Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2014 Exam Forum

[Tanicius]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

[bedefan]

Im guessing D would be right if it were accurate, but they didn't ONLY have PC for a non jailable offense, they had PC the unrelated crime as well.

They had only reasonable suspicion for trespass, and PC for the non-jailable offense only. Reasonable suspicion isn't enough for an arrest, only a Terry stop... right?

[bport hopeful]

Im guessing D would be right if it were accurate, but they didn't ONLY have PC for a non jailable offense, they had PC the unrelated crime as well.

They had only reasonable suspicion for trespass, and PC for the non-jailable offense only. Reasonable suspicion isn't enough for an arrest, only a Terry stop... right?

I think they must have PC, even though the officers personally believed that they only had RS. Dude was on property that didn't belong to him w/o purpose. They see that, hes trespassing. I guess. Dumb/difficult question.

If I'm right (im probably not right), they really screw you by telling you the officers were basing the arrest on RS

[Tanicius]

Im guessing D would be right if it were accurate, but they didn't ONLY have PC for a non jailable offense, they had PC the unrelated crime as well.

They had only reasonable suspicion for trespass, and PC for the non-jailable offense only. Reasonable suspicion isn't enough for an arrest, only a Terry stop... right?

I think they must have PC, even though the officers personally believed that they only had RS. Dude was on property that didn't belong to him w/o purpose. They see that, hes trespassing. I guess. Dumb/difficult question.

That kind of shit ain't okay though. Like the #1 skill we're being tested on is our ability to read carefully, and it's not fair to ask us to infer that the statement "they had reasonable suspicion" should be interpreted as wrong. We can't use assumptions that contradict the actual fact pattern to reach our answers. You can just imagine the bland reasoning the author would use for why that would be the wrong call: "B is incorrect because the standard for arrest is probable cause, not reasonable suspicion."

It's my biggest problem with the test. They aren't consistent in what they're looking for. Do they want us to apply our outside knowledge to a fact pattern or not? Sometimes you get it right for doing that and the answer explanation says "lol what we said in the facts is clearly wrong," other times you get it wrong for doing that, and the explanation is "lol ur stupid can't you read our questions completely?" Being consistent on what you're expected to follow, accept and discard in the question is such a simple rule for fair, standardized tests and they refuse to follow it.

Really need to just shut up and get over this. Watch my "Reform the bar exam!" passion dwindle when the test is over.

[kapital98]

That kind of shit ain't okay though. Like the #1 skill we're being tested on is our ability to read carefully, and it's not fair to ask us to infer that the statement "they had reasonable suspicion" should be interpreted as wrong. We can't use assumptions that contradict the actual fact pattern to reach our answers. You can just imagine the bland reasoning the author would use for why that would be the wrong call: "B is incorrect because the standard for arrest is probable cause, not reasonable suspicion."

It's my biggest problem with the test. They aren't consistent in what they're looking for. Do they want us to apply our outside knowledge to a fact pattern or not? Sometimes you get it right for doing that and the answer explanation says "lol what we said in the facts is clearly wrong," other times you get it wrong for doing that, and the explanation is "lol ur stupid can't you read our questions completely?" Being consistent on what you're expected to follow, accept and discard in the question is such a simple rule for fair, standardized tests and they refuse to follow it.

Really need to just shut up and get over this. Watch my "Reform the bar exam!" passion dwindle when the test is over.

RAGE MODE

[kapital98]

I'm 25 and my passion for reforming the age to drink alcohol has diminished. It's been almost 4 years since I've taken the LSAT and my rage has somewhat subsisted over that. I imagine in 4 years I won't care much about bar reform. Right now, it's pretty damn important.

[Bigbub75]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

I agree with this 100%. I get so frustrated when I get a question wrong and I know the law cold. But 90% of the time these are "gotcha" questions, and I feel like their sole purpose was to try and trip us up. Hopefully the questions on test day are better, because many of Themis' questions seem purposefully designed to trick us, not test our knowledge of law, elements, rules, etc.

[Tanicius]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

I agree with this 100%. I get so frustrated when I get a question wrong and I know the law cold. But 90% of the time these are "gotcha" questions, and I feel like their sole purpose was to try and trip us up. Hopefully the questions on test day are better, because many of Themis' questions seem purposefully designed to trick us, not test our knowledge of law, elements, rules, etc.

The problem with asking a ton of trick questions on the practice questions is that it doesn't actually prepare us for a lot of the substantive questions. I remember this happened on the MPRE quite vividly. Got to the real test, and while I think it had fewer trick questions, so many of the questions just seemed to come completely out of nowhere because they concerned legal minutia not covered before.

[Prime]

64 in the morning 59 in the afternoon. I missed a huge chunk between questions 126-150

[numbertwo88]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

What gets me is I'm 99.97% sure some attorneys who took the bar say ... decades ago would fail this damn exam today. I don't realistically see what I'm supposed to get out of cramming all of this information that'll likely sink out of my mind within the next several months.

[numbertwo88]

For those of you who took the simulated MBE today, did any of you finish with time to spare?

[j1987]

bobanderson wrote:
For those who took the simulated MBE today, how did you do? I'm feeling pretty discouraged about my score.



Pleasantly surprised with a 140/200.


Nice score! If you keep that up you should bass the bar without any significant difficulties.

I only did the AM session, but I got a 77 out of 100.. so I don't know if I should be happy or be weary about being lulled into a false sense of security.

If I am taking NY/NJ.. what am I aiming for on the MBE? I should know this, but I don't.. and I don't feel like going back through Themis materials to figure it out.

[bobanderson]

For those of you who took the simulated MBE today, did any of you finish with time to spare?

I finished both around 2 hours and forced myself to go back and re-check some of my answers. Of course the ones I changed I ended up getting wrong, so I should probably not go back and check on the real exam.

[Lasers]

I'm 25 and my passion for reforming the age to drink alcohol has diminished. It's been almost 4 years since I've taken the LSAT and my rage has somewhat subsisted over that. I imagine in 4 years I won't care much about bar reform. Right now, it's pretty damn important.

yep. this is how it will go.

also, bitter people tend to want others to suffer similarly.

[whirledpeas86]

64 in the morning 59 in the afternoon. I missed a huge chunk between questions 126-150

Yeah, 67 in the mornjng and 60 in the afternoon. I missed all of the questions from 131 to 138. I either need to get good enough to completely kill it in the morning session when I'm fresh, or work on my stamina. I think the first option is more doable than the second.

[puttycake]

Van Camp AND Pereira can both kiss my ass.

[Tanicius]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

What gets me is I'm 99.97% sure some attorneys who took the bar say ... decades ago would fail this damn exam today. I don't realistically see what I'm supposed to get out of cramming all of this information that'll likely sink out of my mind within the next several months.

It's not even funny how badly even ultra successful and sharp attorneys would fail the bar exam if they didn't have an opportunity to study for it.

Which is why, as I've wailed and moaned before, the bar exam is clearly not about providing a floor for minimum competence, but is instead rather about giving the bar associations and their attorney membership an arbitrary line in the stand to limit their field of competition. It's nothing but an expensive hazing ritual.

[blue920]

I feel like I've done a million practice essays and yet am only at 38% completion for that portion of the course - how is that possible?

I know there's been a lot of complaints about the number of essays here, but I actually find them to be yet another way of picking out little distinctions that I gloss over but seem to come up a lot on multiple choice/essay questions - particularly NY distinctions. And understanding what the question is actually asking. One question asked something about timeliness of the action, and I went into the elements of the action and totally missed that they just wanted the statute of limitations.

And (whining a little bit here) I got sick with 3 weeks left until the bar! Once I get better, frequent hand washing and all sick people better stay far away from me. This sucks - my productivity this week has gone way down.

[colonial108]

The whole idea of a lot of these MBE seems to defeat the purpose of the bar exam. A lot of these questions come down to super similar reasoning and nitpicking that really shouldn't be the focus of the question. It's one thing if you throw in a few toughies here and there, but so many of the questions have answers that are only barely different, you're kind of shooting in the foot your ability to weed out the people who don't know the law. You end up with people passing the bar exam even though they conceivably only get 50% of the questions correct, when you could ask questions with much simpler answer selections and probably have a much better idea of what a failing performance looks like.

I agree with this 100%. I get so frustrated when I get a question wrong and I know the law cold. But 90% of the time these are "gotcha" questions, and I feel like their sole purpose was to try and trip us up. Hopefully the questions on test day are better, because many of Themis' questions seem purposefully designed to trick us, not test our knowledge of law, elements, rules, etc.

The problem with asking a ton of trick questions on the practice questions is that it doesn't actually prepare us for a lot of the substantive questions. I remember this happened on the MPRE quite vividly. Got to the real test, and while I think it had fewer trick questions, so many of the questions just seemed to come completely out of nowhere because they concerned legal minutia not covered before.

Actually the Themis questions are real similar to the actual MBE questions. One thing I seem remember from the actual exam is that the distractor answers were easier to eliminate than on the Themis practice questions. The questions still sucked, though. Trust me.

[Lasers]

what's the difference between a resulting trust and a constructive trust? is it just that a constructive trust has to to do with fraud/wrongfulness?

why the fuck do we have two terms...why not just make one fucking equitable trust that prevents unjust enrichment in all cases?

[84Sunbird2000]

Ugh. This practice MBE activated full on text anxiety mode for me. I hope I can tamp it back down for the next 20 days.

I did really well in spots, but not super comfortable with it overall. 73 morning, 68 afternoon (though I fucked up marking something in questions 190-192 and didn't really correct it clearly on the sheet, so arguably a 66). However, I was 26/50 for questions 101-150, which is terrible. I only had 11/25 right from 126-150. It seems like everybody screwed up that section, doesn't it?

Also, how much time were people finishing with? I had about 1 minute to go both sessions. I feel like I need more of a buffer for the real exam. I know they say to abandon ship if a question is taking too long, but dammit I'm going to answer those useless 5 paragraph property questions if it kills me. Or at least that's my compulsion.

All I'm trying to do now is calm back down *Ohmmmm*.

[Lasers]

Ugh. This practice MBE activated full on text anxiety mode for me. I hope I can tamp it back down for the next 20 days.

I did really well in spots, but not super comfortable with it overall. 73 morning, 68 afternoon (though I fucked up marking something in questions 190-192 and didn't really correct it clearly on the sheet, so arguably a 66). However, I was 26/50 for questions 101-150, which is terrible. I only had 11/25 right from 126-150. It seems like everybody screwed up that section, doesn't it?

Also, how much time were people finishing with? I had about 1 minute to go both sessions. I feel like I need more of a buffer for the real exam. I know they say to abandon ship if a question is taking too long, but dammit I'm going to answer those useless 5 paragraph property questions if it kills me. Or at least that's my compulsion.

All I'm trying to do now is calm back down *Ohmmmm*.

isn't 73/68 good?

[84Sunbird2000]

isn't 73/68 good?

Maybe? It seems good compared to the national average on Themis, I guess, but not enough for me to feel like I couldn't still screw up on the real thing.

[northwood]

Ugh. This practice MBE activated full on text anxiety mode for me. I hope I can tamp it back down for the next 20 days.

I did really well in spots, but not super comfortable with it overall. 73 morning, 68 afternoon (though I fucked up marking something in questions 190-192 and didn't really correct it clearly on the sheet, so arguably a 66). However, I was 26/50 for questions 101-150, which is terrible. I only had 11/25 right from 126-150. It seems like everybody screwed up that section, doesn't it?

Also, how much time were people finishing with? I had about 1 minute to go both sessions. I feel like I need more of a buffer for the real exam. I know they say to abandon ship if a question is taking too long, but dammit I'm going to answer those useless 5 paragraph property questions if it kills me. Or at least that's my compulsion.

All I'm trying to do now is calm back down *Ohmmmm*.

isn't 73/68 good?

my maths is telling me that its a 141 raw

remember your score on the bar exam doesn't count for your GPA... this sucker is P/F...

[kapital98]

For those wondering where a good MBE score is, here are a couple benchmarks provided by Seperac:

http://www.seperac.com/calc-matrix-f14.php

http://www.seperac.com/calc-bar-f08.php

NY has the MBE count for 40% of the test.

The mean scaled score was 143.6.

Getting 100 raw questions (52.6%) will give you a scaled score of 123. Getting 120 raw questions right (63.2%) will give you a scaled score of 138.1. Getting 130 raw questions right (68.4%) will give you a scaled score of 145.6.

Take away: Get a little more than 65% of the questions correct and you'll be right around median. Get below 60% and you start running into some serious problems. You leave your fate up to the whims of subjective grading.

Edit: Keep in mind that 20% of people in NY fail the exam. So staying around median is pretty good insurance against poor grading on subjective essays.