BarBri Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[ReachTheBar79]

Wisconsins pass rate fell to 65% this year

Also, for those still freaking out. I was hitting 60-75% on barbris practice questions but got a 171 on julys MBE

Holy crap. I was in that same bracket for practice questions but I can guarantee I didn't put up a damn 171 on the real thing.

Your state gives you the score that you received even if you passed? I'm a first-time taker and am so nervous about my score (like many others are!)....I took two bars....I'll find out MA in October and RI in November.

[robinhoodOO]

Wisconsins pass rate fell to 65% this year

Also, for those still freaking out. I was hitting 60-75% on barbris practice questions but got a 171 on julys MBE

Holy crap. I was in that same bracket for practice questions but I can guarantee I didn't put up a damn 171 on the real thing.

Your state gives you the score that you received even if you passed? I'm a first-time taker and am so nervous about my score (like many others are!)....I took two bars....I'll find out MA in October and RI in November.

How does that work, exactly?

[rinkrat19]

Wisconsins pass rate fell to 65% this year

Also, for those still freaking out. I was hitting 60-75% on barbris practice questions but got a 171 on julys MBE

Holy crap. I was in that same bracket for practice questions but I can guarantee I didn't put up a damn 171 on the real thing.

Your state gives you the score that you received even if you passed? I'm a first-time taker and am so nervous about my score (like many others are!)....I took two bars....I'll find out MA in October and RI in November.

How does that work, exactly?

A few states like Mass and NJ administer the essay day on Thursday instead of Tuesday so you can take two states (I think NY/NJ is pretty common).

[robinhoodOO]

Wisconsins pass rate fell to 65% this year

Also, for those still freaking out. I was hitting 60-75% on barbris practice questions but got a 171 on julys MBE

Holy crap. I was in that same bracket for practice questions but I can guarantee I didn't put up a damn 171 on the real thing.

Your state gives you the score that you received even if you passed? I'm a first-time taker and am so nervous about my score (like many others are!)....I took two bars....I'll find out MA in October and RI in November.

How does that work, exactly?

A few states like Mass and NJ administer the essay day on Thursday instead of Tuesday so you can take two states (I think NY/NJ is pretty common).

Gotcha. That's convenient!

[Good Guy Gaud]

October 9th...

omg

[rinkrat19]

October 9th...

omg

sept 18.

[Good Guy Gaud]

October 9th...

omg

sept 18.

Omg omg omg that's so soon

[rinkrat19]

October 9th...

omg

sept 18.

Omg omg omg that's so soon

I know rite?

And I start my fellowship on Monday. The fellowship funding isn't in danger if I fail, but the spot at the DA's office I have lined up is contingent on passing the bar, even though I start at the office before I find out. I keep imagining the humiliation of having to tell them in person on Friday or Monday that I failed.

[victortsoi]

October 9th...

omg

sept 18.

Omg omg omg that's so soon

I know rite?

And I start my fellowship on Monday. The fellowship funding isn't in danger if I fail, but the spot at the DA's office I have lined up is contingent on passing the bar, even though I start at the office before I find out. I keep imagining the humiliation of having to tell them in person on Friday or Monday that I failed.

i know that nyc area da's give you a second chance to pass after you start working-if not then you'll be asked to leave.

[BearState]

WA state out--I passed about where BarBri said I would.

I take back every mean thing I've said about them. Good luck to all.

[hawks12]

WA state out--I passed about where BarBri said I would.

I take back every mean thing I've said about them. Good luck to all.

I thought the same thing. I was cursing Barbri the entire way home after the exam because I felt so horribly about how they prepared us for the MBE (I also took WA). I passed with a fairly high MBE score. Guess they did a decent job after all.

[941law]

Any passers that had low Barbri scores? I was a 110 on midterm or whatever so I'm curious..

[5ky]

WA state out--I passed about where BarBri said I would.

I take back every mean thing I've said about them. Good luck to all.

I thought the same thing. I was cursing Barbri the entire way home after the exam because I felt so horribly about how they prepared us for the MBE (I also took WA). I passed with a fairly high MBE score. Guess they did a decent job after all.

the cycle begins anew

[xChiTowNx]

Any passers that had low Barbri scores? I was a 110 on midterm or whatever so I'm curious..

I was an 88 on the midterm...

[lawdutch2015]

Any passers that had low Barbri scores? I was a 110 on midterm or whatever so I'm curious..

I passed in Iowa with a 98 on the Barbri midterm. I haven't gotten my scores back yet, but I passed. In Iowa you have to pass with a 266. Hope that makes you feel better.

[Akriant]

My results are coming in tmrw (without scores, just pass/didn't pass announcement), and I'm freaking out so much right now.
I took Barbri Midterm before studying Crim Law/Pro and Civ Pro, and barely doing the first read on Evidence. Got awful 98/200. Did all barbri questions, cycling them a few times. 5 days before the BAR took the 100 question primer (the one that I was suppose to take before studying apparently), and the 100 refresher, got 60/100 and 59/100 respectively on each.

The essays felt aright, but MBE was brutally hard and looked nothing like barbri practice questions. And it didn't help a single bit that English is my second language, felt like guessing more than half of those questions.

Well, I am ready for the worst...

[derklink]

My results are coming in tmrw (without scores, just pass/didn't pass announcement), and I'm freaking out so much right now.
I took Barbri Midterm before studying Crim Law/Pro and Civ Pro, and barely doing the first read on Evidence. Got awful 98/200. Did all barbri questions, cycling them a few times. 5 days before the BAR took the 100 question primer (the one that I was suppose to take before studying apparently), and the 100 refresher, got 60/100 and 59/100 respectively on each.

The essays felt aright, but MBE was brutally hard and looked nothing like barbri practice questions. And it didn't help a single bit that English is my second language, felt like guessing more than half of those questions.

Well, I am ready for the worst...

Same here, got a measly 99/200 on the Kaplan final. Was frustrating because I could have got at least 20 more questions right but for language difficulties. However, thought the actual MBE was a lot harder. At least I had that often mentioned string of Ds in the AM session and felt confident about both MPTs and 4/6 Essays. However, I have been kind of an emotional basketcase the past weeks and the thought of failing makes me wanna throw up. Pass rates of only 30 - 40% for LL.M.s aren't encouraging either. Well, today is the day of truth

[crithyis]

Had to look back at my BarBri midterm score. It was 149 and 94th percentile. I passed Iowa, we get MBE scores in mail, only scaled score comes and i got a 168. So it looks like I did almost exactly the same on the midterm as the actual MBE.

BarBri is not ass, after all. That MBE was a monster though. GL to all getting their notice in the coming months. For all those who are worried, I was MORTIFIED after the Bar's MBE. I estimated to all my friends that i was solid or sure on roughly 25% of questions.

I also put aside the MBE questions and focused on essays for the last few weeks, so i would that the actual MBE was slightly easier and you would score higher on that than the Sim.

[ResIpsa305]

Had to look back at my BarBri midterm score. It was 149 and 94th percentile. I passed Iowa, we get MBE scores in mail, only scaled score comes and i got a 168. So it looks like I did almost exactly the same on the midterm as the actual MBE.

Congrats on passing - you killed it!

So are you figuring about a 20 pt "curve" from raw to scaled? If so, that'd be legit. I know each state scales a little differently though.

[crithyis]

Had to look back at my BarBri midterm score. It was 149 and 94th percentile. I passed Iowa, we get MBE scores in mail, only scaled score comes and i got a 168. So it looks like I did almost exactly the same on the midterm as the actual MBE.

Congrats on passing - you killed it!

So are you figuring about a 20 pt "curve" from raw to scaled? If so, that'd be legit. I know each state scales a little differently though.

Yeah, give or take. My percentiles on the Barbri midterm and the actual MBE are, roughly speaking, the same, if I understand the numbers correctly at least. So that sounds right. Although I would not be suprised one bit if the scale was higher, given how little of the answers i thought i knew. My guess for the scale would be about 25.5. I got it by taking percent right on midterm against the MBE scaled. I was very, very consistent with MBE practices, always hovering around that point, so thats why i guess that.

Will we ever know what the scale was?

[Akriant]

Sooo I've passed the MO bar with a total of 295, so I guess BarBri is alright. Overpriced, but alright. I've completed 76% of the assigned material, and a bunch of side-assignment that were given after each of the evals.
Conviser Mini-Review is amazing, because after my civ pro in law school, I was still awful at it, and then I've read the conviser outline and it made soo much sense, and turned Civ Pro to one of the better subjects on which I consistently tested high on barbri 18 questions sets. Didn't help much with Evidence though, Evidence just screws with my brain on paper, I need RL examples and experience to become better at it.

The simulated MBE questions were nothing like the actual MBE questions, or so it seemed to me. I would probably buy Adaptibar or take some NCBE sample tests to complement BarBri, if I would to take the BAR again.

Lectures were a mixed bag -For example, during property lecture we got a free commercial of some book that Paula Franzese wrote. WTH do I need that for? Or the overwhelming amount of 90s pop song references.... Or the utterly useless contracts fill-along outline. Chuck Shonholtz was overall pretty good at explaining things, while Guzman was one of the dullest guys I've witnessed out there, because he would speed up his speech when explaining something that I would try to write-down, yet go to a snail's pace talking about something that was fluff. Oh, and I couldn't bring myself to finish watching conflict of laws, but I was burned out by that time. So yeah, some lectures were good, some were pretty meh.

I also bought the one-day review of the mbe subjects for $99 from Barbri, but ended up not using it after watching a few videos, and realizing that they weren't all that helpful and I'd rather go re-read conviser outlines again. Guzman's tips and tricks weren't all that useful on the exam as well. So overall, I'd say avoid the $99 review.

With regards to the much advertised and praised Barbri AMP: I found amp to be underwhelming, although I'd say that using it right after reading the conviser outline or re-writing the outline was a viable method of seeing how much information you retained.

The essays that BarBri had for UBE seemed to be spot on, and while I only wrote about 21 (?) total, I've outlined and re-wrote the law multiple times for 2/3 of all essays in the book.

Side note: lean-sheets were extremely helpful, because I suck at writing outlines.

So there's that - at least for UBE Barbri did its job, but being $500 more expensive than Themis even with the discount( I had a $750 discount from Barbri), and hearing overall positive things about Themis, I'd say go with whatever is cheaper.

[History_Buff]

I got lucky enough to get a 1500 dollar discount for barbri so cost wasn't that much of an issue for me.

[charlesxavier]

I got lucky enough to get a 1500 dollar discount for barbri so cost wasn't that much of an issue for me.

Maybe they were targeted promotions but I was given a discount to enroll early and later they offered a flat rate of $1200 or so.

[rinkrat19]

Failed. Score breakdown comes later in the mail.

Will probably lose my DA's office fellowship spot (although hopefully not the fellowship if my school lets me scramble to line up another spot). Oregon doesn't allow you work as a lawyer with a student certification after failing, so I'm mostly useless to them since I can't prosecute cases. Maybe I can see if the DA or AG or PD in Vancouver, WA would take me, because I think Washington doesn’t care about exams and just has a 9 month limit.

[Good Guy Gaud]

Damn, rink.

I'm sorry to hear that.