Comments on: Graduation doesn’t mean $%&# (but it’s still good to be done)

By: washburn

washburn — Wed, 17 May 2006 05:41:38 +0000

Hmm. Speaking of “the tendency for humans to require problems,” I see you finished graduated law school, but added ratings to your weblog.

Coincidence?

Anyway congrats, and I’m very much liking the look of the new (a)I.

By: energy spatula

energy spatula — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:05:50 +0000

I’d like to point out that my last exam is on June 7th, with a paper due NLT June 8th, and my graduation ceremony is on June 11th. So yeah, my life gets to continue sucking for another full month. Awesome!!

By: Will

Will — Tue, 16 May 2006 17:26:39 +0000

Oh, one other thing: ambib, I think I said to you a while ago that the MT bar exam is weighted 1/3 MBE and 2/3 Essay. That was true last year, but they’ve changed the exam. As I’m sure you’re probably aware. The new weighting is:

Montana Essay Examination (MTEE) 25%
Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) 25%
Multistate Performance Test (MPT) 15%
Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) 35%

http://www.montanabar.org/montanalawyer/march2005/newbarexam.html

By: Will

Will — Tue, 16 May 2006 17:17:57 +0000

I’m 2 for 2 on bar exams (PA, SD), and I’ll be shooting for 3 for 3 in February (MT). Here’s my advice, for what it’s worth:

On a multiple choice question, you either get all the points or zero points on any given question.

On an essay question, you have to be a complete buffoon to get zero points. Especially since they say you will be graded on your “familiarity and understanding of the facts of the question” crap. At the very least, even if you don’t know a single bit of the law, you can score a few points by accurately discussing the facts.

Consequently…

I studied my ass off for the MBE (Micromash — an excellent product — highly recommended) and studied hardly at all for the essays. No surprise, I creamed the MBE (I got close to 80% of the questions correct) and completely bombed the essay (got about 50% on them).

I passed comfortably in the state that gives you your score (PA). I’m not sure how comfortably I passed in SD, but I did.

The good thing about this strategy is that you can waive your MBE score into many states (SD and MT for example). So if you do well on one MBE, you can sort of carry that around to other bar exams and walk in with a little bit of confidence, knowing that you only have to take the essay, and you know your MBE score in advance. That changes everything.

Throw in a few Performance Test questions, and all of a sudden you don’t have much to study for. I spent a weekend studying for the SD bar exam.

Of course, even with the knowledge that your MBE score will help you, the bar exam is not a stress-free event.

But anyway, that’s my advice: spend most of your time preparing for the MBE. Do question after question after question. Do 50 or 100 every day. Do thousands of practice questions. Eventually, you’ll start to see the patterns, and you’ll be amazed at how easy those questions become.

And with any luck, you’ll save your best performance for game day. :)