California Bar Exam (July 2014) thread Forum

[jobhunter13]

66/100 on the mbe final exam for CA. Got that up from getting a 102 on the SMBE.

Drilling constantly is the key.

Awesome! Glad to hear.

Great news! Any tips you can share? Did you try to drill on the rules or did you do a bunch of questions?

[Charles Barkley]

The key is to drill away questions. Understand what topics and subtopics you are weak at -- figure out why (learn the rules better or the "tricks") and just keep practicing.

Plenty of time left to still improve where you are weak.

I struggled with the MBE last summer for another state's bar exam. I kept drilling away questions and focused on what I was weak at. I ended up doing very well on the real MBE.

Just keep plugging away.

[Mr. Pink]

This is wild request. I seem to miss hitting the space bar when I am typing on my laptop, since the keys are flushed with the lap top frame. Hence, sometimes, I hit the laptop frame adjacent the space bar key and thus do not hit the space bar. Thus, some of words arenotspaceapart. As you can see this takes valuable extra time away from typing the exam to correct the words. Any solutions?

I'm not sure if they would allow it in the test center or not, but if so maybe get an external keyboard/mouse to just plug in and go.

[FutureInLaw]

Is there an average published somewhere for the Barbri 50 mixed questions we did today?

[Anonnn]

Hey does anyone know where I can get more subject specific MBE questions? I'm still completely sucking at torts but I'm almost out of the Barbri MBE questions for that subject. I don't really wanna pay the ~$300 for adaptibar if there's a cheaper alternative out there.

Also, it's just really baffling to me that I'm doing very well on most essays but still struggling on 1-2 MBE subjects. Is this weird or do most of the MBE questions just test on narrower subject matter than the essays?

[Charles Barkley]

Hey does anyone know where I can get more subject specific MBE questions? I'm still completely sucking at torts but I'm almost out of the Barbri MBE questions for that subject. I don't really wanna pay the ~$300 for adaptibar if there's a cheaper alternative out there.

Barmax MBE app

http://getbarmax.com/barmax-mbe-bar-exam-review/

$99 for 1,571 real MBE questions

You can do them by category too.

[Anonnn]

Hey does anyone know where I can get more subject specific MBE questions? I'm still completely sucking at torts but I'm almost out of the Barbri MBE questions for that subject. I don't really wanna pay the ~$300 for adaptibar if there's a cheaper alternative out there.

Barmax MBE app

http://getbarmax.com/barmax-mbe-bar-exam-review/

$99 for 1,571 real MBE questions

You can do them by category too.

Awesome thanks, I think I'll go take advantage of that soon!

Hopefully if I just keep drilling torts it'll get better. I've just been getting frustrated because it feels like the answers sometimes read the facts very differently than I do so I'm trying to get better at that.

Edit: Where on the barmax site are they selling MBE questions for $99? All I'm seeing is the $499 package >.>

[a male human]

Hey does anyone know where I can get more subject specific MBE questions? I'm still completely sucking at torts but I'm almost out of the Barbri MBE questions for that subject. I don't really wanna pay the ~$300 for adaptibar if there's a cheaper alternative out there.

Also, it's just really baffling to me that I'm doing very well on most essays but still struggling on 1-2 MBE subjects. Is this weird or do most of the MBE questions just test on narrower subject matter than the essays?

Strategies & Tactics for the MBE if you haven't gotten them already.

Vol 1
http://amzn.to/1tVlw53 (2012)
http://amzn.to/1hH1vzq (2009)

Vol 2
http://amzn.to/1icMz6S (2012)
http://amzn.to/1mrp9eW (2009)

[adonai]

Didn't take the fourth of July weekend off, so I took today off. I'm not going to take anymore days off until the exam starting tomorrow. But it's not really a day off when all you do is feel guilty the whole time. Meh. Every minute not studying seems like one less MBE I'm gonna get right. I haven't been slacking by any means, but I've been doing a lot less than most and I still have a lot of trouble areas to address.

[ph14]

Didn't take the fourth of July weekend off, so I took today off. I'm not going to take anymore days off until the exam starting tomorrow. But it's not really a day off when all you do is feel guilty the whole time. Meh. Every minute not studying seems like one less MBE I'm gonna get right. I haven't been slacking by any means, but I've been doing a lot less than most and I still have a lot of trouble areas to address.

That's how the bar exam wants you to feel. Don't give in to it.

[lmr]

dumb/dangerous question but curious if anyone knows, if i read through that past ten essays on a given subject and look at all the issues is it a safe bet that we'll get something in that universe?

Ex-corps they haven't tested 10b since 2003
--LinkRemoved--

For example for property no RAP or future interests:

--LinkRemoved--

Dumb idea to prioritize based on these issues first? Obviously I'll try to know as much as I can but if I know all of this material cold (guy/girl did this for every subject) should it be okay?

[Carryon]

dumb/dangerous question but curious if anyone knows, if i read through that past ten essays on a given subject and look at all the issues is it a safe bet that we'll get something in that universe?

Ex-corps they haven't tested 10b since 2003
--LinkRemoved--

For example for property no RAP or future interests:

--LinkRemoved--

Dumb idea to prioritize based on these issues first? Obviously I'll try to know as much as I can but if I know all of this material cold (guy/girl did this for every subject) should it be okay?

Good question. it does seem that they do tend to test on some of the similar issues on the old exams, but they also add something new. For example, the feb 2014 exam had non-conforming use and variance, though I did see a variance question on an old exam.

[LSATNightmares]

Didn't take the fourth of July weekend off, so I took today off. I'm not going to take anymore days off until the exam starting tomorrow. But it's not really a day off when all you do is feel guilty the whole time. Meh. Every minute not studying seems like one less MBE I'm gonna get right. I haven't been slacking by any means, but I've been doing a lot less than most and I still have a lot of trouble areas to address.

I feel the same way. Took one day off during 4th of July weekend, and felt guilty and horrible despite being ahead with the Paced Program more or less. Couldn't enjoy the day off at all. But I have to force myself to take off the day before the exam, so I go into the test a bit refreshed.

[pkt63]

For those that are feeling good about your essays, are you using Barbri's (or Themis, whatever) rubric to score yourself or how can you tell you are doing well? I'm feeling really uncertain about the essays because even though I almost always score in the Passing or Above Passing range on their rubric, when I look through the scored answers on Baressays, I honestly find it hard to tell the difference between some essays, sometimes that score as differently as 57.5 and 70. This morning, I did an essay and looked at the same essay with a failing score (somewhere in the 50s) on Baressays, and I swear it was only *slightly* different from Barbri's model answer. Just now, I outlined a PT and looked at the answers on Baressays and I read two that both got 70 and personally thought they were crap, and they definitely did not mirror the model answer in really critical ways (e.g. use of the library on appropriate subsections). I read one that got a 57.5 and again, it all but mirrored the Barbri model answer. I don't think I can afford to risk in the 50s on any essays, even though I expect to have some cushion from the MBE. I just am not sure if I should be confident in Barbri's rubric, and Baressays has just made me more confused. I haven't upgraded to the premium subscription, but it is only like 1 of every 10, it seems like, that offers grading analysis, so of the 4 I referenced above, not one of them even had grading analysis offered to clarify, even if I did pay the extra $50.

I don't know whether I need advice on how to better tell a good essay from a bad one, or just advice on how to just have confidence in what I am doing now and keep moving. But as of right now, I feel like the grading is totally arbitrary and yet just 2-3 5 point increments are totally make it or break it for the overall test.

[hyc9598]

Is omission of key case in pt ground for -5/10 deduction?

[hyc9598]

dumb/dangerous question but curious if anyone knows, if i read through that past ten essays on a given subject and look at all the issues is it a safe bet that we'll get something in that universe?

Ex-corps they haven't tested 10b since 2003
--LinkRemoved--

For example for property no RAP or future interests:

--LinkRemoved--

Dumb idea to prioritize based on these issues first? Obviously I'll try to know as much as I can but if I know all of this material cold (guy/girl did this for every subject) should it be okay?

Good question. it does seem that they do tend to test on some of the similar issues on the old exams, but they also add something new. For example, the feb 2014 exam had non-conforming use and variance, though I did see a variance question on an old exam.

Things that do not appear do not appear. Corp 10b5, k ucc, ca civ, homicide... Exception was discovery. For 10 years, it disappeared and then appeared again and again...

[james11]

For those that are feeling good about your essays, are you using Barbri's (or Themis, whatever) rubric to score yourself or how can you tell you are doing well? I'm feeling really uncertain about the essays because even though I almost always score in the Passing or Above Passing range on their rubric, when I look through the scored answers on Baressays, I honestly find it hard to tell the difference between some essays, sometimes that score as differently as 57.5 and 70. This morning, I did an essay and looked at the same essay with a failing score (somewhere in the 50s) on Baressays, and I swear it was only *slightly* different from Barbri's model answer. Just now, I outlined a PT and looked at the answers on Baressays and I read two that both got 70 and personally thought they were crap, and they definitely did not mirror the model answer in really critical ways (e.g. use of the library on appropriate subsections). I read one that got a 57.5 and again, it all but mirrored the Barbri model answer. I don't think I can afford to risk in the 50s on any essays, even though I expect to have some cushion from the MBE. I just am not sure if I should be confident in Barbri's rubric, and Baressays has just made me more confused. I haven't upgraded to the premium subscription, but it is only like 1 of every 10, it seems like, that offers grading analysis, so of the 4 I referenced above, not one of them even had grading analysis offered to clarify, even if I did pay the extra $50.

I don't know whether I need advice on how to better tell a good essay from a bad one, or just advice on how to just have confidence in what I am doing now and keep moving. But as of right now, I feel like the grading is totally arbitrary and yet just 2-3 5 point increments are totally make it or break it for the overall test.

If your question is whether to emulate the structure of the review course models, which are not real bar exam essays and have never been graded, or to emulate real high scoring essays that have been graded by the actual examiners, it seems pretty obvious to go with the real essays.

[pkt63]

For those that are feeling good about your essays, are you using Barbri's (or Themis, whatever) rubric to score yourself or how can you tell you are doing well? I'm feeling really uncertain about the essays because even though I almost always score in the Passing or Above Passing range on their rubric, when I look through the scored answers on Baressays, I honestly find it hard to tell the difference between some essays, sometimes that score as differently as 57.5 and 70. This morning, I did an essay and looked at the same essay with a failing score (somewhere in the 50s) on Baressays, and I swear it was only *slightly* different from Barbri's model answer. Just now, I outlined a PT and looked at the answers on Baressays and I read two that both got 70 and personally thought they were crap, and they definitely did not mirror the model answer in really critical ways (e.g. use of the library on appropriate subsections). I read one that got a 57.5 and again, it all but mirrored the Barbri model answer. I don't think I can afford to risk in the 50s on any essays, even though I expect to have some cushion from the MBE. I just am not sure if I should be confident in Barbri's rubric, and Baressays has just made me more confused. I haven't upgraded to the premium subscription, but it is only like 1 of every 10, it seems like, that offers grading analysis, so of the 4 I referenced above, not one of them even had grading analysis offered to clarify, even if I did pay the extra $50.

I don't know whether I need advice on how to better tell a good essay from a bad one, or just advice on how to just have confidence in what I am doing now and keep moving. But as of right now, I feel like the grading is totally arbitrary and yet just 2-3 5 point increments are totally make it or break it for the overall test.

If your question is whether to emulate the structure of the review course models, which are not real bar exam essays and have never been graded, or to emulate real high scoring essays that have been graded by the actual examiners, it seems pretty obvious to go with the real essays.

Meh, notwithstanding my long-winded complaint, my real question was the question at the very beginning. What are the different tools people use to judge their performance on their essays. I guess that's one vote for Baressays and against the Barbri rubric. Looking for other ideas...

[adonai]

For those that are feeling good about your essays, are you using Barbri's (or Themis, whatever) rubric to score yourself or how can you tell you are doing well? I'm feeling really uncertain about the essays because even though I almost always score in the Passing or Above Passing range on their rubric, when I look through the scored answers on Baressays, I honestly find it hard to tell the difference between some essays, sometimes that score as differently as 57.5 and 70. This morning, I did an essay and looked at the same essay with a failing score (somewhere in the 50s) on Baressays, and I swear it was only *slightly* different from Barbri's model answer. Just now, I outlined a PT and looked at the answers on Baressays and I read two that both got 70 and personally thought they were crap, and they definitely did not mirror the model answer in really critical ways (e.g. use of the library on appropriate subsections). I read one that got a 57.5 and again, it all but mirrored the Barbri model answer. I don't think I can afford to risk in the 50s on any essays, even though I expect to have some cushion from the MBE. I just am not sure if I should be confident in Barbri's rubric, and Baressays has just made me more confused. I haven't upgraded to the premium subscription, but it is only like 1 of every 10, it seems like, that offers grading analysis, so of the 4 I referenced above, not one of them even had grading analysis offered to clarify, even if I did pay the extra $50.

I don't know whether I need advice on how to better tell a good essay from a bad one, or just advice on how to just have confidence in what I am doing now and keep moving. But as of right now, I feel like the grading is totally arbitrary and yet just 2-3 5 point increments are totally make it or break it for the overall test.

If your question is whether to emulate the structure of the review course models, which are not real bar exam essays and have never been graded, or to emulate real high scoring essays that have been graded by the actual examiners, it seems pretty obvious to go with the real essays.

Meh, notwithstanding my long-winded complaint, my real question was the question at the very beginning. What are the different tools people use to judge their performance on their essays. I guess that's one vote for Baressays and against the Barbri rubric. Looking for other ideas...

What are the things you see WRONG with the baressays essays? Did they spot all or most of the major issues? Did they write correct rule statements? Did they apply the law right? Did they use the relevant facts for each issue? Were the essays in IRAC format? Did the essays do a ping pong analysis ("A will argue x. Then B will argue y"). Were there conclusions? Was the structure easy to follow? Sufficient headings for issues, elements, and subelements? I'm also curious as to why these almost perfect answers scored so low as well. If everything else is equal, the only thing I could think of is structure. If it doesn't look/sound "lawyerly" they'll fail you. A better structure can mean an extra 10 points. A former grader said they can give up to 25 points for having good structure and organization.

[iLoveFruits&Veggies]

I don't know if this was already posted on this thread earlier or not, but if anyone is interested in getting an idea for how they scale and score in CA, I just found this: CA Grade Information 2013 http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals ... 201307.pdf

[pkt63]

For those that are feeling good about your essays, are you using Barbri's (or Themis, whatever) rubric to score yourself or how can you tell you are doing well? I'm feeling really uncertain about the essays because even though I almost always score in the Passing or Above Passing range on their rubric, when I look through the scored answers on Baressays, I honestly find it hard to tell the difference between some essays, sometimes that score as differently as 57.5 and 70. This morning, I did an essay and looked at the same essay with a failing score (somewhere in the 50s) on Baressays, and I swear it was only *slightly* different from Barbri's model answer. Just now, I outlined a PT and looked at the answers on Baressays and I read two that both got 70 and personally thought they were crap, and they definitely did not mirror the model answer in really critical ways (e.g. use of the library on appropriate subsections). I read one that got a 57.5 and again, it all but mirrored the Barbri model answer. I don't think I can afford to risk in the 50s on any essays, even though I expect to have some cushion from the MBE. I just am not sure if I should be confident in Barbri's rubric, and Baressays has just made me more confused. I haven't upgraded to the premium subscription, but it is only like 1 of every 10, it seems like, that offers grading analysis, so of the 4 I referenced above, not one of them even had grading analysis offered to clarify, even if I did pay the extra $50.

I don't know whether I need advice on how to better tell a good essay from a bad one, or just advice on how to just have confidence in what I am doing now and keep moving. But as of right now, I feel like the grading is totally arbitrary and yet just 2-3 5 point increments are totally make it or break it for the overall test.

If your question is whether to emulate the structure of the review course models, which are not real bar exam essays and have never been graded, or to emulate real high scoring essays that have been graded by the actual examiners, it seems pretty obvious to go with the real essays.

Meh, notwithstanding my long-winded complaint, my real question was the question at the very beginning. What are the different tools people use to judge their performance on their essays. I guess that's one vote for Baressays and against the Barbri rubric. Looking for other ideas...

What are the things you see WRONG with the baressays essays? Did they spot all or most of the major issues? Did they write correct rule statements? Did they apply the law right? Did they use the relevant facts for each issue? Were the essays in IRAC format? Did the essays do a ping pong analysis ("A will argue x. Then B will argue y"). Were there conclusions? Was the structure easy to follow? Sufficient headings for issues, elements, and subelements? I'm also curious as to why these almost perfect answers scored so low as well. If everything else is equal, the only thing I could think of is structure. If it doesn't look/sound "lawyerly" they'll fail you. A better structure can mean an extra 10 points. A former grader said they can give up to 25 points for having good structure and organization.

I actually thought the three (in the case of the PTs) were pretty similar. Granted, I didn't like use a rubric of my own or anything so maybe I wasn't comprehensive enough, but they all had the exact same structure (no surprise on a PT I guess), decent application of facts, conclusions and use of the law, except the higher scored ones where one failed to use one point of law on one subsection and one failed on two subsections. They all seemed easy to follow (again, one of the higher scoring ones had a lot of typos that made it harder to follow, but whatever). Maybe if I'm really freaking myself out about this I should go back to those three and literally sit down and compare them point for point and maybe if I give it more time, I'll discover why they were graded differently. Given that we are told the actual bar exam graders spend like two minutes per essay, I was hoping it would be somewhat obvious to me why two essays got SUCH disparate scores. There have definitely been a few times this has been true…where I see a whole section left off a low scoring essay, or several partially incorrect rule statements. But as I've been reading through a lot of these in the last few days, it seems like the variance (on those qualities you referenced) among the high scoring essays are just as significant as the variance between the high and low scorers, so it's hard to find any thread of consistency for what makes the high scoring ones better than the low.

[LSATNightmares]

So, I was reviewing the list of what we can and can't bring into the exam to see if I needed to buy certain items like a proper laptop raiser. One thing that seems to be missing is bottled water. Are we not allowed to bring it to the exam? It seems unusual that we can bring medicine, but how are we supposed to take the medicine without water? I'm also not happy that we can't have food -- I get so hungry after a couple of hours!

[pkt63]

So, I was reviewing the list of what we can and can't bring into the exam to see if I needed to buy certain items like a proper laptop raiser. One thing that seems to be missing is bottled water. Are we not allowed to bring it to the exam? It seems unusual that we can bring medicine, but how are we supposed to take the medicine without water? I'm also not happy that we can't have food -- I get so hungry after a couple of hours!

They say water is available. Sounds like a water cooler or fountain in the room or something?

[Charles Barkley]

Community property question regarding putative spouses.

Assume Husband is married to W1 and moves to another state. Husband then tells W2 that he is single and ends up marrying W2.

W2 is a putative spouse, but what happens with Husband upon dissolution of the marriage with W2? How is he treated despite his bad faith?

[pkt63]

Community property question regarding putative spouses.

Assume Husband is married to W1 and moves to another state. Husband then tells W2 that he is single and ends up marrying W2.

W2 is a putative spouse, but what happens with Husband upon dissolution of the marriage with W2? How is he treated despite his bad faith?

Well, there's no actual marriage to dissolve, but yeah, their property, what would have been CP had they actually been married, would be Quasi-Marital Property. She could recover just like under CP. Although some states say he couldn't have any of HER actual SP/Quasi-Marital Property because he's a wrongdoer. So like only his actual SP might ever be labeled QMP and split like CP.

The confusing thing in this example, and hopefully it never actually comes up on the test, is that his property that W2 wants to call QMP is probably actually CP of him and W1, so anything W2 fairly gets under the rules would be unfair to W1, whose property is being affected. But then maybe you apply the rules of when one spouse commits a tort or other liability, the community is liable unless the spouse was reckless, or it wasn't being done on behalf of the community, etc. In which case, maybe the CP of W1 + H would not be reachable, only something that was his actual SP and probably W2 would be somewhat screwed still. Especially if he had a really high income and there would be potential for her to call it QMP, but then it's actually CP of W1 and H was reckless, so it's not reachable? I don't know, those are just my quick thoughts...