CAL MBE Struggles Forum

[DodgerBlues1991]

I am a repeat taker, and I definitely felt this on the actual bar exam also, it seems as if it is really easy to eliminate two answer choices, but after that between the other two its simply guessing. I am doing much better in my percentages than last bar prep, however, I still feel like almost 75% I am guessing, is there any fix for that anyone recommends?

[FinallyPassedTheBar]

How many questions have you completed?

[DodgerBlues1991]

How many questions have you completed?

Ive done about 800 on themis, and 250 on adapti bar. 64% for themis, and 68% for adapti bar.

[Nightcrawler]

I felt the same until I got to scoring 80/85% in Adaptibar. At that point, all the guesses between two choices feel safer.

[DodgerBlues1991]

I felt the same until I got to scoring 80/85% in Adaptibar. At that point, all the guesses between two choices feel safer.

anything you can recommend doing to get out of the 65-70% hump.

[Cop2lawyerNYC]

I felt the same until I got to scoring 80/85% in Adaptibar. At that point, all the guesses between two choices feel safer.

anything you can recommend doing to get out of the 65-70% hump.

To break out you have to go back to the material and learn the nuance. Go over the rules word for word and ask yourself what does this mean? How can they trick me? What’s an example?

Ex: for the rule on subsequent remedial measure: what if the plaintiff decided to make a change in the product bec it’s dangerous? And then a month later there was an accident from an older model can I introduce the fact that the design was changed a month ago? Answer yes. Why because to be inadmissible the change must have been SUBSEQUENT to the accident. Subsequent = after, not before.

The above is how I attacked every rule. Even if I forgot the rule I would remember my internal conversation.

Look at every rule with this mindset: “how can the test writers Fu*$ me?”

[diatribe]

I felt the same until I got to scoring 80/85% in Adaptibar. At that point, all the guesses between two choices feel safer.

anything you can recommend doing to get out of the 65-70% hump.

To break out you have to go back to the material and learn the nuance. Go over the rules word for word and ask yourself what does this mean? How can they trick me? What’s an example?

Ex: for the rule on subsequent remedial measure: what if the plaintiff decided to make a change in the product bec it’s dangerous? And then a month later there was an accident from an older model can I introduce the fact that the design was changed a month ago? Answer yes. Why because to be inadmissible the change must have been SUBSEQUENT to the accident. Subsequent = after, not before.

The above is how I attacked every rule. Even if I forgot the rule I would remember my internal conversation.

Look at every rule with this mindset: “how can the test writers Fu*$ me?”

I second this. Practice as many of those MBE questions as you can, but don't do it passively. You need to take the time after each question or after each set of questions, to analyze each one to see where your thought process went wrong: If you didn't know the rule, go memorize the rule and practice some examples. If you misread, slow down. If you misunderstood, try to figure out the nuances the question turns on

Via Kaplan's "ask an expert" I asked well over a 100 questions (not an exaggeration) on nit picky things like "what if this [minor thing] were changed?" I did this just to see the distinctions I was missing and to get clarity on where my thought process should focus. I went from about 60% in my law school MBE course to well over 80% in Kaplan bar prep by dissecting those rules, though I'm sure mass practice helped a lot too

[Nightcrawler]

I echo what the previous posters said. Don’t look at the 70% as a hump. To improve there are no shortcuts. You just need to study your mistakes and keep doing questions. I used adaptibar 3 times I think and by the end I did thousands of questions. Every approx 1750 questions I improved about 5-10% but ymmv.

The better you become, the faster you get and the easier it gets.

[justanotheruser]

Yeah, multiple repeater here (passed the 2/18 CA bar) and I agree with the advice here. You don't improve on MBEs passively and trying to cram as many practice questions as possible. I'd rather someone take their time with 1000 Qs over someone doing 3000 Qs with very little reflection/review.

Deconstruct questions and see how they tricked you into getting the wrong question, why the right answer was the right one, and how they tested you on a rule in the context of the question. If you practice enough questions with purpose, you'll start noticing patterns and frequent/common wrong answers. With time, you'll start seeing beyond the words on the page and start seeing MBE questions (when you're all locked in) like Neo seeing the matrix, etc.

It's very doable, but there's no shortcuts around it. Just working smart and hard.