Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam

[zot1]

Is anyone else struggling with the con law questions? I just checked my percentages and they're all in the high 60s and 70s except con law, which is like 50%. Wanted to know if anyone else was sucking on them before i committed to watching all of the videos again or something.

Con Law was definitely my worst. I have 57%, but that's only because I've recently gotten better at the MBEs overall. My very first score was in the 40s, and then the three after were in the low 50s. I'm not rewatching because I think my problem was I needed to read the questions/answers more carefully. Reading the big outline would also be useful because a lot of the questions I've gotten wrong were not discussed in the lecture, handout, or final outline.

my con law professor was a complete joke in law school, so i didn't learn anything. I figured it'd be easier to learn from scratch but I was wrong. I need to teach myself somehow because the lectures didn't work for me. Maybe I'll give the big outline a shot. I never read those.

When you look at the breakdown, is there a specific area that you're having trouble with? I remember I was initially having a LOT of trouble with Aliens and First Amendment rights issues, so when I did review, I focused on those issues a little bit more. That helped me get a bit better.

[zot1]

Does anybody else just check the check the box off when Themis tells you to review your lecture outlines? Reading a 40-80 page outlin takes at least an hour. If I reviewed them as frequently as Themis tells me to I would never get anything else done.

I skim through the headers to sort of get familiar with the overall structure of the course. I've found it helpful so far.

[anon sequitur]

For what it's worth, I don't read the outlines at all. I watch the lectures, do the fill-in handouts, and just let the PQ's teach me the details. Started out low, but got up to 66% fairly quickly. I think much of the work themis prescribes for the MBE is redundant.

[soj]

you'll miss at least 30% of themis's mbe questions, on top of other mistakes, unless you learn the long outline or get lucky guessing. i think/hope the real mbe won't be like that.

maybe 20% if you know the lecture outline so well that you can eliminate the three wrong answers. but 20% of the time there's no way to choose between 2 ACs unless you remember that obscure rule from the long outline.

[MrBriggs360]

Is anyone else struggling with the con law questions? I just checked my percentages and they're all in the high 60s and 70s except con law, which is like 50%. Wanted to know if anyone else was sucking on them before i committed to watching all of the videos again or something.

I got a 59% on the first one, and a 76% on the second one. I read the big outline, and then I read each portion before I watch the lecture. The big difference in scores was that before the first problem set, I just read through the lecture handout. Before the second set, I studied the big outline and underlined a bunch of stuff that was missing in the lecture handout. At least 20% of the questions in my second set were not contained whatsoever in the lecture handout nor mentioned during the lecture.

To be honest, I see a lot of people saying that they ignore the large outline, but it seems to be much more accurate and pertinent to the questions than the lecture handouts. Although the lecture handouts can help key in on the big picture stuff a little better, I think the large outlines are much more important for learning this material than people are giving them credit for.

EDIT: Basically what the guy above me said.

[somuchbooty]

Alright, you guys convinced me. 90 minutes to read the con law outline it is.

[anon sequitur]

why would you care if you miss 20% or even 30% of the questions? You don't need to get everything right. 70% correct puts you into something like the 75th percentile, the mean scaled score from 2014 was 141, meaning something like 60-65% correct. I'm only shooting for 70%, anything beyond that is effort probably more efficiently spent on essays. Or even just relaxing.

[soj]

cuz i make a ton of other mistakes (in questions covered by the lectures), too. plus if i do kill the mbe there's a tiny bit more leeway to shit the bed in the essays.

[zot1]

why would you care if you miss 20% or even 30% of the questions? You don't need to get everything right. 70% correct puts you into something like the 75th percentile, the mean scaled score from 2014 was 141, meaning something like 60-65% correct. I'm only shooting for 70%, anything beyond that is effort probably more efficiently spent on essays. Or even just relaxing.

Wouldn't 141 amount to 70%? It's possible my math is wrong. I'm still not quite certain how the scores work.

[anon sequitur]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

Edit: made my own math error, forgot it's out of 190, not 200. So 125 raw is 66%. So I was probably a bit low in my estimate of a safe percentage, but 75% should definitely be safe.

[zot1]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

I see. So 60%-65% in practice MBEs is pretty much a "safe" score? (Assuming you consistently get that, of course).

[somuchbooty]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

I see. So 60%-65% in practice MBEs is pretty much a "safe" score? (Assuming you consistently get that, of course).

I feel like 60-65 means you're going to be sweating on test day. I hope I can climb to a safe 70+ overall by then,

[zot1]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

I see. So 60%-65% in practice MBEs is pretty much a "safe" score? (Assuming you consistently get that, of course).

I feel like 60-65 means you're going to be sweating on test day. I hope I can climb to a safe 70+ overall by then,

Duly noted

[MrBriggs360]

why would you care if you miss 20% or even 30% of the questions? You don't need to get everything right. 70% correct puts you into something like the 75th percentile, the mean scaled score from 2014 was 141, meaning something like 60-65% correct. I'm only shooting for 70%, anything beyond that is effort probably more efficiently spent on essays. Or even just relaxing.

You're missing our point. We're talking about 20%–30% of the questions on top of the ones that you'd miss just based upon mistakes, not memorizing the elements, etc. What we are saying is pretty much that around 20%+ of the answers are not contained within the lecture handout, but are contained within the large outline.

[MrBriggs360]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

I see. So 60%-65% in practice MBEs is pretty much a "safe" score? (Assuming you consistently get that, of course).

I feel like 60-65 means you're going to be sweating on test day. I hope I can climb to a safe 70+ overall by then,

Yeah, but I don't know what to say here, because I don't feel like there is a standardized level of difficulty in these MBE sets. I've hit a property set where it complicated mortgage after complicated mortgage, and barely tested on easements, devises, real covenants, or anything else we covered.

[somuchbooty]

141 was the median *scaled* score, which works out to about 125 raw, or 62.5%. The scale-to-raw conversion is a murky process, but everything I've read says that raw+15 is a safe estimate, it could be a bit higher depending on the test that day and where you are on the curve.

I see. So 60%-65% in practice MBEs is pretty much a "safe" score? (Assuming you consistently get that, of course).

I feel like 60-65 means you're going to be sweating on test day. I hope I can climb to a safe 70+ overall by then,

Yeah, but I don't know what to say here, because I don't feel like there is a standardized level of difficulty in these MBE sets. I've hit a property set where it complicated mortgage after complicated mortgage, and barely tested on easements, devises, real covenants, or anything else we covered.

Yeah, one thing driving optimism is that most of the ones I miss have like 30% accuracy rates when I go back through and check (except con law, i am missing con law questions that are like 75% accurately picked) so I think these questions are slightly harder than the actual test. But that could be wrong.

[gr8scOtt!]

Can someone explain?

[+] Spoiler

Person indicted by state grand jury. Person tried and convicted. Person tried to reverse conviction on grounds that members of one racial group were deliberately excluded from the grand jury. Appellate court found the exclusion was harmless error. Should appellate court reverse?.

I chose: No, because the contractor lacks standing to challenge the exclusion of members of another race from the grand jury that indicted him.
Correct answer: Yes, because the members' of the excluded racial group rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated.


The reasoning basically just restates the correct answer, so I don't really get why that is the right answer. A bunch of other procedural protections do not apply in grand juries (counsel, confrontation, present witnesses, evidence, and so on) so I don't see why excluding members from one race mattered to the conviction since the person was subsequently convicted by a jury where I presume jurors were not deliberately excluded on the basis of race.

[IamIn]

Is anyone else struggling with the con law questions? I just checked my percentages and they're all in the high 60s and 70s except con law, which is like 50%. Wanted to know if anyone else was sucking on them before i committed to watching all of the videos again or something.

Con Law was definitely my worst. I have 57%, but that's only because I've recently gotten better at the MBEs overall. My very first score was in the 40s, and then the three after were in the low 50s. I'm not rewatching because I think my problem was I needed to read the questions/answers more carefully. Reading the big outline would also be useful because a lot of the questions I've gotten wrong were not discussed in the lecture, handout, or final outline.

my con law professor was a complete joke in law school, so i didn't learn anything. I figured it'd be easier to learn from scratch but I was wrong. I need to teach myself somehow because the lectures didn't work for me. Maybe I'll give the big outline a shot. I never read those.

I wonder whether we had the same professor lol.. I knew nothing about con law before I started Themis. Doing the practice questions open-book helps me to memorize stuff--it's easier for me to remember the right answer if I find that answer on my own, instead of just reading an explanation.

[aladdinismyprince]

Can someone explain?

[+] Spoiler

Person indicted by state grand jury. Person tried and convicted. Person tried to reverse conviction on grounds that members of one racial group were deliberately excluded from the grand jury. Appellate court found the exclusion was harmless error. Should appellate court reverse?.

I chose: No, because the contractor lacks standing to challenge the exclusion of members of another race from the grand jury that indicted him.
Correct answer: Yes, because the members' of the excluded racial group rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated.


The reasoning basically just restates the correct answer, so I don't really get why that is the right answer. A bunch of other procedural protections do not apply in grand juries (counsel, confrontation, present witnesses, evidence, and so on) so I don't see why excluding members from one race mattered to the conviction since the person was subsequently convicted by a jury where I presume jurors were not deliberately excluded on the basis of race.

edited: see quote below

[aladdinismyprince]

Can someone explain?

[+] Spoiler

Person indicted by state grand jury. Person tried and convicted. Person tried to reverse conviction on grounds that members of one racial group were deliberately excluded from the grand jury. Appellate court found the exclusion was harmless error. Should appellate court reverse?.

I chose: No, because the contractor lacks standing to challenge the exclusion of members of another race from the grand jury that indicted him.
Correct answer: Yes, because the members' of the excluded racial group rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated.


The reasoning basically just restates the correct answer, so I don't really get why that is the right answer. A bunch of other procedural protections do not apply in grand juries (counsel, confrontation, present witnesses, evidence, and so on) so I don't see why excluding members from one race mattered to the conviction since the person was subsequently convicted by a jury where I presume jurors were not deliberately excluded on the basis of race.

edited: accidental multiple posts. sorry that i apparently don't know how to use tls.

[aladdinismyprince]

Can someone explain?

[+] Spoiler

Person indicted by state grand jury. Person tried and convicted. Person tried to reverse conviction on grounds that members of one racial group were deliberately excluded from the grand jury. Appellate court found the exclusion was harmless error. Should appellate court reverse?.

I chose: No, because the contractor lacks standing to challenge the exclusion of members of another race from the grand jury that indicted him.
Correct answer: Yes, because the members' of the excluded racial group rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated.


The reasoning basically just restates the correct answer, so I don't really get why that is the right answer. A bunch of other procedural protections do not apply in grand juries (counsel, confrontation, present witnesses, evidence, and so on) so I don't see why excluding members from one race mattered to the conviction since the person was subsequently convicted by a jury where I presume jurors were not deliberately excluded on the basis of race.

Batson challenges (excluding people from jury due to race) are never harmless error. If the court finds a Batson violation, they must automatically reverse.

Although I agree that the explanation is less than helpful. Also, I'm answering this off my independent knowledge of crimpro, not anything Themis taught me.

[soj]

ya i think it's just something you'll have to add to your outline and remember for later.

[anon sequitur]

You're missing our point. We're talking about 20%–30% of the questions on top of the ones that you'd miss just based upon mistakes, not memorizing the elements, etc. What we are saying is pretty much that around 20%+ of the answers are not contained within the lecture handout, but are contained within the large outline.

Gotcha, you all are right. I was just excited about the stats I happened to have looked up about MBE median scores and ended up butting in.

[sd5289]

In all seriousness though, how am I supposed to study when the Germany-France is about to start?

Oh forget that, it was all about USA v China tonight (and then today's marriage equality decision effectively torpedo'd my studying today).

I got through all of NY Wills today, but I'm probably gonna fall behind during pride this weekend. Oh wells.

[zot1]

In all seriousness though, how am I supposed to study when the Germany-France is about to start?

Oh forget that, it was all about USA v China tonight (and then today's marriage equality decision effectively torpedo'd my studying today).

I got through all of NY Wills today, but I'm probably gonna fall behind during pride this weekend. Oh wells.

Hahaha! I watched both games! I took this historic day as an excuse to just take the day off. No regrets.