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So I know not practicing the essays is setting yourself to fail the bar, I get it. I'm getting so much anxiety when I read an assigned essay-I can spot all the issues but freak out at the fact that I don't have the rule statements memorized yet.

I've been told that it's okay to do it open book right now but that just doesn't feel right. I feel sooo lost! I don't know how to productively practice my essays when my rule statements aren't memorized but I know the relevant issues and the law....We've been told don't memorize yet but I just don't know how else to be able to practice essays under more realistic conditions. When am I supposed to start memorizing my stuff and how do I approach practice essays when I don't my stuff memorized yet?

I usually memorize the material before I do an essay, and it's quite doable to spend 2-3 hours actively reviewing after hearing a lecture. Sometimes I forget an aspect about the law, and then I open my book and never forget the law as a result. It might mean delaying doing an essay a little, but it will be more productive.

I recognized this problem too. Did not touch the essays until July. Passed by a lot. I spent the majority of my June learning the black letter law (especially the MBE subjects); once you get to the point where you know the law laid out in your outlines reasonably well, start doing tons of practice essays. If you did halfway decent in lawschool you know how to write an essay that will satisfy the bar examiners.

Rowinguy2009 wrote:I recognized this problem too. Did not touch the essays until July. Passed by a lot. I spent the majority of my June learning the black letter law (especially the MBE subjects); once you get to the point where you know the law laid out in your outlines reasonably well, start doing tons of practice essays. If you did halfway decent in lawschool you know how to write an essay that will satisfy the bar examiners.

This is terrible advice. Themis gives you a schedule and you're in much better shape is you stick to the schedule. If they give you an essay to do in June, do it. The bar exam prep companies know what to do. I can promise you, you HAVE to stick to a program and not sticking to the schedule is a recipe for failure.

There, I responded for the 100's of nervous risk averse students on TLS.

Now for normal people, you're advice is great. I did this too. Especially for Wills in NY where there is one every year, I found it better to just drill wills essays like a week before.

Keep learning the law right now and doing MBE. No need to worry about essays until July. And half of the essays are on MBE topics, so you should be good to go on those too. You're setting yourself up for success, not failure.

I think TCR is to (1) try the essays without looking at your shit. (2) Then when you are positive you don't know anything more for that subject, look in the book and fill in the rest of the answer.

As you go on, you'll start doing more and more of (1) rather than (2). By the last couple weeks, you want to be doing all (1) and getting almost all of it.

My .02. I see no problem with just outlining the essays for the issues at this point. If you know the law well, write out the rule statement, but if not...just identify the issue. Here's why:

If you get the issue this time around you can drill the same essay again without cheating yourself. Think about it, you will identify the issue again of course but now you are really testing if you memorized the rule statement.

Plus if you had all the rules memorized right now why the hell would you be studying for another month and a half?

What I'm going to do: Outline essays now, focus on MBE, memorize rule statements in july, keep focused on MBE, start writing out full essays after the first week of July.

All of that said, I am writing the essays out when they are due for BarBri...because screw it, might as well get them graded and get general advice.

Most people pass this exam. You are on TLS thinking about how to study more efficiently...do you think you are in the minority that will fail? Really? - My bread brain.

They make you do essays without knowing the law for a reason: to learn the art of BSing by learning to write something when you don't know what to write or when you forgot the rule, as well as gaining composure when that moment that may come during the actual exam where you don't recognize a single issue on an essay. You have to know it might happen and to have a game plan if they test something you don't remember or didn't spend much time on.

adonai wrote:They make you do essays without knowing the law for a reason: to learn the art of BSing by learning to write something when you don't know what to write or when you forgot the rule, as well as gaining composure when that moment that may come during the actual exam where you don't recognize a single issue on an essay. You have to know it might happen and to have a game plan if they test something you don't remember or didn't spend much time on.

This

This thread makes me feel much better. I have been doing pretty well on the MBE practice sets, but not so much on the essays.

prs362 wrote:This thread makes me feel much better. I have been doing pretty well on the MBE practice sets, but not so much on the essays.

Same boat. I always try to make a good faith effort at doing the essays when they tell me, but I usually just end up looking at the answer, and then realizing that even though I kind of knew what the issues were, I didn't really remember the rule to apply.

Doing fine on MBE stuff, but a far cry from doing well on the essays. Especially these past two days. They expect me to write a secured transactions and commercial paper essay right away? Not happening.

Still trying to figure out what is "fine" on the MBE at this point . . .

the essays will point you to your trouble areas.

I am at this point just trying to spot the issues (although my state's essays are mostly about issue spotting from what I understand, at least more so than other states). I don't have a single rule or any BLL memorized but I know what the issues are. Then I am compiling a list of all the issues (they basically test the same shit over and over in my state), and then in a couple weeks or so I will know what rules to memorize, and then MAYBE I will try to write out full essays after I memorize all the BLL etc. (but probably not because I am lazy). So that's my take on it.

sparty99 wrote:the essays will point you to your trouble areas.

Oh good, then I only have trouble areas in every single possible essay topic in this state thus far.