It’s over. After the MBE today I raced to the restroom along with lots of other people and one of my comrades at the pissoir said something like “I feel like that Grateful Dead song, ‘Comfortably Numb…’”

That’s about it.¹ Those quoted in the sidebar at right pretty much sum up my feeling about the MBE. It blew. It was hard. I have no clue how I did.

So it’s over. Scores are out September 18. Until then, I will talk about other things. I hope.

Congratulations to all who have just completed their bar exam. And if you still have a day left, may your last day go better for you than mine did for me!!!

1. Although the Dar Williams versionââ�¬â��which I learned about from my sisterââ�¬â��is also highly recommended.↩

I’m taking the bar exam so I can do the job I really want to do. The job I really want to do asked me to go to training a couple of weeks ago. To attend training, I had to miss a lecture on a subject called “secured transactions”ââ�¬â��something I knew absolutely zero about. But I went to training and tried to study that secured transactions thing on my own. Yesterday I got an MEE question about secured transactions and had no clue. If I got one point it will be a miracle.

Is there some irony in there somewhere?

Running self-score: 33-51/65. Obviously there’s quite a range there, and I’m totally just guessing, but if I’m in the ballpark and I do as well on the MBE as I did in practice, I just might make it. I wish you all happy bubbling….

Day one was… a huge relief! Ok, not huge, but pretty relieving. It was just good to finally get in there, sit down, and dig into some real questions.¹ To all who have sent positive thoughts or prayers, , crossed their fingers, or thrown pennies into wishing wells on my behalf, please keep it up! It may be working and I’ll definitely need it for today’s six MEE essays and two MPT essay/exercises.

Yesterday was just four state essays in four hours. Here’s my rough self-scorecard:

1. Worker’s Compensation/Tortsââ�¬â��Optimistic: 5/5. Pessimistic: 4/5.
2. Criminal Procedure�Optimistic: 4/5. Pessimistic: 2/5.
3. Taxââ�¬â��Optimistic: 3/5. Pessimistic: 1/5. ²
4. Evidence�Optimistic: 4/5. Pessimistic: 3/5.

So I either got 16 or 10 out of 20 possible points on what will be 25% of my total bar exam score.³ So why didn’t I rock the criminal procedure? How about because I’m an idiot. But the issues were just not things I studied (and, indeed, they’re not addressed in BarBri’s materials) or things I remember exactly from anywhere. For your consideration:

1. Bank robbery; witness says one robber was wearing brown leather jacket and knit cap. Can state compel your client to try on the jacket and hat?
2. Bank robbery, witness says robber had tattoo on right forearm. Your client is charged but your client has no tattoo. Can your client show jury his forearm w/out giving up any of his rights?
3. Client charged with felony assault has been in jail awaiting trial for 23 months. Police have blood sample and “a number of other items” they picked up from scene. What motions can you file on behalf of your client?

You would think I would rock these, wouldn’t you? I did answer the questions and I think my overall analysis was sound, but as for the answer they really wanted? I dunno. Anyone want to take a stab? It might be good practice if you’ll soon be heading into some essays or MBE questions yourself!

The important thing is: I’m pretty sure I got through a quarter of the total w/out totally washing out so a passing score is still a possibility. Yesterday was only a half-day; today and tomorrow are full days (8-5), which should make them twice the fun.

Continued good luck to all bar-takers out there!⁴ May we all continue to find it’s not as bad as we thought!

1. The AC was also much-appreciated.↩
2. Talk about wing and prayerââ�¬â��I was just barely hanging onto the wispy cobwebs in some dark corner of my mind for these tax issues, but a check of the outline says my mystified guesses were mostly right and definitely ended up w/the right conclusionsââ�¬â��at least for those issues I was able to see w/my limited knowledge.↩
3. Obviously I could be completely wrong on those guesses. Let’s hope I don’t go lower than 10!↩
4. W/the usual respectful but heartfelt MT-bar-taker caveat.↩

There’s not much more that can be done. I’m planning to follow this helpful last-minute bar exam advice [via Wayne again], I’ve been trying to eat well (tuna, almonds, and applesââ�¬â��on my kind sister’s recommendation), and I got a pretty good night’s sleep last night, so… So, just like every exam season in the last three years, I’m just going to go into the room on a wing and a prayer and do the best I can. As my dad likes to say: “That’s all a steer can do!”

Good luck to everyone!¹

1. Unless you’re taking the MT bar, in which case I really, kindly and respectfully, hope you’re even less prepared than I am. I mean that in the best way. Really.↩

As usual, Energy Spatula perfectly captures exactly how I’m feeling about the bar exam:

The thing I hate about the bar is that just when I start to think I can remember CrimPro, or CivPro, or Property, I remember that there are 18 other subjects that I need to remember simultaneously. And then I cry.

Yes! And in the comments, Frolics and Detours adds this:

I feel the same way about the essay subjects. Yesterday morning I memorized what I need to know about federal jurisdiction and then studied a bunch of other subjects. Now I don’t think I can tell you anything about federal jurisdiction, let alone any of the other subjects I studied.

Exactly exactly exactly! It seems I have a space in my mind for this stuff and one subject fills it up. I study a subject; I’ve got it.¹ I study another subject; the first one disappears.

At this point I’m having some luck thinking of the six subjects on the MBE as one subject so I can hold them all in there at the same time. I think I’ll be ok for that on Wednesday. But tomorrow for the Montana essays, I’m expected to have 18 subjects crammed into my head and ready for quick and detailed recall and regurgitation. Eighteen freaking subjects! As if. Tuesday is betterââ�¬â��only 10 possible subjects to keep in mind, and that’s basically just a subset of what I’m supposed to know tomorrow.

I couldn’t sleep last night b/c the whole thing makes me so angry. What, exactly, is the point of all this? Who has ever practiced law like this? Case law and statutes are written down for a reasonââ�¬â��so that lawyers can refer to them every single ding-dong day! But on the bar exam? No books, no notes, just pull it out of your… whatever you can, really. It’s so ridiculous I want to scream!

Oh, and one more thing that E. Spat perfectly captured: It’s way. too. hot.² It was over 100 degrees here yesterday and the high today is supposed to be 99. And air conditioning? Nope, none here, either.

I’m fighting the law hard but I’m really hoping it’s not going to win b/c this rock breaking thing (aka: studying for and taking the bar exam)? It’s a kind of punishment I never want to have to suffer again. [tags]freaking out[/tags]

1. In fact, six semesters of law school finals has made this rather easy. That’s all law school finals wereââ�¬â��cram an outline into your head in the 1-3 days before the exam, dump it out on the exam, and move on. What, exactly, did that prepare me to do in life? Certainly not pass the bar…↩
2. She put it much more colorfully than that, but my mom reads this, ok? Hi mom!↩

Adding insult to injury, our BarBri course finished up today with a 6-hour marathon with Professor Mike Spak on Sales (which we’d already covered during the 3-day contracts lecture weeks ago) and Commercial Paper. I wanted to poke out my eyes.

I’d never looked at the law of commercial paper before but I’m still stunned speechless at how the good professor could stretch the rules governing checks and promissory notes into three freaking hours of fill-in-the-blank fun. I wouldn’t care except that this topic will almost certainly show up on an essay, a fact which gives rise to a desire to tell the bar examiners to take some commercial paper and shove it up thei….

Or maybe my frustration would be better focused on the MT BarBri planners who decided it was a good idea to hold classes all the way up until three days before the actual exam. Meanwhile, we’ve had nearly every Friday off since classes began. Here’s a suggestion for next year: Have classes on Fridays so that students will be finished covering new material with more than three days left before they have to actually apply it on the exam. Oh, and use a Saturday to hold a simulated MBE. Sheesh.

Whatever. I’m sure I’m just frazzed b/c time is almost up. Three more days just does not seem like enough time!! But panic is pointless, right? The difficult thing right now is just trying to figure out what to do to make the most of the little time left. I heard similar complaints from people in class today. What will be most likely to get you just a few more points come Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday)? I’ve done only a few essays and that’s 50% of the test. Maybe I should do a few more?

Thanks to Blonde Justice and Woman of the Law for the kind wishes. A week from now it’ll all be over but the shouting (results)…

p.s.: Audacity understands perfectly…

Tab and Brandy recently made some very encouraging calculations for those procrastinators among us bar-studiers:

14 hrs/day * 7 days = 98 hours of studying

Compare:

3 hrs/day * 6 days * 6 weeks - 10 hr adjustment for shorter weeks = 98 hours of BarBri

Now, doesn’t that give you hope? Or is it just me?

Tab and Brandy is full of greatness! For example, here’s a little lesson in study habits, and a great Bar-Taker User Manual. Following Tab Connoisseur’s lead, I made a life lesson for you:

Ok, ok! I’m going, already! [tags]humor[/tags]

I finally forced myself to do a full practice MBE yesterday and it confirmed what all my other practice question sessions had already indicated: If I took the test today I’d get about 60% of the questions right. That seems awful, yet I’ve heard it’s usually a passing score for the MBE once everything is scaled. So my question:

Is it true that 60% on the MBE is usually a passing score? Can anyone fill me in anymore on how the “scaling” works? Do they scale the test according to all results nationwide, or do they scale each state independently?

I don’t really want to do just the bare minimum, but at the same time I don’t need a good score, I need a passing score. The MBE is worth 35% of the total exam score here so doing well on it can help cover mistakes on the essays and MPT. My hope was to be getting about 70-80% correct on the MBE by this point for just that purpose, but alas…

Aside from the score, the practice exam did seem valuable in that it showed just how very tiring it can be to sit for three hours straight doing question after question after question. (It’s especially hard if you’re getting almost half of them wrong; talk about discouraging!) A good night’s sleep before the real thing is going to be critical!

Go to two days of training for your new job just 10 days before the exam!

I’ll be back to the madness shortly. Please feel free to tell me what an idiot I am.

Perversity #1: Is it just me, or is BarBri’s StudySmart software kind of fun? I’ve done questions in it for hours and hours and hours and it’s almost like I’m just playing a game. Every time I click on an answer it’s like I just pulled the handle on a slot machine and I get to wait for that half-second while the dials twirl and I get my little red X (boohoo) or my little green check (yay!). The instant gratification is great, plus, if you’re wrong, you get to see immediately why you’re wrong, which is kind of important and helpful. I’m telling you, studying really shouldn’t be this fun.

Perversity #2: I prefer to do practice questions in subjects I already know. It’s great to get that little green check in conlaw and crimlaw and evidence! It’s so demoralizing and sad to see that mean red X in contracts and property and torts! I don’t want to be demoralized, I want to be encouraged, dammit!

Perversity #3: Rationally I know it’s way too late for this, but late last night, after doing way too many practice questions in the previous 8-10 hours, I almost bought the “definitive guide on how to successfully pass the Bar Examination in your state.” If only…

Perversity #4: I wish I was having dreams like this. At least then I’d have something entertaining to share with you. [link via Wayne]