Barbri v. Themis (Amount of Assigned Material + Other Questions) Forum

[goden]

For those who have taken both, is the assigned material in Barbri and Themis roughly the same amount? That is, do they take the same amount of time to do (e.g., 6 hours a day)?

Based on what I've read on here, it seems like Barbri assigns an "overwhelming" amount, so I'm just wondering if it's actually more than Themis or if they are roughly comparable.

I am in CA and trying to decide between the two. If I take Barbri I would be concerned about the fake MBE questions and would want to buy Adaptibar or Emmanuels to supplement. However, if Barbri really is such an overwhelming amount of work, I worry about having the energy to do Adaptibar on top of Barbri. Has anyone done Barbri but skip their assigned MBE questions and done Adaptibar Qs instead?

If I take Themis, I may not feel like I need an MBE supplement, but I have heard that their state-specific materials are weaker (can anyone speak to this for CA?). And if this is true, are there any good state-specific supplements people recommend?

[sdphill]

Ok, I am from a California school myself and I took Themis. (Full disclosure-- I did not take the CBX.) All of my friends took Barbri and we studied together so I will try to compare based on things I know. (You can take what I say about Barbri with a grain of salt and others are free to correct me/add more.)

I cannot compare the amounts, but I can say that both programs will overwhelm you with work every day. It's almost impossible to finish either program. For example, my friends and I would arrive at the library at 8 AM and work until 10/11 PM for 6 days/week, with two thirty-minute "crying/nagging" sessions and a one-hour lunch break. Although we worked diligently, we were all behind in our respective programs. To be honest with you, you're not going to care how much work the program gives us by July. You're going to learn your strength and weaknesses and going to only do the things you need to work on. I actually had Themis and AdaptiBar. I didn't use AdaptiBar too much because (i) I was very tired and trying to keep up and (ii) many of the questions repeated.

From what I saw, a lot of Barbri's MBE questions were in a supplemental book. Many of my friends hated the amount of books they had to carry around on a daily basis for Barbri. With Themis, everything was online and Themis actually caters your MBE questions to things you usually got wrong. Themis even gives you a breakdown of areas of improvement by subtopics after each practice set, which Barbri can't do if many of their MBE questions are in a supplemental book.

I have a question for you: Why do you think Themis is weak in state-specific law?

If you feel like you would be weak in California law, you can always use BarOutlines to flesh things out.

Regardless of what program you choose, you will be prepared for the CBX if you memorize the law, write or outline the essays and review the answers, and do thousands of MBE questions.

(I apologize for any grammatical errors... I'm too tired from work to proofread today.)

[A. Nony Mouse]

I don't think "Barbri's MBE questions are bad because they're fake" is really a thing. I know people in this year's bar threads came out saying "that was nothing like Barbri tested," but people say that every year. The exam itself is scary and you only remember the questions you didn't know. Barbri is more than sufficient to prepare you for the MBE. They provide tons of questions and if you do enough questions you'll learn the MBE. If you want to supplement Barbri that's fine, but there's no need to do so, and I really don't get why you'd skip Barbri's questions.

Barbri also makes all their questions available online and gives you the same breakdown on your weaknesses - at least, they did a few years ago, when I took it, and I can't imagine they'd offer less stuff over the years.

This isn't to say that you have to take Barbri or Barbri is better than Themis or anything - just that I think the concerns about the MBE are unfounded.

[goden]

Thank you both. I think I saw in one of the other Barbri v. Themis threads that some people were complaining about Themis's state-specific law being lacking. But of course I have no idea if that's remotely true since pretty much everything I know about these two programs is from TLS.

Edit: I think it was from this thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=243911

[cmblack]

For those who have taken both, is the assigned material in Barbri and Themis roughly the same amount? That is, do they take the same amount of time to do (e.g., 6 hours a day)?

Based on what I've read on here, it seems like Barbri assigns an "overwhelming" amount, so I'm just wondering if it's actually more than Themis or if they are roughly comparable.

I am in CA and trying to decide between the two. If I take Barbri I would be concerned about the fake MBE questions and would want to buy Adaptibar or Emmanuels to supplement. However, if Barbri really is such an overwhelming amount of work, I worry about having the energy to do Adaptibar on top of Barbri. Has anyone done Barbri but skip their assigned MBE questions and done Adaptibar Qs instead?

If I take Themis, I may not feel like I need an MBE supplement, but I have heard that their state-specific materials are weaker (can anyone speak to this for CA?). And if this is true, are there any good state-specific supplements people recommend?

Full Disclosure: I used barbri because it was free for me. I can attest, the amount of books each day is annoying. That said, all the MBE questions are in the book, and online - so if you are assigned criminal set 1, the questions in the book are also online. I did all my MBE work offline so that I was practicing how I would test, and then took 30 seconds or so to enter the answers I got into the online version, which then gave me the advanced statistical breakdowns, so I knew where my weaknesses were. I took NJ/PA, and I had almost 25 lbs worth of books - but I liked the ability to step away from the computer and focus. A lot of days, I only took books for the study/mbe portions of my day, because if I had my computer, I got distracted. I felt the state outlines and conviser outlines were really good - I never did a closed book essay, and I always worked out of the books - I knew I had style/technique for writing down, but it was the law I needed to be sure was complete.

I got a 141 on the MBE, despite scoring in the 40th percentile on Barbri. I did about 2 sets of q's a day for the last three weeks - 50 qs a day minimumm. I liked their systems for breaking down WHY a questions was wrong. BUT they do give you like three different professors' systems for breaking it down, and only one worked for me. I know it was so everyone found something for them, but listening to new systems got old after a while. I focused a lot on the written explanations in the book, and took notes on that too. I've said in other threads - you will have time for Adaptibar early on - the first 2-3 weeks were lighter; but to hit the 90% threshhold, or to get a large portions of the work, you wont have any time in the last 4 weeks.

[willistononresults]

I'm going to be taking the UBE in February and wanted to know if anyone had a better experience with Barbri vs. Themis. I realize I'm not going to have to study any state specific law, so just curious if that changed your opinions on picking either company. THANKS

[mike.alexander23]

I went to a CA school, took Themis, and took the CBX. The majority of my friends took Barbri so I heard a lot about it. (Take this advice as you may, I'm still waiting to get my results in CA).

I think we can agree that both courses are loaded with work. That's the nature of the exam and to learn all the subjects on short time inevitably requires a lot of material and work.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the statement that Themis skimps on state specific law. In fact, they provide whole outlines dedicated to giving you state law distinctions. They also give you shorter summary outlines again providing state law distinctions. Finally, when you practice your essays, the Model Answers give full explanation of any state law distinctions, so you can flesh out state law even more. I felt relatively prepared for the CBX, even on CA specific topics.

I also followed the course schedule for about 6-7 weeks early summer. About 2-3 weeks before the exam I abandoned the schedule and did as much MBEs as I could and read as many explanations as I could. Although the MBE questions felt different (as I'm sure they always do), I felt Themis' questions at least gave me the skills to narrow down the answer choices as much as possible.

Hope this helps and GL.

[lacrossebrother]

Hey dude, I'm trying to spread the word that Themis proved that bar study does need to be expensive, and Themis is still expensive. In other words, themis provides you shitty quality tapes, very standard outlines, and a decent bank of questions. And that's MORE than enough to pass. I think Themis is great for law school in general in that they proved that spending $3,000 yourself is absurd for bar review. But they also proved that you should spend very little. While plenty of TLSers have passed with baroutlines.com for $50, I don't think anyone felt comfortable enough to take that plunge. It just *feels* too cheap. But Themis is just an expensive version of baroutlines.

I'm not the only one who has said this stuff before, but I'm going to try to be the loudest. I implore you to save money in your bar prep.

Here's a blog post that I thought was good too:
http://blakemasters.com/post/3711346829 ... -100-hours