virgoyum wrote:KungPowEnterTheFist wrote:virgoyum wrote:Could you copy and paste to me too just so you don't have to rewrite it.KungPowEnterTheFist wrote:Hey! Of course! I started writing out what I did and then I realized that probably not many people would want to read how sorry my story is, even though I finally pulled through in the end. I actually have never posted on this forum before, but I see that there is a private messaging function. I'll private message you!happyhour1122 wrote:KungPowEnterTheFist wrote:I'm a retaker too and I cried too!! Missed it by 14 points the first time and by 3 points the second time. I was so far gone in my negative downward spiral, that I had resigned myself to thinking I'd just see another "I regret to inform you...." BUT not this time!! The weight of it all took a full day to go away, but omg did I cry. They weren't tears of happiness exactly. I think I was just so overwhelmed and soooo expecting to see another "I regret" phrasing, that I was going to cry no matter what.shc63 wrote:Wow....I passed!! Never knew what tears of joy felt like until today...long time coming...
I'm a retaker and felt all the odds were against me this time around...but it's doable. To those you who didn't make it this time, stay strong because you will get it next round. Really.
Congratulations to you!!
Hi there,
can you tell me what you did in your first, second studies and what you did in the third try?
Hey! Of course. I'm almost done writing it up. I'll send it to you as well. It's pretty cathartic writing it out tbh.
I bet it is. Honestly, reading everyone's feedback and good news is super helpful and uplifting to me. Maybe someone will benefit from you posting it public if you so choose.
Congratulations again
Hi! YES!
First of all, I'm a bad standardized test taker. I just am. I'm a "good little student" in class. I love writing papers, I love sitting in class, I love learning, I love wandering the library and reading on a topic I know zero about. I'm that person. But standardized tests are my Achilles. My SAT was okay. But my ACT was magically pretty great. I got a 4.0 at at at top 8 undergrad university in a difficult major (because I'm a "good little student"...lol), but my LSAT was abysmal (152), and yet I studied for that just as much and as smart as any other prelaw kid there. Heck, my mock trial team and I would do practice LSATs together for weeks on end (lame I know). They all got 170s and up, and I did not. It's just something I know I have to deal with and I know I have to work more at it than others.
So with that in mind...I watched all of the Barbri videos before the Barbri course started. I needed to have that base. I made solid outlines. Then, from those, I made my own box charts and venn diagrams and other similar visuals. I am 100% a visual learner, so putting in the time to do this is a major reason why I ended up passing (eventually).
First time: I did 99% of Barbri. No joke. I did all of it (minus that 1% haha). From my standardized test history, I knew I had to. I kept as sane and as "slow and steady wins the race" mode as I humanly could...so I worked out for an hour every morning at 6am; did my morning routine; had a sensible breakfast by 8:30; and was at it every single day by 9 at the very latest in the law library. Always took a full hour for lunch away from my materials. And stayed in the library until I had done everything for the day (usually around 5 or 6. I stayed longer as it got closer to the exam...because anxiety). My scores were always just over what passes every time in my state. Nothing ever was in the "red," but still I never was complacent. I did everything I was supposed to. And since everyone says, "just do what Barbri tells you to do and you'll be fine," and I was doing just that, I thought, "Great, one and done, baby! Let's do this!" "Embrace the suck!" "This is the official hazing." and blah blah blah, all those mantras earlier graduates tell you. So...I was cautiously optimistic.
....I didn't pass by 14 scaled points. I cried. I was going to move in with my fiance several states over after the bar; in fact I had already packed everything by the time my results came in. But instead I decided the better move was to move in with my parents and assist with my terminal grandmother full-time...which I did, until the day she died. I slowly unpacked everything from the U-Haul I rented. I cried the whole time.
Second time: I was ashamed for moving back in, so to make it up to myself, my parents, and my duty as a grandchild, I made sure I always took care of my last living grandparent (cook, clean, bathe, feed, exercise, everything) and to remove that emotional burden from my parents. I never complained. My hometown is tiny and gossipy, so to avoid people talking, I put myself on "house arrest," ordered my essays and scores from the bar examiners, and studied next to my grandma every single day. I learned that essays are graded pretty tough in my state to begin with and I made some rookie mistakes on a few essays which, had I not done, I would've passed. My study breaks this time were changing adult diapers, washing soiled bed sheets every day, and trying to get my grandmother, a paranoid schizophrenic of 50 years, to understand that I was her grandchild and was trying to help her. I tried my hardest to not feel sorry for myself. Even though it was very difficult time (emotionally, intellectually, everything), it was a blessing in disguise to have failed (the first time), because otherwise, I would not have been able to be with my grandma so much in her last months when she needed it the most. Everyone on this planet takes a hit or more in their lifetime. What distinguishes us is how long we choose to feel sorry for ourselves.
Anyway, this time, I used Barbri's "sorry you failed, here's another one on us" guarantee. But doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results is insanity, right? I wasn't about to do the same thing all the way through again. This time, I went through the program loosely, but deviated a lot to focus on my weaknesses. I self-studied a lot. Did practice bar exams for several Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the weeks leading up and would review my results on the other days of the week and quiz myself on my weaknesses. My MBE score went up considerably, but my essay scores were staying the same (still passing range, but on the low side). I also had my fiance (who had previously passed another state's bar); an older sibling (who had passed my state's bar); and my non-lawyer parents quiz me from my charts and visuals. THAT WAS HUGE. It was painfully obvious I didn't have the information as cold as I honestly thought I did. And it forced me to make myself make sense to people who knew nothing about the law. Besides not having everything down cold, I so overly verbose and flowery in my language that I would confuse myself when speaking. AHHH. That was a frustrating lesson, but I'm SO glad I learned it early on so I could practice saying elements out loud from memorization, again and again and again, like I was prepping for a debate contest or something. I know I looked stupid, but I did just did not care.
...I didn't pass by 3 scaled points. I cried. Slightly comforted by how close I was, but a fail is a fail.
Third and final time: My self-esteem was caput. My grandma has now passed. I'm distraught. I brought special clothes to dress her in for her wake and I watched the funeral directors put her in the crematorium with my mom and dad. I'm an emotional wreck, constantly irritable, and simply not a fun person to be around. At this point, it's a year and a half in bar mode. And I've lost someone that I grew immeasurably close to. That's no way to live and it's not fun for others to be around. I'm trying to keep my spirit afloat, but I'm still a worthless P.O.S. who can't pass a stupid test that I've been studying for for over a year, after 3 years of school. What is wrong with me?! Why can't I be cheerful like other classmates who passed the first time? Maybe I should just throw in the towel and do something else? Hearing that people like Hillary and other famous people who didn't pass on the first try was not even remotely comforting. Unless my last name is actually Kennedy and my parents have been hiding it for years, those "factoids" are just small talk nonsense. Hearing people give you half-assed "oh you'll get it next time" comments just drove me deeper into my dark hole. Not healthy at all. I was getting worse and worse.
Oh, and I was getting married in January. My fiance and I had booked all of the major wedding elements before I took the bar the first time. Had I been given access to a crystal ball, I would have neverrrr made the lineup of bar administrations sandwich my wedding. Never ever! Haha. [It's funny now...not so much a few months ago]. It ended up snowing on our wedding day (which is good luck apparently....and God knows I needed some good luck bad). It prevented many guests from even coming, but I was okay with it because it meant one less person to explain my situation to. (How sad is that?!!) At the reception, I became an expert at "answering the question I wish I had been asked" every time a family member or friend asked me about a very specific job or law-related question at the wedding. It just kept getter sadder for me. I'm not an unintelligent person! And neither are you guys! The exam is just HARD. And this cut-throat world we live in makes it harder to pass and harder to be okay with failing. I constantly felt unworthy and living a lie.
At this point, I'm still on a self-imposed "house arrest." We didn't have a honeymoon. After I got married, I went back into my childhood home and was talking to myself about piercing the corporate shield and how exactly covenants are different from equitable servitudes. Seriously, FML. I should have been a case study on the long term effects of cabin fever. To lift my spirits, I asked my brother if I could babysit his dog while I was studying. Yay! A furball of happiness!
I also completely ditched electronics (minus watching lectures...see below), and studied only from my handwritten notes and box charts (which had evolved into even better charts at this point LOL). I bought a big poster board for each subject and put all of my (now) kick ass charts and diagrams on it. I would literally give my (er, my brother's) dog presentations on equal protection and strict products liability. It made it kinda fun! (for once!) I studied outside in the beautiful weather on my parents' porch for a total of one month before the exam, in a fuzzy bathrobe, with the dog always wagging his tail. I ate whatever I wanted and drank LaCroix exclusively to convince myself I was hydrated. I. WAS. A. WRECK. But I was trying! And I was going to make the best out of my situation. And I constantly refused (the best I could) to not feel sorry for myself. It's not like I had a terminal illness or was dealing with a stalker or anything. I was going to pass this test, damn it! And so will you!!I ditched Barbri (from Parts 1 and 2 of this absurd saga). I couldn't fathom spending more money on Kaplan at sticker price. So I used my negotiating skills and got a major discount on Kaplan. Told them my story and said I'd only use it for the videos. And I did. I played their class lectures at 2x the speed and understood almost everything. It was very helpful hearing all the material from a different brand. I didn't do a single fill-in-the-blank or a single MBE question [more on that below]. I just used the videos as a refresher to the real studying on my own.
I gambled big time for this Feb 2017 bar, because like I said above, I didn't do really any MBE practice. My scores the first two times were always where they needed to be and were even better the second time. So I said, "Forget this. I'm doing essay work only." [Essays in my state are 60% and MBE 40%]. My [now] spouse thought that was a very bad idea [it was], but I did it and it paid off. The only MBE practice I did was watching the video on the answers to Kaplan's last 200 MBE practice set (apparently their hardest MBEs) on 2x the speed the week before the exam. I didn't even do the MBEs. I just watched the video on 2x speech and followed along in the book. I did that to refresh myself and remind myself that I had the MBE side of the exam on lock still.
What ultimately pushed me over to passing finally was this..... I wasn't convinced that Kaplan alone would save me. So I went to a seminar done by young attorneys in my state geared at helping you with essays. I needed help with essays bad. While my MBE was considerably higher the second time, my essay score the first time was the SAME the second time. After all that work too! That was a major red flag for me. This 2 hour seminar was a rehash of a Barbri essay I had done twice before, so I was bummed. I drove 2 hours in rush hour traffic to our state's capital for this only to drive back in shame? UGH. So I went up to the lady who gave the seminar and told her what I just told you, because....what did I have to lose? She was SO nice and put me in contact with her best friend from law school who had also failed the same bar 2x and passed on the 3rd try. This woman was a godsend for me. She was just as nice! She just KNEW what it was like and that was so comforting. We only talked on the phone once, but it was enough to shut me up and get moving. She sent me all of her practice essays. All of them. She had about 20+ for every subject. So I printed them all off (sorry, trees) and spent a whole day at a time on one essay subject. I'd read through all of the essays, fact patterns, questions, and responses, and verbally answer the question to the dog LOL. Forcing myself to do essay practice on one subject at a time from start to finish in a single day made me realize how the bouncing around from subject to subject in Barbri was not helpful to me at all. I needed to go through a single subject from start to finish in one day and be done with it. Doing this (mostly outlining and issue spotting practice) got me to see exactly what my bar examiners wanted and exactly how they approached their essays every time. This helped me more than anything. >>>More than anything<<< When I was done for the day, I would neatly pack up the essays and put them all in a single yellow folder and stick in in the trunk of my car...in case I needed to consult something during my lunch break during the bar.
I honestly think that pulled it off because I was able to get into my state's bar grader's minds finally and know exactly what they wanted on the essay. Barbri's sample essay answers are trash (for my state at least) (Yes, that's hyperbole, but hear me out). They are just way too complicated and detailed to be done in the time allotted. The sample rubrics and high-scoring responses from the essays that lady sent me were so helpful compared to Barbri's. Several were repeat Barbri essays, but the sample essays and rubrics specific to the state were the key for me. These samples were from the board itself, not from Barbri. The state's board of law examiners were no longer "the great and powerful Oz" anymore. They were just speed readers who have a straight forward rubric. The material is still hard, don't get me wrong, but I finally felt like I knew what was needed for writing a successful essay (and knowing it's solid when you're writing it on gameday, and not just hoping they like it).
Side note: don't even bother getting an essay tutor. The "go-to bar tutor" in my state that everyone suggested was beyond worthless. She cost several hundred dollars, demanded to grade my previous bar essays immediately upon hiring her, yet mailed only some back to me the day before the Feb 2017 bar. She doesn't even have a JD, but she teaches people to pass the essay portion. She was the equivalent of a cross country coach saying, "you'll never run fast if you never run fast! Why aren't you running faster?! You need to run faster." Thank you, captain obvious.
TL;DR: Don't be afraid to self-study, especially after doing a commercial bar prep already. Sit down and figure out what kind of learner are you. I am a visual learner. And then I seal the deal by doing "verbal presentations" over and over and over again. After I figured out what kind of learner I was, I finally was able to push though!! What helped me was (i) figuring what kind of learner I was; (ii) ditching the commercial review course and instead (iii) making box charts and other visuals, printing them off, and rewriting rules by hand until I had them cold; then putting each subject all on its own poster like a middle schooler giving a presentation and actually give presentations, even if it's just to yourself (iv) having intelligent non-lawyers quiz you from those materials; and (v) having all the essays you could possibly find with real grading rubrics (or sample high scoring responses) and running through ALL of them for one subject in one day (e.g. all of the con law essays on Monday, all of the sec trans essays on Tuesday, etc.).
You guys, I really hope this helps you. I know what it's like to feel down and out. You've spent 3 years in law school. Don't you dare let an exam that you are more than capable of owning keep you from passing the finish line!!!
Still waiting on NY's slow butt!
