My B(w)ar Story
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:51 pm
I’ve decided that I should memorialize this while it is fresh in my memory. This is, of course, ONE success bar story, not the ONLY one.
As a 1L, I signed up for BarBri because it was clear at that time (with very little knowledge, of course) that BarBri would be the best way to go because that was the program everyone used. I was then planning to take the CA bar and BarBri had a great success rate for my school in that jurisdiction.
As a 3L and hoping to snag a government job, BarBri no longer seemed ideal. Even with the discount they offered, I was still looking to pay over $2,500. I was footing the bill, and that just didn’t seem right. I spoke to several bar takers (successful and unsuccessful) who had taken BarBri as well as other bar prep courses. After much deliberation and after BarBri called my bluff (“I have $1,800 and that’s it. If you say no, I’ll go with another program”), I decided to go with Themis.
I picked Themis for a variety of reasons. I liked that it was all online. I liked the directed course aspect of it. And yes, it was a lot cheaper for my budget. I signed up with Themis and didn’t look back.
Right before bar prep started, I got an Honors Attorney position with the Federal Government in a different state. I was able to switch jurisdictions for bar taking purposes with no problem. I went from planning to take the CA bar to definitely taking the UBE in another state.
I started bar prep a few days before my recommended schedule. I was possibly moving during the middle of bar prep, so I wanted to have the additional days—just in case. I asked around a lot for how people did bar prep and as you may imagine, I got very different answers. Some people studied all day until 8 or 9pm. Some people took a whole day off every week. Some people took two days off. I had decided that taking a day off every week seemed right and that was going to be my original plan.
My schedule was simple. I got up around 7-8am and went to the gym. After I came back and had a quick breakfast, I would sit on my desk and study away. I watched all the videos on the fastest speed I could. I eventually stopped watching the Themis videos that were not substantive (stuff like, how do you take a torts exam…). My lunches were quick, maybe 15-30 minutes long. I didn’t take long breaks during the day and I did not fool around online. My day was usually over between 4-5pm. I spent my evenings/nights with my wife doing as much fun stuff as I could. We would cook together, watch TV, or go to movies, or go to bowling.
Once the first weekend came, I realized that I wasn’t comfortable taking a whole day off. It just didn’t feel right. I sort of had learned to enjoy the routine and I didn’t want to break it by taking a day off, so I didn’t. And honestly, it didn’t matter because usually, the Saturday and Sunday schedule was a little lighter so I would finish earlier anyway.
This was life until the end of June, when I made the decision to move during the middle of bar prep. Of course I asked TLSers whether this was a dumb idea or not, and of course TLSers came through with providing different opinions on the matter. I decided to move.
My reasons to move, I thought, were solid. My old place was noisy during the days and didn’t have A/C. My new place would have zero noise, A/C, AND a bathtub (the importance of this will become more evident later). The new place was also a steal and we didn’t want to risk not getting as nice of a place if we waited to move later.
Thanks to the ordeal of moving, I took five whole days off. This was partially because of packing, the actual moving to another state part, and because my Internet did not get connected right away. I was feeling really terrible about taking this much time off and I had reason to be concerned.
My first MBE practice set after my break was a meager 50ish%. Yep, taking time off set me back a bit. But I was not going to let that nag at me. I simply kept going. My schedule, however, had changed slightly with the move. I would get up at 7am, go for a ride bike, then come back and start studying. Lunch was still 15-30 minutes. Then I would break at 4pm for dinner. At around 6pm, I would take a bath while reviewing flashcards. This was instrumental in my ability to fix the set back from moving. An hour or so later, I would stop studying and would just watch TV before I went to bed.
I’d like to make a note here. Themis started with the goal score for the MBEs at 40% (I think). When the goal changed to 60 or 65%, I didn’t get there right away. I noticed that I was spending too little time through the questions, so I forced myself to take more time, read the questions/answers more carefully. Also, I looked at what topics I was doing poorly on and tackled those for review. For example, at one point I failed all the answers re Con Law: First Amendment issues. So I spent the next entire bathtub session just reviewing First Amendment until I knew the issues cold.
I watched all of the substantive law videos from my program. I also did all of the MBE practice sets, plus the milestone exams (one was 45 questions and the other 55), and the simulated MBE (yep, 200 questions). On the MBE sets, I averaged 71%. On the first milestone I got a 60% and on the second one, I got a 70%. On the simulated MBE, I got a 135/200.
I did almost all of the essays. I think I missed 10 practice essays and 3 practice PTs. Themis did graded essays through the summer. I did not do all that great on those. In fact, I remember I even got a 22% on one of them. I wasn’t sure if my grader was harsh or if she in fact felt I only deserve that little, but going into the exam, I was EXTREMELY concerned that I was going to fail given how bad my scores were on the essays.
As an important note here, except for the PTs, I always finished my practice exams early. For the essays, I usually finished with 1/3 or 1/4 of the time left. For the MBEs, it was roughly about the same as well (even after I started taking more time with the MBEs… this should tell you how quickly I was going through them before the adjustment).
Three weeks before the exam, I was starting to feel burned out. I took an entire day off because I couldn’t look at my computer anymore. This was a fun day. I went to the movie, had a BBQ, and drank quite a bit. Didn’t regret it and still don’t today. For the record, this burned out feeling kept coming back, I just didn't take more time off.
Finally, maybe one week and a half before the actual exam, my course advisor told me to randomize my essays. This is when I abandoned my directed study program. I wrote down all the essays I had left in little papers, and then put them in a hat. In the morning, I would do an MBE practice set. In the afternoon, I would draw from the hat and do whatever essay I'd pick up. This was a good way to just get used to the randomness of the actual exam. After I did two or three essays, I would spend the rest of the afternoon reviewing. Then dinner, then reviewing cards in the bathtub.
The day before the exam I didn’t study. I went to a mountain and spent the day hiking. It was glorious. It cleared my head a lot and I just felt happy. I was ready for the damn thing to be over with.
The first day of the exam started rough in the morning. I had been happy I had gone hiking, but I felt so freaking sore. I was hoping this wouldn’t get in my way. I had essays in the morning—I got SO FREAKING LUCKY. Every single subject I got in the exam I knew cold. There were some topics I was super shaky on, but I didn’t get any of those. I finished early. Like 45 minutes early. Even the bar examiner asked me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to be done. I was. I felt good about the essays.
I went outside to meet my wife who was bringing me lunch. She was surprised that I was smiling and that I was out so early. I told her how easy I thought the essays had been. I was ready for round two. I took my lunch inside, which was perhaps a big mistake. Almost everyone I overheard near the testing room kept talking about how they didn’t finish their essays. Self doubt kicked in. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I missed all the issues. Maybe [insert any sentence...].
The PT afternoon section started. This was hard for me. I took all the time allotted, but I did finish. I felt good about them, but not great. I finish the day feeling just okay about how the bar went.
I went home and did not study more. Honestly I just felt it would be pointless. I just chilled and spent time with my wife. Tried not to get stressed.
The next morning I felt incredibly tired. But I was also excited about the prospect of being done soon with the nightmare . . . at least for the time being. The morning session of the MBE was harsh. I couldn’t tell for a fact if I had gotten answers correctly or how many. I didn’t guess on any and finished early, but I certainly made A LOT of educated guesses. Note that I had time to go back and review the answers I had marked for review. I only changed a few of the answers and only when I was 100% sure that the new answer was in fact the correct answer.
This time, there were no smiles during lunch. It was more like, “holy shit, I’m not sure what happened in there.”
The afternoon session was my biggest hurdle. I was tired. But what’s worse, I got sick. After maybe 20 questions, I felt dizzy and my stomach felt all wrong. I went to the restroom and washed my face. I walked around outside the testing room for a little bit just so my stomach would settle. I considered just leaving for about one second, but then realized quickly that was a stupid thought. I was not about to waste an entire summer of hard work because I felt sick. I came back into the room and powered through. I even reviewed my answers after I was done even though the temptation to skip that part was high. Again, I finished before time was called.
I walked out of the exam sure that afternoon would be my Achilles heel.
The feeling of being done with the bar was indescribable. It was nice to know that race was over with, but it was depressing to know I could have to go through all of it again.
I started working fairly soon after the bar. This was nice for my budget, but it made the stress of waiting greater. My boss had the habit of asking quite frequently if I had gotten my results yet. What’s worse, she never left any room for the idea that I could have to retake. The expectations in my office were high—they needed me to pass. I wasn’t sure I had.
Thankfully, my jurisdiction had results fairly early. I passed with a 148 in the MBE. I didn't have access to my essay/PT scores, but I presume I did better on the essays given the fact I got sick during the MBE afternoon session.
So that's my b(w)ar story. A few more things before I stop this way too long post: I do not regret not studying all the time like some people did. The burnout effect is serious, and if I had it even though I didn't study all the time, imagine how much worse it could have been if I did. Also, I don't regret spending nights/weekends with my wife doing fun stuff. It helped me be refreshed the following day. And finally, I made a conscious effort to not let myself get stressed. Even when I'd get a bad score on something, I would just move on to the next thing without thinking about it. I cannot stress how important I think it is for a person to stay leveled. The people I know who failed the exam were always the ones who seemed over-the-top stressed during bar prep.
Cheers and good luck with your own bar story.
As a 1L, I signed up for BarBri because it was clear at that time (with very little knowledge, of course) that BarBri would be the best way to go because that was the program everyone used. I was then planning to take the CA bar and BarBri had a great success rate for my school in that jurisdiction.
As a 3L and hoping to snag a government job, BarBri no longer seemed ideal. Even with the discount they offered, I was still looking to pay over $2,500. I was footing the bill, and that just didn’t seem right. I spoke to several bar takers (successful and unsuccessful) who had taken BarBri as well as other bar prep courses. After much deliberation and after BarBri called my bluff (“I have $1,800 and that’s it. If you say no, I’ll go with another program”), I decided to go with Themis.
I picked Themis for a variety of reasons. I liked that it was all online. I liked the directed course aspect of it. And yes, it was a lot cheaper for my budget. I signed up with Themis and didn’t look back.
Right before bar prep started, I got an Honors Attorney position with the Federal Government in a different state. I was able to switch jurisdictions for bar taking purposes with no problem. I went from planning to take the CA bar to definitely taking the UBE in another state.
I started bar prep a few days before my recommended schedule. I was possibly moving during the middle of bar prep, so I wanted to have the additional days—just in case. I asked around a lot for how people did bar prep and as you may imagine, I got very different answers. Some people studied all day until 8 or 9pm. Some people took a whole day off every week. Some people took two days off. I had decided that taking a day off every week seemed right and that was going to be my original plan.
My schedule was simple. I got up around 7-8am and went to the gym. After I came back and had a quick breakfast, I would sit on my desk and study away. I watched all the videos on the fastest speed I could. I eventually stopped watching the Themis videos that were not substantive (stuff like, how do you take a torts exam…). My lunches were quick, maybe 15-30 minutes long. I didn’t take long breaks during the day and I did not fool around online. My day was usually over between 4-5pm. I spent my evenings/nights with my wife doing as much fun stuff as I could. We would cook together, watch TV, or go to movies, or go to bowling.
Once the first weekend came, I realized that I wasn’t comfortable taking a whole day off. It just didn’t feel right. I sort of had learned to enjoy the routine and I didn’t want to break it by taking a day off, so I didn’t. And honestly, it didn’t matter because usually, the Saturday and Sunday schedule was a little lighter so I would finish earlier anyway.
This was life until the end of June, when I made the decision to move during the middle of bar prep. Of course I asked TLSers whether this was a dumb idea or not, and of course TLSers came through with providing different opinions on the matter. I decided to move.
My reasons to move, I thought, were solid. My old place was noisy during the days and didn’t have A/C. My new place would have zero noise, A/C, AND a bathtub (the importance of this will become more evident later). The new place was also a steal and we didn’t want to risk not getting as nice of a place if we waited to move later.
Thanks to the ordeal of moving, I took five whole days off. This was partially because of packing, the actual moving to another state part, and because my Internet did not get connected right away. I was feeling really terrible about taking this much time off and I had reason to be concerned.
My first MBE practice set after my break was a meager 50ish%. Yep, taking time off set me back a bit. But I was not going to let that nag at me. I simply kept going. My schedule, however, had changed slightly with the move. I would get up at 7am, go for a ride bike, then come back and start studying. Lunch was still 15-30 minutes. Then I would break at 4pm for dinner. At around 6pm, I would take a bath while reviewing flashcards. This was instrumental in my ability to fix the set back from moving. An hour or so later, I would stop studying and would just watch TV before I went to bed.
I’d like to make a note here. Themis started with the goal score for the MBEs at 40% (I think). When the goal changed to 60 or 65%, I didn’t get there right away. I noticed that I was spending too little time through the questions, so I forced myself to take more time, read the questions/answers more carefully. Also, I looked at what topics I was doing poorly on and tackled those for review. For example, at one point I failed all the answers re Con Law: First Amendment issues. So I spent the next entire bathtub session just reviewing First Amendment until I knew the issues cold.
I watched all of the substantive law videos from my program. I also did all of the MBE practice sets, plus the milestone exams (one was 45 questions and the other 55), and the simulated MBE (yep, 200 questions). On the MBE sets, I averaged 71%. On the first milestone I got a 60% and on the second one, I got a 70%. On the simulated MBE, I got a 135/200.
I did almost all of the essays. I think I missed 10 practice essays and 3 practice PTs. Themis did graded essays through the summer. I did not do all that great on those. In fact, I remember I even got a 22% on one of them. I wasn’t sure if my grader was harsh or if she in fact felt I only deserve that little, but going into the exam, I was EXTREMELY concerned that I was going to fail given how bad my scores were on the essays.
As an important note here, except for the PTs, I always finished my practice exams early. For the essays, I usually finished with 1/3 or 1/4 of the time left. For the MBEs, it was roughly about the same as well (even after I started taking more time with the MBEs… this should tell you how quickly I was going through them before the adjustment).
Three weeks before the exam, I was starting to feel burned out. I took an entire day off because I couldn’t look at my computer anymore. This was a fun day. I went to the movie, had a BBQ, and drank quite a bit. Didn’t regret it and still don’t today. For the record, this burned out feeling kept coming back, I just didn't take more time off.
Finally, maybe one week and a half before the actual exam, my course advisor told me to randomize my essays. This is when I abandoned my directed study program. I wrote down all the essays I had left in little papers, and then put them in a hat. In the morning, I would do an MBE practice set. In the afternoon, I would draw from the hat and do whatever essay I'd pick up. This was a good way to just get used to the randomness of the actual exam. After I did two or three essays, I would spend the rest of the afternoon reviewing. Then dinner, then reviewing cards in the bathtub.
The day before the exam I didn’t study. I went to a mountain and spent the day hiking. It was glorious. It cleared my head a lot and I just felt happy. I was ready for the damn thing to be over with.
The first day of the exam started rough in the morning. I had been happy I had gone hiking, but I felt so freaking sore. I was hoping this wouldn’t get in my way. I had essays in the morning—I got SO FREAKING LUCKY. Every single subject I got in the exam I knew cold. There were some topics I was super shaky on, but I didn’t get any of those. I finished early. Like 45 minutes early. Even the bar examiner asked me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to be done. I was. I felt good about the essays.
I went outside to meet my wife who was bringing me lunch. She was surprised that I was smiling and that I was out so early. I told her how easy I thought the essays had been. I was ready for round two. I took my lunch inside, which was perhaps a big mistake. Almost everyone I overheard near the testing room kept talking about how they didn’t finish their essays. Self doubt kicked in. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I missed all the issues. Maybe [insert any sentence...].
The PT afternoon section started. This was hard for me. I took all the time allotted, but I did finish. I felt good about them, but not great. I finish the day feeling just okay about how the bar went.
I went home and did not study more. Honestly I just felt it would be pointless. I just chilled and spent time with my wife. Tried not to get stressed.
The next morning I felt incredibly tired. But I was also excited about the prospect of being done soon with the nightmare . . . at least for the time being. The morning session of the MBE was harsh. I couldn’t tell for a fact if I had gotten answers correctly or how many. I didn’t guess on any and finished early, but I certainly made A LOT of educated guesses. Note that I had time to go back and review the answers I had marked for review. I only changed a few of the answers and only when I was 100% sure that the new answer was in fact the correct answer.
This time, there were no smiles during lunch. It was more like, “holy shit, I’m not sure what happened in there.”
The afternoon session was my biggest hurdle. I was tired. But what’s worse, I got sick. After maybe 20 questions, I felt dizzy and my stomach felt all wrong. I went to the restroom and washed my face. I walked around outside the testing room for a little bit just so my stomach would settle. I considered just leaving for about one second, but then realized quickly that was a stupid thought. I was not about to waste an entire summer of hard work because I felt sick. I came back into the room and powered through. I even reviewed my answers after I was done even though the temptation to skip that part was high. Again, I finished before time was called.
I walked out of the exam sure that afternoon would be my Achilles heel.
The feeling of being done with the bar was indescribable. It was nice to know that race was over with, but it was depressing to know I could have to go through all of it again.
I started working fairly soon after the bar. This was nice for my budget, but it made the stress of waiting greater. My boss had the habit of asking quite frequently if I had gotten my results yet. What’s worse, she never left any room for the idea that I could have to retake. The expectations in my office were high—they needed me to pass. I wasn’t sure I had.
Thankfully, my jurisdiction had results fairly early. I passed with a 148 in the MBE. I didn't have access to my essay/PT scores, but I presume I did better on the essays given the fact I got sick during the MBE afternoon session.
So that's my b(w)ar story. A few more things before I stop this way too long post: I do not regret not studying all the time like some people did. The burnout effect is serious, and if I had it even though I didn't study all the time, imagine how much worse it could have been if I did. Also, I don't regret spending nights/weekends with my wife doing fun stuff. It helped me be refreshed the following day. And finally, I made a conscious effort to not let myself get stressed. Even when I'd get a bad score on something, I would just move on to the next thing without thinking about it. I cannot stress how important I think it is for a person to stay leveled. The people I know who failed the exam were always the ones who seemed over-the-top stressed during bar prep.
Cheers and good luck with your own bar story.
