BarBri Thread: People taking Barbri for July 2013 exam Forum

[Matteliszt]

SME Q 20

About whether challenging the at large election under Due Process or Equal protection
Is the at large election with the purpose of discrimination a violation of right to vote under Due Process?

It discriminates against minority voters unequally, therefore the equal protection clause is implicated.

[Mroberts3]

Barbri assigns a lot of essays to write/outline. But they also say to go based on what methods worked for you in law school. What worked for me in law school was focusing on the actual material and NOT doing a million practice tests. Once familiar with the bar essay format, I don't think I'm getting a lot out of practicing them, and also there are literally not enough hours in the day. Therefore, it should be fine that I have straight-up skipped like 80% of the essays, if it's in the service of learning things instead. RIGHT? Someone assuage my guilt. I am passing the graded ones FWIW. Barbri is just totally psyching me out.

I feel the same way. Consider your guilt assuaged.

My logic goes like this: in law school, practice exams are crucial because everything is so class/professor specific and you don't know what you are doing yet. You need to practice and get used to what it is all about for each class. In addition, the focus was on nuance and sophisticated/creative analysis with the law.

Now, however, it is mostly review and the exam format/analysis is very straightforward. There are usually about 3-6 main issues in any given essay with fairly cut and dry analysis. Knowing the rules cold will make these issues easy to spot and analyze. In other words, the essays will generally fall into place once you know the law.

My plan in the last few weeks is mostly to read the CMR and then briefly outlining recent exam questions and then look at the model answers. Bought a baressays.com subscription that was worth every penny just to see what a 55 is compared to a 65 (CA scoring). Most 55 essays are like "ok you got 2 of 4 main issues and then just threw 5 pages of irrelevant garbage against the wall," so that makes me feel better.

How do 65s compare with the barbri answers?

Hard to say because the barbri answers aren't really written like the student answers. I would mainly say that barbri answers cover all the issues but they are one-sided on the arguments (they are just like "this is the right answer because of X rule"). The students who get 65s usually get all the main issues but sometimes add irrelevant things or mess up the analysis. They tend to argue both sides more.

[Mroberts3]

Is there anyone else out there who didn't finish the simulated 200-question MBE on time? At my location, some people left with 30 min left-- I'm not even sure how that's possible.

People have been pretty ridiculous for all the in class things. I have seen people show up an hour into the 3 hour performance test practice (CA). What is the point of that? Just do it at home -- no point in coming to class. During our MBE lots of people left early (not sure if all of them came back for the afternoon). Seems like a waste to me.

On the simulated one I took the whole time. However, after getting more practice and looking at real MBE questions, I think finishing 30 min early is doable. The real questions are shorter and you will be more prepared. That said, I would never leave early on the real thing. Much better to go back and review questions that gave you problems.

[imchuckbass58]

For NY, does anyone know if the barbri NYMC questions are similar to the actual NYMC questions? The ones in the barbri volume seem horribly written (ambiguous) and focused on bizarre minutiae. Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm doing terribly on them.

[kaiser]

For NY, does anyone know if the barbri NYMC questions are similar to the actual NYMC questions? The ones in the barbri volume seem horribly written (ambiguous) and focused on bizarre minutiae. Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm doing terribly on them.

I assumed those were actual NYMC Q's

[c3pO4]

Is there anyone else out there who didn't finish the simulated 200-question MBE on time? At my location, some people left with 30 min left-- I'm not even sure how that's possible.

People have been pretty ridiculous for all the in class things. I have seen people show up an hour into the 3 hour performance test practice (CA). What is the point of that? Just do it at home -- no point in coming to class. During our MBE lots of people left early (not sure if all of them came back for the afternoon). Seems like a waste to me.

On the simulated one I took the whole time. However, after getting more practice and looking at real MBE questions, I think finishing 30 min early is doable. The real questions are shorter and you will be more prepared. That said, I would never leave early on the real thing. Much better to go back and review questions that gave you problems.

tip: they will probably still pass

[kaiser]

Is there anyone else out there who didn't finish the simulated 200-question MBE on time? At my location, some people left with 30 min left-- I'm not even sure how that's possible.

People have been pretty ridiculous for all the in class things. I have seen people show up an hour into the 3 hour performance test practice (CA). What is the point of that? Just do it at home -- no point in coming to class. During our MBE lots of people left early (not sure if all of them came back for the afternoon). Seems like a waste to me.

On the simulated one I took the whole time. However, after getting more practice and looking at real MBE questions, I think finishing 30 min early is doable. The real questions are shorter and you will be more prepared. That said, I would never leave early on the real thing. Much better to go back and review questions that gave you problems.

Its definitely doable. The best method for saving time is to learn to knock off the easy questions very quickly. For example, a con law question that is merely asking for which side bears the burden, and what the standard is. That should be a very fast Q. Either you know it or you don't know it. If you continually save time on the easy questions by quickly isolating the key facts and scoping out the answer, you will have more time to dedicate to the harder Q's. For both simulated MBE halves, I finished about 20 minutes early. This gave me time to revisit the harder Q's in my problem areas. I didn't change much, but I at least had the flexibility to think it over one more time.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

Is there anyone else out there who didn't finish the simulated 200-question MBE on time? At my location, some people left with 30 min left-- I'm not even sure how that's possible.

People have been pretty ridiculous for all the in class things. I have seen people show up an hour into the 3 hour performance test practice (CA). What is the point of that? Just do it at home -- no point in coming to class. During our MBE lots of people left early (not sure if all of them came back for the afternoon). Seems like a waste to me.

On the simulated one I took the whole time. However, after getting more practice and looking at real MBE questions, I think finishing 30 min early is doable. The real questions are shorter and you will be more prepared. That said, I would never leave early on the real thing. Much better to go back and review questions that gave you problems.

Its definitely doable. The best method for saving time is to learn to knock off the easy questions very quickly. For example, a con law question that is merely asking for which side bears the burden, and what the standard is. That should be a very fast Q. Either you know it or you don't know it. If you continually save time on the easy questions by quickly isolating the key facts and scoping out the answer, you will have more time to dedicate to the harder Q's. For both simulated MBE halves, I finished about 20 minutes early. This gave me time to revisit the harder Q's in my problem areas. I didn't change much, but I at least had the flexibility to think it over one more time.

At the Simulated MBE, two people left after 2 hours. I wish I was kidding. The clock still had an hour AND change still left on it.

[Stephanie13]

MBE Real Property question:

Equitable conversion theory says that after a contract for sale of real property is signed, the death of a party does not void the transaction b/c equitable title is already with buyer and so the deal would have to still go through with the buyer's estate after buyers death BUT then I just learned that a deed to a grantee who is dead is void. How can those both be true? I think I am missing something here, can someone help me understand?

Thanks!!

[bgdddymtty]

MBE Real Property question:

Equitable conversion theory says that after a contract for sale of real property is signed, the death of a party does not void the transaction b/c equitable title is already with buyer and so the deal would have to still go through with the buyer's estate after buyers death BUT then I just learned that a deed to a grantee who is dead is void. How can those both be true? I think I am missing something here, can someone help me understand?

Thanks!!

The key is the word "equitable." The idea of equitable title is that the deal is essentially done, with the handing over of the deed being more or less a formality, so it's only fair to finish the deal. In the other case, both equitable title and legal title are passing at the same time, and you can't own property if you're dead, so that doesn't work.

[Stephanie13]

MBE Real Property question:

Equitable conversion theory says that after a contract for sale of real property is signed, the death of a party does not void the transaction b/c equitable title is already with buyer and so the deal would have to still go through with the buyer's estate after buyers death BUT then I just learned that a deed to a grantee who is dead is void. How can those both be true? I think I am missing something here, can someone help me understand?

Thanks!!

The key is the word "equitable." The idea of equitable title is that the deal is essentially done, with the handing over of the deed being more or less a formality, so it's only fair to finish the deal. In the other case, both equitable title and legal title are passing at the same time, and you can't own property if you're dead, so that doesn't work.

Thank you! That makes sense!

[5ky]

NY people --

does anybody know if there is a lecture handout for domestic relations? there isn't one in the book and there's not one online; i'm trying to finish up lectures this weekend.

[AMCD]

OK, don't know if my brain is just fried at this point, but today I tried doing three practice essays: contracts #6, property #6 and crim. #5 (never did it before and wanted to send it in.) Screwed up BIG TIME on the issues on the contracts essay -- writing about formation etc. when it wasn't even at issue. Didn't reach the same conclusions as the Barbri answers on ANY issue with the contract. The property. Well, I don't know if anyone has done it or has the time to look at it but I wanted to vomit when I read the fact pattern. I misunderstood: "to the survivor of them" to mean to children, issue etc. and one of the two life tenants had a child. It meant whichever of the two life tenants survived. Went on to do the entire analysis wrong b/c I found there was title in the wrong person and it just fell apart from there. I don't know at this point if I should just issue spot and outline, or do more. I think the Barbri answers are incredibly long that they are unreasonable, but when I compare my answers to their answers I just can't help thinking I am way too deficient in the way I am responding.

Thank you for letting me vent. The crim one went fine except I had to shorten analysis on the minor issues to finish in time and Barbri went on for pages!

Just feeling at a loss at this point and everyone around me (spouse and family) is telling me to just not take the exam and chill! Doing CA by the way.

[kaiser]

NY people --

does anybody know if there is a lecture handout for domestic relations? there isn't one in the book and there's not one online; i'm trying to finish up lectures this weekend.

No handout for that. Its Schecter again, and I guess he just doesn't like doing handouts

[c3pO4]

OK, don't know if my brain is just fried at this point, but today I tried doing three practice essays: contracts #6, property #6 and crim. #5 (never did it before and wanted to send it in.) Screwed up BIG TIME on the issues on the contracts essay -- writing about formation etc. when it wasn't even at issue. Didn't reach the same conclusions as the Barbri answers on ANY issue with the contract. The property. Well, I don't know if anyone has done it or has the time to look at it but I wanted to vomit when I read the fact pattern. I misunderstood: "to the survivor of them" to mean to children, issue etc. and one of the two life tenants had a child. It meant whichever of the two life tenants survived. Went on to do the entire analysis wrong b/c I found there was title in the wrong person and it just fell apart from there. I don't know at this point if I should just issue spot and outline, or do more. I think the Barbri answers are incredibly long that they are unreasonable, but when I compare my answers to their answers I just can't help thinking I am way too deficient in the way I am responding.

Thank you for letting me vent. The crim one went fine except I had to shorten analysis on the minor issues to finish in time and Barbri went on for pages!

Just feeling at a loss at this point and everyone around me (spouse and family) is telling me to just not take the exam and chill! Doing CA by the way.

you are fine. just outline 5 essays a day. by outline i mean issue spot and outline all the analysis you would do with the facts. don't need to write out full sentences on all of them, maybe for 1 or 2 a day since you mentioned you ran out of time so you could use some practice fitting it into the time.

if you do this you will have outlined 70 essays by the saturday before the exam and fully written out 28. still easy to pass, since it sounds like you are on track with MBE (keep doing 50 mbe's a day to keep your memory up, should only take 1.5 hours).

1.5 hours on 50 MBEs, .5 hours review wrong answer
3 hours fully write out 2 essays and review 2 answers
2.5 hours outline 3 essays (including analysis) and review answers

that's only 7.5 hours a day of solid work. add in time to get distracted and maybe watch some review vids. we sitll have a LOT of time left and you sound like you just had one bad essay, nothing to worry about. i bet you won't miss that formation / joint tenancy issue if you see it on the exam. failing now is the whole point of studying. if you could pass today you wouldn't need to study...

/sanity check

[AMCD]

Thank you so much for your helpful reply .... and the sanity check! My poor children want this over with more than I do! I am putting in so many hours, but often feel as though I am spinning my wheels. I don't feel I have much of anything memorized, so a couple of friends who took and passed the bar last year told me to read my shortish outlines on four subjects a day. I don't know how to fit that in with outlining and the MBEs. I have been doing an extra 25 per day for some time now. Didn't hit the average on the final exam last Saturday however, so that has me a bit worried. Any suggestion as to how to work in the reading/re-reading of the subject outlines, or do you mean to suggest that by outlining and doing the essays that's happening anyway? Thank you so much!

[c3pO4]

Thank you so much for your helpful reply .... and the sanity check! My poor children want this over with more than I do! I am putting in so many hours, but often feel as though I am spinning my wheels. I don't feel I have much of anything memorized, so a couple of friends who took and passed the bar last year told me to read my shortish outlines on four subjects a day. I don't know how to fit that in with outlining and the MBEs. I have been doing an extra 25 per day for some time now. Didn't hit the average on the final exam last Saturday however, so that has me a bit worried. Any suggestion as to how to work in the reading/re-reading of the subject outlines, or do you mean to suggest that by outlining and doing the essays that's happening anyway? Thank you so much!

yea -- first of all, thousands of people who are below the average will pass. second of all, you'll learn everything you need b just practicing/reviewing. memorizing abstract outlines is pointless. better to look at hypos and learn law from that since that's what you'll have to do on the exam

[MrSoOoFLy]

16 days ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Mroberts3]

16 days ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Time to git 'er done!

[remz]

Question for NY test-takers:

Sadly, I'm behind on studying. Obviously there is an overlap between the MBE and the NY essay portion and the essays will focus on MBE subjects (with necessay NY distincitions of course). But, if you had to focus on, let's say 5 NY subjects, moving forward, what 5 would those be?

[kaiser]

Question for NY test-takers:

Sadly, I'm behind on studying. Obviously there is an overlap between the MBE and the NY essay portion and the essays will focus on MBE subjects (with necessay NY distincitions of course). But, if you had to focus on, let's say 5 NY subjects, moving forward, what 5 would those be?

I'd check out the frequency chart, since it shows the most common NY topics. Looks like the ones most often tested are:

NY Practice
Wills
Corporations
Domestic Relations
Trusts

Though I'd include Professional Responsibility also, since its become much more frequent. Far less meaty of a lecture, and fairly easy to commit to memory should a small PR issue come up (as opposed to something like trusts, which contains lots of technical rules and nuances that will take awhile to memorize).

[Matteliszt]

Question for NY test-takers:

Sadly, I'm behind on studying. Obviously there is an overlap between the MBE and the NY essay portion and the essays will focus on MBE subjects (with necessay NY distincitions of course). But, if you had to focus on, let's say 5 NY subjects, moving forward, what 5 would those be?

Assuming you know something from Contracts/Torts, Crim Law/crim pro/Wills/Corporations/NYP/Domestic relations


[edit] scooped by Kaiser. PR will show up too, something like Family Law/PR or Trusts/PR

[lawyer921]

Not sure if I'm losing my mind at this point but I have a question about NYMC Mortgage Questions in the NYT Book.

Why does it says in all of the questions that someone is "giving" a mortgage? It says it question one that Al gave a 25K mortgage on Blackacre to B Bank, what on earth does that mean, from what I understood Banks issue mortgages, is anybody else confused about how these questions are phrased or am I just losing my head at this point.

Thank you.

[5ky]

I am legitimately starting to become worried about not having memorized any of the NY subjects yet, including ny crim. Is it even possible to maintain MBE while decently memorizing the 6 big ones? (ny practice, wills, trusts, corporations, domestic relations, PR) over the next 14 days? that's just ignoring all of the rest of the subjects

[curiousjorge]

.