dudnaito wrote:kapital98 wrote:Stupid question: I'm starting tomorrow. Do I read the long outlines before the lectures? Or do I do the lectures first?
No such thing as a stupid question. I'm a huge fan of asking unabashedly "stupid" questions. In fact, I believe that's the only reason I'm even remotely cognitively functional. I'm way too lazy to do lengthy research when someone else can tell me pronto with meticulous detail. It's just efficient, no?
An important distinction to make is that the suggestion "read outline," actually means "skim the outline." This is stated by Themis personnel as well. I'll give you what i think is the "best" game plan after experimenting on several different methods, and so far have reared by far the best results for me. Before we begin though, make sure you have all these materials:
1. Outline Book
2. Summary Outline
3. Subject "Handouts" (just print it all, and put it in a binder or spend a couple of bucks and make it into a binded "book" at Kinko's like me and some others have).
Sequence of Studying:
1. SKIM the subject outline. For god's sake, do not spend more than 4 hours on each subject (roughly around 60-80 pages). The only time I ever stopped and read and re-read over and over were minutiae that's just about NEVER tested anyway... (f'n Lecturer will tell you as much.. he'll be like, "yo, that stuff has a 1% chance of coming out on the exam, but you probably already spent 2 hours trying to memorize the exceptions to the exceptions to a minority rule, huh? Too f'n bad, moron." (Yup, in direct quotes). And the lecturer will also give you helpful examples to illuminate what's unnecessarily shrouded in a convoluted twist on the outline most of the time. Trust me, i went through 100 MBE questions on each subject I've gone through (granted only 3 MBE so far), and the minutiae content came out only once or twice. There's no sense spending a 1/3 of your entire study time trying to memorize things that aren't going to be on the bar exam, a test of MINIMUM competence. The outline is meant as a reference material. I recommend going through maybe 3 Lectures at a time, using common sense to categorize accordingly, instead of marathoning the entire subject outline.
2) Print out subject handout (link is located right next to lecture videos; each MBE subject is anywhere from 60-70 pages usually, while shorter MEE subjects like Agency are only around 8-9 pages). This should be your core studying material. You'll be writing your notes on this handout during each lecture presumably. The handout content is word-for-word key portions of the lecture.
3) Watch lecture while writing notes and filling in the blanks on your handout.
4) Print out summary outline for every MBE and MEE subject (you might not have gotten a link yet, i just asked them for mine earlier cause i'm a bosssss). They should have either emailed it to you, or check under "my communications." Each jurisdiction seems to have a different timeline for when Themis decides to send these to you.
5) Write flashcards (i.e. Anki, Quizlet, toilet paper, whatever suits you)
6) Memorize.
7) Practice Questions, MBE, MEE, etc...
