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xonimi

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No Improvements in MBE

Post by xonimi » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:09 pm

I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:11 pm

xonimi wrote:I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!

Is that your overall percentage or your most recent percentage?

Have you checked the "past performance table" to see your percentage progress for the past weeks. Ideally, you want to see those percentages increase over time. When did you start your MBE review?

xonimi

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by xonimi » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:36 pm

FinallyPassedTheBar wrote:
xonimi wrote:I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!

Is that your overall percentage or your most recent percentage?

Have you checked the "past performance table" to see your percentage progress for the past weeks. Ideally, you want to see those percentages increase over time. When did you start your MBE review?
58% is my overall percentage. I started about a month ago and initially I was at about 52% so there's been some improvement but I haven't seen any change for the past 2 weeks.

The Past Performance table doesnt really tell me anything. It updates each time I complete 350 questions and since I've only completed 1 set of 350 questions there isn't anything to compare yet.

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:41 pm

xonimi wrote:
FinallyPassedTheBar wrote:
xonimi wrote:I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!

Is that your overall percentage or your most recent percentage?

Have you checked the "past performance table" to see your percentage progress for the past weeks. Ideally, you want to see those percentages increase over time. When did you start your MBE review?
58% is my overall percentage. I started about a month ago and initially I was at about 52% so there's been some improvement but I haven't seen any change for the past 2 weeks.

The Past Performance table doesnt really tell me anything. It updates each time I complete 350 questions and since I've only completed 1 set of 350 questions there isn't anything to compare yet.

Ok you need to complete more questions to see your progress in the past performance table. Those are the percentages that are more important. Your overall percentage is weighed down by your early performance. So it is going to be low even if you have been making progress lately.

There is also an option to see your daily percentage. Those should be higher than your overall percentage.

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:02 am

On Adaptibar, there is an option to review your percentages by any date range you chose...daily, weekly, or monthly. It is very important to keep track of your daily performance. Just remember to complete about the same number of questions every day, 30/day for example. Otherwise it will be difficult to compare your daily percentages.

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b290

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by b290 » Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:16 am

xonimi wrote:
FinallyPassedTheBar wrote:
xonimi wrote:I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!

Is that your overall percentage or your most recent percentage?

Have you checked the "past performance table" to see your percentage progress for the past weeks. Ideally, you want to see those percentages increase over time. When did you start your MBE review?
58% is my overall percentage. I started about a month ago and initially I was at about 52% so there's been some improvement but I haven't seen any change for the past 2 weeks.

The Past Performance table doesnt really tell me anything. It updates each time I complete 350 questions and since I've only completed 1 set of 350 questions there isn't anything to compare yet.
There's going to be some slowing in your improvement. You'll be slowly eliminating reasons why you get questions wrong. This is to be expected.

FinallyPassedTheBar nailed it. Your overall will always be weighed down by your beginning numbers. It's also still early to worry, as you'll be doing more questions/day (in a few weeks) and you'll be improving over time.

My $.02

nada123

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by nada123 » Thu Jun 21, 2018 3:53 am

Could try reading over the black letter law. Maybe you don’t know it well enough so you’re choosing the wrong options? Going over the law in between practice questions helped me a lot :)

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by irishguy » Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:49 am

xonimi wrote:I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question.
Either you don't know the law well enough or you don't know how the NCBE tests the rules well enough. Which do you reckon it is? For the questions you get wrong, are you getting them blatantly wrong, i.e. picking an answer which applies an incorrect rule? Or do you understand the rule being tested but apply it incorrectly because you missed how the question was testing it or trying to trick you?

Honestly, if you fully understand and apply the strategies taught in that book, and fully understand and apply the answer explanations, you will pass the MBE part. Besides, 58% scaled is already very close to passing. Aim for 60-62% and that scaled will be your 67% pass on the real MBE!

I was getting about 60/100 of my BarBri questions right about 3 weeks before the bar. I probably improved a little in that period, maybe to 65/100 on average with the help of Emanuel. I came out with a 148.5 scaled on the MBE. Aaaaaaaaaaaand I don't have a JD as I'm foreign-educated. You're already way ahead of a lot of applicants. Keep ticking over and you'll get it done!

Not saying that to boast; saying it to reassure you not to worry too much! :)

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SilvermanBarPrep

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by SilvermanBarPrep » Thu Jun 21, 2018 1:47 pm

Some really great advice in this thread and I especially want to echo the idea of taking some time to figure out if you are getting any question wrong because (1) you did not fully understand the rule of law that the question was designed to test, or (2) you did not properly apply the rule of law even though you knew it.

It'll come down to one of those two things. The first one is generally easier to fix because it's more of a knowledge issue than a skill issue. For the second one, you've got to keep working on practice questions and getting better at the game, so to speak. Of course, understanding that these are the two components to doing well on the exam also means that if you work to excel both at knowing the law and knowing how to apply the law to a given set of facts then you will excel at the exam.

Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)

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nthp

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by nthp » Thu Jun 21, 2018 5:02 pm

xonimi wrote:I've done about 400 questions on Adaptibar and I've been stuck at 58% for a while. I have Emanual's S&T as well. I go over explanations after each question. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any advice would be appreciated!
I don't know if this has any bearing on performance, but what time of day do you work on the questions? Do you vary the time of day at all? And how much time do you spend per question? Have you started to notice patterns for wrong answers and right answers?

My scores started very low when I had not listened to all of the lectures for my review course. I was also doing them at a time of day when my brain doesn't work as well. I worked on the questions too fast and would make foolish mistakes such as misreading the body. I answered the questions too fast instead of taking the time to look at the answer choices. After awhile I started to notice patterns (as well as learning the law by reviewing what I got wrong), and even if I didn't know the law outright, I was better at eliminating the wrong answer choices. I've been averaging in the 60's now, and today even got into the high 70's, but I've also had a few setback days where I suddenly drop into the 40's. It's as if Adaptibar sees your progress, thinks that it can hand you harder questions and you just fail.

My advice is to just take your time on the questions and vary the time of day that you do them. I'm someone that starts out slowly and then will steadily get better. Perhaps you are someone who's steady and will then shoot up.

Smiddywesson

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by Smiddywesson » Fri Mar 15, 2019 12:47 pm

My experience stretches over 12 months of study, and after 3800 questions, I finished the week going into the bar at 94%.

You are going to back slide in subjects, sometimes dramatically, as you address each subject. This is the cost of, for example, shutting off your Evidence mind and focusing on Contracts. Be patient, it comes right back up again. On the other hand, you may have decided to take all the subjects on at the same time, in which case it will feel like you are playing Wack-o-mole. Hold on, this is normal, eventually you will see gradual progress. Until then, it's all grow spurts and back sliding. You are going to plateau and get stuck. I remember being stuck in the mid-60s. All of a sudden you find yourself in the 70s. Oops, stuck again. Relax, this process takes care of itself. Finally, Adaptibar will keep throwing the subjects at you that give you trouble, so your grow spurts probably come from overcoming that subject.

At the end of my run, somewhere in the 70s and definitely in the 80s, you get that 1-2% gradual improvement every week or every other week. That's a great feeling, but you are still going to get stuck. I got stuck around 80, then hit a wall at 85%. In the last two weeks I was solid at 91% and even hit 94%. How far you get depends on how hard you work, your aptitude, and available time. I had a year, so I got farther than I expected.

1. Everything you are experiencing is normal, the back sliding, getting stuck at a percentage, it's normal.
2. There's nothing you can do to speed up the process, just keeping working through it.
3. Everyone experiences these negative emotions

Hope that helps somebody.

Neve

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by Neve » Thu May 09, 2019 8:17 pm

My running list of MBE supplements is below. The choice of which supplements you use should depend on your learning style.

1) Emanuel's Strategies and Tactics for the MBE - available on Amazon. Fairly cheap book. Has good tips on approaching the MBE and contains lots of practice questions.

2) Adaptibar (http://www.adaptibar.com) - I didn't use this, but wish I had since it has received raving reviews. The only con to Adaptibar is the price.

3) Barmax MBE Questions (https://getbarmax.com/barmax-mbe-questions/ - supposedly "comparable" to Adaptibar). At only $249, it's a good price, but Adaptibar has tracking tools to individualize your MBE study and show your progress in a method that Barmax can't. But Barmax seems to be more economical than Adaptibar. You also need an iOS device to use it.

4) OPE from the MBE site to practice the most recent test questions: http://store.ncbex.org/all-online-practice-exams/. OPE it isn't the cheapest option, but these are real, recent MBE questions and not the souped up Barbri ones. Barbri questions are not representative of the modern MBE. I hear Barmax has all these OPEs included.

5) Critical Pass (http://criticalpass.refr.cc/VS3TS7D - referral link contains a discount code for $$ off) - Great flashcards for the MBE! You can't apply the law to an MBE question, if you don't know the law. I used Critical Pass for my bar study along with the CMR from Barbri and their simulated questions (although the Barbri questions are very different than actual MBE questions). I also used Emanuel's S&T during my study period, but not as much as I should have since it's a great resource.

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by PrissyG » Fri May 10, 2019 12:46 am

I can email anyone who is interested a promo code for Adaptibar. Just let me know and I will send it, or drop your email. :)

I am currently using Adaptibar and LOVE IT! Im already 400 questions in and learning so much though the extremely detailed explanatory answers. Super Helpful.

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Wild Card

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by Wild Card » Sun May 12, 2019 12:23 pm

same thing happened to me. consistently 60-70% until the last few weeks of bar review, when I got it up to 70-80%.

Just keep at it.

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Re: No Improvements in MBE

Post by Law&coffee » Sat May 18, 2019 4:53 pm

Practice, practice, practice! I would review 2-3 topics of the Critical Pass flash cards then do a drill of MBE questions. After that, review all the explanations of the questions - for both right and wrong answers. I did Barbri and I understand that the actual questions on the real exam are much tougher. You might want to consider supplementing with Adaptibar or S&T. Keep at it.

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