BarBri Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[myrtlewinston]

Re: Torts Essay 2

Are you all saying that, even if I had read all the Barbri material, I would not have found the relevant law?

I was referring to barbri materials related to torts ONLY!!! I think it should be somewhere in NY practice specific topics, but I was not able to locate it (it was faster just to google it). At least I hope that it should be somewhere in the barbri materials.

I'm referring to the Torts material too. NY Practice is next, so we'd better hear something about gross negligence.

[goldeneye]

How confident should I be that Chemerinsky for Conlaw said that his lecture outline takes topics mentioned on every bar exam since the 60s. Should I stick with learning that or supplement and add from the CMR?

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[jas31]

Anyone know how long it takes Barbri to grade essays? Thanks.

[Kage3212]

How confident should I be that Chemerinsky for Conlaw said that his lecture outline takes topics mentioned on every bar exam since the 60s. Should I stick with learning that or supplement and add from the CMR?

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Aside from the torts discussion percolating here, I think you are safe to rely on the lecture handouts. I think the consensus here is that digging into the CMR to memorize every detailed contained therein may be wasted effort (e.g., people not doing the "prepare" assignments consistently). Doing the lecture handout, plus all the barbri exercises and questions, while possibly supplemented with additional questions (adaptibar; Emmanuels MBE book), should expose you to enough issues to help you get by on test day. Granted, I am in your same shoes studying for the bar, but I find my efforts better spent attempting more practice questions based on my knowledge of the lecture handout, and then gleaning information from missed questions rather than slugging through the entire CMR for each subject.

[Kage3212]

Anyone know how long it takes Barbri to grade essays? Thanks.

A week or less it seems. I submitted my first last Thursday and got it this Wed (6 days).

[5ky]

How confident should I be that Chemerinsky for Conlaw said that his lecture outline takes topics mentioned on every bar exam since the 60s. Should I stick with learning that or supplement and add from the CMR?

bump for new page

Aside from the torts discussion percolating here, I think you are safe to rely on the lecture handouts. I think the consensus here is that digging into the CMR to memorize every detailed contained therein may be wasted effort (e.g., people not doing the "prepare" assignments consistently). Doing the lecture handout, plus all the barbri exercises and questions, while possibly supplemented with additional questions (adaptibar; Emmanuels MBE book), should expose you to enough issues to help you get by on test day. Granted, I am in your same shoes studying for the bar, but I find my efforts better spent attempting more practice questions based on my knowledge of the lecture handout, and then gleaning information from missed questions rather than slugging through the entire CMR for each subject.

If I remember correctly, the connlaw cmr was the only one I used instead of the lecture handout, but I didn't have chem. the cmr for con law was also relatively short.

Either way, you can pass the bar based on lecture handouts alone but doing very very well in MBE required a bit more nuance than the lecture handouts typically provided.

[victortsoi]

so i had to rearrange my week- i listened to all of the ny crim law and crim pro lectures today, and will review/do diagnostics in the morning. Then sunday have a full civ pro day.

I'm kind of freaked out, because, unliek the other subjects save for maybe fed civ pro/nyp, the law seems to be very different whether you are in NY or whether you are on the mbe. What is the most effective way to study for crim law other than rote memorization?

[myrtlewinston]

I'm not sure there's any other way. That's why I've tweaked my schedule. I'm watching the lectures earlier so that the black letter law has time to sink in. Wait till you get to NY Practice!

[victortsoi]

i wonder if i screwed myself...i set aside all of sunday to do civ pro, review, diagnostic, question sets.....then go to nyp the next day.

[Learned Throw Hands]

I'm fucking pissed off I'm 58% done with Conlaw assignments but I'm ranked in the 20% on the MBE questions. I'm only getting 50% of them right I don't understand why I'm too retarded for this to sink in lol.

[victortsoi]

I'm fucking pissed off I'm 58% done with Conlaw assignments but I'm ranked in the 20% on the MBE questions. I'm only getting 50% of them right I don't understand why I'm too retarded for this to sink in lol.

20% out of the ~<10K people doing barbri, i think 50% is not terribly low, and from what I understand you're still passing

[scaliaantics]

I don't understand the barbri essay grading. Using their rubric and grading myself REALLY unfavorably on the open book essay, I calculated that I got a 76. They gave me a 50.

[RaleighStClair]

Doing so badly on the Property MBE questions, you guys. So badly.

[mushybrain]

Doing so badly on the Property MBE questions, you guys. So badly.

Meeeee toooooo

[mushybrain]

Anyone having trouble with videos right now? I can't get the Property MBE Analysis lecture to play. Tried Chrome and Firefox. Shame I can't watch right now........ lol.

[myrtlewinston]

Re: Torts Essay 2

Are you all saying that, even if I had read all the Barbri material, I would not have found the relevant law?

I was referring to barbri materials related to torts ONLY!!! I think it should be somewhere in NY practice specific topics, but I was not able to locate it (it was faster just to google it). At least I hope that it should be somewhere in the barbri materials.

I'm referring to the Torts material too. NY Practice is next, so we'd better hear something about gross negligence.

And...it's mentioned, but not defined. Also, the law of contribution is explained in a much better way than it was by Schechter. Don't ask me why Barbri assigned Torts Essay #2 to us before New York Practice.

[Tabirks]

The Bar Code Cheat Sheets in Action, by Whitney Roberts

[Jay Heizenburg]

The Bar Code Cheat Sheets in Action, by Whitney Roberts

I have a copy for sell. PM me if you're interested.

[ash0117]

Should I be freaking out that I am four days behind my PSP? I was moving and started late, and I literally cannot seem to catch up (I don't want to go through things too fast and not learn them). Will I have time to catch up?

[mr.hands]

Should I be freaking out that I am four days behind my PSP? I was moving and started late, and I literally cannot seem to catch up (I don't want to go through things too fast and not learn them). Will I have time to catch up?

Yeah if you watch the videos at 1.5 speed and catch up on the weekends you'll be fine. We've got 7 weeks to go so there's a ton of time

[stronitsing]

Scaled scores aside - what is a good MBE percentage to aim for? What is a great MBE percentage?

And for essays, and particularly NY, is it recommended that you memorize the rules somewhat verbatim so you can write them out? Or rather just get an idea of the rules then put them in our your words?

[victortsoi]

Scaled scores aside - what is a good MBE percentage to aim for? What is a great MBE percentage?

And for essays, and particularly NY, is it recommended that you memorize the rules somewhat verbatim so you can write them out? Or rather just get an idea of the rules then put them in our your words?

thats something ive been thinking of as well- the overall pass rate is 77 in ny for example, but 83 for graduates of schools. How should we approachthe barbri percentiles? I wonder if the vast majority of barbri students whose scores factor in are students who graduated now.

[stronitsing]

Scaled scores aside - what is a good MBE percentage to aim for? What is a great MBE percentage?

And for essays, and particularly NY, is it recommended that you memorize the rules somewhat verbatim so you can write them out? Or rather just get an idea of the rules then put them in our your words?

thats something ive been thinking of as well- the overall pass rate is 77 in ny for example, but 83 for graduates of schools. How should we approachthe barbri percentiles? I wonder if the vast majority of barbri students whose scores factor in are students who graduated now.

what do you mean by pass rate? Edit: you mean on the entire exam - gotcha

[mushybrain]

Do you guys find these essay writing approach lectures useful? Because I really don't. It basically feels like "study stuff, know the important stuff, answer the question being asked." The accompanying outlines feel way too brief to be useful, and it's not like they seem to highlight things I couldn't have guessed I needed to know. When it's "if X, make sure you address Y and Z" it's just the elements of the rule, so obviously I need to address them.

[jas31]

Do you guys find these essay writing approach lectures useful? Because I really don't. It basically feels like "study stuff, know the important stuff, answer the question being asked." The accompanying outlines feel way too brief to be useful, and it's not like they seem to highlight things I couldn't have guessed I needed to know.

On the essays for Barbri, I'm completely frustrated. First, the graded essay was completely unhelpful, even wrong. Some of the advice was contradictory to our state specific instruction on the essays. Second, if you're in a state like VA where the MBE is only 40 % of the overall assessment, then self-grading essays isn't very helpful. I simply do not know what is even in the ballpark of a decent essay, considering the sample answers are often ridiculously on point. I do not know if my off-the-mark essay, that is well-organized and applies a different rule gets me anywhere close to a passing score.

It seems like again and again, Barbri gives us a set of rules to study (in the short outlines for class, for example) and then when you get to the essay for that topic, those rules are not very helpful or not heavily tested. I'd like to hear from someone who used Barbri to approach a bar exam with lots of Essay (like Virginia).