BarBri Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[Neff]

UBE Jurisdiction here.

So, I'm consistently getting 75-80% of the barbri MBE questions right. No problems on timing either. But I'm worried about the essays - I do fine when open book, my answers pretty much follow the model answers in both form and substance. But I when I do closed book, I forgot a lot of shit. Usually 1-3 elements of a test, like, adverse possession, or when a burden runs with the land, etc. I figure I only need to be below-average on the essays to pass. Do you guys think most people will forget some elements, or am I screwed?

Also, anyone else find the Civ Pro MPQ Set 5 ridiculously easy? One of the questions was just "Does the court have SMJ over an obvious federal question?"

75-80% correct has got to be like 90th percentile. Pretty sure you could skip essays and still pass.

[kmp127]

UBE Jurisdiction here.

So, I'm consistently getting 75-80% of the barbri MBE questions right. No problems on timing either. But I'm worried about the essays - I do fine when open book, my answers pretty much follow the model answers in both form and substance. But I when I do closed book, I forgot a lot of shit. Usually 1-3 elements of a test, like, adverse possession, or when a burden runs with the land, etc. I figure I only need to be below-average on the essays to pass. Do you guys think most people will forget some elements, or am I screwed?

Also, anyone else find the Civ Pro MPQ Set 5 ridiculously easy? One of the questions was just "Does the court have SMJ over an obvious federal question?"

75-80% correct has got to be like 90th percentile. Pretty sure you could skip essays and still pass.

If I got 75-80% on even one practice set at this point, I'd be jumping for joy. Heck, I'd finally be able to smile (forgot what that feels like lately)

[atticus89]

I don't think I'm that dumb but whenever I sit down to do these essays part of me is expecting a hidden camera crew to pop in and go "Gotcha! You didn't actually think studying for the bar would be this impossible, right?" It has little to do with actually writing or even issue spotting, but just memorizing the detailed rule elements for some of these topics.

Like the poster above I'm doing pretty well on the MBEs, but memorizing the rules for essays has been the biggest nightmare of all time. And for the subjects I have memorized things, I feel the knowledge is just sitting on the outskirts of my brain, ready to leave at any moment.

I can't really gauge how well I'm supposed to know this stuff for the essays. I'm in CA and Barbri has convinced me that if you don't identify all of the issues, there's no way you're getting a 65, which is barely above passing. Does everyone in CA just show up to the bar with every rule from every subject on the tip of their fingers? It makes no sense to me.

[Neff]

Having asked around people in the know, I'm basically convinced that any colorable attempt to answer the essay prompts results in a passing grade. This means you must make a good faith effort to apply law (bonus points if they are correct) to the facts and write in proper English with complete sentences. Only idiots savants with eidetic memory can actually memorize all the elements of all the rules. So for normal people, getting maybe half the elements and the "general flavor" of the legal analysis required more than suffices to pass. The essays are a way of weeding out people who have no business practicing law because they cannot string together two coherent sentences.

Not sure about California's unique essays thing though.

[kyle010723]

I wish Guzman did all the Simulated MBE reviews, much more helpful than the other ones.

[diowad]

Having asked around people in the know, I'm basically convinced that any colorable attempt to answer the essay prompts results in a passing grade. This means you must make a good faith effort to apply law (bonus points if they are correct) to the facts and write in proper English with complete sentences. Only idiots savants with eidetic memory can actually memorize all the elements of all the rules. So for normal people, getting maybe half the elements and the "general flavor" of the legal analysis required more than suffices to pass. The essays are a way of weeding out people who have no business practicing law because they cannot string together two coherent sentences.

Not sure about California's unique essays thing though.

This seems to be the consensus. No one in their right mind could memorize all the elements to all this shit. To the guy getting 80% on MBE, pretty sure he would just have to put something on paper to pass.

At this point, I'm relying on the fact that I know some of the people in previous classes that passed the bar. Taking the mentality of "I know how they did in law school. If they can pass the Bar, I can pass the Bar."

[Danger Zone]

UBE Jurisdiction here.

So, I'm consistently getting 75-80% of the barbri MBE questions right. No problems on timing either. But I'm worried about the essays - I do fine when open book, my answers pretty much follow the model answers in both form and substance. But I when I do closed book, I forgot a lot of shit. Usually 1-3 elements of a test, like, adverse possession, or when a burden runs with the land, etc. I figure I only need to be below-average on the essays to pass. Do you guys think most people will forget some elements, or am I screwed?

Also, anyone else find the Civ Pro MPQ Set 5 ridiculously easy? One of the questions was just "Does the court have SMJ over an obvious federal question?"

JFC you're fine

[Devlin]

I don't think I'm that dumb but whenever I sit down to do these essays part of me is expecting a hidden camera crew to pop in and go "Gotcha! You didn't actually think studying for the bar would be this impossible, right?" It has little to do with actually writing or even issue spotting, but just memorizing the detailed rule elements for some of these topics.

Like the poster above I'm doing pretty well on the MBEs, but memorizing the rules for essays has been the biggest nightmare of all time. And for the subjects I have memorized things, I feel the knowledge is just sitting on the outskirts of my brain, ready to leave at any moment.

I can't really gauge how well I'm supposed to know this stuff for the essays. I'm in CA and Barbri has convinced me that if you don't identify all of the issues, there's no way you're getting a 65, which is barely above passing. Does everyone in CA just show up to the bar with every rule from every subject on the tip of their fingers? It makes no sense to me.

MY LYFE

[moreheesh]

anyone know where we can see percentile ranks for the 200 question MBE simulation? Is it the same link where we submitted the MC answers? Thanks

[kyle010723]

anyone know where we can see percentile ranks for the 200 question MBE simulation? Is it the same link where we submitted the MC answers? Thanks

The last screen under "My Progress." If you just took it today, percentile will say TBD until it recalculates for tomorrow.

[Blessedassurance]

If you got about 115 on the Barbri midterm, you are 50th percentile. Some simple algebra reveals the following facts:

In a 50% MBE state, if you score 50th percentile or more on the MBE, you are guaranteed to pass even if you left all the essays blank*.
In a 40% MBE state, if you score 50th percentile, you are guaranteed to pass if you score higher than the bottom 8.3% in state subjects*.
In a 40% MBE state, if you are 60th percentile, you are guaranteed to pass if you score higher than the bottom 1.6% in state subjects*.

Hopefully this helps put things in perspective.

(*Assuming a 75% overall pass rate.)

This is incorrect.

Just using the 50% MBE state as an example because it's simpler:

The 50th percentile for July 2014 was a 141.5. The lowest you can receive (which is what would happen if you left "all the essays blank") is I BELIEVE an 85. 141 + 85 = 226. A typical UBE state's passing score is 270. They range from like 260 to 280, but this is about the middle of the road. There's not a single jurisdiction in the country where your rule would be true.

Please prove me wrong, because that all sounds great.

ETA: If we're using July 2014 as an example, if you were 50th percentile (141.5), you would need a 129 to pass in a state that requires 270. That's approximately the 26th percentile on the essays. So, pretty easy to do. But definitely not impossible to fuck up.

https://www.ncbex.org/publications/stat ... tatistics/

Isn't the MPT 20% in UBE states? The essay is 30%, I believe.

[RaleighStClair]

Anybody else occasionally check back at their 200 question MBE mock exam results to see if your %ile changes? I've gotten a great deal of joy seeing it go up from 51st to 53rd percentile, after more people submit their answers. Haha.

[kyle010723]

Anybody else occasionally check back at their 200 question MBE mock exam results to see if your %ile changes? I've gotten a great deal of joy seeing it go up from 51st to 53rd percentile, after more people submit their answers. Haha.

Haha, mine changed by 1 percentile. I'm have no problem with it going up

[DesperadoOfColumbia]

I scored better on Crim/CrimPro section of the Barbri sim MBE and MPQ (67% and 70%) today than the Emmanuel (64%). It's like having Stockholm Syndrome. I don't even know what to think or do at this point (I guess do more questions, but some of the questions are just badly, badly written on both sides, even on Emmanuel. Emmanuel's crim pro is super easy and reasonable but there are definitely explanations where I felt that assumptions were made and references were made to facts that weren't in the fact pattern or the explanation boils down to "least wrong answer". I'm still having a huge amount of trouble guessing between two plausible answers after outlining and after CP cards and after everything - I just seem to choose the wrong one out of the tow overwhelmingly and since I'm on a timer I can't just sit there and mull. If anyone is good at getting the right answer after eliminating two out of the four please share how you d're doing it, I really need help on that.

Also I finally got 2 essays back. Grading seems arbitrary, I got a 6 (Family Law) and 9 (Torts) with very similar comments (and the 13 for crim I got was basically commentless). The 6 was partially for "not listing in number format the rule" and also "didn't use CIRAC (I used IRAC). The 9 was very complimentary again didn't contain a lot of good advice except "joob job you'll pass". For the family law essay, I got points off because I mentioned alimony late. I got a "you need to mention alimony" comment but three paragraphs later I totally mentioned the rule and applied it. I don't think I can actually realistically number and get every element for every essay so I'm just hoping for the best at this point. Looking at my essays I definitely do get the elements in and analysis in, just apparently not in the order they want or without the exacting structure the grader is looking for.

How many MBE questions are people doing anyway every day? I try to get in at least 150 but boy it takes a lot out of me, and I do a mix of MPQ and Emmanuel and whatever questions I can find and whatever I get online. I did 138 today and I'm breaking it down by categories just to see how well I know the rules at this point even if it doesn't reflect the actual exam (I did time myself, but I seem to have fewer issues with that than most people).

If you're curious, DC's average completion rate is 29%. I'm at 51%. They should really count HW in some way because I do a lot a of AMPs and they take acres of time and can be super annoying because I find a lot of the answers predicate on an and/or distinction.

[DesperadoOfColumbia]

Having asked around people in the know, I'm basically convinced that any colorable attempt to answer the essay prompts results in a passing grade. This means you must make a good faith effort to apply law (bonus points if they are correct) to the facts and write in proper English with complete sentences. Only idiots savants with eidetic memory can actually memorize all the elements of all the rules. So for normal people, getting maybe half the elements and the "general flavor" of the legal analysis required more than suffices to pass. The essays are a way of weeding out people who have no business practicing law because they cannot string together two coherent sentences.

Not sure about California's unique essays thing though.

This seems to be the consensus. No one in their right mind could memorize all the elements to all this shit. To the guy getting 80% on MBE, pretty sure he would just have to put something on paper to pass.

At this point, I'm relying on the fact that I know some of the people in previous classes that passed the bar. Taking the mentality of "I know how they did in law school. If they can pass the Bar, I can pass the Bar."

I'm not in CA, but I did really well on the crim essay because I'm really familiar with the elements and the law, but also grader gave me a break because I didn't number the elements or even perfectly word everything. It seems like if your grade's at least tied partially to whether your grader's having a good day or bad day (or have such a strict rubric for where things need to be and and wouldn't edit it just because some of your elements and issues are out of place).

Not all the essays have difficult rules,l it's just difficulty to get graders to grade consistently. I write only as I can remember the rules and it might not be the right order, and I'm getting points taken off for that, which is absolutely ridiculous.

[RaleighStClair]

Anyone know if there's a way to figure out how you're doing compared to others on the Mixed Sets? If not, is there a general consensus on whether people do better on the mixed sets than the StudySmart ones? I tried searching through the posts on here, but it's hard to tell.

I did better on Set 2 than Set 1, but both were definitely higher than my average percentage correct on the MPQs that we input into Study Smart. 68% on Set 1, 78% on Set 2, and my average on StudySmart ones is 61%. I guess I'm wondering if I'm actually improving or if I'm just doing easier questions.

[xChiTowNx]

If you're curious, DC's average completion rate is 29%. I'm at 51%. They should really count HW in some way because I do a lot a of AMPs and they take acres of time and can be super annoying because I find a lot of the answers predicate on an and/or distinction.

Just curious about completion rates too: It appears I'm ahead, but is the average calculated from everyone who is taking that state's barbri course, or the people in your area only?

So if the average completion rate for State A's barbri course is 35% and I'm at 50% but in State B studying, am i being compared to everyone taking the State A barbri course?

Just need something to feel positive about!

[rickgrimes69]

Anyone know if there's a way to figure out how you're doing compared to others on the Mixed Sets? If not, is there a general consensus on whether people do better on the mixed sets than the StudySmart ones? I tried searching through the posts on here, but it's hard to tell.

I did better on Set 2 than Set 1, but both were definitely higher than my average percentage correct on the MPQs that we input into Study Smart. 68% on Set 1, 78% on Set 2, and my average on StudySmart ones is 61%. I guess I'm wondering if I'm actually improving or if I'm just doing easier questions.

Probably both. Consensus is the mixed set questions are easier than MPQs. Consensus is also that the real MBE questions will be easier than both.

[Learned Throw Hands]

Just finished all of Emmanual's and only averaged 63.5 % like what the fuck I thought it was supposed to be easier than Barbri. I scored 59% correct on the Barbri full day test (51% percentile as of today). I haven't been doing all of the essays because I really thought I'd be able to be at 70% right by now so essays wouldn't be an issue but I think that strategy has failed me. I pulled a 16 hour, totally focused day today and I'm going to fucking lose it if I don't have a major break through today. I might be too retarded to pass this test. Going to bed, good luck yall.

[Learned Throw Hands]

I scored better on Crim/CrimPro section of the Barbri sim MBE and MPQ (67% and 70%) today than the Emmanuel (64%).

I also scored exactly 64% on the Emmanuel Crim stuff. I'm hoping maybe the practice questions on Emmanuel are even harder in the aggregate than the questions on the actual bar because a lot of the questions really feel like bullshit "gotcha" questions that may have been included to expose us to some of the more trickier/obscure rule questions on the bar. I don't know.

[BVest]

If you're curious, DC's average completion rate is 29%. I'm at 51%. They should really count HW in some way because I do a lot a of AMPs and they take acres of time and can be super annoying because I find a lot of the answers predicate on an and/or distinction.

Just curious about completion rates too: It appears I'm ahead, but is the average calculated from everyone who is taking that state's barbri course, or the people in your area only?

So if the average completion rate for State A's barbri course is 35% and I'm at 50% but in State B studying, am i being compared to everyone taking the State A barbri course?

Just need something to feel positive about!

There's a thread about how far ahead or behind people are. That might have your answer. Also if you tell us what State B is, someone might be able to tell you what the average and assigned numbers are.

[kmp127]

Anyone know if there's a way to figure out how you're doing compared to others on the Mixed Sets? If not, is there a general consensus on whether people do better on the mixed sets than the StudySmart ones? I tried searching through the posts on here, but it's hard to tell.

I did better on Set 2 than Set 1, but both were definitely higher than my average percentage correct on the MPQs that we input into Study Smart. 68% on Set 1, 78% on Set 2, and my average on StudySmart ones is 61%. I guess I'm wondering if I'm actually improving or if I'm just doing easier questions.

To give you one person to compare to (who will undoubtedly make u feel good about yourself):

Mixed Set 1 - 54%
Mixed Set 2 - 76%
Mixed Set 4 - 54%

Going to do Mixed Set 3 today -- aiming for 60% -- I feel like with that plus doing fairly middle ground on the essay, I should be able to pass... am i wrong?

[phillyboy101]

Can anyone explain the specific differences between conspiracy and accomplice liability -- really in the context for an essay. It seems like one would necessarily involve the other in most instances because they share basically the same elements, but on some of the essay examples they mention conspiracy, but not accomplice liability, so I'm guessing there must be some palpable difference. Thanks!

[kykiske]

Anyone know if there's a way to figure out how you're doing compared to others on the Mixed Sets? If not, is there a general consensus on whether people do better on the mixed sets than the StudySmart ones? I tried searching through the posts on here, but it's hard to tell.

I did better on Set 2 than Set 1, but both were definitely higher than my average percentage correct on the MPQs that we input into Study Smart. 68% on Set 1, 78% on Set 2, and my average on StudySmart ones is 61%. I guess I'm wondering if I'm actually improving or if I'm just doing easier questions.

To give you one person to compare to (who will undoubtedly make u feel good about yourself):

Mixed Set 1 - 54%
Mixed Set 2 - 76%
Mixed Set 4 - 54%

Going to do Mixed Set 3 today -- aiming for 60% -- I feel like with that plus doing fairly middle ground on the essay, I should be able to pass... am i wrong?

I'd also like to know. I've done MPQ 1 and 2. 64% on the MPQ 1 and 60% on MPQ 2.

I'm hitting a bit of a wall. I'm now getting more Property questions correct--which I initially bombed--but am now getting more Civ. Pro. and Contract questions incorrect--which I initially got mostly right.

[xlawschoolhopefulx]

Can anyone explain the specific differences between conspiracy and accomplice liability -- really in the context for an essay. It seems like one would necessarily involve the other in most instances because they share basically the same elements, but on some of the essay examples they mention conspiracy, but not accomplice liability, so I'm guessing there must be some palpable difference. Thanks!

I've been struggling with the same thing. So far I've deduced that accomplice liability is mentioned in essays where they ask about liability for the crime itself, and conspiracy should only be discussed if the questions asks if they can be liable for conspiracy in addition to the underlying crime. Not a very good answer, and hopefully someone has a better response, but that's the pattern I've found and am using since I've consistently made the same mistake on 3 practice essays.