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.