ThisSucks1 wrote:got a 151 on the simulated mbe. i know thats pretty good at this stage of the game. is the kaplan simulated mbe a good indicator of real mbe performance or are the simulated mbe questions easier than the actual mbe?
i think its just about doing a lot of mbe questions. i've done about 1100 between the book and the online bank, not including the two simulated practice exams. i also condensed the long outlines to about 20 pages a piece and use those to review. however, when i was taking it, i think about 30% of the questions i had narrowed down to about 2 choices. I think on the mbe if you narrow down your answer to 2 choices, you're in a really good position. after narrowing down the 2 choices, see if there is any reason that one of the two choices doesn't make sense, such as the statement is true but not true as applied in every context. otherwise, just keep hammering mbe questions. i'm gonna do another 40-60 everyday before the exam. id just recommend to keep doing mbe questionsLAWYER2 wrote:ThisSucks1 wrote:got a 151 on the simulated mbe. i know thats pretty good at this stage of the game. is the kaplan simulated mbe a good indicator of real mbe performance or are the simulated mbe questions easier than the actual mbe?
Sheesh! Congrats though. Any tips you think attributed to your performance you can share?
From what I've read here and on other forums, it's not us, it's Kaplan. Their essay grading is really bizarre. At the beginning of the summer I'd try to do the essays closed-book, but I was getting 2's every time (out of 7). I would spot issues that Kaplan didn't, but if the issue wasn't in the Kaplan rubrik, I wouldn't get credit for it. I'd have essays where Kaplan would say there were just three or four issues. I took bar essay writing in school and my professor there told me don't stop until I've hit at least 10 issues per essay! And there are some other wacky things too, like I feel like Kaplan really pulls some issues out of thin air. Or they won't hit on really easy ones, like closed corporations for example.Pokemon wrote:Is anyone else taking NY? What happens if you completely miss the issues on an essay? Will the MBE and other essays carry you or is it fatal?
I think the red book just changed colors to purpely-blue. When the Kaplan books got shipped at the end of the semester, the Kaplan student reps were talking other students off the ledge about the red book changing colors, lol.bdubs wrote:What state/program is the red book from? All of my books are Kaplan purpely-blue. (IL, online)Royal wrote:Does it seem to anyone else like the questions in the red book get harder as you go?
Feeling super behind on all of this. I watched all of the videos and took all of the review quizzes but have barely done anything on essays or MPT. Practice exam on Monday is terrifying
I do not see the benefit of doing the essay portion of the exam so soon. I barely know half of these topics. It's not like they are going to grade it and give me an accurate idea of what my score might be because (1) they haven't graded about 20 that i submitted last week yet and (2) even if they did grade it, they would just grade me like 2 points lower than I deserve because that's their thing. I just feel like doing essays on topics you don't know if a big waste of a day. I'm going to do the MBE and maybe do 8 essays in a week or 2 I think. I understand the benefit of mimicking the real thing, but I just don't think it's worth losing a day over when I could actually be learning something.annalisa wrote:I think the red book just changed colors to purpely-blue. When the Kaplan books got shipped at the end of the semester, the Kaplan student reps were talking other students off the ledge about the red book changing colors, lol.bdubs wrote:What state/program is the red book from? All of my books are Kaplan purpely-blue. (IL, online)Royal wrote:Does it seem to anyone else like the questions in the red book get harder as you go?
Feeling super behind on all of this. I watched all of the videos and took all of the review quizzes but have barely done anything on essays or MPT. Practice exam on Monday is terrifying
I think it's the large book with MBE Qs to practice from.bazinga! wrote:what is a red book?
Whew, I thought I was missing something crucial!JJDancer wrote:I think it's the large book with MBE Qs to practice from.bazinga! wrote:what is a red book?
I have two outline booksbazinga! wrote:It's kind of late to be asking this, but out of curiosity when the videos tell you/told you to review information in your outline, or that it was discussed further in your outline, does that mean the bar points book? After being scared over the red book it got me thinking maybe there is some giant book of all the relevant law that I didn't get? I remember my wills & estates guy especially saying things like "I'm not going to cover this really because it's in your outline and notes and you can look it up" and I'd have like blank bar notes in sections. Anyone?
hmmm..yeah I don't have a long outline book. Just the bar points. I've looked several times because of stuff the video said but figured maybe my jurisdiction just didn't have one? weird.JJDancer wrote:I have two outline booksbazinga! wrote:It's kind of late to be asking this, but out of curiosity when the videos tell you/told you to review information in your outline, or that it was discussed further in your outline, does that mean the bar points book? After being scared over the red book it got me thinking maybe there is some giant book of all the relevant law that I didn't get? I remember my wills & estates guy especially saying things like "I'm not going to cover this really because it's in your outline and notes and you can look it up" and I'd have like blank bar notes in sections. Anyone?
one for mbe and one for CA subjects
as well as 1 bar points
it's funny you say that because I didn't discover the bar points until about 2-3 weeks ago and hated how long and tedious the outlines were so
bar points is a condensed outline
outline refers to the long outline book.
bazinga! wrote:hmmm..yeah I don't have a long outline book. Just the bar points. I've looked several times because of stuff the video said but figured maybe my jurisdiction just didn't have one? weird.JJDancer wrote:I have two outline booksbazinga! wrote:It's kind of late to be asking this, but out of curiosity when the videos tell you/told you to review information in your outline, or that it was discussed further in your outline, does that mean the bar points book? After being scared over the red book it got me thinking maybe there is some giant book of all the relevant law that I didn't get? I remember my wills & estates guy especially saying things like "I'm not going to cover this really because it's in your outline and notes and you can look it up" and I'd have like blank bar notes in sections. Anyone?
one for mbe and one for CA subjects
as well as 1 bar points
it's funny you say that because I didn't discover the bar points until about 2-3 weeks ago and hated how long and tedious the outlines were so
bar points is a condensed outline
outline refers to the long outline book.
The only similarity between bad bar prep grading and real bar exam grading is that they'll be equally arbitrary, unpredictable, and bad.shock259 wrote:I screwed up 2 of the 3 prompts on an essay question and Kaplan still gave me 4/10. Is this how the real bar exam grading will work..? Doing New York. First prompt was actually about testator capacity, but I wrote about lay witnesses versus expert witnesses. Second prompt was actually about civil procedure and court approval of settlements, but I wrote about agency. So, not even close on either.
The long outline book has been pretty essential for me. It is on the ebook/kindle version if you got that. It has a lot of info not in the video lectures or barpoints.bazinga! wrote:hmmm..yeah I don't have a long outline book. Just the bar points. I've looked several times because of stuff the video said but figured maybe my jurisdiction just didn't have one? weird.JJDancer wrote:I have two outline booksbazinga! wrote:It's kind of late to be asking this, but out of curiosity when the videos tell you/told you to review information in your outline, or that it was discussed further in your outline, does that mean the bar points book? After being scared over the red book it got me thinking maybe there is some giant book of all the relevant law that I didn't get? I remember my wills & estates guy especially saying things like "I'm not going to cover this really because it's in your outline and notes and you can look it up" and I'd have like blank bar notes in sections. Anyone?
one for mbe and one for CA subjects
as well as 1 bar points
it's funny you say that because I didn't discover the bar points until about 2-3 weeks ago and hated how long and tedious the outlines were so
bar points is a condensed outline
outline refers to the long outline book.
It's kind of unfortunate that the bar points seem to omit pretty critical information for responses to typical essay questions. The long outlines are way too detailed though. It's a pain in the ass to comb through the outline to try to figure out what important information was left off the bar points. I know they recommend making your own condensed outlines but that was just not feasible for me.crysmissmichelle wrote: The long outline book has been pretty essential for me. It is on the ebook/kindle version if you got that. It has a lot of info not in the video lectures or barpoints.
SO MUCH THIS. I read quite a few and feel silly for it.Pokemon wrote:I refuse to believe that the long outlines are useful. For the MBE, they definitely are not... all you need for that is practice.
For the essays, I think it would be impossible and setting up yourself for trouble if you try to memorize stuff on the long outline. As the distinctions dude said, for the bar you are better off knowing 80% of the stuff really well, instead of a bit about 100% of the stuff.
At the end of the day, we can even get the exam answer wrong and still get passing grades on them. We just need to spot the issues and apply the law.
Yeah this bothers me. One of our lecturers always says take a position and argue it, which conclusion you come to doesn't matter. But kaplan always tells me if they think I came to the wrong conclusion and I'm assuming takes off points for it.a male human wrote:IME, Kaplan is strict about getting the "right" issues according to its model answer. If you come to a "wrong" conclusion, your grader will take off points.
I notice the same thing on my Themis essays. I think it's because the graders are practicing attorneys doing this part-time who don't have personal knowledge of the issues or any interest in learning about the issues -- they're just reading the model answer and applying it to your essay, so if your essay includes issues or conclusions not contained in the model answer, your grader has no idea if those are effective, and so they grade you down for not matching the model. It's really annoying when they're only substantive commentary is about failure to match the model answer though. Thanks, grader, but I can read the model answer myself.JJDancer wrote:Yeah this bothers me. One of our lecturers always says take a position and argue it, which conclusion you come to doesn't matter. But kaplan always tells me if they think I came to the wrong conclusion and I'm assuming takes off points for it.a male human wrote:IME, Kaplan is strict about getting the "right" issues according to its model answer. If you come to a "wrong" conclusion, your grader will take off points.
So which is it?
JJDancer wrote:Yeah this bothers me. One of our lecturers always says take a position and argue it, which conclusion you come to doesn't matter. But kaplan always tells me if they think I came to the wrong conclusion and I'm assuming takes off points for it.a male human wrote:IME, Kaplan is strict about getting the "right" issues according to its model answer. If you come to a "wrong" conclusion, your grader will take off points.
So which is it?
