Essays | Page 4 of 7 | Make This Your Last Time

July 2, 2020January 11, 2022 - 7 Comments

How should you really practice for the bar exam? “I keep practicing, but I’m not improving”

So you want to pass the bar. You’re super serious about it.

You pore over your outlines, trying to make sure you have a grasp of all the rules. There are still other subjects to review. You don’t think practice will be productive unless you “get” the theory.

It’s all so overwhelming.

But you did it. You can focus on practice now that you’ve had a good solid review of the core subjects first. You’ve been doing a few MBE questions and looked at a few essays already, but now it’s time to buckle down and get to writing those essays (you’ll get to the PTs… later).

After all, they said to “practice practice practice.”

But something’s wrong…

No matter how many times you do it, every essay is a mystery.

The blank-page syndrome is giving you irregular heartbeats and making you break out into a cold sweat.

You keep picking the incorrect answer choice on your MBE questions.

The prospect of grading your work makes you want to lie down on your bed instead.

Here’s why you’re stuck and what to do to get unstuck:

Observe the “10-40-40-10 rule” of bar preparation.

April 3, 2020August 30, 2020 - 1 Comment

Giving what the essay graders want to see on the California Bar Exam: Q&A with BarEssays founder Gil Peles

When I think of supplements for the essay portion of the California Bar Exam, the first one I think of is BarEssays.

You’ve probably heard of it. BarEssays is one of the most popular study supplements for the essay portion of the California Bar Exam. It’s a collection of more than 3,000 real graded high- and low-scoring essays and performance tests from past California bar exams.

If you’ve ever wondered what an actual good answer is supposed to look like, this is how you can improve your essays—by comparing your practice essay to a variety of real graded student examples. I also wrote an in-depth review of the site here.

But how can you make the best use of it?

I asked Gil Peles, founder of BarEssays, if he would like to talk about that, and he agreed.

Here are some of the nuggets you’ll pick up from this Q&A:

How can you tell what the bar examiners want to see (and what you might be doing wrong)?
Formatting: What’s the difference about essay answers you want to write on the bar exam (as opposed to in law school)?
What kind of IRAC does Gil recommend for the bar essays? What should it look like?
How early should you start working on essays?
What can you do with your practice essays to get the most out of them?

Take it away, Gil:

February 29, 2020May 22, 2024 - 13 Comments

Passing the California Bar Exam with the “Tripod Approach” (Just Triage These Areas)

Let’s say you have an overwhelming amount of material to learn for the California Bar Exam with limited time. (Who doesn’t?)

Or when one door opens, another door closes. You’re not consistently scoring well on the essays. You’re getting a 55 on some. You know you can get a 65 or more if you had more time. Or you just need a little push to get to a 1390 scaled score on the MBE, but then you feel like you’re sacrificing the written portion.

There are a couple of approaches focusing on a few key areas (rather than spreading yourself thin) that could bring you over the hump to pass the California Bar Exam…

This is the basis for the Tripod Approach (click to scroll directly there), which is a minimally effective approach to get the largest return for your efforts in preparing for the California Bar Exam.

January 11, 2020June 15, 2023 - 7 Comments

Quick and Simple Ways to Improve Your Bar Essays

A big complaint about essays: “Essays are so freaking subjective!”

Sure, the MBE is more “objective.” There’s only one right answer on the MBE.

But it depends on your interpretation of the question, the hypo, and most important, the answer choices. Yes because X? Yes because Y? Where’s the option for “yes because Z”? FML!

That’s a question for another day.

This is to say, let’s not agonize too much over the essays just because the MBE has objective answer choices and you think that’s somehow advantageous.

Let’s instead use the subjectivity of essays to your advantage. We’re going to take advantage of the impatience of a human who has thousands of shitty essays to read.

This is great because if you know how to write better on one, you’ll know how to write better on ALL of them. How many points is that worth to you?

June 29, 2019May 20, 2023 - 4 Comments

How Do You Even Know You’re Practicing Correctly for Bar Prep?

They tell you to “study,” but do they ever teach you HOW to study? Are you studying correctly? Of course bar takers get lost when there are so many different ways to go about preparing.

You could try everything yourself, or you could find a few trustworthy sources and ignore the noise. You could pinpoint insights rather than cobble together information from random people with their own views (bar prep is personal).

Why?

Too much conflicting information actually STOPS you from doing anything.
I want the right insights, not just information. The information doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as it makes sense to me and gets me to do something about it.
The more I respect the insight, the more likely I am to do something with it.

How do you know whether to trust someone? Trust yourself to know.

Some resources and advice will work for others, and some will work for you. Big bar review courses cater to the lowest common denominator. It’s like Olive Garden’s menu where there’s something for everyone but also the primary ingredient for everything is butter.