It may not be the popular opinion but I’ll tell you what worked for me. I passed on my 6th attempt this year. There was a 16% pass rate for us repeaters.
The exam is now 50% mbe.
You need a 1440 to pass the exam.
Look at your written scores and expect to get somewhere in the middle of your best and worst written scores. Use that as your baseline.
Say your baseline is a 1240 scaled written score (which is failing almost every essay).
With a 1240 written, you need a 1640 scaled mbe to average 1440. That is like getting approx 70% of the mbe questions correct. That is very doable with practice.
So focus on mbe like no other, expect to have the most subjective graders you’ve had and to counter balance with a high mbe score which is purely subjective.
This last go around, I didn’t change anything with my writing technique but by doing so many mbes, my writing started looking like mbe answer explanations. I have no idea if my writing improved but regardless when I remember writing, I thought to myself, what would an mbe answer explanation look like when discussing this rule.
I decided to go with barmax this time around. I like their answer explorations better than adaptibar. It is just simpler and easier to follow.
My study plan consisted of starting the following Monday.
Barmax has these little 20ish question subject specific question bank in their full program. It is categorized down the sub-subject ( contracts>RAP questions only)
Once I finished each subject, I got an idea of what subtopics I lacked in. For me it was instrinsic vs extrinsic impeachment evidence among many others. Started using different sources on google and other bar prep guides to help me understand the topic until I mastered it and moved on.
I wrote down every answer explanation in a one sentence rule of the theme of the question that I knew was tested frequently or that I’ve seen before (this being your 9th attempt you should have a good feel for that, ie: priority of mortgages, impeachment, etc). I had a little notebook I think 7x10 or something that I wrote them into. I decorated my book with stuff I liked so that I didn’t mind showing it off and carrying it around.
After completing the warm up subjects on barmax I moved on to their mbe prep section and did 50 subject specific questions per day while writing down the important answer explanations. Right or wrong if I knew it was a frequently tested subject, I wrote the rule down. Every day I picked a different subject evenly (they have like 250 questions per subject).
When it was time to hirepeat a subject (the second time I did contracts) I typed my written notes into a Microsoft word doc from my last session I did that subject ( for example I wrote the notes from from law questions 1-50 down, and before I started questions 51-100 I type up the notes from 1-50 to refresh the subject matter, then start doing 51-100 and writing down the notes in my notebook again).
Once I completed the questions for each subject, As I got closer to the exam I set dates to do the OPE 100 question practice exams. I did these without notes and without explanations. I then went back and reviewed the ones I got wrong.
All in all I did almost 3100 practice questions. Start looking at your calendar now and writing it in, which subject your going to do, when, and get an idea of when you’re going to finish and how many you’ll have done. Adjust for holidays and make sure you have make up days for the days you are unable to do questions.
Remember your goal is get a 1650 on your scaled mbe and nothing else, don’t worry about writing or memorizing as you have already spent 8 attempts doing that. You should finish all the questions roughly 2 weeks before the exam, I used that time to do 5 practice essays that barmax provides free grading for just to brush up on my writing skills. I outlined 2 past exams for every subject, and I wrote and submitted to barmax for grading the subjects that were predicted to be on the exam. I still did my 50 questions on those days and I did 10-15 questions the night before the written exam. By the time your almost ready to take the exam, you’ll have a notebook filled with your handwritten rules and a Microsoft doc with the same rules typed up. I printed the typed version and staples to the front page of every subject in my notebook. When it was time to review I just read the typed up version.
Before every 50 questions I did, I typed up the notes from
The previous 50 I had written down, and reveiwed all the notes on the subject that I had typed/written down.. I was scoring 85% on my OPE.
Come exam day I finished the mbe portions 20-25 minutes early and was still unsure how I did but I passed and I’m
Sure it was due to a high mbe score. I didn’t even read the barmax graders notes really that thoroughly. Just used it to brush up. Good luck
Iv attached a photo of what my notebook looked like here:
https://i.postimg.cc/Jz98p1bp/F813-D930 ... 5803-C.jpg