushing me. This is so depressing.

Set 5 for Property and Contracts had my eyes tearing up a bit but I made a big comeback on the Milestone #1 test (Themis). This is a moving target. We'll get better with each MBE, so long as we are learning why we got them wrong, how exceptions are tested and retain all of this. Hang in there.

[nerdalicious05]

Holy fuck, MBE questions are fucking crushing me. This is so depressing.

Set 5 for Property and Contracts had my eyes tearing up a bit but I made a big comeback on the Milestone #1 test (Themis). This is a moving target. We'll get better with each MBE, so long as we are learning why we got them wrong, how exceptions are tested and retain all of this. Hang in there.

I'm doing Themis too... mixing it with some BarBri books I got from a buddy. SketchyLaw made Contracts much more manageable for me. They only have that and Crim Law though. For the other topics... I'm just scrambling here. This is the worst.

[InTheWideLand I Walk]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. July 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

[SpAcEmAn SpLiFF]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

[InTheWideLand I Walk]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

no idea dude. honestly at this point... even after taking this exam twice already the essay portion of the exam still is a complete mystery to me. some people say you "dont even need to know the law AT ALL" to score high on the essay portion it and that your score is determined by "how you use the facts" in your analysis. One guy who told me this was getting consistent scores of 80 on practice essays and passed. he looked me in the eyes directly and said "you need to know ZERO law to score high on the essays"

[robinhoodOO]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

no idea dude. honestly at this point... even after taking this exam twice already the essay portion of the exam still is a complete mystery to me. some people say you "dont even need to know the law AT ALL" to score high on the essay portion it and that your score is determined by "how you use the facts" in your analysis. One guy who told me this was getting consistent scores of 80 on practice essays and passed. he looked me in the eyes directly and said "you need to know ZERO law to score high on the essays"

I smell bullshit.

[robinhoodOO]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

Evidence is historically heavily tested on the CBX and there is often (not always) an emphasis on distinctions. I'd say for sure you want to have a decent understanding of the differences. Nothing a single page outline just laying out the distinctions won't help you do. Test yourself on the outline and you should be able to get them down

[atticus89]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

no idea dude. honestly at this point... even after taking this exam twice already the essay portion of the exam still is a complete mystery to me. some people say you "dont even need to know the law AT ALL" to score high on the essay portion it and that your score is determined by "how you use the facts" in your analysis. One guy who told me this was getting consistent scores of 80 on practice essays and passed. he looked me in the eyes directly and said "you need to know ZERO law to score high on the essays"

I smell bullshit.

I'd say the thing about getting consistent 80s on the practice essays is bullshit -- how is he getting the 80s? Self-grade? Barbri? None of that matters since they're not actually the bar graders. The graders have an idea of what the answer should look like, but in CA they don't use an issue checklist. They just grade it 'holistically'.

If you've seen the Wills/Property lecture with Professor Shafiroff, he claims to know bar graders and he said that although they have a scale of 40-100 to work with, they're told to give scores of 55 for clear fail and 65 for clear pass and just make a final decision on it. If you did something exceptional, you could get over a 65. He claims that they're told the standard is 'would you trust this person'. It is possible to pass every essay without knowing the law (perfectly) if you get the format down and you use the facts and analyze well.

And if you look at the real, graded essays on Baressays.com (if you have a subscription) the people who are getting 55s and lower are turning in barely intelligible responses. The people who are getting 65s vary across a wide spectrum -- some are missing multiple key issues but they've written it well, some are getting more issues with limited analysis.

If you get to a point where you're churning out perfect, beautifully crafted rule statements for 13 subjects by the end of July then you have nothing to worry about. But for most people, that won't be possible. Good to know there's some wiggle room there.

[Bar Slayer]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

no idea dude. honestly at this point... even after taking this exam twice already the essay portion of the exam still is a complete mystery to me. some people say you "dont even need to know the law AT ALL" to score high on the essay portion it and that your score is determined by "how you use the facts" in your analysis. One guy who told me this was getting consistent scores of 80 on practice essays and passed. he looked me in the eyes directly and said "you need to know ZERO law to score high on the essays"

I smell bullshit.

I'd say the thing about getting consistent 80s on the practice essays is bullshit -- how is he getting the 80s? Self-grade? Barbri? None of that matters since they're not actually the bar graders. The graders have an idea of what the answer should look like, but in CA they don't use an issue checklist. They just grade it 'holistically'.

If you've seen the Wills/Property lecture with Professor Shafiroff, he claims to know bar graders and he said that although they have a scale of 40-100 to work with, they're told to give scores of 55 for clear fail and 65 for clear pass and just make a final decision on it. If you did something exceptional, you could get over a 65. He claims that they're told the standard is 'would you trust this person'. It is possible to pass every essay without knowing the law (perfectly) if you get the format down and you use the facts and analyze well.

And if you look at the real, graded essays on Baressays.com (if you have a subscription) the people who are getting 55s and lower are turning in barely intelligible responses. The people who are getting 65s vary across a wide spectrum -- some are missing multiple key issues but they've written it well, some are getting more issues with limited analysis.

If you get to a point where you're churning out perfect, beautifully crafted rule statements for 13 subjects by the end of July then you have nothing to worry about. But for most people, that won't be possible. Good to know there's some wiggle room there.

The problem with listening to successful passers is that none of what they say is verifiably true. Maybe they used some strategy that ended up being terrible, but ended up passing despite that because they are just really damn smart. Or maybe what helped them pass was doing slightly better than everyone else on an essay they thought they bombed--yet they will go around talking about how well they did on their other essays.

A more logically robust approach is to look at what bar failures did and then deliberately do exactly the opposite of what they do. If you avoid enough of bar failures' mistakes, then you will pass. It doesn't have the precision of a nifty blog post title (e.g. how to pass the bar in 100 hours!) but it really packs a punch.

Here's an example. If you look at all the terrible essay scores (under 60) on bar essays, you will notice the major "mistakes" low scorers make. They are, in approximate order of severity:

1. Forgetting to answer questions
2. Missing major issues
3. Not writing enough words

There are a bunch more but these are the ones I can think of immediately. Anywyas, each of these mistakes is very easily actionable. For 1, make sure before you do anything to write down a topic sentence for each sub question part in your answer before you begin. For 2, make sure you are aware of all possible issues related to a topic by studying widely and broadly instead of laser-focusing on one doctrinal concept, even if you don't know the specific wording of the rule. For 3, whatever you do make sure you write more than X words. I forget what X is but it might be >1000.

The variation you see between 55 and 65 (and to some extent 60 to 80) is largely the result of randomness. If you write something good enough to be in that zone, luck and randomness should cancel out the high and the low scores. But remember, all that effort you put in to try to get a 75 will come at the expense of one of your weak topics, and in that case you are running the risk of violating mistake 2--missing major issues.

You should avoid the temptation of listening to people who passed for advice. Many of them can do all this intuitively without studying much. If you're a first time taker, you might be one of those people. But if you're a repeater, you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt, because just because you're good at taking test does not mean you are good at diagnosing why you did well on one particular exam.

So for more specific advice I would reach out to people who have passed the exam after multiple tries. They are likely the source of robust, verifiable, and reliable advice on how to pass because they have seen themselves fail and pass.

[a male human]

I know I can count on Bar Slayer to provide real talk.

I want to add that you may get partial credit for bullshit rules and application thereof as long as you're still reasonably in the realm of what they're looking for, but you will get zero credit for an issue you should have raised but did not. That said, while rules are perhaps not as critical as issues, you should know them to the best of your abilities.

Couple caveats regarding asking passers for tips:
Doing the opposite of those who didn't pass may not necessarily be the best approach. How do you figure out the opposite?

Asking repeaters what helped the time they passed is better. There must have been one or more different things that they did. This is a more affirmative approach than "not doing" what failures did.

Also, while 2nd or 3rd timers might be the ideal source of help, I would begin to doubt ~5th timers and beyond, as their passage could also be a fluke. Might as well ask 1st timers at that point.

The next blog post I'm drafting happens to be related to this.

[atticus89]

So I've been listening to the Barbri lectures on my commutes to and from work, and I'm about halfway through the CA civ pro lecture. Apparently CA civ pro has never actually been tested on any exam. How much time are you guys gonna devote to memorizing any of it?

now I hope I dont decrease my score on the july 2015 by telling everyone in the world this, but....

yes it has been tested. february 2009 question 5. Its funny, almost EVERYWHERE on the internet says it hasnt been tested, and all of my bar review "professors" I have had over the years said its never been tested..

Its funny I am able to notice subtle nuances like this and I still failed this exam twice. Makes me think its all luck. According to the news, I think its just a matter of getting an essay grader who isnt drunk.

Thanks, good to know.

Speaking of CA distinctions, how important are the CA evidence distinctions? Barbri has a decent amount of lecture time devoted to it.

no idea dude. honestly at this point... even after taking this exam twice already the essay portion of the exam still is a complete mystery to me. some people say you "dont even need to know the law AT ALL" to score high on the essay portion it and that your score is determined by "how you use the facts" in your analysis. One guy who told me this was getting consistent scores of 80 on practice essays and passed. he looked me in the eyes directly and said "you need to know ZERO law to score high on the essays"

I smell bullshit.

I'd say the thing about getting consistent 80s on the practice essays is bullshit -- how is he getting the 80s? Self-grade? Barbri? None of that matters since they're not actually the bar graders. The graders have an idea of what the answer should look like, but in CA they don't use an issue checklist. They just grade it 'holistically'.

If you've seen the Wills/Property lecture with Professor Shafiroff, he claims to know bar graders and he said that although they have a scale of 40-100 to work with, they're told to give scores of 55 for clear fail and 65 for clear pass and just make a final decision on it. If you did something exceptional, you could get over a 65. He claims that they're told the standard is 'would you trust this person'. It is possible to pass every essay without knowing the law (perfectly) if you get the format down and you use the facts and analyze well.

And if you look at the real, graded essays on Baressays.com (if you have a subscription) the people who are getting 55s and lower are turning in barely intelligible responses. The people who are getting 65s vary across a wide spectrum -- some are missing multiple key issues but they've written it well, some are getting more issues with limited analysis.

If you get to a point where you're churning out perfect, beautifully crafted rule statements for 13 subjects by the end of July then you have nothing to worry about. But for most people, that won't be possible. Good to know there's some wiggle room there.

The problem with listening to successful passers is that none of what they say is verifiably true. Maybe they used some strategy that ended up being terrible, but ended up passing despite that because they are just really damn smart. Or maybe what helped them pass was doing slightly better than everyone else on an essay they thought they bombed--yet they will go around talking about how well they did on their other essays.

A more logically robust approach is to look at what bar failures did and then deliberately do exactly the opposite of what they do. If you avoid enough of bar failures' mistakes, then you will pass. It doesn't have the precision of a nifty blog post title (e.g. how to pass the bar in 100 hours!) but it really packs a punch.

Here's an example. If you look at all the terrible essay scores (under 60) on bar essays, you will notice the major "mistakes" low scorers make. They are, in approximate order of severity:

1. Forgetting to answer questions
2. Missing major issues
3. Not writing enough words

There are a bunch more but these are the ones I can think of immediately. Anywyas, each of these mistakes is very easily actionable. For 1, make sure before you do anything to write down a topic sentence for each sub question part in your answer before you begin. For 2, make sure you are aware of all possible issues related to a topic by studying widely and broadly instead of laser-focusing on one doctrinal concept, even if you don't know the specific wording of the rule. For 3, whatever you do make sure you write more than X words. I forget what X is but it might be >1000.

The variation you see between 55 and 65 (and to some extent 60 to 80) is largely the result of randomness. If you write something good enough to be in that zone, luck and randomness should cancel out the high and the low scores. But remember, all that effort you put in to try to get a 75 will come at the expense of one of your weak topics, and in that case you are running the risk of violating mistake 2--missing major issues.

You should avoid the temptation of listening to people who passed for advice. Many of them can do all this intuitively without studying much. If you're a first time taker, you might be one of those people. But if you're a repeater, you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt, because just because you're good at taking test does not mean you are good at diagnosing why you did well on one particular exam.

So for more specific advice I would reach out to people who have passed the exam after multiple tries. They are likely the source of robust, verifiable, and reliable advice on how to pass because they have seen themselves fail and pass.

I mean, this is helpful, but I'm not sure where I said you should listen to the advice of bar passers. I did say using Baressays for passing essay examples is helpful. And talking to repeaters is nearly as useless as talking to people who passed -- people fail for a variety of reasons that they're not 100% in tune with. They may have failed by 20 points the first time and when they pass they might have passed by 5 points.

Instead of talking to anyone, why not just look at examples of essays that were clear passes and clear fails at 65 and 55. It becomes pretty clear that if you're in the ballpark and you write well (those 3 suggestions you listed are ways to ensure that) you're going to get a clear pass. Just look at the clear fails on Baressays -- the 65s vary widely in quality and content but the 55s are noticeably terribly written, even if they got the issues and had some of the rule statements.

[paulshortys10]

It is really strange to be expected to miss 35 questions out of 100 (or so) on the MBE. Hard to think of another scenario where you are allowed to fail so much. Except in baseball where you can succeed 30% of the time and be an all-star.