Post-bar wrap up

I took the Maryland Bar Exam Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I probably passed. But the passage rate is about 75%, so it is probable that I passed. I was really nervous the morning of the first day, but after watching the proctors/bar exam exercise their minimal incompetency by being unable to set up speakers or pass out exam questions and extracts, I stopped being nervous because of how ridiculous it was. I also finished each MBE section pretty early, about a half hour, after checking answers. If I check them for too long I just second guess myself, and I have shown no ability to actually recognize what questions I got wrong.

For materials, BarBri's convisor mini review was pretty much the bible. Both barbri and kaplan MBE questions are harder than the actual questions, so practice on those but do at least a 100 question set online through the National Bar Examiners. It's $26 for each 100 question set, but worth it only for the sense of security it gives you. I was getting about 75% of those questions right, which was quite a bit better than I did with the Barbri/Kaplan questions. I thought Barbri gave better explanations for MBE answers than Kaplan did.

If I had to do it again (which hopefully won't happen in Maryland) I would do some type of lecture thing all the way through. It's a lot easier to pay attention to a lecture than read an outline, even if it's only audio. The Kaplan MBE lectures were great, and then I just went through the MD distinctions in Convisor (but Convisor doesn't have the Crim Law & Pro distinctions for MD, so I had to go through the Barbri lectures for those and picked up a lot by going through practice essays). An essay book is also necessary, as is an MBE book. Ameribar has OK lectures, but they are very dry and if you do Ameribar you have to buy the whole package, and I think the Barbri materials are better organized and the essays include statutory extracts where you would get them for the exam.

Finally, a warning on buying used testing materials. Used outlines are fine, but used MBE workbooks and essay books can be a little sketchy because the previous person may have already gone through and underlined things, marked answers, or written key things in the margins. So even though they may be wrong, it won't be the full experience of going through and having to figure it out. I got lucky, I guess, and I had a lot of MBE questions that hadn't been done and the essay book was almost untouched. So just check the materials first.

From now on this will morph into a travel blog. Not as useful for the bar, but some motivation, I hope, to get through it.

This will make you laugh after 200 MBE Questions

I also wanted to point out that this is hilarious: http://legallynoted.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/studying-for-the-bar-this-will-make-you-laugh/

Especially funny after you've done a practice MBE.

Review Plan

This time next week I will hopefully be sleeping, because the bar exam will be the following morning. The review plan is going well. I review flashcards for 3-4 hours a day, usually get through 2-3 subjects, and my goal for each day is to do 6 essays and 36 MBE questions, just to stay on track to finish with 10 essay questions per subject and 340 MBE questions per subject. I'm trying to make flashcards a priority, though. I know how to write an essay. I know how to do multiple choice questions. But I still can't always remember what a buyer's remedies are when he receives a nonconforming shipment, and memorizing that stuff is more important than just wasting my time doing questions I can't do.

I took a practice MBE last Friday and scored 59.5%. It was one of BarBri's practice MBEs, and they claim that the average is 58%, so that wasn't bad. But a 67% is about passing on a real MBE. I'm going to do another practice MBE on Thursday with the online MBE that NCBE puts out. http://www.ncbex2.org/catalog/. It's $50 for 200 questions (I don't know why one set of 100 costs $2 more than the other), but I figure it's worth it to practice with real MBE questions. I did 40 Con Law real MBE questions and scored 70% and they seemed easier than both the BarBri and Kaplan ones. There were some answer choices you could immediately identify as bad. But I think it's been good to practice with hard questions.

I'm feeling pretty good about this, but I am glad that I have another week left to study. I'm really not that stressed out about it. I feel like I have a lot of time in the day- I can study for 10-11 hours, work out, maybe sew something or go out. Of course, if I could go to sleep before 1am I would have less time in the day... need to work on that. Can't roll out of bed at 8am for the bar exam!