Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[zot1]

Does anyone know if Themis will "open up" more mbe pqs in the future? It hit me that I only have one more set of some subjects left and that does not seem adequate.

[Pleasye]

Does anyone know if Themis will "open up" more mbe pqs in the future? It hit me that I only have one more set of some subjects left and that does not seem adequate.

Not sure but there are a ton of mixed MBE sets left so we will still get practice on those. And I think I'm going to shell out for adaptibar

[henry flower]

What exactly is "insufficient process" as opposed to "insufficient SERVICE of process"? Notice and opportunity to be heard?

Unrelated: is there any way to "stop the clock" for the essay Qs? I would really like to print out the question so I can mark it up, etc. before I start answering. And being able to do so seems especially critical when the essay question involves a PDF "extract" (a statutory supplement, basically, for those whose jurisdictions do not have these annoying things) that must be downloaded AS THE CLOCK COUNTS DOWN. It would be nice to be able to do these under real exam conditions.

[lacrossebrother]

What exactly is "insufficient process" as opposed to "insufficient SERVICE of process"? Notice and opportunity to be heard?

like in a rule 12 motion? nobody actually knows. they're treated the same.
maybe you can find an answer in a treatise

[henry flower]

What exactly is "insufficient process" as opposed to "insufficient SERVICE of process"? Notice and opportunity to be heard?

like in a rule 12 motion? nobody actually knows. they're treated the same.
maybe you can find an answer in a treatise

I should have searched before asking. It is a defect in the documents (or their contents), as opposed to a problem with delivery of the documents. An example might be naming the wrong court in the complaint or summons.

[zot1]

Does anyone know if Themis will "open up" more mbe pqs in the future? It hit me that I only have one more set of some subjects left and that does not seem adequate.

Not sure but there are a ton of mixed MBE sets left so we will still get practice on those. And I think I'm going to shell out for adaptibar

Just looked at the price. No way Jose. I will keep trying to figure out a way to get better. To be fair, Themis is only asking for 50% at the moment.

[soj]

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[soj]

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[somuchbooty]

it's ridiculous that i even had to buy a supplement, though. really wish these prep companies would spend a little less $ on marketing and more on improving their product. having ALL available real mbe questions included in the course package should be a given--even lsat companies do this these days. and give us outlines in a format where it's easy to list mbe and state distinctions side by side. don't get lazy and give us separate mbe and state outlines. also, students should be able to choose how much of the Q bank they want to do by topic and how much as a mix of topics. all this shit should go without saying, yet here we are. smdh.

you get what you pay for though? I assume the other ones are much nicer.

[soj]

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[henry flower]

it's ridiculous that i even had to buy a supplement, though. really wish these prep companies would spend a little less $ on marketing and more on improving their product. having ALL available real mbe questions included in the course package should be a given--even lsat companies do this these days. and give us outlines in a format where it's easy to list mbe and state distinctions side by side. don't get lazy and give us separate mbe and state outlines. also, students should be able to choose how much of the Q bank they want to do by topic and how much as a mix of topics. all this shit should go without saying, yet here we are. smdh.

you get what you pay for though? I assume the other ones are much nicer.

ya, i heard other courses are better at teaching distinctions and kaplan allows more freedom in doing mbe by topic/mix. but i heard the big 3 all use fake Qs and don't use all available real Qs, which really is unacceptable.

With the exception of Civil Procedure (which no one has Qs for), aren't the MBE PQs authentic unless they are noted to not be approved by the NCBE? Otherwise, why would they state that any of the Qs aren't approved? Anyways, I have a few BarBri books I found in my building's share-brary and I don't think they are any "better" than the Themis materials. The outlines are more detailed (in general), but that has its disadvantages. And the state-specific materials are similarly cursory.

To me, the thing that is annoying about Themis is that they don't use the "completely online" idea to its fullest degree. Doing everything at your computer screen is tedious and does not mimic real test conditions, but could be worth it if Themis really tailored your prep to your strengths and weaknesses and gave you more tools to track your process, which would be seemingly easy, since they are getting ALL of the data from everything we've done. But Themis has basically just put a plunked a bunch of printed test materials on to their shitty website and left it at that.

[soj]

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[lacrossebrother]

Ya agreed with the shitty website thing. Themis really should buy barmax and adaptibar.

[kgus22]

it's ridiculous that i even had to buy a supplement, though. really wish these prep companies would spend a little less $ on marketing and more on improving their product. having ALL available real mbe questions included in the course package should be a given--even lsat companies do this these days. and give us outlines in a format where it's easy to list mbe and state distinctions side by side. don't get lazy and give us separate mbe and state outlines. also, students should be able to choose how much of the Q bank they want to do by topic and how much as a mix of topics. all this shit should go without saying, yet here we are. smdh.

you get what you pay for though? I assume the other ones are much nicer.

ya, i heard other courses are better at teaching distinctions and kaplan allows more freedom in doing mbe by topic/mix. but i heard the big 3 all use fake Qs and don't use all available real Qs, which really is unacceptable.

With the exception of Civil Procedure (which no one has Qs for), aren't the MBE PQs authentic unless they are noted to not be approved by the NCBE? Otherwise, why would they state that any of the Qs aren't approved? Anyways, I have a few BarBri books I found in my building's share-brary and I don't think they are any "better" than the Themis materials. The outlines are more detailed (in general), but that has its disadvantages. And the state-specific materials are similarly cursory.

To me, the thing that is annoying about Themis is that they don't use the "completely online" idea to its fullest degree. Doing everything at your computer screen is tedious and does not mimic real test conditions, but could be worth it if Themis really tailored your prep to your strengths and weaknesses and gave you more tools to track your process, which would be seemingly easy, since they are getting ALL of the data from everything we've done. But Themis has basically just put a plunked a bunch of printed test materials on to their shitty website and left it at that.

Themis buys all the "real MBE" questions that are released by NCBE. I think they just edit them to make more questions.

[adevine39]

NY taker checking in here. I just found this forum, though I wish I had earlier. I'm working full time, and started a few days later than the suggested May 20 start date, but just caught up to the scheduled pace. I hope I can keep up. There is so. Much. Material.

[collegewriter]

Does anyone know if Themis will "open up" more mbe pqs in the future? It hit me that I only have one more set of some subjects left and that does not seem adequate.

Not sure but there are a ton of mixed MBE sets left so we will still get practice on those. And I think I'm going to shell out for adaptibar

Just looked at the price. No way Jose. I will keep trying to figure out a way to get better. To be fair, Themis is only asking for 50% at the moment.

I'm struggling with the same...I don't want to do my 4th real property question set because it's a weak subject and I'd like to save it for later when I've reviewed more. BUT Themis does offer around 2000 MBE PQs. I guess it's just frustrating to not be able to do as many questions as I want in 1 subject. I don't want to buy adaptibar just to practice weak subjects when Themis offers more MBE questions then I can probably do AND about the same number as adaptibar gives.

Also agree on the shitty website.

[collegewriter]

NY taker checking in here. I just found this forum, though I wish I had earlier. I'm working full time, and started a few days later than the suggested May 20 start date, but just caught up to the scheduled pace. I hope I can keep up. There is so. Much. Material.

Pretty impressive that you are caught up given that you work and you started late!

[skers]

More questions? Yeah, sitting here at only 30% done w/ 5 or so weeks to go until I take the bar, the thing I'm really wishing is I had more stuff to do.

[collegewriter]

More questions? Yeah, sitting here at only 30% done w/ 5 or so weeks to go until I take the bar, the thing I'm really wishing is I had more stuff to do.

Lol yeah I'm around that too but I think what people want (and what I want) is the freedom later on to do practice sets of whatever type of questions you want instead of the proscribed mixed sets. It;s not more questions that we need it's just a better way of accessing them. If you're really good at torts and terrible at property then with 2 weeks to go until the test, you probably want to do a set of property questions every day instead of busting ass to complete a mixed set of 50 with only 5-10 property questions thrown in.

[skers]

More questions? Yeah, sitting here at only 30% done w/ 5 or so weeks to go until I take the bar, the thing I'm really wishing is I had more stuff to do.

Lol yeah I'm around that too but I think what people want (and what I want) is the freedom later on to do practice sets of whatever type of questions you want instead of the proscribed mixed sets. It;s not more questions that we need it's just a better way of accessing them. If you're really good at torts and terrible at property then with 2 weeks to go until the test, you probably want to do a set of property questions every day instead of busting ass to complete a mixed set of 50 with only 5-10 property questions thrown in.

I think barbri does this. I know what I'm getting with themis. And I pretty much only did it for the free ipad I didn't have to pay for.

[collegewriter]

More questions? Yeah, sitting here at only 30% done w/ 5 or so weeks to go until I take the bar, the thing I'm really wishing is I had more stuff to do.

Lol yeah I'm around that too but I think what people want (and what I want) is the freedom later on to do practice sets of whatever type of questions you want instead of the proscribed mixed sets. It;s not more questions that we need it's just a better way of accessing them. If you're really good at torts and terrible at property then with 2 weeks to go until the test, you probably want to do a set of property questions every day instead of busting ass to complete a mixed set of 50 with only 5-10 property questions thrown in.

I think barbri does this. I know what I'm getting with themis. And I pretty much only did it for the free ipad I didn't have to pay for.

Me too hahah free iPad ftw.

[gr8scOtt!]

wait. you guys got a "free" ipad for signing up with themis??

[henry flower]

With the exception of Civil Procedure (which no one has Qs for), aren't the MBE PQs authentic unless they are noted to not be approved by the NCBE? Otherwise, why would they state that any of the Qs aren't approved? Anyways, I have a few BarBri books I found in my building's share-brary and I don't think they are any "better" than the Themis materials. The outlines are more detailed (in general), but that has its disadvantages. And the state-specific materials are similarly cursory.

To me, the thing that is annoying about Themis is that they don't use the "completely online" idea to its fullest degree. Doing everything at your computer screen is tedious and does not mimic real test conditions, but could be worth it if Themis really tailored your prep to your strengths and weaknesses and gave you more tools to track your process, which would be seemingly easy, since they are getting ALL of the data from everything we've done. But Themis has basically just put a plunked a bunch of printed test materials on to their shitty website and left it at that.

i didn't know ncbe approved the fake questions. that makes me feel better about them, though i'd still rather know which are real and which are fake. (is there a way to know while doing the PQs?) and yup, barbri and kaplan have plenty of faults too so i'm not unhappy about my choice among the three. i just wish they were all better.

i'd also like more tailoring based on my progress. give me extra practice on topics (not just subjects) that i'm weak at.

Sorry if I was unclear: NCBE doesn't approve anything that hasn't appeared on some sort of released MBE, I don't think.

I have gotten quite a few Themis MBE PQs where the answer/explanations specifically state that they were modified to fit current NCBE stylistic preferences, and that they are not NCBE-approved, which would seem to suggest that the other questions lacking similar statements ARE NCBE-approved questions from previous MBEs. So my hypothesis is that none of the (non-Civ Pro) Themis questions are "fake" unless it is noted in the explanation.

As far as the number of questions, it will be plenty for me. I'm glad I have the BarBri materials I mentioned, simply because doing questions pencil-and-paper is both refreshing and good prep for exam conditions, but I don't think I would have finished all of the Themis PQs even if they were all I had. Then again, my jurisdiction (Maryland) is weighted 2/3 state-specific essays and only 1/3 MBE, so I'm not placing as much emphasis on getting a high score on the MBE as others (although doing practice MBE questions is a good tool for learning doctrine for the essays, since MBE Qs generally apply law to fact).

Also, in not-closely-related news, READING OUTLINES IS EXHAUSTING. I will be so, so relieved when I'm done with the substantive lectures/outlines.

[zot1]

Another bad essay grade. Am I doomed?

[gr8scOtt!]

Another bad essay grade. Am I doomed?

I hope not, or we'll be doomed together.

I think it's still too early to worry. We have over a month until the bar exam and we are still learning substantive law. So don't let low essay grades right now get you down.