MA Essays Forum

[Sps2016]

I just wanted to offer some encouragement. I failed out of my first year of law school. During my first year, I found out i was pregnant in august and had my son in February. I had 2 fight to be re-admitted. I eventually graduated and took the July bar. I failed and had to re-take it this February. No matter what anybody tells you, failing this exam is nothing but an obstacle that CAN be overcome! To everyone that failed, kill that sh*t whenever you decide to re-take! And a special note to any parents...children are NOT a hindrance but encouragement. I wish you all the best of luck for the next exam you take and in your future careers.

[jujujohn]

To those who have passed the exam just now. Did everyone also get a request for an in person interview with your score report?

Or is it just my character and fitness seemed suspicious to the committee?

Thanks.

When does this charade of a bar exam ever gonna end.

[Ohmygahh]

To those who have passed the exam just now. Did everyone also get a request for an in person interview with your score report?

Or is it just my character and fitness seemed suspicious to the committee?

Thanks.

When does this charade of a bar exam ever gonna end.

No, no in person interview. Mine just talks about a notice to appear for the admission ceremony which I should get in a few days.

[Kalani111]

I just wanted to offer some encouragement. I failed out of my first year of law school. During my first year, I found out i was pregnant in august and had my son in February. I had 2 fight to be re-admitted. I eventually graduated and took the July bar. I failed and had to re-take it this February. No matter what anybody tells you, failing this exam is nothing but an obstacle that CAN be overcome! To everyone that failed, kill that sh*t whenever you decide to re-take! And a special note to any parents...children are NOT a hindrance but encouragement. I wish you all the best of luck for the next exam you take and in your future careers.

Awesome story SPS, very inspirational. Felicitations on your success

[kamitchell17]

To those who have passed the exam just now. Did everyone also get a request for an in person interview with your score report?

Or is it just my character and fitness seemed suspicious to the committee?

Thanks.

When does this charade of a bar exam ever gonna end.

I did not get a request for an in person interview, either... Good luck!

[kimchi2016]

passed the exam, got the scores on Monday. Had I known the passing rate this time around is only 50.7% (what ever happened to passachusetts?!), I would have bet my left nut that I failed again, but yet here I am . This is not a post to glow, nor is this a vain attempt to be condescending. Rather, allow me to share my (probably unusual) approach to the test. And as numerous people said many times, this is a test and it is not an indication of how you will perform as an attorney. And allow me to add that, this test is dumb, it is a hazing. And the test can be gamed, especially the essay portion. though be advised, I approached the exam this way this time around cause I was a repeater, meaning, i knew the fundamentals of the law (e.g., negligence is a breach of duty causing harm, etc.) but by no means my understanding of the law is a solid one, I am sure most repeaters have spend enough time the first time around on the fundamentals, cause for reals, we were all scared the first time around and invested a decent amount of time into it I presume. Anyhow -

1. saved your notes, outlines, barbrie books from your last exam? great! trash them all. b/c every minute you spend reading them are minutes you have wasted not practicing real questions. I have zero affiliation with AdaptiBar, but I found that to be extremely helpful with the MBEs. Afraid that you don't know enough of the fundamentals and you'd be wasting real MBE questions? don't be. the amount of questions AdaptiBar have will help you learn more about the subjects than your outlines/notes/barbrie books ever will. At the beginning it will be hard. 20, 25 questions a day will exhaust you (that's how bad I was at the beginning, I felt like I didn't know shit, and I probably didn't) It got easier after 600+ questions. Not only that I got better with the subjects, but doing real MBEs enabled me to recognize patterns within the questions. I began to able to quickly eliminate at least 2 wrong choices, and sometimes guess the right answer even though I was clueless about the question.

now adaptibar has 2000? questions I think. I planned on doing them all and then review the ones I got wronged on and then quickly read them all again....... well I didn't. I only had time to do maybe 1200 question and didn't go over any of the wronged ones. but I passed, so who cares rite.

2. The essays - didn't study. well I did, for half of a day. but before you called me a condescending a-hole, let me explain. last time I failed the exam, I ask for my answers back. And I was shocked. there were questions I carefully outlined for, spend major times on, and got 1s in the end. freaking 1s. I don't think MASS gives out 0s on the essays, or do they? 1 is like you putting down a sentence and they give you a 1. wtf. and those weren't terrible answers. they were two and half pages long and I knew the issues, you will just have to trust me on that one, I really did understood the issues, understood them well enuf to get more than a 1 anyway! the only reason I can think of is that I wrote too much. So much so, a grader riding the green-line got pissed cause now he had to spent more than 15 seconds to read my answers. To further prove my theory, there were questions toward the end of the exam, for which I barely had a skeleton of an answer because I ran out of time on those I received only 1s on, and I received at least 3s. those are answers which had like 6 incoherent sentences listing the issues, and 3s! had I received 3s on these 1s, I would've passed (according to my own estimate). And the way I figured, if I could score at least a 3 on each question, I'd be ok. Now that doesn't mean an average of 3 will get me a pass, but I could manage 3 being the minimum because my essay scores were all over the place, with at least one 7. How I got the 7, I don't know. And I also got 5 and 6s too, and of course the 1s also. But if I could just eliminated the 1s, I thought I could've scored enough points to pass the exam.

And I figured 3s wouldn't be hard to score. I only had to start the question correctly, with crap like "this problem relates to torts and is governed by Mass tort laws", that's 1 point right there. then make sure I hit all the relevant facts, apply some sort of analysis to the facts,and end with a conclusion, either right or wrong, give a conclusion. any high school graduate can do that rite? And then here is the kicker, I didn't know the state subjects. Will&Trust? BSed it. 93A? BSed it. Secured Transactions? BSed it. but like I said above, 3s should be the minimum one will get simply by BSing.

anyways, on the test, I spent a few minutes reading the fact pattern, marked the facts, and then went straight to typing. Corrected myself along the way with the facts. and this time, my timing was almost right, meaning, 36 minutes per question. and the end result, a 12pt improvement on the essays alone.

so the conclusion being, if you were a repeater, chances are, you already knew the material well enough, you can pass the exam, no doubt.

[repeaterx3ma]

Hi Everyone! I always look at this message board to see what others have to say about the exam (this was my 3rd time taking it) but I never made a name. I wanted to share my story for future readers, as I always liked to read these sort of things myself when I failed. Finally, I passed!

First of all, I had NO business passing this time- I was by far the most well studied and prepared my second attempt, but I failed by 7 points! The first time I had failed miserably but I did not prepare as I should have because I had a lot going on leading up to the exam...but when I failed the first time I felt so awful and I was so determined to pass the 2nd time, but guess what!? I didn't! I was very very discouraged but- I was again unable to finish the exam (the mbe by 10ish questions per session for 20 overall that I just filled in "C"). This put me at an extreme disadvantage. I started teaching myself to speed read by reading a few books for pleasure but at a fast pace. This seriously helped. It was like conditioning for my brain. I would also sort of make myself outline the chapter when I was done- just so I wasn't reading super fast and not retaining. When it came time to study the third time I was able to accomplish many more practice questions in a day than before.

This go around (Feb 2016) was much like the first time I took the exam I had ALOT going on. I got married, got pregnant, and went on my honeymoon! All while I was supposed to be studying. I studied, but not nearly as much as my last attempt. I redid Barbri because it was free, I only used the mini conviser and one of the exams in the back of the MBE book bc I literally had exhausted all of the other questions in past tests, and I found myself remembering. In walks my savior- ADAPTIBAR!!!! Upping my reading speed and Adaptibar are why I passed the exam this time. My last MBE score was a 126...this go around I scored 145! I recognized many many similar problems on the actual test and felt that the subject matter within the subject that AB focused on was so on point for the actual exam. Adaptibar is cheap! Like 300.00. Get it! So convenient to use too bc it's online and grades them for you then tells you your weak areas.

Finally my key to success this time was I had far less to lose. This test stresses us out so much! Don't get me wrong- I get why- the loans, the inability to get a job, the having to tell your friends and family you failed....but guess what? If you graduated law school you CAN and WILL pass this test. This test is unlike anything you've ever taken before. Law school exams test one subject at a time. I did very well in law school! And here I am, a 3 time repeater. I approached this past exam like it was a fight. I was prepared because guess what? You don't forget the studying you did the first time or the second, especially when the bar exam has been your life for over a year! The knowledge is cumulative. Also I told myself- if I fail again its not the end of the world...I will regroup (take a break) and try again next February. This allowed me to for the first time to sleep the night before the exam which NEVER happened in the past. This was also essential to me passing. You prob noticed I didn't talk about the Essays..that bc I barely prepared for them, and guess what my score was- a 137! I remembered secured trans. and commercial papers from the first time I took the exam. They hadn't tested it in the other examinations I had taken so I thought they were doing away with it, but you know what? My knowledge was cumulative. It's all building- don't let anyone tell you any different! Focus on the MBE if you get avg or slightly below avg essays scores (which I always did, even with very little understanding of the local law bc I focused on MBE subs) you will pass if your MBE is 140 or above. My tutor has never seen a person with a failing grade with an MBE 140 or above.

Moral of my story is whether you're taking it for the second or fifth time YOU CAN DO THIS! People far less prepared than you pass all the time. It's mostly good prepping, pace, sleep, and lots of luck. Yes it sucks to fail but this is just a page in your story. When you pass you will feel you are ready for anything life throws you- because you are! Good Luck All!

[kbr1018]

Hi Everybody! I just recently came across this forum. I sat for the MA February Bar Exam and unfortunately failed by 5 points. I will be re-taking the exam in July. Any tips on how much studying time to put in for a second time taker? For February, I studied anywhere from 8-14 hours daily for the two months leading up to the exam. I took a bar review course at my school in the fall and took Themis. However, I will need to return to work full-time in the next couple of weeks so I will be unable to put that kind of study time in this time around. I know that everybody learns differently, but I am curious what has worked/or not worked for other repeat takers?

[ReachTheBar79]

Hi Everybody! I just recently came across this forum. I sat for the MA February Bar Exam and unfortunately failed by 5 points. I will be re-taking the exam in July. Any tips on how much studying time to put in for a second time taker? For February, I studied anywhere from 8-14 hours daily for the two months leading up to the exam. I took a bar review course at my school in the fall and took Themis. However, I will need to return to work full-time in the next couple of weeks so I will be unable to put that kind of study time in this time around. I know that everybody learns differently, but I am curious what has worked/or not worked for other repeat takers?

What did you do to study? What materials?

[kbr1018]

Hi Everybody! I just recently came across this forum. I sat for the MA February Bar Exam and unfortunately failed by 5 points. I will be re-taking the exam in July. Any tips on how much studying time to put in for a second time taker? For February, I studied anywhere from 8-14 hours daily for the two months leading up to the exam. I took a bar review course at my school in the fall and took Themis. However, I will need to return to work full-time in the next couple of weeks so I will be unable to put that kind of study time in this time around. I know that everybody learns differently, but I am curious what has worked/or not worked for other repeat takers?

What did you do to study? What materials?

I primarily studied from the outlines and practice questions from Themis. I completed around 1800 practice MBE questions and about 60 practice essay questions. Although I felt that Themis was a great bar prep program, this time around I'm gonna stay away from the videos...looking back I felt that they were such a waste of time.

I started my bar prep for July on Monday and so far I have read through my outlines. I started incorporating MBE practice questions yesterday and have been scoring 68-70% correct. Today I will be starting to incorporate essay questions back into my routine. I feel like I'm starting to remember a lot, so I think I'm going to stick with just studying from my outlines and practice questions going forward.

[shippy1988]

Hey, aside from the statement from the SJC, is there any indication about the Access to Justice essays? Anyone have any tips about how to go about attacking that issue?

Thanks!

[mjp02002]

I would also be interested if anyone has any insight into the access to justice exam topic. Does anyone have any "stars" or "highlights" from the testing prep courses? Most of the topics seem to be subsumed by existing subjects, so I would just expect the "access to justice" topic will be a combination from a few different subjects that are in theme. I greatly appreciate any insight anyone can add to this!