Otherwise Occupied - barbri

Bar Review: Day 49

gregh — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:02:23 -0500

Today was the simulated written exam. I did the morning (the essays) and skipped out on the performance test. I'll hit a few performance tests in the waning days to make sure I haven't forgotten anything about doing them.

(The beauty of Legal Drafting, unlike even the other so-called "bar electives," is that Legal Drafting is entirely geared to prepare you for one whole section of the bar exam.)

Written exam went well, largely, given where I am with respect to studying for essays. Based on the grading criteria, I'd say one answer fell in the "above average" category and the other two solidly in the passing category. 12 more topics and a lot more practice essays remain. I feel like it's coming together.

Bar Review: Day 45, cont'd.

gregh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:38:07 -0500

So, what aggregate, raw written score does one need to pass based on MBE performance? Based on February numbers, here's the answer:

Bar Review: Day 45

gregh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:39:45 -0500

It's getting real now. The "admittance ticket" arrived from the California State Bar yesterday. Oakland Convention Center, here I come!

In the meantime, I'm prepping for Monday's simulated essay exam. I took some suggestions and went ahead and gathered the topics covered in the essays, and rather than trying to cram everything, have decided to try to learn those topic areas.

Bar Review: Day 44

gregh — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:33:58 -0500

The bar exam starts three weeks from yesterday, just over 20 days from now. I've now completed all of my substantive lectures, and now I'm beginning my essay rampage. I'm coming to terms with the exam, as it becomes clear to me that being able to say enough on topic is more important than mastery of the law. It's silly to think I could master Wills, Trusts, Community Property, or Corporations in weeks. If I followed the Bar/Bri schedule, I'd be taking the Trusts lecture today and the Community Property lecture on Friday. (I took the "make up" lectures over the weekend and through yesterday.)

Clearly, just enough is good enough.

This entire process has been a drain; it just doesn't fit my style at all. I am really looking forward to the whole thing being done.

Bar Review: Day 37

gregh — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:21:48 -0500

Bar/Bri released the report on my simulated MBE. Based on my practice, no surprises. I saw down with both the Mini-Review (our short outline book) and the monster outline book and reviewed those areas I felt I was most deficient in. On Monday, I did a set of 40 random questions using the StudySmart software and got 29 right (72%.) Today, after a little more review, I did 41 questions from some of my problem areas (Duty of Care, Strict Liability, Deed recording, Character Evidence, Impeachment, but no Convenants and Easements) and got 33 right (80%.) That makes me feel better about that. Now I need to get back to memorizing and being ready to crank out essays. Yay.

Bar Review: Day 34

gregh — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:09:39 -0500

The bar exam is in one month from today. *shudder*

I went over my lackluster MBE simulation. I redid each question and read each explanation. In a handful of cases, I didn't read the question properly. In one case I can't figure out why I gave the answer I did (it was clearly wrong and I even had it marked out in the exam.) Otherwise, a lot of nitpicky points that I need to learn, largely in the areas of mortgages, transfers of property, and sales. We can take care of those. I've started to miss a frightening number of easy evidence questions, and I have to figure out why that's happening.

Last week, we started in on the essay-only topics. Professional Responsibility was the first. Tomorrow is Civil Procedure.

It seems like an awful lot of stuff to learn in the next 29 days. I just keep telling myself that lots of other people have managed this before me.

Bar Review: Day 31

gregh — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:16:07 -0500

Today was our simulated Multistate Bar Exam ("MBE"). The MBE is a 6-hour multiple choice test with 200 questions. It was... grueling.

By the end of the second session -- it's split into two 3-hour chunks -- I really just wanted the whole thing to end. In addition, I'm a bit disappointed with my performance. I'm missing a lot of the same question types over and over it seems, so something I'm doing is not working. I scored 120/200, which is not great. I was hoping for a minimum of 130. From rumblings I've been hearing, the average of Bar/Bri students is somewhere around 110. I'll get my score report in a week.

Next up: figure out where I went wrong and determine what to rectify. I've been needing to do that, anyway. I've been utilizing the StudySmart software Bar/Bri offers, which keeps track of the types of questions you miss, and there are clear patterns. I need to get the MBE licked so I can concentrate on essays.

Bar Review: Day 28

gregh — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:19:09 -0500

The countdown on the right says there are 35.5 days until the bar exam as I write this. I feel like I should be able to get this stuff crammed in by then, but right now, I feel like I'm swimming in a lot of stupid little rules. It's very irritating. The stupidity of this test becomes clearer all the time, especially every lecture, when the talking head says, "this will definitely be on your exam."

My biggest problem right now is fighting the urge to rapidly flip between topics as new questions pop into my head. I haven't been very productive the last several days.

Bar Review: Day 23

gregh — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:29:16 -0500

The National Institute for Trial Advocacy is holding a course at the University of San Francisco this week. Due to the lack of group workspace in the main law school building, they kept sending folks to the library yesterday.

It was, shall we say, obnoxious. They were very loud. Seeing as all of the participants were attorneys, they should recognize our BarBri materials. The most annoying spoke at full volume while walking through the library's lower level, which has always been a quiet study area (though the introduction of wireless has functioned to bring more people down here -- it was never wired -- and scuttled the very quiet nature of it.) Other stood in line for their videotaping sessions, talking to each other about their practices, their shoes, or catching up on their phone calls. All, it seems, were oblivious to the students who kept asking them to shut up.

Another common pastime appeared to be speaking at full volume in the group study rooms with the doors open. I went to one group and asked if I could close the door. "It's very hot in here," was the retort. Mine back was, "But it's very loud out here." And I slammed the door shut.

There's a sign outside one of the doors today: "Please limit your conversation while waiting outside this door -- law students will get VERY ANGRY."

Indeed.

Bar Review: Day 22

gregh — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:03:04 -0500

"Word."

And a long, seemingly irrelevant story about N'Sync.