Passing the Kentucky Bar Exam (UBE) with AuDHD on Her Third Attempt

Brian, 

I think my favorite email of the whole series is the predictions email, where I essentially have to prepare for everything and disregard predictions altogether. I would have preferred a more balanced approach, incorporating both MBE and MPTs, which account for 70% of the total score. For MEEs, I was primarily doing MEE-only subjects. What appeared on the July bar exam on the MEE was: Corps/LLCs, Contracts, Trusts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, and Torts. The predictions were completely wrong on many aspects – Secured Transactions was not on the UBE at all for an MEE. 

For context, I took the Kentucky Bar Exam (UBE). July 2025 was my third attempt at the bar exam. In my first two attempts, I was using Themis and was completely burnt out by the time I took the exam in both July 2024 and February 2025. I failed both attempts as a result. I have the Approsheets/Magicsheets suite, and I also have the Passer’s Playbook, which I referred to multiple times on and off during prep for my third attempt. I would also use Magicsheets as a reference (especially in Torts). I also used Adaptibar (mostly for their Writing Guide) and UWorld (more so UWorld for drilling weaker MBE subtopics and question sets) for attempt #3. With UWorld, I would often redo questions from both the Correct and Incorrect sections multiple times. I also tracked my study hours, similar to billable time and the Pomodoro technique. I often redid practice and learning sets on Barbri (not because I wanted to get the green checkmark, but I wanted to drill them until I got the material). With Themis, there was no such option to redo practice sets. Something I did differently for my third attempt was that I asked the Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions for copies of my written exam answers from February and last July, and they graciously gave me my MBE breakdown scores as well. If I were to prefer a commercial course, I would prefer Barbri for the custom schedule over Themis’s Directed Study (and certainly over JD Advising and their advice to memorize outlines), but this is not exactly a glowing recommendation of commercial courses. Rather, I would have to temper my expectations and change my mindset altogether. When I was burnt out, I wasn’t exactly retaining the information, which isn’t a great reflection on commercial courses (especially Themis, which uses shorter videos to supposedly benefit neurodiverse law graduates like myself). I think a common thing about commercial courses is that they suit everyone, but that’s not entirely true. The only thing I did not complete meaningfully on Barbri was the summer simulated winter exam, which I substituted with MEE-only subjects on Adaptibar’s Writing Guide. Another misconception is that commercial courses are outdated, but if that were the case, course companions would not be constantly updated every year. Even condensed outlines are constantly updated with up-to-date information, so I disagree with Reddit on that claim that people should not go with commercial courses (for first-time takers).  

For the exam itself, I was given a semi-private room as a non-standard testing accommodation (this means I started earlier and had an extended lunch break to decompress). What was different this time around was that I smiled with relief that the exam was over after leaving the Clarion Hotel. I did not even smile during the previous two attempts. Fingers crossed this attempt will be the very last time.

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There was one thing I forgot to mention about the Barbri schedule. I read something in the Passer’s Playbook about being the one to control the schedule and not Barbri. This stuck with me immensely. I purposely started in mid-April and studied 3-4 hours with the course, with extra time doing (and redoing) UWorld and Adaptibar questions. You’re right that commercial prep focuses on knowing the material rather than practicing questions. The reason why JD Advising will get a bad rep from me is that bar courses have 80-100 page outlines (JD Advising makes you memorize outlines). I am pretty sure nobody has the time to do that (which is why condensed outlines exist). With redoing questions, they help with understanding and memorization of the nuances more than reading and rereading an outline would. 

I’ll be sure to provide an update when I do get results in October. I don’t want to be overconfident and fail the exam (I’m pretty sure that’s a thing), so I am tempering my expectations. I felt pretty relieved that the exam was over. 

Brian, 

Here’s a pretty good follow-up. I passed with a 269. Although that is one point away from 270, a pass is a pass. Kentucky requires a 266.

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Here’s a full debrief of how I made my third attempt my last time. I graduated near the bottom of my law school class, and one regret I have with the law school experience was not putting into practice questions a lot sooner than outlining. 

I took the Kentucky Bar Exam three times. July 2025 was my third attempt at the bar exam. In my first two attempts, I was using Themis and was completely burnt out by the time I took the exam in both July 2024 and February 2025. As a result, I failed both attempts. For resources, I used the Approsheets/Magicsheets suite, the Passer’s Playbook, Adaptibar (mostly the Writing Guide), UWorld (mostly for MBE drilling), and, of course, Barbri. With the Passer’s Playbook, I would refer to that multiple times when I needed a mindset shift. With UWorld, I would often redo questions from both the Correct and Incorrect sections multiple times. I also tracked my study hours using Toggl Track, similar to billable time and the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of work with a 5-minute break in between – after four sessions, a 15-minute break). I often re-did practice and learning sets on Barbri (not because I wanted to get the green checkmark, but because I tried to drill them until I mastered the material).

Something I did differently for my third attempt was that I requested copies of my written exam answers from February and last July from the Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions, and they graciously provided me with my MBE breakdown scores as well. If I were to prefer a commercial course, I would opt for Barbri’s custom schedule over Themis’s Directed Study (and certainly over JD Advising and their advice to memorize outlines), but this is not exactly a glowing endorsement of commercial courses. Instead, I tempered my expectations and changed my mindset altogether. The only thing I did not complete meaningfully on Barbri was the summer simulated winter exam, which I substituted with MEE-only subjects on Adaptibar’s Writing Guide. 

The most significant advantage was the shift from having to know everything to knowing just enough. My written score went up to 140.3. My MBE score increased to 128.9 (which, honestly, is not entirely impressive, although multiple-choice questions were never my strong suit to begin with). I am still surprised by how the written portion carried me through to the finish line. All in all, I scored a 269, which is good enough to pass in Kentucky (where the passing score is 266). At this point, I am just happy to have finally finished this exam. 

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I want to further hone in on the point that commercial bar courses expect you to know everything. I remember getting shamed by a Themis rep after failing the bar exam on my first attempt, which made me feel terrible. 

I found Make This Your Last Time on my second attempt, and it helped me temper my expectations. 

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Mostly yes on the expectations part. I felt like Themis expected me to know everything on the big outlines, which wasn’t realistically possible. Barbri highlighted topics that were frequently tested on their Course Companion with stars, which correlated well with what was on the Magicsheets, so I focused my MBE and even MEE studies on those topics. 

The ‘competence over confidence’ tip really helped me temper my expectations and shift my mindset. I also took the redoing questions tip to heart. One thing I learned, too, was that I don’t need to know everything; I need to know enough. 

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With the repeater pass rate increase, there is a combination of other things. 

Writing was scaled favorably. Also, 323 people took the exam, which is 43 fewer people than last year. 

The repeaters, for the most part, found a unique approach to bar prep, similar to my own. It may not necessarily be a course, but I suspect that creating our own bar prep schedule is a valuable tip we’ve all taken to heart.

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TLDR: I passed the Kentucky bar exam after three attempts. 

One thing I want to add to my story is that after being sworn in, I secured a job conducting document reviews at a global legal services company. And I am interviewing at the public defender’s office. 

The thing I’ve learned during bar prep, despite neurodivergence getting in the way, is that I do control my bar prep schedule and how I approach the material. I’m the dean of my own studies. As I previously mentioned, repeating practice questions leads to a much better understanding and memorization than simply reading and rereading commercial course outlines. Active learning is greater than passive learning.

You don’t need to be confident, but competent. Also, re-doing practice questions whether it is MBE, MEE, or MPT. On UWorld, I often re-did multiple choice questions for both questions I got right and wrong under the correct section (although that led to padding my stats a bit to like 83% on UWorld) because I really saw the value of re-doing questions to test my understanding.

On a side note, people literally need to stop relying on predictions. People are literally making money on predictions like its candy. There were a couple of curveball topics on the MEE that people weren’t necessarily prepared for but if people paid more attention, those were frequently tested topics (sovereign immunity for example).

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I know that if I just did a bar course on the recommended start date and not extra practice, I probably would have suffered burnout.

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I think my favorite part is how the Magicsheets are short and concise without missing out on key information.

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I remember when I got the results from February, I knew that Themis was not exactly the right course for me. I suffered burnout in both last July’s attempt and in February, which was much different than when I went with Barbri as a main course for the third attempt (I don’t necessarily recommend this for everyone, but between that and JDAdvising’s retaker course (which makes you memorize outlines to an obscene degree), it was what worked mostly for my situation. It wasn’t exactly perfect, but tempering expectations is important). I started in April and did around 3-4 hours of prep until the last two weeks of prep (finished the course early) when I did extra multiple choice practice through Adaptibar and UWorld, like around 1-2 hours each day. Themis did not allow me to restart practice sets at all (on Barbri you can). Because I see the value in redoing practice questions, I would often redo practice sets. I re-did questions on UWorld. And I was doing practice questions on both UWorld and Adaptibar almost every single day until MBE day when I was doing 5 practice questions on the way to Lexington as a way of warming up my brain. As someone with autism and ADHD, I knew that studying 6-8 hours would not work for me. Themis Directed Study was often impossible to complete with a laundry list of passive topics and other things that weren’t exactly necessary and I felt behind, and as a result, I burnt out and did not retain as much information as I did when I started earlier for my third attempt of study. I also tracked my hours similar to billable time and was doing the Pomodoro technique for multiple choice sets.