Kaplan Bar Review Hangout - July 2015 Exam Forum

[despina]

State constitution lecturer keeps referring to "the gays."

[kakaa001]

So glad to see that I'm not the only one fucking frustrated with the lectures, inconsistent bar notes formatting, making us write state law essays without teaching any of it, and the MBE quizzes testing shit we haven't covered in lectures.

Also, whoever said Chris Fromm should teach everything? 100% agree.

I find the MBE outline book (or pdf! download it if you can) is much better to track through than the damn lectures. They actually include some of the more nuanced rules/exceptions/examples that are graded on in the MBEs.

Is anyone actually doing the onesheeters? I find that even between rule statements and filling in the sheet, it takes more than 2 hours and isn't near complete. Used the time to review my law school class notes instead and that seems to be going okay.

Whoa whoa where are you finding a PDF of the book? If I can find a way to avoid these goddamn lectures, I'm going to jump at it. I spend more time reformatting the shit bar notes than actually learning (the actual technical formatting of the bar notes is such a clusterfuck; random hard-locked capital letters, unformatted outline structures, etc. etc. etc.).

I like the Contracts guy from Texas (probably gay, Seinfeld references, so awesome). I like Fromm. Otherwise, it feels like we have the "B team" of bar prep lecturers.

When you login, click on Manage My Course and Payments then click the link for Access Digital Books (under Course Details).

Thank you very much. Do you use the proprietary Adobe software to read them? Doesn't seem note-friendly.

I do use the Adobe software. It kind of sucks because you can't copy and paste, but I find that retyping the stuff in my own words kind of helps for retention.

[hotsummer]

Does any of you know from your own experience or heard from other people how reliable/reflective the Kaplan graders are? I am especially curious about graders in California… Can I assume I am doing okay if essay/PT grades I get from those Kaplan graders are passing grades…? Any thoughts?

[orangecup]

Does any of you know from your own experience or heard from other people how reliable/reflective the Kaplan graders are? I am especially curious about graders in California… Can I assume I am doing okay if essay/PT grades I get from those Kaplan graders are passing grades…? Any thoughts?

No idea. I just got a 3/10 and a 5/10 on the two essays I attempted yesterday. A little discouraging lol...

[despina]

Does any of you know from your own experience or heard from other people how reliable/reflective the Kaplan graders are? I am especially curious about graders in California… Can I assume I am doing okay if essay/PT grades I get from those Kaplan graders are passing grades…? Any thoughts?

No idea. I just got a 3/10 and a 5/10 on the two essays I attempted yesterday. A little discouraging lol...

Not California, though so far I haven't been impressed. In fairness, my judgment might be biased by my low grade. On the first essay I submitted, one of the issues I spotted and analyzed correctly (though admittedly too briefly) was marked as "missed." I received a "2" for "use of language" when I know that, crap though my essay was, it was grammatically immaculate. The grader's individual comments said something about not using "individual single-sentence paragraphs." I did not have any of those. So.

[despina]

Also, only somewhat relatedly, the consistent abuse of commas and apostrophes in the Kaplan materials is driving me up the wall.

[hoppingabird]

So glad to see that I'm not the only one fucking frustrated with the lectures, inconsistent bar notes formatting, making us write state law essays without teaching any of it, and the MBE quizzes testing shit we haven't covered in lectures.

Also, whoever said Chris Fromm should teach everything? 100% agree.

I find the MBE outline book (or pdf! download it if you can) is much better to track through than the damn lectures. They actually include some of the more nuanced rules/exceptions/examples that are graded on in the MBEs.

Is anyone actually doing the onesheeters? I find that even between rule statements and filling in the sheet, it takes more than 2 hours and isn't near complete. Used the time to review my law school class notes instead and that seems to be going okay.

Whoa whoa where are you finding a PDF of the book? If I can find a way to avoid these goddamn lectures, I'm going to jump at it. I spend more time reformatting the shit bar notes than actually learning (the actual technical formatting of the bar notes is such a clusterfuck; random hard-locked capital letters, unformatted outline structures, etc. etc. etc.).

I like the Contracts guy from Texas (probably gay, Seinfeld references, so awesome). I like Fromm. Otherwise, it feels like we have the "B team" of bar prep lecturers.

I took Kaplan in 2014. Here are my thoughts on the lecturers that I remember:
Chris Fromm is probably one of the best lecturers they have. He really should do more substantive lectures.
The best lecturer Kaplan has was their 2014
Constitutional Law lecturer, Kermit (forget his last name) he should teach every subject!
The 2014 Family Law lecturer was solid too.
I found the least effective lecturer in 2014 to be the Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure lecturer.
Is Kermit still a lecturer? If so, pay close attention to constitutional law and his approach to the multiple choice questions and you will be just fine on those multiple choice questions.

[smaug]

yeah they still have kermit roosevelt iii

[despina]

Prof Roosevelt is awesome.

Didn't occur to me to google him until now but:

He is the great-great-grandson of United States President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) [1]and the fifth cousin four-times removed of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Roosevelt_III

[SiRR]

So far the only lecturer I've doubted is Preis in Civ Pro. Other than that I've thought Fromm, Bracci, and Roosevelt were all quite good. I'm currently on K's, and so far enjoying the lecturer's style.

In general I've found the lectures helpful, as I'm a relatively auditory learner so following along and filling in blanks really suits my retention preferences. I haven't been bothered by the outline formats, and correcting any formatting that doesn't suit my normal outlining style helps me engage the outline a little more, and I think that helps keep me focused.

w/r/t "one-sheets," I envision those as quick-reference guides more than a compact-but-comprehensive outline. I'd rather take my time reading the 80 pages or so and doing a few QBank or book questions than trying to pretend I'll fit everything I want to review on to one or two pages. Instead, I think it's great for something like condensing all the tests for Con Law, or quickly listing all the idiosyncratic periods/deadlines for Civ Pro, etc.

[orangecup]

For Crim Law they're telling us a lot of common law, and then modern statute distinctions.... Do we have to know the CL at all? Or does the MBE just test on the modern statutes?

[hoppingabird]

For Crim Law they're telling us a lot of common law, and then modern statute distinctions.... Do we have to know the CL at all? Or does the MBE just test on the modern statutes?

On the 2014 MBE there was a mix of both CL and modern statutes. I remember there being more modern statute questions though. However, some questions had answer choices that were:
CL- Arson
CL- Burglary
Ect. Knowing the CL differences helped rule those out as correct answers if my memory serves me correctly.

[gabewatch]

For Crim Law they're telling us a lot of common law, and then modern statute distinctions.... Do we have to know the CL at all? Or does the MBE just test on the modern statutes?

On the 2014 MBE there was a mix of both CL and modern statutes. I remember there being more modern statute questions though. However, some questions had answer choices that were:
CL- Arson
CL- Burglary
Ect. Knowing the CL differences helped rule those out as correct answers if my memory serves me correctly.

This 4.5 hour crim law lecture is brutal. The guy doing the lecture is awful.

[robinhoodOO]

Does any of you know from your own experience or heard from other people how reliable/reflective the Kaplan graders are? I am especially curious about graders in California… Can I assume I am doing okay if essay/PT grades I get from those Kaplan graders are passing grades…? Any thoughts?

No idea. I just got a 3/10 and a 5/10 on the two essays I attempted yesterday. A little discouraging lol...

I posted a comment earlier about my experience. Basically, they're grading appears to depend entirely on the grader. I got a 70 on one and a 50 on another. The 50 grader marked me down for having completely missed three issues that I had actually covered. Simply put, I'm not sure she even read it (and the "grade" came in after midnight).

Very frustrating, but I went and pulled the models from the State Bar's website and confirmed I would have likely gotten a 65 given that I formatted roughly the same and nailed the same issues, etc.

[robinhoodOO]

w/r/t "one-sheets," I envision those as quick-reference guides more than a compact-but-comprehensive outline. I'd rather take my time reading the 80 pages or so and doing a few QBank or book questions than trying to pretend I'll fit everything I want to review on to one or two pages. Instead, I think it's great for something like condensing all the tests for Con Law, or quickly listing all the idiosyncratic periods/deadlines for Civ Pro, etc.

I started condensing the 80 page nonsense each into less than 15 pages. Most of it is superfluous anyway and lines...

[robinhoodOO]

Does any of you know from your own experience or heard from other people how reliable/reflective the Kaplan graders are? I am especially curious about graders in California… Can I assume I am doing okay if essay/PT grades I get from those Kaplan graders are passing grades…? Any thoughts?

No idea. I just got a 3/10 and a 5/10 on the two essays I attempted yesterday. A little discouraging lol...

Not California, though so far I haven't been impressed. In fairness, my judgment might be biased by my low grade. On the first essay I submitted, one of the issues I spotted and analyzed correctly (though admittedly too briefly) was marked as "missed." I received a "2" for "use of language" when I know that, crap though my essay was, it was grammatically immaculate. The grader's individual comments said something about not using "individual single-sentence paragraphs." I did not have any of those. So.

Basically the same, but marked having missed three issues I clearly IRAC'ed. I'm just going to self-grade using the Bar's two model answers to compare and analyze, etc.

[anjmissy]

I hate feeling as if I have to teach myself the state distinctions..I'm doing Penn and so far we haven't had a separate video for state distinctions..Kaplan would just throw a little assignment that says o yeah..review the state distinctions for this on your own time

Any one have tips on how best to study distinctions..I did an essay the other day and missed an issue because it dealt with a civ pro distinction and for some reason Kaplan doesn't have that video until the end of the class

[Geaux12]

So this 4.5 hour crim law lecture looks brutal. I have a lot of catching up to do. Is it feasible to skip the lecture & read the outlines or something like that? Or is this a topic I need to bite the bullet on.

[redblueyellow]

As a full time employed individual, I am now officially freaking out about how much time there is left, how much memorization there is to do, and how I haven't nearly done enough essays/PTs/MBE practice questions. There's legitimately minimal time to do anything after I get home. Mornings are not an option, unfortunately, so I have to pack everything in and skimp on sleep as I'm sure many of you are doing anyways.

Panic mode is setting in much earlier for this retaker.

[theramblinman]

I hate feeling as if I have to teach myself the state distinctions..I'm doing Penn and so far we haven't had a separate video for state distinctions..Kaplan would just throw a little assignment that says o yeah..review the state distinctions for this on your own time

Any one have tips on how best to study distinctions..I did an essay the other day and missed an issue because it dealt with a civ pro distinction and for some reason Kaplan doesn't have that video until the end of the class

I am doing Ohio, and while we have videos, I do not find them that helpful. I have been trying to use the tables in the books but I do not find that too effective either. Any one know of good resources that go over state distinction's in a more useful way?

[robinhoodOO]

As a full time employed individual, I am now officially freaking out about how much time there is left, how much memorization there is to do, and how I haven't nearly done enough essays/PTs/MBE practice questions. There's legitimately minimal time to do anything after I get home. Mornings are not an option, unfortunately, so I have to pack everything in and skimp on sleep as I'm sure many of you are doing anyways.

Panic mode is setting in much earlier for this retaker.

I work 4 hours/day and have 2 little kids at home. Basically, I've had to 'take the reins' from Kaplan and re-do their schedule to do what I know works for me throughout the week. That means cutting stuff that I know I'm naturally stronger with (PT's) and using some of that time to focus on more MBE's and outlining materials.

At this point, you've gotta start doing the same thing. If you find that lectures don't work, stop doing them. Instead, use the bar notes and fill in using outlines (or vice versa). If you're more confident in PT's, spend time doing more MBE's. PT's make up less of the exam and there isn't much to teach other than how to handle/manage a PT anyway.

So, take control by spending 20 minutes looking over the week's assignments and 'cross out' what you're going to trip and put everything into the other stuff. Outline, read, do MBE's like a mofo and you'll get to where you need to be for crunch time.

[smaug]

dear god the crim guy is awful

[LAW813FL]

Anyone know if Kaplan gives us a tables of the Issue Frequency for the MBE? Like For Torts I know Negligence makes up a large portion and Intentional Torts are another big section, but broken down to percentages for each subject?

[despina]

Does anyone know if there's a way to download / save the lectures so that I can watch on a plane without wifi?

[westphillybandr]

So far the only lecturer I've doubted is Preis in Civ Pro. Other than that I've thought Fromm, Bracci, and Roosevelt were all quite good. I'm currently on K's, and so far enjoying the lecturer's style.

In general I've found the lectures helpful, as I'm a relatively auditory learner so following along and filling in blanks really suits my retention preferences. I haven't been bothered by the outline formats, and correcting any formatting that doesn't suit my normal outlining style helps me engage the outline a little more, and I think that helps keep me focused.

w/r/t "one-sheets," I envision those as quick-reference guides more than a compact-but-comprehensive outline. I'd rather take my time reading the 80 pages or so and doing a few QBank or book questions than trying to pretend I'll fit everything I want to review on to one or two pages. Instead, I think it's great for something like condensing all the tests for Con Law, or quickly listing all the idiosyncratic periods/deadlines for Civ Pro, etc.

I'm a bit behind too. What's your plan for catching up?