Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2014 Exam Forum

[SilverE2]

Oh sorry I meant for the entire course. Almost panicked there when I saw 62%

Oh haha, completion rate, not score. They sent a message out yesterday to Florida people that we should be "approaching 50%." I'm at 49% right now. Caught up with lectures but a couple of assignments behind.

I'm behind, and I'm trying to determine if I should just continue to do everything in order or what. What is the logic in skipping assignments and just doing the lectures? My advisor suggested this approach as well. In other words, why not just do everything in order? Thanks.

For me? Oh, it wasn't a logical move, it's just something that kind of happened. I fell behind with the assignments but not the lectures, and that's because sometimes I felt like just watching lectures and not doing assignments. I think Themis is maybe afraid that you won't get to all the lectures, and will have information gaps. But if you know for a fact that you'll finish all the lectures by the bar date, with time to practice, then I don't see any reason to do the lectures first.

[Lasers]

i didn't even do the first milestone exam...

i kinda forgot about it. i'm catching up though. i'll probably take it later today. i'm gonna start evidence review today, too.

contracts, evidence, and conlaw suck ass.

[JoeFish]

Editor's Note 2: Professor Geis inadvertently says "M.SALTY" instead of "M.SOUR" as the mnemonic device to remember whether the Statute of Frauds applies to a contract.

That is probably my favorite statement in any of the written materials so far. Not quite up there with Kramer talking about his little daughter, "Fee Simple with Condition Subsequent," but, whatevs

[bport hopeful]

Kramer is the man. And his squirrliness is even greater at 1.5x.

[Apple Tree]

In a lot of the essays (CA), Themis's answers were copied directly from one of the released model answers, so the rule statements might not be right. So anyone copying rule statements from the model answers (like I was doing) should probably copy from the Themis essay handout instead.

[Gopackgo2010]

Redacted

[Genuine4ps]

Anyone buy Lean Sheets yet?

[bport hopeful]

Anyone buy Lean Sheets yet?

I did. I'd say its worth the money as a checklist or quick catchup right before a test, but its not super useful as a study technique. Worth $30 IMO.

[Genuine4ps]

Anyone buy Lean Sheets yet?

I did. I'd say its worth the money as a checklist or quick catchup right before a test, but its not super useful as a study technique. Worth $30 IMO.

Thanks. The reason I'm interested in them is that I want a quick reference for the rules. For example, I'd like to have all Torts lined up with their elements listed. Do you think they would be useful for that? Also, have you found any errors?

[bport hopeful]

Anyone buy Lean Sheets yet?

I did. I'd say its worth the money as a checklist or quick catchup right before a test, but its not super useful as a study technique. Worth $30 IMO.

Thanks. The reason I'm interested in them is that I want a quick reference for the rules. For example, I'd like to have all Torts lined up with their elements listed. Do you think they would be useful for that? Also, have you found any errors?

I havent gone through it fully, but was told about an error like 5 pages back or so

[dreakol]

Anyone buy Lean Sheets yet?

I did. I'd say its worth the money as a checklist or quick catchup right before a test, but its not super useful as a study technique. Worth $30 IMO.

Thanks. The reason I'm interested in them is that I want a quick reference for the rules. For example, I'd like to have all Torts lined up with their elements listed. Do you think they would be useful for that? Also, have you found any errors?

i honestly dont know if they are worth the 30 dollars. depending on time, it might be worth it to make your own 2-3 attack outlines. for some reason, the flow or structure of the outline and abbreviations threw me off.

[kapital98]

Am I the only one that finds consistent 25-30 minute section lectures to be *extremely* annoying? I'm sitting through my NY-specific civ pro lectures and the guy keeps going on about things that he doesn't think will be on the test but wants to cover just in case. It drive me nuts.

Also, it's completely counter to me understanding the subject. I want to memorize a core set of rules. Just throwing a mass of rules at me and hoping things will stick doesn't work. I just end up tuning out the lectures (even the important stuff). /rant

[Tanicius]

Am I the only one that finds consistent 25-30 minute section lectures to be *extremely* annoying? I'm sitting through my NY-specific civ pro lectures and the guy keeps going on about things that he doesn't think will be on the test but wants to cover just in case. It drive me nuts.

Also, it's completely counter to me understanding the subject. I want to memorize a core set of rules. Just throwing a mass of rules at me and hoping things will stick doesn't work. I just end up tuning out the lectures (even the important stuff). /rant

Completely. Much as I like Birdthistle, his corporations lecture goes on for a day.

[puttycake]

Has anyone else also signed up for baressays.com? I've noticed that actual essays that received a 65-70 were nothing special. Additionally, one essay I read that got a 55 literally got every law backwards. I'm wondering whether it has to do with which bar graders happen to grade your essays or if it's not as difficult as Themis makes it out to be. It's probably a bit of both. Last semester I took a bar exam workshop course at my law school, and we were assigned 3 essays that were graded by barbri. The first one I took in class, under timed conditions, barely studied and got a 55. I wanted to try an experiment with the second one, so I did that one at home, open book, ripped off the model answer from the CA bar website for that essay and then spent like 2-3 hours making it even better by using the big outline....I got a 55

I got baressays because frankly I was panicking a bit. Okay, I was panicking a lot. It helped me enormously at setting more realistic standards for what I need to get down and what I don't need to worry about as much.

[puttycake]

Am I the only one that finds consistent 25-30 minute section lectures to be *extremely* annoying? I'm sitting through my NY-specific civ pro lectures and the guy keeps going on about things that he doesn't think will be on the test but wants to cover just in case. It drive me nuts.

Also, it's completely counter to me understanding the subject. I want to memorize a core set of rules. Just throwing a mass of rules at me and hoping things will stick doesn't work. I just end up tuning out the lectures (even the important stuff). /rant

Completely. Much as I like Birdthistle, his corporations lecture goes on for a day.

The first Wills video in California was something like 38 minutes. I nearly cried.

[TooManyLoans]

Anybody else's advisor taking extremely long to grade the essays? My first essay was submitted on-time and it took them 6 days to get back to me, and that was only after I inquired. My second essay was submitted a day late but that was last Monday and still no grade.

[Tanicius]

Anybody else's advisor taking extremely long to grade the essays? My first essay was submitted on-time and it took them 6 days to get back to me, and that was only after I inquired. My second essay was submitted a day late but that was last Monday and still no grade.

Yep, thanks for reminding me. I forgot that I even had an outstanding grade on my practice MPT.

[Gopackgo2010]

Redacted

I got baressays because frankly I was panicking a bit. Okay, I was panicking a lot. It helped me enormously at setting more realistic standards for what I need to get down and what I don't need to worry about as much.[/quote]

[kapital98]

Anybody else's advisor taking extremely long to grade the essays? My first essay was submitted on-time and it took them 6 days to get back to me, and that was only after I inquired. My second essay was submitted a day late but that was last Monday and still no grade.

Complete opposite for me. My advisor is very prompt. For my second graded essay he returned it within 1-2 hours after I submitted it.

[Gopackgo2010]

Who loves hearing video after video "just memorize this", "You have to know these cold", "All you gotta do is memorize this", "make sure you have all these rules memorized"....in other words memorize every single rule in every single subject and then being reminded "well you can't memorize everything.".......Thanks

[jigglypuffdreams]

Who loves hearing video after video "just memorize this", "You have to know these cold", "All you gotta do is memorize this", "make sure you have all these rules memorized"....in other words memorize every single rule in every single subject and then being reminded "well you can't memorize everything.".......Thanks

I'm a big fan of "well you should go read the outline and memorize the list of factors, there's far too many to cover in this lecture." Or they tell you to go through and memorize all the details in the outline and are really vague about it.

[071816]

Anybody else's advisor taking extremely long to grade the essays? My first essay was submitted on-time and it took them 6 days to get back to me, and that was only after I inquired. My second essay was submitted a day late but that was last Monday and still no grade.

Complete opposite for me. My advisor is very prompt. For my second graded essay he returned it within 1-2 hours after I submitted it.

All three of mine have been graded within an hour of me submitting. It surprises me every time.

[Genuine4ps]

Has anyone else also signed up for baressays.com? I've noticed that actual essays that received a 65-70 were nothing special. Additionally, one essay I read that got a 55 literally got every law backwards. I'm wondering whether it has to do with which bar graders happen to grade your essays or if it's not as difficult as Themis makes it out to be. It's probably a bit of both. Last semester I took a bar exam workshop course at my law school, and we were assigned 3 essays that were graded by barbri. The first one I took in class, under timed conditions, barely studied and got a 55. I wanted to try an experiment with the second one, so I did that one at home, open book, ripped off the model answer from the CA bar website for that essay and then spent like 2-3 hours making it even better by using the big outline....I got a 55

I got baressays because frankly I was panicking a bit. Okay, I was panicking a lot. It helped me enormously at setting more realistic standards for what I need to get down and what I don't need to worry about as much.

What kind of frustrates me is how arbitrary graded essays can be. We've all been through law school, so we realize how professors grade differently.

The more I think about the bar, the more realize how stupid the entire process is, especially considering that we graduated from accredited law schools. It's like, "yes, we accredited your law school. Sure, you were admitted to that accredited law school. Sure, you graduated from it. But we don't trust you. Despite graduating from a law school we accredited, you have still not proven you have what it takes to be an attorney. So we're going to have you to tack on a few more thousand onto your loans in bar fees and bar prep fees. You're welcome."

I hate to be cynical, but this process is not about ensuring we have what it takes to be lawyers. People are making a lot of money off it.

rant/

[Prime]

My graded essays have been returned within 1-3 days which is fine for me.

My grader didn't do dissect my Wills & Trusts (3rd) essay though. She merely wrote a paragraph praising my essay (lol) and told me not to spend too much time on a question that has a short fact pattern. Looking back at my answer, I did find redundancies in my response. However, I am worried about the possibility of losing points if I abandon the question.

The joys of bar prep.

[Gopackgo2010]

Who loves hearing video after video "just memorize this", "You have to know these cold", "All you gotta do is memorize this", "make sure you have all these rules memorized"....in other words memorize every single rule in every single subject and then being reminded "well you can't memorize everything.".......Thanks

I'm a big fan of "well you should go read the outline and memorize the list of factors, there's far too many to cover in this lecture." Or they tell you to go through and memorize all the details in the outline and are really vague about it.

My favorite is "This lecture may be all you need, it may only be 10%. I don't really know, it depends, why don't you figure it out"