The push begins now
Thanks to all who commented on my last post (last week!) for the congratulations on the job. I’ve been busy w/life things and haven’t been able to update here recently but it’s been great to check email sporadically over the last week and see another positive comment or two in my inbox each time. I couldn’t be happier myself; why wouldn’t I want to be part of this? Words are simply not adequate to describe how lucky and happy I feel that things have fallen into place so perfectly. (Knock wood!) Of course, now that I’ve told everyone I have this great job, the pressure is even greater to pass the bar. I have a spike of adrenaline several times a day imagining what will happen if I don’t pass. Bad things, man. Very bad things. Unfortunately, what with refinishing our floors, painting the basement, and finally moving in to our new house, I haven’t made a great deal of progress on the bar exam thing.
That changes today.
From now until the bar exam—only 17 days!—I will probably be holed up here in Missoula doing practice questions, reviewing notes and outlines, writing practice essays, and possibly doing a practice MBE.
Speaking of which, should I do the practice MBE? Is it crucial? Please let me know what you think in the poll down on the right and/or in the comments here. My BarBri course doesn’t offer a simulated MBE and I’m obviously not at the PMBR 3-day scarefest that started today, so if I do a practice MBE I’ll have to just do it on my own. Jeremy says it was useful and the Statute of Frogs makes it sound pretty worthwhile, too. Other thoughts?
Gotta study…
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July 7th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
I did it. It was useful. I figured out where I am on the MBE in general, and tonite will get some sort of a score report that will tell me how I did by subect. Based on what I know so far, I realize my weakness is the essays. I think that’s useful. And anyway, I’m having more luck learning by doing practice questions than other methods.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
You MUST do it. It shows you what you know and what you don’t know, plus with every practice question you do and review you learn something new. Your ass better be doing a bunch of questions a day. Do every Barbri question. The MBE can make or break you.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
DO IT. No question. You don’t want the first time that you sit down in exam conditions to be the actual exam. It’s the best preparation. Plus, unless you do the practice, you won’t know how low your energy will get in the afternoon section or just how much such intense and continued focus will take out of you. This is crucial to know before the bar. The bar is definitely an exercise in stamina, so the more practice in exam conditions you get, the better prepared you’ll be, not only for the questions themselves but also the process.
Also, I found it reassuring to take the practice exam. It gives you an idea of where you’re at in terms of score. You may find out that your score is pretty good, so you can take the stress down a level. At the very least, it will give you an idea of which subjects you need to study more.
Hang tough! And good luck!
July 8th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Yes, what they all said. You want to get an idea of your pacing, you want to get an idea of what it feels like to take it, and going through the explanatory answers afterwards can be a good way to study some more.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Um, ok. The consensus is overwhelmingââ¬âI’ll do a practice MBE tomorrow. Ugh.
July 9th, 2006 at 11:31 am
[...] That’s what I should have done. But I didn’t. So forget what I said yesterday about taking a practice MBE today. It would be a complete waste. I spent at least 8 hours yesterday doing practice questions in multiple subjects and I’m just getting far too many wrong to make a practice test meaningful. Although I hope to take a practice test next weekend (the next time I can realistically block off the required 6 hours for that purpose), I take some small encouragement from the Millbarge School of Bar Review (scroll down to #5): I didn’t start studying until after July 4th. I mean, I went to the BarBri lectures and filled in the blanks in the book, but I didn’t do any out-of-class studying until July. That gave me about three solid weeks of heavy-duty studying, and not much else. . . . But I also never took a full practice test and didn’t write any practice essays. I think I (a) take tests pretty well, (b) retained a lot from the lectures, © felt pretty good about what I learned and remembered from the courses I took that were tested on the exam, (d) studied hard those last three weeks, (e) took the bar in not the most difficult jurisdiction in the country, and (f) didn’t get freaked out about it. Depending on how any or all of those apply to you, adjust your own study time accordingly. [...]