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bar_studying
Today's it. Day 63 of bar review. Ready or not, the bar exam is tomorrow.
I wish I could tell whether or not I'm ready. Every conversation seems to bring up some rule I don't know -- or haven't even heard of. On the plus side, I'm not always the one at a loss. "If you don't know it, fake it." That's the aim. Here's hoping I hit the target.
I'm kind of looking forward to going back to work on Friday.
The question I keep going over in my head: Is there something I would not be able to write some sort of essay response on?
Short answer: I don't think so. Longer answer: I worry about freezing up.
During this process, we've seen nothing but very good essays as answer exemplars. I really want to know what a 55 looks like, what a 65 looks like, and what a 75 looks like. I feel that seeing only 80s or 85s (or whatever they are, since we don't know) makes it too hard to know what we should do when we fake it.
Or, maybe I actually don't want to know. I sure think I do, though.
It would be really great if there could be just a few more minor, piddly little distinctions between California civil procedure and California evidence and the FRE and FRCP.
Will the 29th hurry up and get here?
Someone mentioned to me that the bar exam is an endurance test, what with 3 days and all. I responded that I'm not so sure it's the three days I'm bothered by; it's the 63 days of prep ahead of it. I am so sick and tired of bar prep now.
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.
So, what aggregate, raw written score does one need to pass based on MBE performance? Based on February numbers, here's the answer:
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.
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/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.
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.
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