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Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 1:54 pm
by hellojd
Due to my post-grad desires to travel and enjoy the summer a bit, I'm not going to start studying for another couple of weeks. I am signed up for the Barbri course, but was wondering if any of you had strategies on how to enter the study game a couple of weeks left, in terms of what I could perhaps skip / skim. I have heard that even with the full amount of time, Barbri is overkill/overwhelming, so I can only assume that trying to squeeze it into an even smaller time window would not work.
Thanks!
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 5:32 pm
by rcharter1978
hellojd wrote:Due to my post-grad desires to travel and enjoy the summer a bit, I'm not going to start studying for another couple of weeks. I am signed up for the Barbri course, but was wondering if any of you had strategies on how to enter the study game a couple of weeks left, in terms of what I could perhaps skip / skim. I have heard that even with the full amount of time, Barbri is overkill/overwhelming, so I can only assume that trying to squeeze it into an even smaller time window would not work.
Thanks!
What state are you in?
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 5:35 pm
by rinkrat19
hellojd wrote:Due to my post-grad desires to travel and enjoy the summer a bit, I'm not going to start studying for another couple of weeks. I am signed up for the Barbri course, but was wondering if any of you had strategies on how to enter the study game a couple of weeks left, in terms of what I could perhaps skip / skim. I have heard that even with the full amount of time, Barbri is overkill/overwhelming, so I can only assume that trying to squeeze it into an even smaller time window would not work.
Thanks!
A couple of weeks late seems like a terrible idea. People get bogged down and paralyzed by missing a day or two.
Why didn't you plan your travel for while you're waiting for results? Is a couple of weeks of touristing really more important than passing the bar?
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 5:44 pm
by rcharter1978
rinkrat19 wrote:hellojd wrote:Due to my post-grad desires to travel and enjoy the summer a bit, I'm not going to start studying for another couple of weeks. I am signed up for the Barbri course, but was wondering if any of you had strategies on how to enter the study game a couple of weeks left, in terms of what I could perhaps skip / skim. I have heard that even with the full amount of time, Barbri is overkill/overwhelming, so I can only assume that trying to squeeze it into an even smaller time window would not work.
Thanks!
A couple of weeks late seems like a terrible idea. People get bogged down and paralyzed by missing a day or two.
Why didn't you plan your travel for while you're waiting for results? Is a couple of weeks of touristing really more important than passing the bar?
That would be my initial thought -- but some people have been successful on the bar exam even after only studying for a few weeks. Although at this point, there is less than two months until the exam, so OP will be studying for maybe 4-6 weeks. Some people have said that they have been okay if they just super crammed. But I generally think that hoping you can skip some stuff for bar review isn't the best idea. But, it has worked for others so it may work for OP.
But, if OP is in a state like California, I think its a really bad idea because I only missed a few days and I constantly felt behind.
And, if OP is in California, it might just make more sense to take the exam in February when its changed to a 2 day exam and might be a little easier.
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 5:45 pm
by Good Guy Gaud
rcharter1978 wrote:What state are you in?
Removed
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 5:53 pm
by soj
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Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 6:43 pm
by thegrayman
If you're in CA this is a terrible idea. If you're in an MBE only state you can still pull it off but you should really get cracking on studying.
One of my classmates from NYU spent the pre-bar summer traveling and tried to cram for CA at the end. He failed.
Take the bar exam very seriously once and you'll never have to deal with it again.
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 10:04 pm
by AspiringCALawyer
rcharter1978 wrote:
And, if OP is in California, it might just make more sense to take the exam in February when its changed to a 2 day exam and might be a little easier.
2-day starts in July 2017. Can you imagine writing an essay in 30 minutes?
Passing CA Bar with only 100 hours of study
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 10:35 pm
by AspiringCALawyer
I've seen it posted on one of these boards about how a tech guy passed CA bar with only 100 hours of study. I have no firsthand experience with his methods.
http://blakemasters.com/post/3711346829 ... -100-hours
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 10:37 pm
by hellojd
Thanks for the replies all. I'm in NY (which is MBE now).
I will have a bit over 5 weeks to prepare once I'm back, and people told me that should be plenty (if I use that time wisely). I'm also going to a job that doesn't require the bar, so didn't feel the need to overkill on the prep. Am not planning on "skipping" content entirely, but was more curious to know what sort of redundancies I could cut out.
Thanks again.
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 10:48 pm
by Federalist
If your priority is not the bar exam right now, I'd recommend you to take it when you have plenty of time. Anyway, that's just my opinion based on my experience. If you're Mike Ross, then one month will be enough.
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 2:20 am
by rcharter1978
AspiringCALawyer wrote:rcharter1978 wrote:
And, if OP is in California, it might just make more sense to take the exam in February when its changed to a 2 day exam and might be a little easier.
2-day starts in July 2017. Can you imagine writing an essay in 30 minutes?
Is that how its going to be? California is always the very worst! But still....I think on day 1, you're all fired up, adrenaline pumping, heart racing....ready to attack half hour essays! By day 3, you don't even care and you just want to take a nap....or at least I did!
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 3:00 am
by rcharter1978
Federalist wrote:If your priority is not the bar exam right now, I'd recommend you to take it when you have plenty of time. Anyway, that's just my opinion based on my experience. If you're Mike Ross, then one month will be enough.
This seems like a smart plan.
From what I can tell, people who have a limited amount of time, tend to really hit their bar studies hard. But it doesn't seem like the situation will lend itself to the sort of intense cramming and studying that others do when they are in a time crunch because OP's livelihood doesn't really require bar passage.
Which is awesome.....because it allows studying at your own pace without the pressure of trying to prepare in what I would consider a relatively short amount of time. I think having like 7 months to study is much better than 5 weeks....and a lot less pressure.
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:52 pm
by squiggle
hellojd wrote:Thanks for the replies all. I'm in NY (which is MBE now).
I will have a bit over 5 weeks to prepare once I'm back, and people told me that should be plenty (if I use that time wisely). I'm also going to a job that doesn't require the bar, so didn't feel the need to overkill on the prep. Am not planning on "skipping" content entirely, but was more curious to know what sort of redundancies I could cut out.
Thanks again.
NY is UBE now, but does include the MBE. You'll still need to know 12 topics, including knowing the 7 MBE topics well enough to answer 200 multiple choice questions. If you feel like you can learn that in 5 weeks, then go for it.
An important part of your UBE score is the MBE, and scoring well on the MBE requires learning a large volume of information and then doing a large number of questions on the material (which helps you recognize patterns and red herrings). I'd recommend skipping the lectures and reviewing directly from the Conviser Mini Review, but that still take a great deal of time.
You can also cut out a essay here or there if there are multiple essays assigned for the same topic or if you're comfortable with the topic. You could also cut out a practice MPT or two, but I feel like there's lots of free points to be earned from MPTs.
Given that you don't need to pass the bar for your job, you could view this bar exam more as a practice round. You might squeak by with 5 weeks of studying, but maybe not. Good luck!
Re: Starting late with Barbri/bar exam prep
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:52 pm
by ballouttacontrol
I'm doing this too, as well as studying for the bar abroad. I'm planning on just hopping to the states a couple days before the bar exam, knock that shit out, then go straight back to bar trip until the week or so before I start my job.
I just watched the first ~1 hour intro video of Barbri yesterday just so I could get a sense of which of these materials I will actually need to use. Plan on starting studying for real in maybe 1-2 weeks
DM me if you want to share notes or anything
