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DodgerBlues1991

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Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by DodgerBlues1991 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:09 pm

I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!

justanotheruser

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by justanotheruser » Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:25 pm

For MBEs, maybe you might want to consider doing fewer questions in exchange for better review when going over incorrect/unclear questions? I would definitely look into using Emanuel S&T. I used that and then Adaptibar, and it worked pretty well... feels like S&T's strategies and answer explanations made up for Adaptibar lacking those things.

As for essays, BarEssays is super helpful. Real questions, you can look up real answers based on scores, and get the most informed feedback possible (aside from getting a former bar grader to tutor you). For me, I felt like the key to breaking through essays was not really focusing on memorizing rules, but going through enough essays to know certain facts trigger certain issues, and building on top of that.

I passed the February 2018 CA bar after failing 5 times. I actually just posted a thread detailing my experience, so maybe you'll find it helpful: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=298888

Good luck!

FinallyPassedTheBar

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by FinallyPassedTheBar » Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:39 am

There's a huge difference between 60% and 70% at 3000 MBE questions. IMHO, you need to be hitting at least 70% in the 2 weeks leading up to the exam...preferably 75% or higher.

My suggestions is to resubscribe to Adaptibar and increase your percentages. Do not be content with 60%.

lexingtonhr

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by lexingtonhr » Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:06 pm

DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.

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rcharter1978

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by rcharter1978 » Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:52 pm

lexingtonhr wrote:
DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.
I improved my score by nearly 200pts, at least, you can totally do it.

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lexingtonhr

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by lexingtonhr » Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:11 pm

rcharter1978 wrote:
lexingtonhr wrote:
DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.
I improved my score by nearly 200pts, at least, you can totally do it.

Was it your second time taking the Bar exam??

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rcharter1978

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by rcharter1978 » Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:57 pm

lexingtonhr wrote:
rcharter1978 wrote:
lexingtonhr wrote:
DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.
I improved my score by nearly 200pts, at least, you can totally do it.

Was it your second time taking the Bar exam??
Yep!

DodgerBlues1991

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by DodgerBlues1991 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:27 am

rcharter1978 wrote:
lexingtonhr wrote:
DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.
I improved my score by nearly 200pts, at least, you can totally do it.
Any suggestions on what I could do differently this time to overcome such a huge gap.

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rcharter1978

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by rcharter1978 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:06 pm

DodgerBlues1991 wrote:
rcharter1978 wrote:
lexingtonhr wrote:
DodgerBlues1991 wrote:I failed the JULY 2018 BAR by a massive 100 points. got 60s and 55s and one 50. The only thing I passed was the PT, all the while my MBE scaled score being rough around 1319. I did almost 3,000 MBE questions and was always hovering around 60-70% on adaptibar/themis. Like many in the forums I felt that on test day the MBE was nothing like what I had seen before. The essays did not seem that bad while doing them I thought I hit most of the issues so now I don't know if it was an issue spotting problem or simply that I do not know how to write.

Now because of being so far away from the 1440 this second time around I am lost on how to attack everything. I get Themis again for free the second time around. I also saw many recommend to do BARESSAYS.COM.

Mainly now I am here looking to see if anyone has a nice skeleton or study plan that they would be nice enough to post on here. Ideally I would like to start next Monday, as timing was something I felt like I did not have enough of in May.

Thanks!
I failed by 90 points. I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a 70% on Adaptibar and doing 3,000 questions. I took Barbri though instead of Themis. I thought I would kill the MBE's, but I wasn't even close. Those MBE questions were really different than I've seen before too.

After seeing my score, I didn't even know if it was worth studying again because it's a huge gap from a passing score. I suppose what I'm going to do this next time around is remedy my weaknesses by focusing more on quality rather than quantity.

As for Baressays, they do help. It's a really good source and you can see what it takes to get a 60, 65, 70, and higher.
I improved my score by nearly 200pts, at least, you can totally do it.
Any suggestions on what I could do differently this time to overcome such a huge gap.
My biggest advice is to study the way that works for you. Dump the barbri method if you don't feel good about it. When I went back to studying MY way, I felt so much better, it felt like a puzzle piece fit. Barbri always felt wrong for me, but I went along with it because everyone was doing it and everyone kept saying to trust the method. But I think you have to trust yourself too.


I also used adaptibar.

MY method (and m will v) was to start a day doing an in depth subject review, which included outlining. For some reason writing stuff forces my mind to remember and think through it. It's not the same when I only read.

After that, I would do multiple choice adaptibar questions on the subject and would write the explanations for answers I got wrong. Which further added to my knowledge base and helped reinforce broad and in depth points.

After that, I would WRITE OUT a couple of essays. This was good practice and also necessary since I was paying a writing tutor. He would send the reviewed essays back and we would have a session like once or twice a week.

I also did a lot of pts. I had ignored them at first and that was a mistake.

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scard

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by scard » Sun Dec 09, 2018 12:23 am

I was able to overcome a 200 point deficit! It can be done. Check out my post in either the July 18 or the Feb 19 threads for my advice.

Bar Exam Tutor

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Re: Failed CA Bar/Need Help with Plan of Attack

Post by Bar Exam Tutor » Sun Dec 16, 2018 8:24 am

I tutor students for the bar exam, including California, and I have developed a very comprehensive method with outlines, practice questions and feedback. Please email me if interested - bartutor@att.net.

Sincerely,

Paul

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