Handliing Looooong Property Qs Forum

[fearless16]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

[THE_U]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

If you are getting tripped up then the examiner has accomplished their goal. That's why I almost always skip long property questions and come back to them later. No point in letting them win, getting frustrated mid-exam and letting that affect you on easier, slam-dunk questions (which are worth the same amount of points)

Once you do come back then just take your time diagramming, marking up the question , or whatever else helps you decipher the facts. Since you have saved time by skipping, you now should have ample time and not have to rush

[starryski]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

If you are getting tripped up then the examiner has accomplished their goal. That's why I almost always skip long property questions and come back to them later. No point in letting them win, getting frustrated mid-exam and letting that affect you on easier, slam-dunk questions (which are worth the same amount of points)

Once you do come back then just take your time diagramming, marking up the question , or whatever else helps you decipher the facts. Since you have saved time by skipping, you now should have ample time and not have to rush

i was absolutely thinking about doing this as well. i hope it works!

[THE_U]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

If you are getting tripped up then the examiner has accomplished their goal. That's why I almost always skip long property questions and come back to them later. No point in letting them win, getting frustrated mid-exam and letting that affect you on easier, slam-dunk questions (which are worth the same amount of points)

Once you do come back then just take your time diagramming, marking up the question , or whatever else helps you decipher the facts. Since you have saved time by skipping, you now should have ample time and not have to rush

i was absolutely thinking about doing this as well. i hope it works!

Definitely works for me, but as always, YMMV. I just feel that if you are going in the order the exam presents the questions, you risk losing your composure at some point and/or not finishing in time because of the strategic way the examiners place the questions in the exam itself.

I don't just skip long property questions either (though most of the long questions seem to be property lol). It could be some huge Con Law or K question. I find that going through all of the short/"easy" questions first gives me a really nice confidence boost and helps me really get into the zone so that I can be fully present to tackle the harder questions later. Obviously helps with timing also.

[doubltall]

I also think flagging questions to return to is a great strategy. Tip: I read the intro to the Strategies & Tactics, the entire thing is in the "Look Inside! Preview" on its Amazon page, and I felt it had a ton of great mbe advice, info, and tips for me to consider as everything's slowly coming together in the last week.

I was already going to flag difficult questions before reading that, but what S&T tweaked was that I should at least attempt the question, by reading the fact patterns for lengthy, tedious questions (often Property or Contracts) when you come across one. That way you're at least somewhat familiar with the fact pattern if you decide to return later. Coupling that with, while you're on the question the first time, briefly scan the answer choices and physically cross out any answer choices you are confident are not the right answer at that time. That will make it easier upon returning to the question if you have time, which you probably will.

I hope I'm not just babbling on in outline-dump fashion lol, but in case it helps: what I've observed from the MBE is that even though the average time is 1 minute 40 seconds, it's completely acceptable to spend upwards of 2 minutes or more on a complex property question. 1min40 is simply an average, many questions you will ace with far less time than that!

Lastly, when skipping questions, be sure to ALWAYS skip the answer in the bubble sheet. I actually messed up with this on my LSAT years ago, and I think the frantic rush to correct the mistake may have had a negative impact on my score. (I realized my mistake after doing quite a few questions after the one I should've skipped on the bubble sheet.) Just some food for thought (: good luck to us all!

[kraeton]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

It's intentionally meant to be difficult if not downright impossible unless you're top of your class. The Adapti-Bar lecturer said: "You could give me 4 hours and I'd probably get this wrong... who the hell cares, move on!"

[THE_U]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

It's intentionally meant to be difficult if not downright impossible unless you're top of your class. The Adapti-Bar lecturer said: "You could give me 4 hours and I'd probably get this wrong... who the hell cares, move on!"

It's funny how they always strategically place these questions too, so that they can further mess with your head.

Again, moral of the story: skip them/mark an answer and come back.

[BVest]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

It's intentionally meant to be difficult if not downright impossible unless you're top of your class. The Adapti-Bar lecturer said: "You could give me 4 hours and I'd probably get this wrong... who the hell cares, move on!"

It's funny how they always strategically place these questions too, so that they can further mess with your head.

Again, moral of the story: skip them/mark an answer and come back.

Three things:
(1) I suspect you're talking about real (prior) MBE questions, but maybe you're talking about fake ones. I found that the barbri questions, especially property, were much longer than the questions on the actual MBE, so if you're talking about those, rest assured that those are abnormally long.

(2) If you're going to save the property questions for later, mark an answer. Whether you're going to mark your first impression as has been suggested or just mark a random answer, mark an answer. The last thing you want to do is have to erase and re-mark 20 answers because you realize that when you skipped question number 18 35 minutes ago you forgot and put the answer for number 19 in the number 18 slot.

(3) Along the lines of messing with your head: Since there are only 4 answer choices, each choice (A, B, C, and D) comes up quite often. It may even seem to come up unnaturally often. If you're getting a whole lot of one answer either in a row or tightly grouped, try reading the answer choices backwards (i.e. read D first). It may not break up the pattern, but it will give you some reassurance that the pattern is not because they've tricked you into always picking the last one or the first one due to placement rather than the merit of the answers.

[doubltall]

(3) Along the lines of messing with your head: Since there are only 4 answer choices, each choice (A, B, C, and D) comes up quite often. It may even seem to come up unnaturally often. If you're getting a whole lot of one answer either in a row or tightly grouped, try reading the answer choices backwards (i.e. read D first). It may not break up the pattern, but it will give you some reassurance that the pattern is not because they've tricked you into always picking the last one or the first one due to placement rather than the merit of the answers.

Strat&Tactics had an interesting comment about this. They said that the bar examiners implement a multitude of professional, standardized testing techniques to ensure fairness. Saying that while some more basic test makers have a natural, unwitting tendency for the correct answers on their exams to be C or D, the bar examiners randomize their answer choices, which was surprising to me. I assume there are some exceptions, when there is a top-to-bottom from serious to less serious, or when D would simply be none of these, but provided that is true, it would alleviate most of the stress I might have had with repeating answer choices. I'm a retaker, and I distinctly remember people online and in person freaking out about how many Ds they saw in a row in July '15. If that happens again, I don't think I'll care as much this time around.

I don't think I changed an answer in the moment in Summer 15, due to a long string of the same answer, but I can't say that I didn't give A,B,C heightened consideration, likely in folly, to break the chain of Ds that was giving me some subconscious stress. Knowing this helps combat that, I feel. The more you know.

[THE_U]

I'm getting tripped up on Property ... not because I don't know the law but because the ridiculous fact patterns trip me up. I've tried drawing Blackacre (I literally have to draw a "plot" of land any time I see a black, green or other acre). Any ideas on how to approach these questions?

It's intentionally meant to be difficult if not downright impossible unless you're top of your class. The Adapti-Bar lecturer said: "You could give me 4 hours and I'd probably get this wrong... who the hell cares, move on!"

It's funny how they always strategically place these questions too, so that they can further mess with your head.

Again, moral of the story: skip them/mark an answer and come back.

Three things:
(1) I suspect you're talking about real (prior) MBE questions, but maybe you're talking about fake ones. I found that the barbri questions, especially property, were much longer than the questions on the actual MBE, so if you're talking about those, rest assured that those are abnormally long.

(2) If you're going to save the property questions for later, mark an answer. Whether you're going to mark your first impression as has been suggested or just mark a random answer, mark an answer. The last thing you want to do is have to erase and re-mark 20 answers because you realize that when you skipped question number 18 35 minutes ago you forgot and put the answer for number 19 in the number 18 slot.

(3) Along the lines of messing with your head: Since there are only 4 answer choices, each choice (A, B, C, and D) comes up quite often. It may even seem to come up unnaturally often. If you're getting a whole lot of one answer either in a row or tightly grouped, try reading the answer choices backwards (i.e. read D first). It may not break up the pattern, but it will give you some reassurance that the pattern is not because they've tricked you into always picking the last one or the first one due to placement rather than the merit of the answers.

I practice with both Adaptibar and Barbri, so both. I took/failed in July and agree that I don't remember the questions being overly long.

And yeah, I should probably do your method. I've never had an issue with skipping and mis-filling bubbles but I can see how risky that is. I guess part of me has a weird and unreasonable fear that erasing a bunch of bubbles isn't ideal either (seems like a huge mess--what if I don't erase enough and it causes the exam to get mis-graded?).

Lol I remember the long string of D's in July messing with me pretty badly. Definitely gonna use the strategy you suggested.

[nyny]

Yea I would just read the questions whether long or short, answer it and move on. There is just too many things that could go wrong when skipping questions, as explained above. Also to add to that your psyching might start to mess with you when you noticed you skipped over 30 or so long fact patterns out of the 100 presented. A good number of the questions are half of the page or 3/4ths of half the page (because each page is broken down into two columns).