I'm convinced of it. Those NCBE committee members that work on MBE questions are from hell. There were some really weird questions on there. It felt just as hard as last summer. I do feel like there were a decent handful of questions that I knew cold- maybe 30 (more than last summer). There were definitely a lot that seemed odd and I was eliminating wrong answers and got to two....hopefully my chance in the 50/50 game come out in my favor.
Nothing to do but try and unwind and come down from the clouds (up from the depths of hell?!) and get back to normal life: not listening to PMBR lectures on iPod to/from work, going to class every night for 6 weeks, looking only at essays, outlines and MBE questions every weekend for the past two months, etc.
I hope everyone picked up enough points to survive. Nothing to do but wait for the results. For D.C. they told us May, but the last three February results have been posted on 4/25/07, 5/16/06 and 4/29/05.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A temporary halt in the bombardment
OK- day one is behind us. Everyone made it and got through relatively unscathed- I'm sure of it.
The D.C. essays were today. MPTs weren't too bad. As expected, I was feeling a bit of a pinch on the time. I don't think I really capped off my last conclusion/paragraph in the second essay, but I was damn close. Good enough.
The MEE was better than I expected. It will be interesting to see what the other three essays that the NCBE were that D.C. chose not to use. Today we had (in order):
Wills (undue influence/intestate share distribution)
Torts (strict liability/negligence)
Evidence (correctness of some court rulings on admissibility of three pieces of evidence)
Corporations (duty of loyalty)
Secured transactions (perfection issue/who wins between PAC and LC)
Trusts (violation of numerous fiduciary duties by trustee)
Thankfully no commercial paper. I was a bit surprised that we only got two MBE subjects. Hey- I'll take it. My hand was KILLING me during that last 30-45 minutes. I had Skittles in my pocket but I couldn't really get my hand in there without it pounding. Damn the D.C. Court of Appeals and their no laptop arrangement.
I was amazed at the general lack of organization of the whole setup for the exam. Lax security/tracking of notes/coats and people. Very different experience from my bar exam last summer.
Additionally, there were at least three people that came in late, which I cannot believe. One was about five minutes, one was about 15 and one was about 30 minutes late. Talking about getting your MPTs to be FUBARed. That is just giving away the easiet points!
I cannot imagine what happened to those folks to cause them to be late. And to have three of them?! Last summer no one was late. Then again, maybe we had a late room or something (as I was typing my essays and you had to be there by a certain time to get the exam software booted up).
Additional blasts of good mojo for everyone tomorrow....
For those of us scarred from last summer (or even earlier), we all know the real game begins tomorrow with question 1.
Good luck and remember "You can beat them in ______________(fill in the MBE subject here)" per Rafael Guzman, the BarBri simulated MBE review guy.
The D.C. essays were today. MPTs weren't too bad. As expected, I was feeling a bit of a pinch on the time. I don't think I really capped off my last conclusion/paragraph in the second essay, but I was damn close. Good enough.
The MEE was better than I expected. It will be interesting to see what the other three essays that the NCBE were that D.C. chose not to use. Today we had (in order):
Wills (undue influence/intestate share distribution)
Torts (strict liability/negligence)
Evidence (correctness of some court rulings on admissibility of three pieces of evidence)
Corporations (duty of loyalty)
Secured transactions (perfection issue/who wins between PAC and LC)
Trusts (violation of numerous fiduciary duties by trustee)
Thankfully no commercial paper. I was a bit surprised that we only got two MBE subjects. Hey- I'll take it. My hand was KILLING me during that last 30-45 minutes. I had Skittles in my pocket but I couldn't really get my hand in there without it pounding. Damn the D.C. Court of Appeals and their no laptop arrangement.
I was amazed at the general lack of organization of the whole setup for the exam. Lax security/tracking of notes/coats and people. Very different experience from my bar exam last summer.
Additionally, there were at least three people that came in late, which I cannot believe. One was about five minutes, one was about 15 and one was about 30 minutes late. Talking about getting your MPTs to be FUBARed. That is just giving away the easiet points!
I cannot imagine what happened to those folks to cause them to be late. And to have three of them?! Last summer no one was late. Then again, maybe we had a late room or something (as I was typing my essays and you had to be there by a certain time to get the exam software booted up).
Additional blasts of good mojo for everyone tomorrow....
For those of us scarred from last summer (or even earlier), we all know the real game begins tomorrow with question 1.
Good luck and remember "You can beat them in ______________(fill in the MBE subject here)" per Rafael Guzman, the BarBri simulated MBE review guy.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The time has arrived
The torpedo is pretty much in the water here...not much to do but wait for the explosion and the celebrating. Day one of the D.C. bar exam is tomorrow.
I had a great post written yesterday and when I hit "publish" some error occurred and the back button produced an empty box...how annoying!
I'll try to replicate my brilliance again.
I'm doing a bit of last minute reviewing, trying to look at high level topics just to refresh me on some subjects (for essay purposes) that I haven't looked at in a few days.
I'm nervous, but I've received some great emails and phone calls from friends and family and that has helped. I'll be thinking of some great analogies and thoughts to help keep me calm- something that I think is key to success. I have so much information swirling around in my head- I just have to be logical and organized and try to get out the right nuggets in an orderly fashion tomorrow on the essays. It is still amazing to me just how much information one has to memorize/learn for this damn test. I think I'll be making up a few rules tomorrow- no fact will go unused/applied. CRAC will be flowing heavily. I've really tried to emphasize a concise CRAC format in my essay practice.
I guess the only solace I have in the essays tomorrow is that they are only 25% of our total score so bombing one essay is only around a 4% ding. Hopefully I can minimize any damage to a question or two.
I am feeling pretty good about the MPTs. I did quite a few over the past week. I think the mechanics are there- just need to be organized in my outline. Some of the practice MPTs from previous years were so damn long- it really is an exercise in how to get your outline set up and manage the execution. Lots of blocks to get stacked up in that 90 minute window.
I don't feel great about the MBE, but I do feel better prepared this time around compared to last summer. I've done nearly 2300 questions:
-89% of the BarBri questions using StudySmart- overall average around 63% correct with a low of 59% in Property to a high of 68% in Evidence
-BarBri simmulated MBE
-PMBR 6-Day (300 questions) and 3-Day (200 simulated MBE)
-About 50 in each subject in the PMBR red book
-25 in each subject in the Strategies & Tactics book
-NCBE 2006 Annotated questions (100)
I've really tried to do a better job of critically reading the answers and learning from those explanations. I do think that I have learned a lot more wrong answers this time around- which has been helping overall in eliminating answers. I do seem to have a good handful where I get it down to two and sometimes pick the wrong one- which won't help me. I have to hope that I can use my gut/hunch at this point and not second-guess myself. Let the training take over, young Jedi...
Best of luck to everyone taking the bar exam tomorrow, wherever that may be. A special burst of good mojo to all the repeaters out there.
I had a great post written yesterday and when I hit "publish" some error occurred and the back button produced an empty box...how annoying!
I'll try to replicate my brilliance again.
I'm doing a bit of last minute reviewing, trying to look at high level topics just to refresh me on some subjects (for essay purposes) that I haven't looked at in a few days.
I'm nervous, but I've received some great emails and phone calls from friends and family and that has helped. I'll be thinking of some great analogies and thoughts to help keep me calm- something that I think is key to success. I have so much information swirling around in my head- I just have to be logical and organized and try to get out the right nuggets in an orderly fashion tomorrow on the essays. It is still amazing to me just how much information one has to memorize/learn for this damn test. I think I'll be making up a few rules tomorrow- no fact will go unused/applied. CRAC will be flowing heavily. I've really tried to emphasize a concise CRAC format in my essay practice.
I guess the only solace I have in the essays tomorrow is that they are only 25% of our total score so bombing one essay is only around a 4% ding. Hopefully I can minimize any damage to a question or two.
I am feeling pretty good about the MPTs. I did quite a few over the past week. I think the mechanics are there- just need to be organized in my outline. Some of the practice MPTs from previous years were so damn long- it really is an exercise in how to get your outline set up and manage the execution. Lots of blocks to get stacked up in that 90 minute window.
I don't feel great about the MBE, but I do feel better prepared this time around compared to last summer. I've done nearly 2300 questions:
-89% of the BarBri questions using StudySmart- overall average around 63% correct with a low of 59% in Property to a high of 68% in Evidence
-BarBri simmulated MBE
-PMBR 6-Day (300 questions) and 3-Day (200 simulated MBE)
-About 50 in each subject in the PMBR red book
-25 in each subject in the Strategies & Tactics book
-NCBE 2006 Annotated questions (100)
I've really tried to do a better job of critically reading the answers and learning from those explanations. I do think that I have learned a lot more wrong answers this time around- which has been helping overall in eliminating answers. I do seem to have a good handful where I get it down to two and sometimes pick the wrong one- which won't help me. I have to hope that I can use my gut/hunch at this point and not second-guess myself. Let the training take over, young Jedi...
Best of luck to everyone taking the bar exam tomorrow, wherever that may be. A special burst of good mojo to all the repeaters out there.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Trying not to freak out
Wow, what a long weekend.
I just posted my personal predictions for the D.C. essays in a comment, but thought it might be easier for people to see here:
After looking at what essays the NCBE had available last summer (D.C. used 6 of the 9, marked with *):
Contracts*
Civ Pro/Conflict of Law
Family Law*
Agency/Partnership*
Crim Law*
Property*
Commercial Paper
Trusts*
Corporations
My personal prediction is that the other three MBE topics will be in there
Torts
Evidence
Con Law
Plus there were some subjects that appeared on a very high number of the MEE the last few years that D.C. always seemed to choose, so maybe they'll pick some of them that they didn't hit last summer:
Wills
Secured Transactions
And I think Family Law is a fan favorite...it has been on every MEE since Feb 2004 and. D.C. has used it every time.
The usual hammering on the PMBR 3-Day took place this weekend. I did their full exam on Friday (I got a 90) and was close to the historical average 95). I marked my second choices in my question book and 29 of my second choices were correct. The questions were pretty damn hard (as PMBR said they would be...better to not waste any time on the "gimme" questions right now). If you add what PMBR suggests (36 points) got get you more on scale, it at least has me in the realm of possibility at a 126 scaled score, although I would hope I would do a bit higher than that since that is exactly the score I got last summer!)
I thought the review/lecture with Chris Fromm was pretty good. He also did the lecture for three of the six subjects in the six day. Very animated speaker that keeps you engaged. I took a lot of notes (all by hand for continued boot camp training for my essay hand) so hopefully some of those nuggets will stick in my mind.
Last night I went through and answered the 100 questions from recent MBEs in the MBE annotated preview 2006 through the NCBE.
I haven't read through all the explanations yet, but I scored it quick last night and I got 69/100, which the NCBE had a score report that extrapolated that score to a scaled score of 144 and gave scoring bands for each subject in relation to an average line. For the various subjects:
Contracts 15/18 (83%)
Crim Law 13/16 (81%)
Con Law 13/17 (76%)
Evidence 10/16 (63%)
Torts 10/17 (59%)
Property 8/16 (50%)
A few of those are close to what I've been trending so far, but a few are different. If I scored 69 on each half of the real MBE - that would be an amazing event. I'm a little wary of this as I wonder where those questions fall in the range of hardness from the NCBE. I'd say some of them felt like last summer, but not many of them were complete mindbenders and I remember quite a few of those from last July.
I think I've got my schedule put together for the last week of studying...lots of essay/MPT work now.
I'm going to do 20-30 mixed MBE's per day (just enough to stay fresh), in the "big ticket" areas (negligence, strict liability, hearsay, character/impeachment, homicide, First Amendment, equal protection/due process, mortgages and contracts formation) to try and strengthen those particular subjects.
I just posted my personal predictions for the D.C. essays in a comment, but thought it might be easier for people to see here:
After looking at what essays the NCBE had available last summer (D.C. used 6 of the 9, marked with *):
Contracts*
Civ Pro/Conflict of Law
Family Law*
Agency/Partnership*
Crim Law*
Property*
Commercial Paper
Trusts*
Corporations
My personal prediction is that the other three MBE topics will be in there
Torts
Evidence
Con Law
Plus there were some subjects that appeared on a very high number of the MEE the last few years that D.C. always seemed to choose, so maybe they'll pick some of them that they didn't hit last summer:
Wills
Secured Transactions
And I think Family Law is a fan favorite...it has been on every MEE since Feb 2004 and. D.C. has used it every time.
The usual hammering on the PMBR 3-Day took place this weekend. I did their full exam on Friday (I got a 90) and was close to the historical average 95). I marked my second choices in my question book and 29 of my second choices were correct. The questions were pretty damn hard (as PMBR said they would be...better to not waste any time on the "gimme" questions right now). If you add what PMBR suggests (36 points) got get you more on scale, it at least has me in the realm of possibility at a 126 scaled score, although I would hope I would do a bit higher than that since that is exactly the score I got last summer!)
I thought the review/lecture with Chris Fromm was pretty good. He also did the lecture for three of the six subjects in the six day. Very animated speaker that keeps you engaged. I took a lot of notes (all by hand for continued boot camp training for my essay hand) so hopefully some of those nuggets will stick in my mind.
Last night I went through and answered the 100 questions from recent MBEs in the MBE annotated preview 2006 through the NCBE.
I haven't read through all the explanations yet, but I scored it quick last night and I got 69/100, which the NCBE had a score report that extrapolated that score to a scaled score of 144 and gave scoring bands for each subject in relation to an average line. For the various subjects:
Contracts 15/18 (83%)
Crim Law 13/16 (81%)
Con Law 13/17 (76%)
Evidence 10/16 (63%)
Torts 10/17 (59%)
Property 8/16 (50%)
A few of those are close to what I've been trending so far, but a few are different. If I scored 69 on each half of the real MBE - that would be an amazing event. I'm a little wary of this as I wonder where those questions fall in the range of hardness from the NCBE. I'd say some of them felt like last summer, but not many of them were complete mindbenders and I remember quite a few of those from last July.
I think I've got my schedule put together for the last week of studying...lots of essay/MPT work now.
I'm going to do 20-30 mixed MBE's per day (just enough to stay fresh), in the "big ticket" areas (negligence, strict liability, hearsay, character/impeachment, homicide, First Amendment, equal protection/due process, mortgages and contracts formation) to try and strengthen those particular subjects.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Comparison to last July
This weekend I reviewed the results from the simulated MBE I took on Superbowl Sunday...wow, what a difference from last July.
I saved a copy of my July results and compared them to the recent scores:
July: I scored 75 out of 200 (better than 2% of the takers).
Now: I scored 119 out of 200 (better than 77% of the takers).
I guess I added incorrectly when I thought I had 120 or maybe I mismarked one of the answers when transferring to my extra score sheet for review purposes.
Wow. I didn't realize my score was so low last July. I'm definitely feeling better about MBE questions. I am confident I could take the MBE right now and do fairly well (better than the 106 raw score from last July!)- although I hope to hone things a bit more and really kick ass instead of just making it.
I am still feeling the pinch on essays. I'm going to work on a plan/schedule today to make sure I set the correct pace to cover sample essays on all topics and get more MPTs in (since we have two of them here in D.C., which means one will be something other than a memo style).
I found my ziplock bag from this past July: earplugs, mechanical pencils/lead, big eraser, highlighters and my ID badge (with the super late night photo from Walgreens).
Still no admission ticket and it is T-minus 14 days 22 hours until exam time. I guess the D.C. Court of Appeals likes to cut it close.
I saved a copy of my July results and compared them to the recent scores:
July: I scored 75 out of 200 (better than 2% of the takers).
Now: I scored 119 out of 200 (better than 77% of the takers).
I guess I added incorrectly when I thought I had 120 or maybe I mismarked one of the answers when transferring to my extra score sheet for review purposes.
Wow. I didn't realize my score was so low last July. I'm definitely feeling better about MBE questions. I am confident I could take the MBE right now and do fairly well (better than the 106 raw score from last July!)- although I hope to hone things a bit more and really kick ass instead of just making it.
I am still feeling the pinch on essays. I'm going to work on a plan/schedule today to make sure I set the correct pace to cover sample essays on all topics and get more MPTs in (since we have two of them here in D.C., which means one will be something other than a memo style).
I found my ziplock bag from this past July: earplugs, mechanical pencils/lead, big eraser, highlighters and my ID badge (with the super late night photo from Walgreens).
Still no admission ticket and it is T-minus 14 days 22 hours until exam time. I guess the D.C. Court of Appeals likes to cut it close.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Crunch time
OK, now it really feels like the exam is close. Tonight is the last lecture for BarBri, which is good. I'm sick of seeing my family-away-from-family five nights a week. I'm going to go explore the exam site in the next couple of days so I can get a feel for it. I got some good insider info from a guy in class about the setup and food situation.
I also got some stuff I purchased from the NCBE: the MEE questions/sample answer from 2007 and the MPT questions/points sheets for 2007. That should be helpful.
I really have a lot of ground to cover on the essays. That is one thing I haven't had time to do many of so far. I turned in the four essays for grading through BarBri but when the paced program calls for four essays in a given topic two or three times a week...I just couldn't swing that, which is OK. I'll be writing/outlining lots of essays and MPTs in the next 20 days.
I've done nearly 1600 MBE questions so far, which I'm feeling pretty good about. The simulated MBE was this past Sunday at GW. I forget how tiring it is to sit through 200 questions. What a chore! I did fare much better this time around compared to last summer. I think I got ~95 correct if I recall correctly. This time I got 120 correct. There were 29 questions where I marked a strong second choice, but my first instinct was correct and 17 I got wrong but my second choice was the correct answer. I thought both of these were good signs. I'll get a detailed score report from BarBri in a couple of days, but a quick self-scoring by subject showed I was pretty even on all subjects:
Crim Law: 19/33 (58%)
Evidence: 20/33 (61%)
Torts: 19/34 (56%)
Contracts: 21/34 (62%)
Property: 19/33
Con Law: 22/33 (67%)
I was a bit surprised at my Crim Law score. I'll have to spend some time on that and see what the deal was- normally I'm a bit better in that area. I know the real MBE will be harder so I need go work on getting these scores a bit higher. Ideally I'd like a raw score of around 130.
I also got some stuff I purchased from the NCBE: the MEE questions/sample answer from 2007 and the MPT questions/points sheets for 2007. That should be helpful.
I really have a lot of ground to cover on the essays. That is one thing I haven't had time to do many of so far. I turned in the four essays for grading through BarBri but when the paced program calls for four essays in a given topic two or three times a week...I just couldn't swing that, which is OK. I'll be writing/outlining lots of essays and MPTs in the next 20 days.
I've done nearly 1600 MBE questions so far, which I'm feeling pretty good about. The simulated MBE was this past Sunday at GW. I forget how tiring it is to sit through 200 questions. What a chore! I did fare much better this time around compared to last summer. I think I got ~95 correct if I recall correctly. This time I got 120 correct. There were 29 questions where I marked a strong second choice, but my first instinct was correct and 17 I got wrong but my second choice was the correct answer. I thought both of these were good signs. I'll get a detailed score report from BarBri in a couple of days, but a quick self-scoring by subject showed I was pretty even on all subjects:
Crim Law: 19/33 (58%)
Evidence: 20/33 (61%)
Torts: 19/34 (56%)
Contracts: 21/34 (62%)
Property: 19/33
Con Law: 22/33 (67%)
I was a bit surprised at my Crim Law score. I'll have to spend some time on that and see what the deal was- normally I'm a bit better in that area. I know the real MBE will be harder so I need go work on getting these scores a bit higher. Ideally I'd like a raw score of around 130.
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