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It's been about a week and a half since I sat for the CBX and I still can't shake the feeling that I royaly f'd up and failed the exam. I just want to see if anyone either 1. Personally messed up on the exam (i.e. didn't finish a PT, missed significant issues on an essay etc etc) but still passed or 2. If you have heard stories of someone f'n up and still passing. I guess I just made this post for my own sanity..

I know of so, so many of these cases relating to personal friends. One missed tons of issues on several essays, another left out one whole essay entirely, and another two did not do a whole section of a PT. I failed by three points in Feb., and what I can tell you from reviewing my scores, and I have posted previously on this, is that you really, truly, unquestionably have no idea how you will do based upon how you are evaluating your performance in the cold light of day. I was truly speechless to see what my scores ended up being based upon my sense of things in February. All the people I mention above were all quite good MBE takers, and that really can make up for a lot of errors elsewhere. You really need to find a productive way to expend your mental energy and get out of your head. The odds are hugely in your favor if you went to a decent school.

There are many folks who were certain they failed but passed. Just remain optimistic! I'm going to start preparing for another state anyway so if I have to take it again I'll already be in the zone.

LAWYER2 wrote:There are many folks who were certain they failed but passed. Just remain optimistic! I'm going to start preparing for another state anyway so if I have to take it again I'll already be in the zone.

i'm taking feb too....when will u start studying?

GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

dood wrote:GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

Wow, find that hard to believe, but congrats. You had to have gotten a 190 on the MBE assuming your other three essays and PT were a 65.

Anyways, I had friends who wrote completely wrong essays for a question (think writing a contracts essay for a torts question), or wrote answers to essays in 30 min and missing lots of issues and still passed. Mistakes have to be overcome somehow, and they probably killed some other questions or the MBE to make up for it.

adonai wrote:

dood wrote:GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

Wow, find that hard to believe, but congrats. You had to have gotten a 190 on the MBE assuming your other three essays and PT were a 65.

Anyways, I had friends who wrote completely wrong essays for a question (think writing a contracts essay for a torts question), or wrote answers to essays in 30 min and missing lots of issues and still passed. Mistakes have to be overcome somehow, and they probably killed some other questions or the MBE to make up for it.

Really hard to believe ...

You have to be careful with these stories, they tend to give a false sense of hope.

I understand the OP though, I struggled with both PT's and I'm nervous, but at this point what's done is done ... It is what it is.

Jay Heizenburg wrote:

adonai wrote:

dood wrote:GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

Wow, find that hard to believe, but congrats. You had to have gotten a 190 on the MBE assuming your other three essays and PT were a 65.

Anyways, I had friends who wrote completely wrong essays for a question (think writing a contracts essay for a torts question), or wrote answers to essays in 30 min and missing lots of issues and still passed. Mistakes have to be overcome somehow, and they probably killed some other questions or the MBE to make up for it.

Really hard to believe ...

You have to be careful with these stories, they tend to give a false sense of hope.

I understand the OP though, I struggled with both PT's and I'm nervous, but at this point what's done is done ... It is what it is.

Get out, there are plenty of other negative bar threads out there. This thread is for positivity, and if it gives me a false sense of hope right now, there's no harm to it.

SilverE2 wrote:

Jay Heizenburg wrote:

adonai wrote:

dood wrote:GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

Wow, find that hard to believe, but congrats. You had to have gotten a 190 on the MBE assuming your other three essays and PT were a 65.

Anyways, I had friends who wrote completely wrong essays for a question (think writing a contracts essay for a torts question), or wrote answers to essays in 30 min and missing lots of issues and still passed. Mistakes have to be overcome somehow, and they probably killed some other questions or the MBE to make up for it.

Really hard to believe ...

You have to be careful with these stories, they tend to give a false sense of hope.

I understand the OP though, I struggled with both PT's and I'm nervous, but at this point what's done is done ... It is what it is.

Get out, there are plenty of other negative bar threads out there. This thread is for positivity, and if it gives me a false sense of hope right now, there's no harm to it.

Lol, you sound drunk ...

And what bar exam are you taking, again?

Whichever it is, it's not the CBX, so I would stick to your own bar exam thread if I were you.

#dontdeviateB #lol #getout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6P3RFEA ... e=youtu.be

Jay Heizenburg wrote:

SilverE2 wrote:

Jay Heizenburg wrote:

adonai wrote: Wow, find that hard to believe, but congrats. You had to have gotten a 190 on the MBE assuming your other three essays and PT were a 65.

Anyways, I had friends who wrote completely wrong essays for a question (think writing a contracts essay for a torts question), or wrote answers to essays in 30 min and missing lots of issues and still passed. Mistakes have to be overcome somehow, and they probably killed some other questions or the MBE to make up for it.

Really hard to believe ...

You have to be careful with these stories, they tend to give a false sense of hope.

I understand the OP though, I struggled with both PT's and I'm nervous, but at this point what's done is done ... It is what it is.

Get out, there are plenty of other negative bar threads out there. This thread is for positivity, and if it gives me a false sense of hope right now, there's no harm to it.

Lol, you sound drunk ...

And what bar exam are you taking, again?

Whichever it is, it's not the CBX, so I would stick to your own bar exam thread if I were you.

#dontdeviateB #lol #getout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6P3RFEA ... e=youtu.be

Nice hashtags, adult.

Lol, hashtag or die.

I completely missed a big issue in one of my essays, had a CPT from hell that I really blew and honestly didn't even make sense to me as I was reading it back, and I found out after the exam that I scored high enough on the MBE to waive into DC but not Minnesota! So my MBE score was definitely under 145. And I passed.

The girl sitting next to me during the bar said she had totally blown it and was sorry she wasted her time, because she wasn't even going to practice in California, didn't study enough for the exam, and felt blindsided by most of the essays. And she passed!

courtneylove wrote:I completely missed a big issue in one of my essays, had a CPT from hell that I really blew and honestly didn't even make sense to me as I was reading it back, and I found out after the exam that I scored high enough on the MBE to waive into DC but not Minnesota! So my MBE score was definitely under 145. And I passed.

The girl sitting next to me during the bar said she had totally blown it and was sorry she wasted her time, because she wasn't even going to practice in California, didn't study enough for the exam, and felt blindsided by most of the essays. And she passed!

Thank you for this. Praying day and night that I passed the MBE with 135+

dood wrote:GF cheated on me and told me two weeks before CA bar about it and that she was leaving me for him. couldnt sleep without ambian, couldnt study after taking it. catch-22, so i didn't study. i left probably half the CA exam blank. i was so confident that i failed i even emailed my firm HR to let them know.

i passed.

Amazing. Please god let me pass!

Feeling really nervous. There's a little less than two weeks before results come out! How's everyone doing? Anyone have anymore success stories? Nov 21st, 6PM just can't come soon enough!

I'm also waiting for cbx results...particularly nervous because my computer died during the first PT and had I to handwrite the damn thing. After it was over, I drove to the nearest apple store to buy a new laptop and was on hold with Examsoft until 11:30pm so I could reregister. Wasn't pretty, but I think it gave me enough adrenaline to make it through the MBEs

...I'm hoping this will become one of those "shit-happened-but-I-still-passed" stories...

Now that I've gotten results, I feel like I can share my "horror story" from July.

I'll preface this by saying that I did decently well at a tier 1 law school and studied all throughout the summer. That said, I did horribly on my mock MBE during bar prep. It was consistently my worst subject during my studies. My scores had gotten better as the bar came closer, but I had serious anxiety about the MBE.

Fast forward to the bar. I felt pretty good about my MPT on the first day and spent a couple of hours studying the MBE before trying to get a good night's sleep. As an aside, I took the bar in Arlington, Texas as that is the "Dallas" test site. Because I live near downtown Dallas and Arlington is about 30 minutes away, many of us stayed at a hotel right next to the testing site so we wouldn't have to worry about traffic or anything unforeseen that could make us late to the test.

So, as I try to fall asleep on Tuesday night, I begin feeling a lot of anxiety about the MBE. My brain will not turn off. And to make matters worse, a lot of the hotel guests on my floor were extremely loud. In the end, I finally fell asleep around 4:30 am and woke up at 6:30 am.

I walked into the MBE on two hours of sleep. I downed espresso and a 5-Hour Energy before walking into the exam room.

I hardly remember taking the MBE at all. My brain was so foggy; I had to take mini breaks during the test so that I could maintain my focus. I walked out of the room on Tuesday feeling like I absolutely bombed the MBE.

On top of all that, I learned that MBE scores were the lowest they'd been in a decade. I also didn't get a great night's sleep before the last night of the exam, which consisted of twelve essays. On the essay portion, I had no idea how to answer one property question and I completely misstated the rule on two other questions.

Needless to say, I was more than worried about whether I passed.

I got my scores last week, and I scored a scaled 148.5 on the MBE and passed the bar with ease.

my horror story.. took NY, wanted to use a computer, so I paid the $100 fee. For some reason, only brought 2 blue ink pens with me figuring I would need one to sign in, and the other I just saw lying around so, why not? Bought a new computer for the bar exam, used it throughout bar prep to get used to the keyboard. Night before the test, I did a last second check to make sure it all worked just fine ( and was fully charged). it was. 30 minutes before the test begins, I get my seat and fire up good new CPU. turn on Examsoft, and get a message telling me I need to restart my computer ( re-start, I think to myself, but I didn't have to do it last night, oh well it should only take 2 minutes) Get it all restarted, try to open examoft.. get an error message. Called a proctor over, who tries to fix it. 20 minutes later- i'm told I have to hadn write the entire exam.. But proctor took pity on me and gave me 2 extra blue pens..

6 essays later, with my hand severely cramping( which lasted 3 days later), I finished my MPT. only cost me an extra $100 bucks, plus the $3.50 I spent on my lunch hour frantically getting more blue pens (ended up going though 4 of them)
Got the last laugh on the bar exam, as I had my examsoft issue at 8:30AM not 8'30PM.. had enough time for a double shot of jack and a decent nights sleep.

I won, you lost bar exam

I took Texas and passed.

I made the mistake of discussing the questions on the lunch break and realized that I had the completely wrong answer for the Partnership question (it's not my strong suit and I overlooked a throwaway line...grrr), additionally I had prepared for Guardianship more heavily than trusts and they gave us a Trusts question wherein I was doing the Ron Swanson "I'm going to type every word I know" and it still didn't amount to many words.

Basically I walked out of there feeling the most confident in my secured transactions and consumer transactions answers...and that was enough to shatter my entire worldview because those are /not/ my subjects.

I'm not sure if that's full-on horror, but knowing I completely screwed up the Partnership question was not a pleasant experience.

I guess this isn't quite a "horror story," but I can tell you that I left that exam fully believing that I failed.

First of all, let me say, I did well in law school but am horrible with multiple choice. I knew the MBE was going to be a problem. After a horrible grade on my Kaplan midterm, I knew I had to do something, so I registered for Adaptibar and spent a lot of time in the last month of bar prep focusing on the MBE. I think I was averaging approximately 60-65% on all MBE topics, which I was hoping was enough to pass.

I took 2 exams (MA and RI) so I did three days. I felt pretty good about my essays after the first day in RI. Then, I took the MBE. It was awful. Despite my 2000+ practice questions, I did not feel confident about a single question. I narrowed it down to 2 and guessed on at least 50% of the questions. Third day was MA essays. I felt okay about the essays, but not great.

Then, I spent three months convincing myself that there was no way I passed either exam with how horrible I did on the MBE. To my surprise, I somehow got a 156 on the MBE. I have NO IDEA how that happened, because that's better than I did on any practice test. I guess it just goes to show that the bar exam is a complete mindfuck.

right now this thread is the only thing giving me a semblance of hope. I wish there were more entries for the CA bar

courtneylove wrote:I completely missed a big issue in one of my essays, had a CPT from hell that I really blew and honestly didn't even make sense to me as I was reading it back, and I found out after the exam that I scored high enough on the MBE to waive into DC but not Minnesota! So my MBE score was definitely under 145. And I passed.

The girl sitting next to me during the bar said she had totally blown it and was sorry she wasted her time, because she wasn't even going to practice in California, didn't study enough for the exam, and felt blindsided by most of the essays. And she passed!

thanks for this Courtneylove..please please let this be me

bumping this for a little bit of extra reassurance for those taking the bar exam next week. I will add this one extra story: A good friend of mine took NY and got a scaled 128 on the MBE- and she passed. I didn't believe her until she showed me her score report. (her essays and NYMC must have been through the roof but NYers will never know how well they did on the essays if they pass the Bar Exam).


Two last minute bits of advice: 1) stay off TLS and do not talk to anyone about the test right after the test. It will do nothing but decrease your confidence levels.. and for this exam confidence is extremely important.

2) As soon as you walk out the door of the exam- erase all memories of what you just did. don't try to relive your experience- just forget and move on. When you are done for the day- forget the entire day and get ready for the next day. To that extent- hide your bar prep materials in an out of sight location so you wont have to see them until the day you get your passing results and you can toss the all out or return/ sell them.


Good Luck!! Y'all got this!!!!

There are plenty of people who will freak out even when they know they did well. I'm sure you've seen them in law school. Horror story... yet still passed? is probably how it went down for most people who passed.

I hope that's^ me. I really do.