Themis July 2019 Forum

[barryzee]

Anyone else using the Quiz Builder noticing that some questions are repeat questions?

They repeat. I believe moreso for ones you got wrong on an earlier quiz, which seem to repeat routinely until you get the question right.

[RioGrandeLaw]

Anyone else using the Quiz Builder noticing that some questions are repeat questions?

Only used it once, but yes. I think it's highly likely they do that on purpose on questions you missed, but I didn't bother to cross-check them.

[Dunnkirk85]

I'm at around 70% after doing 500 MBE questions, but did the MBE #1 Primer on test mode this morning and got destroyed (52%)..Yikes

[2k16L1]

I was at around 67% after doing 600 MBE questions. I got a 60% on the MBE #1 Primer. It was definitely tricky...or I had just forgotten some rules/exceptions. lol

[pej9247]

this week wrapped up not so great for me. scoring lower on the PQs than i'd like despite putting in a lot of work. pretty tired and discouraged at the moment.

this sucks!

I'm with you and am glad to find out I'm not the only one. This is such an isolating process and the only feedback I get about how other people are doing are the stats from Themis where they tell me 82% of people correctly answered the question I got wrong. I thought I'd hit rock bottom when I found myself throwing things around my living room and kitchen after failing another practice exam. But then I found myself angrily trying to pry the lid off a can of pineapples with with a crescent wrench after the can opener didn't open it all the way.

I think I'm gonna take a couple days to ease back from the Themis schedule and spend more time with the quiz builder and flashcards.

[2k16L1]

I'm at around 70% after doing 500 MBE questions, but did the MBE #1 Primer on test mode this morning and got destroyed (52%)..Yikes

Do you normally do test mode?

[Dunnkirk85]

I'm at around 70% after doing 500 MBE questions, but did the MBE #1 Primer on test mode this morning and got destroyed (52%)..Yikes

Do you normally do test mode?

I usually do set #5 for each subject in test mode. I like to practice staying focused through that many questions without being able to rely on the timer stopping after each one

[RioGrandeLaw]

Is anyone behind the recommended schedule? I'm about 5 days behind where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I'm never going to get close to finishing 75% of the course at this rate. The daily progress thing tells me to increase my pace by 1.8%. But there have just been days where even if I'd studied, I wasn't going to learn anything because I wasn't mentally in the right place, and I don't want to just pencil whip the tasks to stay on track.

[strawberrieee]

Is anyone behind the recommended schedule? I'm about 5 days behind where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I'm never going to get close to finishing 75% of the course at this rate. The daily progress thing tells me to increase my pace by 1.8%. But there have just been days where even if I'd studied, I wasn't going to learn anything because I wasn't mentally in the right place, and I don't want to just pencil whip the tasks to stay on track.

I'm also behind schedule, because I took one week of vacay after graduation and also took my time with Property (which I did not take in law school). I think the daily progress assumes the 100% completion rate, so if your goal is 75% completion, you would need to do less than 1.8% per day. When I'm not in the mood to study, I do tasks that do not require the use of my brain (for me, it's listening to the lectures and filling out the blanks, which I consider a more passive way of learning than reading the outlines and actively trying to memorize stuffs).

[AussieAustin]

I'm at around 70% after doing 500 MBE questions, but did the MBE #1 Primer on test mode this morning and got destroyed (52%)..Yikes

I was very happy with my measly 53 % for the first primer I did tonight. I’m only hovering around 48% after 470 questions so pleasantly surprised. The questions seemed quite different to the practice questions though. After a very traumatic week (unexpected death of a pet) I’m hoping I can regain my focus this week. I went From 70% for one set of contracts PQ to below 50%

[barryzee]

Is anyone behind the recommended schedule? I'm about 5 days behind where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I'm never going to get close to finishing 75% of the course at this rate. The daily progress thing tells me to increase my pace by 1.8%. But there have just been days where even if I'd studied, I wasn't going to learn anything because I wasn't mentally in the right place, and I don't want to just pencil whip the tasks to stay on track.

I find the course progress tracker to be pretty bizarre & a minefield for bad incentives. Watch a 5 minute minute on procrastination? 0.2% progress. Read 50 pages of complex civil procedure material? 0.4% progress (regardless of whether you go fast or slow, etc.).

I've given up on it. I'm measuring my progress by proficiency on the 7 MBE subjects (the correlation between practice & exam results on the MBE is very high) & then, secondarily, estimated proficiency on essay taking, the remaining MEE subjects, and the MPT.

If I'm hitting the necessary percentages correct on the 7 MBE subjects, I figure I'm more than 70-80% past the necessary preparation for the exam.

[ipsares]

rolled a 64% on the mbe practice exam #1 but didn't feel sure on most questions which was not a confidence booster

[kms181]

this week wrapped up not so great for me. scoring lower on the PQs than i'd like despite putting in a lot of work. pretty tired and discouraged at the moment.

this sucks!

I'm with you and am glad to find out I'm not the only one. This is such an isolating process and the only feedback I get about how other people are doing are the stats from Themis where they tell me 82% of people correctly answered the question I got wrong. I thought I'd hit rock bottom when I found myself throwing things around my living room and kitchen after failing another practice exam. But then I found myself angrily trying to pry the lid off a can of pineapples with with a crescent wrench after the can opener didn't open it all the way.

I think I'm gonna take a couple days to ease back from the Themis schedule and spend more time with the quiz builder and flashcards.

FWIW, remember that there are a good number of people who take the "practice" tests with their books open, so don't stress yourself out too much about other peoples' performance. Worry about how you felt, and whether you thoroughly read and understood the explanations for the questions you missed.

Is anyone behind the recommended schedule? I'm about 5 days behind where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I'm never going to get close to finishing 75% of the course at this rate. The daily progress thing tells me to increase my pace by 1.8%. But there have just been days where even if I'd studied, I wasn't going to learn anything because I wasn't mentally in the right place, and I don't want to just pencil whip the tasks to stay on track.

Also don't worry about the Themis pace tracker. (unless, of course, you're incredibly behind, at which point your school's designated bar exam person will reach out to you with concern. Yes, they can see everyone's progress and yes, they know how well you're scoring on practice tests.) I started a week late as I went on my honeymoon after graduation, and my "recommended" pace was between 1.5-2.8% pretty much everyday, and there were plenty of days I did not meet that recommendation. I still ended up finishing approx 91% of the course. Some things go by faster than others, and by time you get to the end you know which portions you are able to skip.

TLDR; don't worry about the comparisons to others, and don't worry about the pace. Keep on pushing through the material and you'll be fine.

[RioGrandeLaw]

TLDR; don't worry about the comparisons to others, and don't worry about the pace. Keep on pushing through the material and you'll be fine.

Thanks for posting this- it's a huge morale boost for me, and I'm sure others on here. I had originally thought, "OK, I'll do bar prep like 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and then goof off on day 7." Then I started, and said, "I'm going to have to do this shit 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, with no breaks, to have a chance at hitting 75% of the course. Fuck my life." And I started on the recommended day, but only did about half the material for the first few days.

Now my one "day off" is about every 7-8 days, but it's just a "light" day with maybe 3 hours of work and that's often stuff like watching videos I put off during the week.

Edit: What the hell is the point of taking the PQs open book? That's shooting yourself in the foot.

[justanormalperson]

Just finished MBE Practice Exam #1, only scored a 58% however, when I talked to some of the people that passed the Bar, they always say trust the process, you will be better in the end. So I just want to say to everybody, hang in there! Don't get discouraged, we are suppose to get better through the process. So stay strong!

[TLSDookie]

Just finished MBE Practice Exam #1, only scored a 58% however, when I talked to some of the people that passed the Bar, they always say trust the process, you will be better in the end. So I just want to say to everybody, hang in there! Don't get discouraged, we are suppose to get better through the process. So stay strong!

Score a 53% and was decently happy with it until I came to these boards haha. On the bright side I got like 25% on contracts and then did pretty good on prop/extremely well on torts, so I obviously know where I need to put in a lot more work on going back and grinding on rules/exceptions. On to Civ Pro, keep marching forward, and trust the process!

[AussieAustin]

Just finished MBE Practice Exam #1, only scored a 58% however, when I talked to some of the people that passed the Bar, they always say trust the process, you will be better in the end. So I just want to say to everybody, hang in there! Don't get discouraged, we are suppose to get better through the process. So stay strong!

Score a 53% and was decently happy with it until I came to these boards haha. On the bright side I got like 25% on contracts and then did pretty good on prop/extremely well on torts, so I obviously know where I need to put in a lot more work on going back and grinding on rules/exceptions. On to Civ Pro, keep marching forward, and trust the process!

I just finished my first practice exam for a 49%. That seems to be where I’m at for my PQ. Little disappointed with my torts though. I’ve been scoring approx 55% in PQ but only scored 35% in the exam. Haven’t looked properly where I went wrong yet. I was Trying not to drink water during it since I know I wont have any on the day. Lasted about 40 minutes That’s going to be a killer.

[L'orDuCommun]

Anybody else hate Kendrick for Torts? She's not a good lecturer at all. It's the bar ffs, stop teaching lke you're in your 1L classroom and focus on the rules. I want Kramer back.

[strawberrieee]

Anybody else hate Kendrick for Torts? She's not a good lecturer at all. It's the bar ffs, stop teaching lke you're in your 1L classroom and focus on the rules. I want Kramer back.

While Kendrick is not as funny as Kramer, I found her lectures to be more useful. Her lectures give me sufficient info to get most PQs right (maybe because torts is just a matter of memorizing main elements and using common sense). For Kramer, his lectures just give me 30-40% knowledge I need to do the PQs. I need to read the outline more closely for a bunch of additional rules he did not mention and even supplement his lectures with non-Themis resources.

I think Civ Pro lectures are even worse.

[AussieAustin]

Anybody else hate Kendrick for Torts? She's not a good lecturer at all. It's the bar ffs, stop teaching lke you're in your 1L classroom and focus on the rules. I want Kramer back.

I actually liked her because she followed the handout. I’ve had a couple of other lecturers for Texas specific subjects that have driven me crazy because they go off on a tangent and I lose where they’re up to. Looking at you Community Property when you kept going on about Codes, and cases that just aren’t relevant now!

[pej9247]

TLDR; don't worry about the comparisons to others, and don't worry about the pace. Keep on pushing through the material and you'll be fine.

Thanks, that's a welcome morale boost and echoes what Themis said when they called to check in with me. Just gotta trust the process. They probably would've failed as a business if they had no idea what they're doing.

[RioGrandeLaw]

I'm struggling with memorizing rules and "blocks" of text that you typically need when writing essays. Like "An executory interest is a future interest of a grantee following the automatic termination of a prior estate blah blah blah." I can remember maybe the first 4 or 5 words if I'm lucky.

So, I got to thinking, it's actually like an actor learning their lines. So, um...how do they manage to do that? Well, I googled, and found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8k_rNTDjJM

Basically:
1. Read over the lines a few times
2. Write down the first letter of each word
3. Read it using first letters only
4. Try it from memory

I attended a state bar CLE session as a student where a guy name Paul Mellor, a memory expert, presented on how to have a better memory. His technique involves anchors and exaggeration. So, I figure I'll try the above technique, and throw in exaggeration by thinking of the rules as "lines" in a role I'm playing in a movie, and for something like executory interests, pretending in my mind that my "role" is as an "executive" (anchor). Plenty of material for that: Crim Pro= Consensual Search = ...well, let's just say that one might be a bit X rated....

Anyway, I figure I'll try this and if it works, I'll make a notebook or flash cards with just the first letters of the rule or text and carry it around until test day to keep refreshing my "lines" for my "big debut"...

[cavalier1138]

I'm struggling with memorizing rules and "blocks" of text that you typically need when writing essays. Like "An executory interest is a future interest of a grantee following the automatic termination of a prior estate blah blah blah." I can remember maybe the first 4 or 5 words if I'm lucky.

I think this is probably not the best use of time, especially compared to practice and MBE review. The reality is that you'd probably be trying to memorize a few hundred "blocks" and using maybe 10-12 on the actual exam. If you can remember the general rule and, more importantly, spot an issue that is raised because of the rule, you're going to do fine. I think the difference between an essay that lists all five elements of a particular legal doctrine vs. an essay that lists three of the elements but includes the relevant element for the fact pattern is going to be negligible.

[sadfishe]

I'm really not satisfied with my graded essays so far and don't really know how to feel. My Grader's notes are definitely true and they are helpful, but I got a 60% and 50% respectively on these essays, using notes and taking additional time. I'm just not sure how I'm going to be able to write a passing essay if basically cheating yields those results. I feel a little adrift at the moment. Any suggestions here on what I can do? The sample answers are presumably about 100% scoring answers, but what on earth does a 65% essay look like?

[jc9812]

Does anyone know how many MBE questions Themis has? I ask because when I click on my breakdown of MBE questions, it seems to include only questions from PQ sets and practice tests.

I am basically wondering whether the questions in quiz builder are included in my breakdown of MBE questions - it seems they are not. I'm also trying to figure out how many MBE questions there are total, so I can pace myself on MBE questions/quiz builder if need be.