Another lawyer appears. Insert Shakespeare joke here.
1). Passing or failing doesn’t define you. The people who love you will love you whether or not you pass the bar. My dog danced around me and let me cuddle him the same way the day after I passed as the day after I failed. let’s say you fail. Yes that’s sucks but it’s another 3 months which in the context of a career is nothing. Yes I know we live moment to moment but remember to keep that Birds Eye view.
2) bar prep is like statting a character in dnd. There are only so many concepts you can memorize and have in your brain on the day. The trick is to spread out that knowledge basis over all the topics covered. Base knowledge is so much more important than you think. In the same vein, every question is a dice roll. Sure you can have done all the prep in the world for property but on the day you can still roll a nat one and that’s fine. It’s about the amount of nat ones.
3) the whole system is bullshit. I’m gonna keep this short (otherwise this post would be gigantic) but know that this system is bullshit. It’s built on bullshit and is held up by a horrible mix of elitism, racism, and ableism. It’s important to recognize when you’re wading through shit that it is in fact shit you are wading through.
4) the bar exam is like the Olympics and you’re a star athlete. Treat your body accordingly. Eat drink and sleep enough. I promise you there is more gained in a good night sleep than with a night of cramming.
5) there’s a lot more luck involved than anyone wants to admit. All these bar prep programs will throw percentages at you about how many people who got to this percentage complete past the bar. But note how they don’t make that as a guarantee for you. because it’s written by a bunch of lawyers and because they know they can’t guarantee it. The test Wiley. The knowledge basis is a mile long but an inch deep. I was there in July 2022 when they tested the rule against perpetuities twice on the MEE. No one fucking predicted that shit.
6) if you find positive self talk grating and unhelpful. Google neutral self talk. It helped me a bunch.
7) I personally recommend Jon Grossman’s lectures. They are fantastic, especially if you’re an auditory learner. He does a great job at breaking it down and goes into the technique of how to answer questions which is as important if not more important than the actual knowledge.
8) Mechanize your MPT and MEE answers. Those essays are meant to be formulaic (cause it’s easier to grade) so make a formula. Every part of your IRAC should start the same. Drill that into your head so that on the day it’s second nature. Yeah it doesn’t flow well or even feel like a real paragraph but that doesn’t matter. You got 30 minutes and the graders are only looking for key words anyway. Don’t compare yourself to the sample. The sample was written by a lawyer with way more than 30 minutes. Look up actual answers from actual tests.
A this applies to xy facts because
Mechanizing your answer will also help you ferret out where you need to improve and help you not miss facts in your analysis.
9) The bar exam subreddit is good but they have clamped down on resource sharing (which sucks but is understandable).There are some great MEE topic breakdown by a dude called SnooGoats8671. Here is his Agency and Partnership one. He has his own subreddit now and does both free and paid content. I don’t know if that stuff is any good. I passed before he really got going with all that. But his topic breakdowns are great.
10) don’t trust any of those “plug in your current practice scores and I’ll tell you if you’ll pass” websites. They are mind poison. So many other factors go into how you’re gonna score than just a set of mc you did at your dining room table. It’s a completely different set up. I wouldn’t even put too much stock in the practice exams. Because you can’t recreate the conditions of the actual day.
11) start doing timed sets as early as possible to get used to the feel.
This is long list. Don’t get overwhelmed and take it one day at a time. Let me know if you need any help.
