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barexaminerssuck27

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FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by barexaminerssuck27 » Sat Nov 17, 2018 3:06 am

Please don't be mean...

I really want to keep going but I really need to know what can I do differently...thank you

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Sat Nov 17, 2018 3:12 am

barexaminerssuck27 wrote:Please don't be mean...

I really want to keep going but I really need to know what can I do differently...thank you

I failed it 7 times over a span of more than a decade. Passed on my 8th try (July 2017). The main difference was I skipped Barbri entirely, except for the Convisor Mini-review book. I used Adaptibar for the MBE and BarEssays.com for the essay portion.

Did you use Adaptibar? What were your previous MBE scores like?

longwait

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by longwait » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:07 am

Maybe take the UBE in Washington, Oregon, or Arizona.
You can work in-house as long as you have another state bar (assuming you did not already).

nixy

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by nixy » Sat Nov 17, 2018 10:35 am

barexaminerssuck27 wrote:Please don't be mean...

I really want to keep going but I really need to know what can I do differently...thank you
What did you do for study each of those times? Can't say what you need to do differently without knowing what you did.

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a male human

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by a male human » Sat Nov 17, 2018 12:35 pm

I generally mirror what everyone above said. FinallyPassedTheBar alludes to the importance of practice (and learning from it). Of course, it's a very boiled-down statement, which is why it would help us to know what you've done so far.

I appreciate the tenacity and I'm sure you've already considered alternatives, but also, what's your motivation to take the CA bar for the 9th time?

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goldenflash19

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by goldenflash19 » Sat Nov 17, 2018 3:36 pm

I really think doing the PT first and allotting 1:50 is a good strategy, and a lot of people in the 2018 thread agree. The PT requires no outside prep, and time is the most difficult part about it. After you finish the PT, assess which of the remaining essays is a stronger subject of yours and do it first.

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by justanotheruser » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:02 pm

barexaminerssuck27 wrote:Please don't be mean...

I really want to keep going but I really need to know what can I do differently...thank you
A lot of us have been there. I passed the February 2018 exam, which was my 6th attempt.

Generally speaking, here are the biggest tweaks I made that helped me finally pass the exam...

(1) I made a 7-8 week study plan ahead of time. Reverse engineered it so that I knew I'd get through X amount of MBE questions, essays, and PTs by test week. IIRC, there was something to study/do 6 out of 7 days of the week. The one freebie day I left open to either rest or catch up on some reviewing.

(2) Not worrying about memorizing everything. So many times I'd be overwhelmed by 3-4 cheat sheet/outlines thinking I had to memorize everything to have a chance. But the change I made was realizing when you do actual practice questions over and over again, I learned more than if I tried to sit down and force myself to memorize a cheat sheet. When in doubt, I did practice problems over trying to memorize or review (although there definitely is a time and place for these latter items).

(3) For me, the big bugaboo was essays. My MBEs were always strong enough that I thought I could take the path of least resistance with essays. I was wrong time and time again. Part of it was laziness. Part of it was fear -- fear that there was no way I could possibly tackle that many essays for that many topics. If you are in the same position, let me just assure you -- practicing essays ended up being nowhere near what I feared it was. Will it take some grinding and long hours on occasion? Yes. But let me also say that within a few weeks (pretty early on in the process), you start noticing patterns right away and feeling comfortable because there is, relatively speaking, only a finite set of fact patterns that show up for each topic.

(4) Finally, I made incisive/smart adjustments. I failed the previous exam (July 2017) by less than 30 points, but what killed me was botching my time management on Essays 4 + 5, which left me with 30 minutes on the PT. I got a 50 on the PT, and so since this was after the format change, it really killed me. So when I prepared for the Feb 2018 exam, I decided to practice taking the PT first (btwn 1h30m to 1h45m) and being prepared to spend 50-52 minutes on Essays 4 + 5.

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by scard » Sat Nov 17, 2018 9:14 pm

It may not be the popular opinion but I’ll tell you what worked for me. I passed on my 6th attempt this year. There was a 16% pass rate for us repeaters.

The exam is now 50% mbe.

You need a 1440 to pass the exam.

Look at your written scores and expect to get somewhere in the middle of your best and worst written scores. Use that as your baseline.

Say your baseline is a 1240 scaled written score (which is failing almost every essay).

With a 1240 written, you need a 1640 scaled mbe to average 1440. That is like getting approx 70% of the mbe questions correct. That is very doable with practice.

So focus on mbe like no other, expect to have the most subjective graders you’ve had and to counter balance with a high mbe score which is purely subjective.

This last go around, I didn’t change anything with my writing technique but by doing so many mbes, my writing started looking like mbe answer explanations. I have no idea if my writing improved but regardless when I remember writing, I thought to myself, what would an mbe answer explanation look like when discussing this rule.

I decided to go with barmax this time around. I like their answer explorations better than adaptibar. It is just simpler and easier to follow.

My study plan consisted of starting the following Monday.

Barmax has these little 20ish question subject specific question bank in their full program. It is categorized down the sub-subject ( contracts>RAP questions only)

Once I finished each subject, I got an idea of what subtopics I lacked in. For me it was instrinsic vs extrinsic impeachment evidence among many others. Started using different sources on google and other bar prep guides to help me understand the topic until I mastered it and moved on.

I wrote down every answer explanation in a one sentence rule of the theme of the question that I knew was tested frequently or that I’ve seen before (this being your 9th attempt you should have a good feel for that, ie: priority of mortgages, impeachment, etc). I had a little notebook I think 7x10 or something that I wrote them into. I decorated my book with stuff I liked so that I didn’t mind showing it off and carrying it around.

After completing the warm up subjects on barmax I moved on to their mbe prep section and did 50 subject specific questions per day while writing down the important answer explanations. Right or wrong if I knew it was a frequently tested subject, I wrote the rule down. Every day I picked a different subject evenly (they have like 250 questions per subject).

When it was time to hirepeat a subject (the second time I did contracts) I typed my written notes into a Microsoft word doc from my last session I did that subject ( for example I wrote the notes from from law questions 1-50 down, and before I started questions 51-100 I type up the notes from 1-50 to refresh the subject matter, then start doing 51-100 and writing down the notes in my notebook again).

Once I completed the questions for each subject, As I got closer to the exam I set dates to do the OPE 100 question practice exams. I did these without notes and without explanations. I then went back and reviewed the ones I got wrong.

All in all I did almost 3100 practice questions. Start looking at your calendar now and writing it in, which subject your going to do, when, and get an idea of when you’re going to finish and how many you’ll have done. Adjust for holidays and make sure you have make up days for the days you are unable to do questions.

Remember your goal is get a 1650 on your scaled mbe and nothing else, don’t worry about writing or memorizing as you have already spent 8 attempts doing that. You should finish all the questions roughly 2 weeks before the exam, I used that time to do 5 practice essays that barmax provides free grading for just to brush up on my writing skills. I outlined 2 past exams for every subject, and I wrote and submitted to barmax for grading the subjects that were predicted to be on the exam. I still did my 50 questions on those days and I did 10-15 questions the night before the written exam. By the time your almost ready to take the exam, you’ll have a notebook filled with your handwritten rules and a Microsoft doc with the same rules typed up. I printed the typed version and staples to the front page of every subject in my notebook. When it was time to review I just read the typed up version.

Before every 50 questions I did, I typed up the notes from
The previous 50 I had written down, and reveiwed all the notes on the subject that I had typed/written down.. I was scoring 85% on my OPE.

Come exam day I finished the mbe portions 20-25 minutes early and was still unsure how I did but I passed and I’m
Sure it was due to a high mbe score. I didn’t even read the barmax graders notes really that thoroughly. Just used it to brush up. Good luck

Iv attached a photo of what my notebook looked like here: https://i.postimg.cc/Jz98p1bp/F813-D930 ... 5803-C.jpg

hope2018

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by hope2018 » Sat Nov 17, 2018 10:18 pm

barexaminerssuck27 wrote:Please don't be mean...

I really want to keep going but I really need to know what can I do differently...thank you

I agree to most people who responded here. I took the bar 6x, passed Feb 2018... changing the format to 2 day exam helped plus increasing MBE section to 50%
my first MBE score many years ago was around 110.... my last failed exam prior to passing was top 96 percentile. My practice scores were around 90%. I started analyzing my essays like how MBE answers would look like, just like others mentioned here.
As for Essays, use baressays.com follow their model answers...I used to outline following only model answers from baressays..then look thru the model answers for review from cal bar website.
Do not give up...I worked full time and with kids. so you can do it.

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malibustacy

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by malibustacy » Sun Nov 18, 2018 5:56 pm

Not much unless you do something radically different.

Such as drastically changing your study method or taking the bar in another state.

Frankly it's a combination of nerves, reading skills, intelligence, test taking skills, and analytic ability, and none of those are easily remedied if you couldn't fix it the first eight times.

QContinuum

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by QContinuum » Sun Nov 18, 2018 6:11 pm

longwait wrote:Maybe take the UBE in Washington, Oregon, or Arizona.
You can work in-house as long as you have another state bar (assuming you did not already).
I agree with this advice. Granted, OP might not be eligible to take the bar in another state... but if s/he has a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, going after the UBE instead of tackling CA for the ninth time sounds like a far better strategy.

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Sun Nov 18, 2018 7:47 pm

Did you take all your previous exams back-to-back? Perhaps it would be beneficial to take a step back for a bit? It might help you determine if you really want, or need, a CA license in the first place.

I was out of law school, and entirely out of the legal field for 15+ years before I passed the CBX. During that time, I tried to convince myself that I did not need a CA license to be happy. But, I finally came to a realization that it wasn't true. I needed to pass it.

So perhaps some time off can help you re-assess where you need to be?

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by ellie_law126 » Sun Nov 18, 2018 8:17 pm

goldenflash19 wrote:I really think doing the PT first and allotting 1:50 is a good strategy, and a lot of people in the 2018 thread agree. The PT requires no outside prep, and time is the most difficult part about it. After you finish the PT, assess which of the remaining essays is a stronger subject of yours and do it first.

I totally agree with this.

I passed the July 2018 CA exam coming from an ABA law school outside California. Coming from out-of-state, I knew that the substantive essays would be a lot to handle, but legal writing is something I feel comfortable with. With the PT being worth double one of the essays, I decided to focus the beginning of the afternoon session on the PT. This also got me back into the writing groove after the break, so I could attack the Con Law and CP essay with a fresh mind.

I used BarBri, but mostly only for the lectures and essay writing practice. For the MBE, I used CriticalPass and the Emmanuel Strategies & Tactics for the MBE.

Hope this helps! Don't lose hope yet, you can do this!

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by bacillusanthracis » Sun Nov 18, 2018 8:39 pm

I'll 3rd the strategy of PT first. I spent two hours on mine this last time.

Also, MBE subjects make up ~70% of the exam, so if you write a good PT and know your MBE subjects backward and forward, you have a good chance of passing.

One of things I always found not productive was dedicating as much time to e.g. writing Business Associations essays as any of the MBE subjects.

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rcharter1978

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by rcharter1978 » Mon Nov 19, 2018 10:59 pm

At this point, I'll bet you're just in your own head and that's why you can't pass. It has to be tough to get your groove back after 8 times. Get some confidence by taking it in another state than work in California. Is the Nevada bar or the Oklahoma bar eaiser? I'm sure some of these are ube states, right?

That way you are at least barred nearby.

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by QContinuum » Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:05 pm

rcharter1978 wrote:At this point, I'll bet you're just in your own head and that's why you can't pass. It has to be tough to get your groove back after 8 times. Get some confidence by taking it in another state than work in California. Is the Nevada bar or the Oklahoma bar eaiser? I'm sure some of these are ube states, right?

That way you are at least barred nearby.
Seconding this. Except that neither Nevada nor OK are UBE states, so wouldn't recommend taking the bar there (absent a desire to practice in those states), but lots of states close to CA are UBE, including Oregon, Washington state, Arizona, and Colorado. See the map at http://www.ncbex.org/exams/ube/

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Re: FAILED CA BAR 8 times. What can I do different?

Post by chickenb00b » Tue Nov 20, 2018 1:07 pm

Strategically, it makes sense to do the PT first.

I didn't. In fact, it was a strange situation for me. The Con Law question was a complete question mark for me. I didn't know what to say. I just analyzed the DCC issue in about 15-20 minutes... This also means I missed all the issues everyone else spotted (standing, EPC, market participant, etc.). So then I went over to Community Prop. This is easy. It's tested so frequently. You can see the method everyone uses. So this was easily finished in 40 minutes (I don't think CP essays ever try to trick anyone).

Here's the thing with PT for me, I didn't practice it at all. My thought of it was, "hey, I worked at firms during law school, I've written memos before. Understand the facts of our case, understand our assignment, use the case law (that I don't have to research for myself), and draft a memo." After taking the Bar, however, I realized the difficulty isn't in the PT assignment, or understanding the case law provided, or understanding the facts. It's about time management. They throw at you all these information. You have to quickly organize it. Have an attack plan. And write it. More importantly, is follow the instructions. It's very clear what they want. They just want to dig it out of the files provided. So, I ripped out the instruction page and had it in front of me at all times so I could refer to it.

IDK if anything I just said is helpful. I hope it is.

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