ITT: Bar Exam Chat Forum

[Matthies]

So who is taking the July 2010 bar? Where are you taking it? Just went through Feb and July bars so I'll share what I can.

[Matthies]

::crickets:::

I hope this is becuase your all studying, if not, YOUR DOOMED

[nealric]

Did you end up taking two different bars or did you have to retake. If the latter, what do you think your downfall was? If the former, what prompted you to go through it again?

Feel free to ignore the question if you don't want to broadcast the details.

if not, YOUR DOOMED

I didn't know I had a doomed.

[mikeytwoshoes]

Did you end up taking two different bars or did you have to retake. If the latter, what do you think your downfall was? If the former, what prompted you to go through it again?

Feel free to ignore the question if you don't want to broadcast the details.

if not, YOUR DOOMED

I didn't know I had a doomed.

Someone has not been reading the disabilities thread.

[Matthies]

Did you end up taking two different bars or did you have to retake. If the latter, what do you think your downfall was? If the former, what prompted you to go through it again?

Feel free to ignore the question if you don't want to broadcast the details.

if not, YOUR DOOMED

I didn't know I had a doomed.

Retake. Downfall = being slow.

For those that have not know me as long as Nelric I have really, really bad dyslexia, like did not learn to read/write my own name till I was ten, needed tutors every day, went to a special school just for dyslexic kids, and failed out of college dyslexia. Not until the mid 90s with the advent of text-to-speech software and powerful word processing software was I anything more than illiterate. Somewhere between my brain and my hands why i type comes out jumbled or backwards, handwriting is impossible.

So for July bar I sent them all my reports, testing for disablties, grades everything for 25 years, requested for essay day only a spell checker (bar software has no spell checker in my state, I asked for MS Word actually, or speech to text, but new they would turn both down) and extra time to run it. Three weeks before the exam I got a letter from the bar saying they turned down my accommodations in part due to the reports I submitted from school X and Y. Problem is I never went to school X or Y and had never even lived in those states. Called bar, they said decision was final, I could have a spell checker though (exam software with spell checking enabled, but no extra time to run it). So at that point I ditched MBE study and focused 100% on essays and gauging my time.

Colorado essay day is 8 - 30 min essays with word counts, and 2 - 1.5 hours MPTS with word counts. You get the software before the exam, and can run it once to test it, but other than that can't practice on it. Unfortunately the version they first sent me did not include the spellchecker function I would have on the exam, so I could not check that.

So basically after trial and error I basically found using MS Word on a 30 min essay I could write for 15 MAX and then would need 15 MAX to fix the really bad, unrecognizable jumbled words, skipping the more minor misspelling like "what" being hwat which a grader could guess at. This meant I had time to read the hypo once, pick out the 3 (out of 5-8) issues I knew cold, write as fast as I can, fix, and if I could get a decent MBE score I and could get maybe 30% of the points on the essays in half the time, I could still pass.
Well come exam day that plan went to shit. I set my watch for 15 mins on the first essay, stopped started the spell checker and it had almost no suggestions for my words. It was basically a text editor with very basic spell checking. It simply had no idea what my jumbled words were. So I had to keep putting in different combinations of letters for the word I was trying to spell until it finally hit on something. This more than doubled my time.

First essay took 15 mins to write, 30 mins to fix. So at that point I stopped, read the rest of the essays for that session, picked the ones I felt I had the best handle on, and skipped an entire question, then went on to MPT. Timing just got totally screwed, on some questions I was lucky if I had ten mins to write. Spent 30 mins reading the MPT 30 ins writing and then till time was called fixing, made about half way through it.

Second half I read all the essays, picked the three I could answer best, skipped writing any issue statements to save time, abbreviated the rules, wrote two essays, then hit MPT, got that fixed had about 10 mins left wrote third essay supper fast and did not fix then was done.

In the end I needed 276 to pass (out of possible 400, but I was told highest score with curve was like a 330 something out of 1000 people taking it) I got a 265. 15 more mins on the whole day and I think i could have picked up those 11 points, but was not to be.

Feb. they granted my accommodations, gave me same software and spell checker but 45 mins on a 30 min essay. I was ready for that, and figured I could realistically give myself 20-25 mins on a 30 min essay then spend the rest fixing. It turned out to be about 20 mins average time to write on the Feb bar and about 25 mins to fix. Still ran out of time and did not get to half an MPT, but 20 ins to write was all I needed, crushed it, passed by a huge margin.

So I think i knew enough to pass the first time, but the second time I changed my study habits allot form the first time, basically because in hindsight some of the things I did the first time probably where not as effective in using my study time as they were the second.
I was going to take WY this July as well, but wit work being so busy have decided to put that off till feb 2011. Because my MBE score was high enough I don't need to take the WY MBE, just their essay day.

[nealric]

Wow- sounds like quite the saga. Glad it worked out in the end.

Did you take barbri, self-study, or another prep course?

[Matthies]

Wow- sounds like quite the saga. Glad it worked out in the end.

Did you take barbri, self-study, or another prep course?

Barbri and PMBR (online PMBR) for the first, then just bought the rights to use the online questions for the second.

So did you graduate? You'll like the only other person who has a chance of beating my 5 years of law school recornd

[nealric]

Lol, I graduate Sunday. I've only been in law school 3 years though. I am, however, sticking around for a semester to get my tax llm during my firm deferral.


Did you work during bar studying? I'm working full time until mod June.

[Matthies]

Lol, I graduate Sunday. I've only been in law school 3 years though. I am, however, sticking around for a semester to get my tax llm during my firm deferral.


Did you work during bar studying? I'm working full time until mod June.

I took mid may-aug 1st off, then jan and feb off the second time. i mean i did some small prjects and still ran my slumlord biz, but mostly studying.

Some advice, which i did not do the first time, but did the second time.

If your taking barbri or PMBR or anouther class you will be temped to wait until you cover a subject to start doing pratice essays or MBEs. DO NOT DO THIS. The bar is NOT like LS exams at all. Nobody likes to see themslves getting low MBE scores or missing essya points and feeling stupid, which you will, trust me, so most people think, like I did, i'll wiat till the con law review before i start doing con law so i know what to focus on DON"T DO THIS. Start doing MBE questions 20-30 a day (depnding on how many you have at your disposal, and one subject at a time) RIGHT AWAY. You will suck at first, but you will actually learn more from doing the questions, getting them wrong or right, and reading the expliantions that will ever get from your outlines or class. Start from day one and do subjects you have not covered yet. Just trust me on this.