Page 1 of 1

For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:58 pm
by AJS30
So I really have not had any finals in law school with both essay and MC ( except maybe 1 or 2 and it was only like 5-10 MC ?'s). Anyway, I was wondering how difficult is it with time management the first morning of the test as I am starting to think I will struggle with having to do 3 essays and 50 MC question in 3 hours and 15 minutes. Also, how tricky are the NY MC questions? Are they long fact patterns/similar to the MBE questions?

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:31 pm
by It's A Lion
They're only worth 10%. If you do not have the opportunity to do practice NY MC q's, save them until you've finished the essays. That way, you can at least fill in "C" or "D" etc. for the remaining questions if you fall short on time. They're challenging in that they test very specific areas of law.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:12 am
by 5ky
AJS30 wrote:So I really have not had any finals in law school with both essay and MC ( except maybe 1 or 2 and it was only like 5-10 MC ?'s). Anyway, I was wondering how difficult is it with time management the first morning of the test as I am starting to think I will struggle with having to do 3 essays and 50 MC question in 3 hours and 15 minutes. Also, how tricky are the NY MC questions? Are they long fact patterns/similar to the MBE questions?
I don't know about other bar prep companies, but the barbri practice questions for NYMC were NOTHING like the actual ones. While I wouldn't say that they were easy, they were extremely easy to read quickly and understand what the question was, compared to the MBE. I did it first and finished in about 50 minutes.

I don't agree with the advice of saving them for last. Each essay is only worth 8%. If the average essay score is around a 5/10 and the average NYMC score is slightly over a 25, there's slightly better value in making sure you answer all of those.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:18 pm
by superflush
It's A Lion wrote:They're challenging in that they test very specific areas of law.
This

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 10:25 pm
by El Pollito
superflush wrote:
It's A Lion wrote:They're challenging in that they test very specific areas of law.
This
+1. The questions would have been easy if I knew the law, but I guessed on most of them.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:21 pm
by AJS30
So bar prep companies don't do a good job of preparing you for this section on the NY test?

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:27 pm
by El Pollito
AJS30 wrote:So bar prep companies don't do a good job of preparing you for this section on the NY test?
You can't really adequately prepare for a 50 question test on random law covering 20-something subjects. I didn't study at all for it and don't think anyone should bother.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:52 pm
by 5ky
Listen, if you know enough NY law to pass the essays, you won't do badly enough on the MC to cause you to fail in any material way. If you're banking on the NY MC to help you pass by covering for a deficiency in another area, then your study strategy was really dumb and you will fail.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 11:53 pm
by El Pollito
5ky wrote:Listen, if you know enough NY law to pass the essays, you won't do badly enough on the MC to cause you to fail in any material way. If you're banking on the NY MC to help you pass by covering for a deficiency in another area, then your study strategy was really dumb and you will fail.
+1, but you won't fail.

Re: For those who have taken the NY Bar- Question regarding MC

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:12 am
by BaiAilian2013
El Pollito wrote:
AJS30 wrote:So bar prep companies don't do a good job of preparing you for this section on the NY test?
You can't really adequately prepare for a 50 question test on random law covering 20-something subjects. I didn't study at all for it and don't think anyone should bother.
Yeah. Even in the terrorhaze of bar prep I could see dimly that the NYMC were a pointless time sink. The bar prep companies will, of course, not admit this, but seriously, fuck the NYMC. Like do SOME, but mostly so that on the morning of the test you can be like hey, I did some. In terms of time management I don't think it's a big deal; you just do the math beforehand and make sure to pace yourself, same as any test in any format.