The Value of Redoing Practice Questions (You’ll See Them Again on the Bar Exam)

“How do I do MBE questions faster?”

“The way to approach these questions is not staying with me.”

“I thought I ‘got’ it and moved on, but I keep getting questions wrong.”

Have you ever felt that?

There is a SIMPLE and UNDERRATED way to fix this: REDOING practice questions.

"I followed your advice today and redid an essay I had taken; it was really good practice because I committed to understanding the rules even better than just 'oh look I can recognize this issue.'"

I say elsewhere that DOING is the best form of thinking. If you’re doing that, great. Now the next step is to REDO.

“But wait,” you say, “I have seen and remembered those questions and answers before. Should I be worried because I am not practicing new questions?”

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Taking Ownership of Your Bar Prep to Pass the Bar Exam

Jared passed the 2023 July California Bar Exam on his first try, despite being in a panic in the last month of bar prep, while juggling family duties and working full-time.

💬 “I was in a ‘I have to pass!!!’ panic the last six weeks prior to the exam. For context, I spent four years doing law school at night, I have a family, and I work full-time.

💬 “I had a mini-panic a month before the exam, because I just didn’t think the material or schedule was working for me.

I like this story because it once again emphasizes the lesson of pivoting from “trust the process” to “trust yourself.”

💬 “My strategy was idiosyncratic and focused on what I needed to do to pass.

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Dominating the Essays: Organize Issues and Prioritize Rules to Know on the Bar Exam

Ever wonder how you’re supposed to juggle everything in your head? How do you prioritize the rules to know for the bar exam?

How are you supposed to learn all this when time is tight? How do you tackle the massive body of rules to know?

How do you know you’ve completed the essay in full? Did you even talk about the correct issues? Are the graders going to give you the points? Are they even going to read your prose?!

You’d love to start practicing essays but feel like you just haven’t learned enough law yet. It’s overwhelming to even begin.

At least the answer is right there in MBE questions… If you’re a bar taker struggling with coming up with what to write, essays are the bane of your existence. Your rambling paragraphs start to blur.

Let’s breathe. We can simplify the essays and make them less scary…

Key takeaways:

  • Issues: Learn not just the rules but also how to present and organize the issues (with examples below)
  • Rules: Highest-priority issues and rules are those that have appeared in the past (there are two other priorities)
  • There are efficient and effective ways to hit both of the above at once
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Richard’s Minimalist Bar Prep Without Overwhelm

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Like I keep saying, bar prep is personal.

Richard passed the 2023 February California Bar Exam on his first try. Anyone can learn from this case study since he also passed the UBE.

Corina’s story about passing the bar exam was about MAXIMIZING her coverage. I couldn’t even sleep trying to scrape all the meat off the bone of her story.

Today, I’ll show you a MINIMALIST approach to getting it done.

You’ll also get the benefit of hindsight from someone who used a traditional bar course for his first exam (UBE) and also on his second exam (CA) and passed both times.

How you use any resource for your benefit is key.

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LLM passes California Bar Exam on her FIRST try by “cramming” strategically

Tanvi passed the 2023 February California Bar Exam, which had a 32.5% pass rate.

Pass rates don’t mean anything to MTYLT readers (you) because pass rates have no bearing on their own chance of success.

Like many of the other passers you hear about here, this featured passer did it her own way after she realized things were not working for her.

There are many ways you can pass the exam! You are the dean of your own studies. Bar prep is personal.

Continue reading “LLM passes California Bar Exam on her FIRST try by “cramming” strategically”