Retaking Texas bar, need a good game plan Forum

[DueProcessDoWheelies]

I failed the Texas bar by 16 points in July and my MBE just killed me. So, I'm focusing more heavily on that this time. I am doing Barbri again because it's free, and I just bought Critical Pass flashcards, and sucked it up and bought Adaptibar as well because I absolutely need to practice with real NCBE questions. I found Barbri's questions to be helpful, but not that helpful. I hope these investments end up paying off.

I will not be re-watching the Barbri lectures except for my weakest subjects. I found the lectures to be not all that helpful (except property. that property lecture was awesome) and a huge time sink. Some of those were like 4 hours long. I figure a better thing to do would be to review the Barbri outlines for the Texas subjects, and review my Critical Pass cards for the MBE subjects, and create my own outlines based off of those. I feel like that's a good way to retain the information. Not a fan of creating my own notecards because that's pretty tedious and time-consuming too.

So, I will do that for 3-4 hours and then do 30-40 practice MBE question on Adaptibar every day. 30-40 per day is a good amount right? I hear if you do more, you'll burn out fast. And maybe 100 practice MBE questions on the weekends the month before the exam. I've also heard I should definitely do all the Barbri AMP exercises this time.

I did find Barbri to be very helpful for the Texas Essays. Probably because they are allowed to use the actual questions and not make up their own. I'm thinking I should review my notes/outlines for those and do 1-3 essays every day. I'm thinking I will do a 30-minute question, review the answer, and maybe even rewrite my answer just to ensure I retain the information. I'm hoping to get through the entire Barbri essay book by exam week. I hope that's not too high of a goal. I figure it's doable if I stick to my schedule.

I'm thinking I should also do a crim or civ pro exam every day starting in January. Not even watch the lectures on those, just do one, review the answers, and maybe do it again. If I stick to that schedule I should get through a huge chunk of them by exam week. Also, they recycle those questions like crazy so I figure this will prepare me well.

MPT? Not sure. Do a few during prep period and then maybe one more the weekend before the exam?

I'm thinking that as far as my schedule goes, I will just follow Barbri's calendar and study the daily lecture subjects with my notecards/outlines that would be good. Then in the afternoon do some of my own practice.

Also, my final question: when should I start studying? December starts tomorrow and it's tempting to just start studying now. However, I definitely don't want to get burnt out. Also, I am working right now. My employer will work with me as the exam approaches. I will probably take off one day per week in Jan-Feb, which is fine. Maybe some afternoons too, and I will definitely study on the weekends.

Any and all advice is appreciated!

[BVest]

I failed the Texas bar by 16 points in July and my MBE just killed me. So, I'm focusing more heavily on that this time. I am doing Barbri again because it's free, and I just bought Critical Pass flashcards, and sucked it up and bought Adaptibar as well because I absolutely need to practice with real NCBE questions. I found Barbri's questions to be helpful, but not that helpful. I hope these investments end up paying off.

I will not be re-watching the Barbri lectures except for my weakest subjects. I found the lectures to be not all that helpful (except property. that property lecture was awesome) and a huge time sink. Some of those were like 4 hours long. I figure a better thing to do would be to review the Barbri outlines for the Texas subjects, and review my Critical Pass cards for the MBE subjects, and create my own outlines based off of those. I feel like that's a good way to retain the information. Not a fan of creating my own notecards because that's pretty tedious and time-consuming too.

You might also consider getting the NCBE practice sets. In addition to the weakest subjects, you may also want to redo (a) the various brief MBE subject strategy videos and (b) the post-MBE midterm review.

So, I will do that for 3-4 hours and then do 30-40 practice MBE question on Adaptibar every day. 30-40 per day is a good amount right? I hear if you do more, you'll burn out fast. And maybe 100 practice MBE questions on the weekends the month before the exam. I've also heard I should definitely do all the Barbri AMP exercises this time.

30 to 40/day is good, although you may run out of questions (if you do that 10 weeks, that's about 1850 questions).

I did find Barbri to be very helpful for the Texas Essays. Probably because they are allowed to use the actual questions and not make up their own. I'm thinking I should review my notes/outlines for those and do 1-3 essays every day. I'm thinking I will do a 30-minute question, review the answer, and maybe even rewrite my answer just to ensure I retain the information. I'm hoping to get through the entire Barbri essay book by exam week. I hope that's not too high of a goal. I figure it's doable if I stick to my schedule.

I'm thinking I should also do a crim or civ pro exam every day starting in January. Not even watch the lectures on those, just do one, review the answers, and maybe do it again. If I stick to that schedule I should get through a huge chunk of them by exam week. Also, they recycle those questions like crazy so I figure this will prepare me well.

I'm thinking that as far as my schedule goes, I will just follow Barbri's calendar and study the daily lecture subjects with my notecards/outlines that would be good. Then in the afternoon do some of my own practice.

Watch out that you're not doing too much. Conservatively speaking, 30-40 MBE will take you about 60 minutes PLUS time to grade/review. Each essay will take 45 minutes at least; each crim or civ pro will take you an hour when you include grading/figuring out what you did wrong. And reviewing that day's lecture topic will take you an hour or so; maybe longer. That's at least 5 hours of studying each day, which it sounds like is in addition to FT work. It's doable, but also a recipe for burnout. Maybe you want to get in 15-20 MBE during lunch or something, or maybe alternate between doing EITHER essays OR a full civ/crim pro. And, of course, you'll have more time for both of those later in the schedule when you're not also reviewing a lecture for that day.

But I agree that just doing the old crim/civ pro tests will teach you what you need to know to answer 90% of the questions on the actual bar. There's a lot of repetition there.

MPT? Not sure. Do a few during prep period and then maybe one more the weekend before the exam?

How was your MPT score? If it was MBE that killed you, it sounds like you probably write fine. I wouldn't bother actually doing any practice MPTs unless you absolutely feel like you need it. Just review some model answers from the various formats that NCBE has tested in the past (see my past MPT thread to see what those have been).

Also, my final question: when should I start studying? December starts tomorrow and it's tempting to just start studying now. However, I definitely don't want to get burnt out. Also, I am working right now. My employer will work with me as the exam approaches. I will probably take off one day per week in Jan-Feb, which is fine. Maybe some afternoons too, and I will definitely study on the weekends.

Considering that xmas is at 8 full weeks (M-F) out, I'd probably start 10 weeks out (12/14) with the knowledge that you might lose a little time around xmas.

[DueProcessDoWheelies]

You might also consider getting the NCBE practice sets. In addition to the weakest subjects, you may also want to redo (a) the various brief MBE subject strategy videos and (b) the post-MBE midterm review.

The MBE subject strategy vids sound like a good idea. Why buy the NCBE practice sets if Adaptibar already uses NCBE questions? I'm trying to not spend too much more money.

Watch out that you're not doing too much. Conservatively speaking, 30-40 MBE will take you about 60 minutes PLUS time to grade/review. Each essay will take 45 minutes at least; each crim or civ pro will take you an hour when you include grading/figuring out what you did wrong. And reviewing that day's lecture topic will take you an hour or so; maybe longer. That's at least 5 hours of studying each day, which it sounds like is in addition to FT work. It's doable, but also a recipe for burnout. Maybe you want to get in 15-20 MBE during lunch or something, or maybe alternate between doing EITHER essays OR a full civ/crim pro. And, of course, you'll have more time for both of those later in the schedule when you're not also reviewing a lecture for that day.

But I agree that just doing the old crim/civ pro tests will teach you what you need to know to answer 90% of the questions on the actual bar. There's a lot of repetition there.

Maybe I shouldn't do all 30-40 MBE questions at once, but instead do like 18 at a time, just like on Barbri. That way it's easier to remember individual questions I missed. And yeah, the last month of bar prep is pretty much exclusively practice questions and essays so maybe I should focus more on the learning aspect of it at the beginning

How was your MPT score? If it was MBE that killed you, it sounds like you probably write fine. I wouldn't bother actually doing any practice MPTs unless you absolutely feel like you need it. Just review some model answers from the various formats that NCBE has tested in the past (see my past MPT thread to see what those have been).

Actually, my MPT score was not good, and I don't know why. I felt great about it afterward and felt like there wasnt much more I could have said. I organized well and cited the relevant authorities. My best guess is I didn't word it well for being a client letter.

[sbmr12]

I failed the Texas bar by 16 points in July and my MBE just killed me. So, I'm focusing more heavily on that this time. I am doing Barbri again because it's free, and I just bought Critical Pass flashcards, and sucked it up and bought Adaptibar as well because I absolutely need to practice with real NCBE questions. I found Barbri's questions to be helpful, but not that helpful. I hope these investments end up paying off.

I will not be re-watching the Barbri lectures except for my weakest subjects. I found the lectures to be not all that helpful (except property. that property lecture was awesome) and a huge time sink. Some of those were like 4 hours long. I figure a better thing to do would be to review the Barbri outlines for the Texas subjects, and review my Critical Pass cards for the MBE subjects, and create my own outlines based off of those. I feel like that's a good way to retain the information. Not a fan of creating my own notecards because that's pretty tedious and time-consuming too.

So, I will do that for 3-4 hours and then do 30-40 practice MBE question on Adaptibar every day. 30-40 per day is a good amount right? I hear if you do more, you'll burn out fast. And maybe 100 practice MBE questions on the weekends the month before the exam. I've also heard I should definitely do all the Barbri AMP exercises this time.

I did find Barbri to be very helpful for the Texas Essays. Probably because they are allowed to use the actual questions and not make up their own. I'm thinking I should review my notes/outlines for those and do 1-3 essays every day. I'm thinking I will do a 30-minute question, review the answer, and maybe even rewrite my answer just to ensure I retain the information. I'm hoping to get through the entire Barbri essay book by exam week. I hope that's not too high of a goal. I figure it's doable if I stick to my schedule.

I'm thinking I should also do a crim or civ pro exam every day starting in January. Not even watch the lectures on those, just do one, review the answers, and maybe do it again. If I stick to that schedule I should get through a huge chunk of them by exam week. Also, they recycle those questions like crazy so I figure this will prepare me well.

MPT? Not sure. Do a few during prep period and then maybe one more the weekend before the exam?

I'm thinking that as far as my schedule goes, I will just follow Barbri's calendar and study the daily lecture subjects with my notecards/outlines that would be good. Then in the afternoon do some of my own practice.

Also, my final question: when should I start studying? December starts tomorrow and it's tempting to just start studying now. However, I definitely don't want to get burnt out. Also, I am working right now. My employer will work with me as the exam approaches. I will probably take off one day per week in Jan-Feb, which is fine. Maybe some afternoons too, and I will definitely study on the weekends.

Any and all advice is appreciated!

I agree that the Barbri MBE questions were not particularly helpful. I was actually kind of thrown when taking the test because the questions on the exam were so different from Barbri style questions. I would definitely spend more time doing practice questions through Adaptibar and using actual old exam questions from the NCBE. The most helpful thing for me was reading the answers and explanations, even for questions you got right because that will help you learn the content at the same time. I passed the July 2015 TX Bar, but I knew that if I failed it would be because I wasn't adequately prepared for the MBE. You were so close the last time, I'm sure with more dedicated MBE studying you'll definitely pass in February.

For the TX Essays, I would also highly recommend looking at the sample answers that the TX BLE has on their website. Most of the time I would outline an answer first and then go through and read the sample answers. For questions that I was totally stumped on (ie Commercial Paper), reading through the sample answers helped me learn enough content to be able to at least somewhat bullshit my way through the essay on exam day. Also, the sample answers on TX BLE are much more realistic answers than the ones that Barbri gives you, so it gives you a good standard to measure yourself by. I outlined most of my essay answers while studying instead of writing them out, because by this point we all know the IRAC method and we know how to use it on the exam. It was more important for me to know that I could spot the issues and apply the law. It was also less mentally draining and I could get through more questions at a time.

I wouldn't waste time doing many practice MPT questions and, instead just look at model answers for the various types of MPT questions.

[BVest]

You might also consider getting the NCBE practice sets. In addition to the weakest subjects, you may also want to redo (a) the various brief MBE subject strategy videos and (b) the post-MBE midterm review.

The MBE subject strategy vids sound like a good idea. Why buy the NCBE practice sets if Adaptibar already uses NCBE questions? I'm trying to not spend too much more money.

That's a good question. I don't know enough about Adaptibar to answer this very well. How recent are their questions? Do they overlap with the NCBE sample questions? NCBE has definitely been progressively developing their questions over time. It seems there's an arms race between NCBE and the bar prep companies and therefore only the most recent questions are of significant value. If they overlap, you definitely shouldn't pay more for the NCBE questions.

[texasbar]

I'm also retaking the texas bar (failed by 7 points). I think your strategy sounds good but it's important (it was for me at least) not to get too bogged down on the schedule. I make my study plan in 3 week increments, allowing myself time to reassess the plan if I need to at the end of that period. A big problem for me the first time was taking too much time initially to try to figure out how to study, and then focusing too much on following a plan that wasn't really working for me.

I am also re-doing barbri because it's free but am completely abandoning the lectures. My aim is do a lot of my substantive review of MBE subjects during December, MBE practice/review & Essay Substantive review/practice in January, and focusing exclusively on practice in February. We will see if that actually pans out. The plan was to start today just in case I get a job between now and the bar...but I am already behind schedule lol.

[DueProcessDoWheelies]

I'm also retaking the texas bar (failed by 7 points). I think your strategy sounds good but it's important (if was for me at least) not to get too bogged down on the schedule. I make my study plan in 3 week increments, allowing myself time to reassess the plan if I need to at the end of that period. A big problem for me the first time was taking too much time initially to try to figure out how to study, and then focusing too much on following a plan that wasn't really working for me.

I am also re-doing barbri because it's free but am completely abandoning the lectures. My aim is do a lot of my substantive review of MBE subjects during December, MBE practice/review & Essay Substantive review/practice in January, and focusing exclusively on practice in February. We will see if that actually pans out. The plan was to start today just in case I get a job between now and the bar...but I am already behind schedule lol.

I actually just made a tentative schedule and this is pretty much exactly what it is. I am dedicating December to MBE review, January to both essays and MBE, and February to practice until the bar. What are you doing instead of the lectures? Reviewing your outlines? CMR? Also, when this month are you starting? I'm thinking around the 10th.

[texasbar]

I'm also retaking the texas bar (failed by 7 points). I think your strategy sounds good but it's important (if was for me at least) not to get too bogged down on the schedule. I make my study plan in 3 week increments, allowing myself time to reassess the plan if I need to at the end of that period. A big problem for me the first time was taking too much time initially to try to figure out how to study, and then focusing too much on following a plan that wasn't really working for me.

I am also re-doing barbri because it's free but am completely abandoning the lectures. My aim is do a lot of my substantive review of MBE subjects during December, MBE practice/review & Essay Substantive review/practice in January, and focusing exclusively on practice in February. We will see if that actually pans out. The plan was to start today just in case I get a job between now and the bar...but I am already behind schedule lol.

I actually just made a tentative schedule and this is pretty much exactly what it is. I am dedicating December to MBE review, January to both essays and MBE, and February to practice until the bar. What are you doing instead of the lectures? Reviewing your outlines? CMR? Also, when this month are you starting? I'm thinking around the 10th.

I plan to use the CMR for subjects I am familiar with and the big outline for subjects that I sucked at (mostly property). I didn't use the big outline at all the last time around so I'm going to see if it helps. I planned to start today but my motivation is at an all time low. But I am also actively looking for a job so I'd like to start a little earlier in case I am lucky enough to land something.

[UndecidedMN]

I'm also retaking the texas bar (failed by 7 points). I think your strategy sounds good but it's important (if was for me at least) not to get too bogged down on the schedule. I make my study plan in 3 week increments, allowing myself time to reassess the plan if I need to at the end of that period. A big problem for me the first time was taking too much time initially to try to figure out how to study, and then focusing too much on following a plan that wasn't really working for me.

I am also re-doing barbri because it's free but am completely abandoning the lectures. My aim is do a lot of my substantive review of MBE subjects during December, MBE practice/review & Essay Substantive review/practice in January, and focusing exclusively on practice in February. We will see if that actually pans out. The plan was to start today just in case I get a job between now and the bar...but I am already behind schedule lol.

I actually just made a tentative schedule and this is pretty much exactly what it is. I am dedicating December to MBE review, January to both essays and MBE, and February to practice until the bar. What are you doing instead of the lectures? Reviewing your outlines? CMR? Also, when this month are you starting? I'm thinking around the 10th.

I plan to use the CMR for subjects I am familiar with and the big outline for subjects that I sucked at (mostly property). I didn't use the big outline at all the last time around so I'm going to see if it helps. I planned to start today but my motivation is at an all time low. But I am also actively looking for a job so I'd like to start a little earlier in case I am lucky enough to land something.

Hey Texas, I am updating my tips for the year. But take a look at that them. I have received tons of messages saying that have helped people pass the bar and I think they will help you. I am going to be updating them in the next week or so with helpful comments from others.

[storge]

If anyone is looking for a Critical Pass Flashcard discount, use link below to get $10 off. I searched everywhere for a coupon/discount code and couldn't find one anywhere so I figured I'd share.

I got this as a referral so you have to use the link to get the discount: http://criticalpass.refr.cc/NQBJZZ7
Wish I had access to someone else's referral link before I paid full price, but didn't have any luck finding any current ones . Sharing the love. Anyone interested, feel free to utilize.

[Summer562]

Is anyone interested having a small study group in Austin? I usually do most of my studying solo but I'm thinking it might be helpful to meet up a few times for the essay portion to compare essay writing, discussing (memorizing) topics, and just overall support to stay on track.

Let me know. Best wishes!

[RetakeFTW]

Actually, my MPT score was not good, and I don't know why. I felt great about it afterward and felt like there wasnt much more I could have said. I organized well and cited the relevant authorities. My best guess is I didn't word it well for being a client letter.

I'm retaking as well, hence the name. My MPT score was absolutely atrocious. I too thought I did well, basically like every other graded MPT we did in school. I guess my plan on that is to do 1 a week and just get comfortable with it. I'm a deliberator, which basically means I'm no good at the Bar...

[yosi]

Has anyone here used Adaptibar before ? I start studying today.