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I'm more or less concentrating on memorizing all the relevant law in the Barbri essays (8 previous exams for the essay topic + at LEAST 8 additional essays for each subject) over a stringent review of the outlines Barbri provides. Most of this is because I think the material is covered and I'd rather see in fact patterns than as abstract rules. I'd rather get the exposure at this point, especially issues within a subject vary wildly on frequency of testing.

Do people have a sense as to whether this is a good idea or should I go back to outlines?

This is basically what I did, and for the same reason of wanting to see fact patterns; worked out fine, but I still reviewed the outlines a little bit.

criminaltheory wrote:This is basically what I did, and for the same reason of wanting to see fact patterns; worked out fine, but I still reviewed the outlines a little bit.

Do you think it's necessary to go into the additional 8 essays?

In the final two weeks, this really isn't a bad strategy. I think you bring up an excellent point about wanting to see how the law is applied at this point. There really is a need to read those outlines; not everything in the outlines show up on the practice exams, and it's not the case that only the stuff that shows up on the practice exams will show up on your exam. But with such a short period of time remaining, your strategy is sound if you don't have time to both read outlines and study the practice exams.

Sean
--Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring

MrWhitman wrote:

criminaltheory wrote:This is basically what I did, and for the same reason of wanting to see fact patterns; worked out fine, but I still reviewed the outlines a little bit.

Do you think it's necessary to go into the additional 8 essays?

Time management at this point is all your call - how's your MBE doing, how comfortable are you with the topics. Nothing's necessary.

This is what Im doing for the most part, just trusting the process of Barbri, 8 essays per subject, and it looks like the 8 they have picked all have the most common areas tested in the past.

For me, I think its better to know the rules reflected across the 8 picked essays and not scrambling all over my outlines trying to memorize everything, its still a gamble, but i think if you know what Barbri covers in the essay we should be able to hit a 60-65, even if the essays include a sub-topic you didnt cover.

Do as many old essays as you can, especially in your problem areas. This is a winning strategy in my opinion! Better to see the rules in practice and you get practice writing things out on your own.

Depends on the state. Texas tends to repeat essay topics year after year.

Pretty much what I did as I goofed off throughout Barbri, then panicked and just read the essays with about a week to go. And I was an average student at a TTT. Barely passed. But passed.

If you have time to at least skim all the BarBri essays in the book (the assigned essays & additional questions), go for it. One of the Feb17 Agency essays was nearly word for word the same as a past essay in the BarBri book (changed proper names, etc, but the fact pattern & format was dead on), so it might trigger something useful if they reuse/ reformat a past essay again & you've seen it before.

i don't have the Barbri essays, but I have a number of released ones. I'm learning Secured Transactions that way. It's a lot less painful.