Themis Bar Review Hangout - July 2014 Exam Forum

[5ky]

Man did I bomb the MBE. It's hard to describe how bad I did. I only knew like 10% of the questions. 80% of the questions were like "it's got to be one of these two" and the rest of the questions were like "daf fuk!??!"

I had no idea how well I did on my pratice tests while taking them (pretty good in the end). But at least with them there is instant feedback. Now I'm stuck in a 4 month limbo having no idea if I did well on the MBE to pass.

The second half, I seriously believe I failed, like sub 60% easy. That was the hardest MBE I've taken by a mile.

It actually was not, and when you get your score back, you will be totally surprised. I advise everybody to read through old bar threads from last year, because this exact thig happened, but unsurprisingly turned out fine.

It only feels harder in the moment, not being able to grade immediately, and only remembering the tricky ones.

If you had to wait months after taking a 20 question practice set, you'd probably only feel confident on like 4 of them.

[notedgarfigaro]

Man did I bomb the MBE. It's hard to describe how bad I did. I only knew like 10% of the questions. 80% of the questions were like "it's got to be one of these two" and the rest of the questions were like "daf fuk!??!"

I had no idea how well I did on my pratice tests while taking them (pretty good in the end). But at least with them there is instant feedback. Now I'm stuck in a 4 month limbo having no idea if I did well on the MBE to pass.

The second half, I seriously believe I failed, like sub 60% easy. That was the hardest MBE I've taken by a mile.

There was a significant bump in difficulty in the PM...I swear a couple of the ?s were just random gibberish.

[VermiciousKnid]

Man did I bomb the MBE. It's hard to describe how bad I did. I only knew like 10% of the questions. 80% of the questions were like "it's got to be one of these two" and the rest of the questions were like "daf fuk!??!"

I had no idea how well I did on my pratice tests while taking them (pretty good in the end). But at least with them there is instant feedback. Now I'm stuck in a 4 month limbo having no idea if I did well on the MBE to pass.

The second half, I seriously believe I failed, like sub 60% easy. That was the hardest MBE I've taken by a mile.

There was a significant bump in difficulty in the PM...I swear a couple of the ?s were just random gibberish.

I agree that afternoon seemed way harder. I felt good after the morning session and then about a 3rd of the way through afternoon I didn't even know what i was reading. I felt like there were multiple questions on topics that I have never even seen a question about before.

[Tanicius]

Man did I bomb the MBE. It's hard to describe how bad I did. I only knew like 10% of the questions. 80% of the questions were like "it's got to be one of these two" and the rest of the questions were like "daf fuk!??!"

I had no idea how well I did on my pratice tests while taking them (pretty good in the end). But at least with them there is instant feedback. Now I'm stuck in a 4 month limbo having no idea if I did well on the MBE to pass.

The second half, I seriously believe I failed, like sub 60% easy. That was the hardest MBE I've taken by a mile.

There was a significant bump in difficulty in the PM...I swear a couple of the ?s were just random gibberish.

Really. The last set had so many legit unanswerable questions.

[kapital98]

The only questions I liked where the obvious civ pro ones. There were like 2 or 3 of them. After I read the hypo I was jumping up and down inside

[DELG]

Man did I bomb the MBE. It's hard to describe how bad I did. I only knew like 10% of the questions. 80% of the questions were like "it's got to be one of these two" and the rest of the questions were like "daf fuk!??!"

I had no idea how well I did on my pratice tests while taking them (pretty good in the end). But at least with them there is instant feedback. Now I'm stuck in a 4 month limbo having no idea if I did well on the MBE to pass.

The second half, I seriously believe I failed, like sub 60% easy. That was the hardest MBE I've taken by a mile.

It actually was not, and when you get your score back, you will be totally surprised. I advise everybody to read through old bar threads from last year, because this exact thig happened, but unsurprisingly turned out fine.

It only feels harder in the moment, not being able to grade immediately, and only remembering the tricky ones.

If you had to wait months after taking a 20 question practice set, you'd probably only feel confident on like 4 of them.

As someone who took both, this was truly a horror show.

[kapital98]

As someone who took both, this was truly a horror show.

Oh, fuck. Bad law students make good paralegals, right? RIGHT!?!?!

P.S. Anyone have links to the old threads?

[bport hopeful]

That was truly brutal. I was in blackout mode, but it didn't seem to resemble practice sections.

[numbertwo88]

Convinced they were testing footnotes.

[bport hopeful]

Convinced they were testing footnotes.

Same thought. Less broad law tested.

[legalmindedfella]

That MBE in the afternoon was unbelievably rough. Wow.

[bport hopeful]

So I had to manual upload. Would they send me a confirmation if I had messed it up some how? After that test, I have little faith in myself

[JJ556]

That MBE in the afternoon was unbelievably rough. Wow.

Ridiculously hard. I was confident in roughly five of my answers.

[TooManyLoans]

The only questions I liked where the obvious civ pro ones. There were like 2 or 3 of them. After I read the hypo I was jumping up and down inside

Wait so those were actually civ. pro questions right which means they are part of the 10 experimental? I'm so confused.

[84Sunbird2000]

That MBE in the afternoon was unbelievably rough. Wow.

Ridiculously hard. I was confident in roughly five of my answers.

I didn't think it was ridiculously hard, but it was probably slightly harder than even the hardest sets for Themis. Which is kindof amazing considering that the morning wasn't that bad at all.

[huntington]

Personally thought the afternoon was way easier than the morning, but both sucked.

[schweitziro]

Man. The MBE was insanely hard.

[kapital98]

The only questions I liked where the obvious civ pro ones. There were like 2 or 3 of them. After I read the hypo I was jumping up and down inside

Wait so those were actually civ. pro questions right which means they are part of the 10 experimental? I'm so confused.

The questions explicitly talked about jurisdiction and something similar to the Eire doctrine. If those weren't civ pro questions then they were *really* complex con law questions.

Civ pro is being tested on the next bar exam so it isn't surprising they would throw in some experimentals on this exam.

[Tarponbeach]

What really got me was the absence of many important facts in a lot of the questions. This MBE totally sucked.

[Lilly76]

I thought the second part was harder, too. I had to fight fatigue about half way through the PM. I didn't do the simulated exam, so I'd never taken more than 50 questions straight. I feel like I aced the first half, but the PM not so much. Hopefully I did well enough to make up for my lackluster essay performance yesterday. I still gotta take NJ essays tomorrow and I'm hoping to do better on their essays. I got killed by the mortgage questions in the PM and I'm usually good at mortgage stuff. I don't know what happened.

[numbertwo88]

What really got me was the absence of many important facts in a lot of the questions. This MBE totally sucked.

This annoyed me too - like I'd narrow it down to 2 and then I just wouldn't know what to do given the spare facts so I'd either go with the longer answer or the answer with more specificity or the more generic answer. I was really letting Jesus take the wheel because I literally had no clue and process of elimination wasn't working.

I am also AMAZED at the people who left the MBE after 2 hours in the afternoon or just before 2 hours. I don't know what they're smoking or on, but I'd like to know what it was. They need to get rid of the early leaving policy; it's distracting seeing a flow of people leave and hearing them rustle with their shit to leave the exam room and hearing the doors open and close constantly.

[puttycake]

I'm nervous that so many people thought the PM session was harder. I thought it was much more straightforward. Does everyone get them in the same order?

[jigglypuffdreams]

Yeah, I did every single Themis MBE question available and did some random NCBE released ones too... definitely was much harder than anything I looked at before. Had a fair amount of educated guess moments and some I felt okay on, but I finished with 15 minutes to spare each session. (I always finished wayyyy too early during practice sessions so at least my pacing is down ) But my Kaplan friends and BarBri friends all felt the same way, including one of my friends who finished 95% of BarBri. Sooooo at least we're all in the same boat.\

Also there were people leaving like an hour early each session at my thing. Idk where they were trying to get to.

[kapital98]

I am also AMAZED at the people who left the MBE after 2 hours in the afternoon or just before 2 hours. I don't know what they're smoking or on, but I'd like to know what it was. They need to get rid of the early leaving policy; it's distracting seeing a flow of people leave and hearing them rustle with their shit to leave the exam room and hearing the doors open and close constantly.

I did that. 2.5 hours on the first part. A little over 2 hours on the second part. I can't help myself. I give the best answer I can on each question, don't rush myself on any of the questions, and still have plenty of time. I'm a very fast and accurate reader. Plus, if you leave early you don't have to deal with the droves of people that all leave at the same time. Yesterday was logistical hell. Today was smooth sailing.

The 15 minute policy is in place to avoid what you are talking about. I can just imagine a bunch of people living in the last crucial minutes of an exam when people are trying to crunch.

[Tarponbeach]

Yeah, I did every single Themis MBE question available and did some random NCBE released ones too... definitely was much harder than anything I looked at before. Had a fair amount of educated guess moments and some I felt okay on, but I finished with 15 minutes to spare each session. (I always finished wayyyy too early during practice sessions so at least my pacing is down ) But my Kaplan friends and BarBri friends all felt the same way, including one of my friends who finished 95% of BarBri. Sooooo at least we're all in the same boat.\

Also there were people leaving like an hour early each session at my thing. Idk where they were trying to get to.

I did about 1,200 practice MBE questions (Themis, BarPrephero, and Adaptibar). Averaged 75%. None of the MBE questions today remotely resembled the past MBE questions....Structure and detail (lack thereof). Today's questions looked to me to have been written by a 1L who was stoned.

As an example, on a 4th Amendment question, it is really helpful to know if when the Def. was read his Miranda rights, did he waive them?, did he ask for an attorney?, did he understand them?