The July 2013 Bar Exam: 6 days to the Bar Exam: Consistency in the Bar Exam

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It is now 6 days to the bar exam.  Your job today, along with continuing to practice your exam techniques, is to think about consistency.  In all the bar exam scores I have read, I have rarely seen an up and down score, with a student doing great in one subject and horrible in another subject.  i.e., a 10 in property, a 30 in torts.  Instead, there is a consistency of scores across the board.  The student is routinely good in all the subjects, or routinely bad in the subjects.  Your objective is, of course, to be perform consistently well across the spectrum of subjects and across the tasks you must do in order to pass the bar exam.

How do you perform consistently well in all subjects?   Your consistency started with your study plan, when you first began this bar exam process.  Hard work always demands a consistency of its own in your thoughts, purpose and action over that long period of study time and your sense of purpose has been the most important aspect of your life, these past 2 months.  Every day you   approached your bar exam studies with the steadiness of an athlete in training.  In just a few days from now, all of your hard work will pay off because you dedicated your time and effort to consistent study.  Like that athlete, you will win your race.

With that consistency of study time and steadfastness, you walk into the bar exam with a sense of security and confidence that you will pass the bar exam.

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

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The July 2013 Bar Exam: 1 week to the Bar Exam: Keep Your Focus

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Your goal for this last week is to keep your focus while you solidify your knowledge of the black letter law and improve your timing. The week before the exam is a time when you should be cool, collected and confident.

Don’t let anyone or anything distract you this week.  It’s not worth it.  You only have a week left to go and you can relax later,

Remember to take care of your body and mind.  This means eating well, getting some sleep and working on self-confidence.

As to practical things, make sure you have confirmed your travel plans or hotel stay, make sure you have packed what you need to take with you for the bar exam, including your admission ticket, your identification, your watch, etc.

Now that you know the law, make sure your timing is correct, i.e. complete 17 MBE questions in 30 minutes; 34 MBE questions in an hour and complete an essay in the time allotted for your jurisdiction.

It isn’t uncommon to start running out of energy this week.  So take some breaks to energize yourself.  You need to keep your mind focused on bar material.   Your focus is critical to success.

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

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The July 2013 Bar Exam: 8 Days to the Bar Exam: Keep Your Bar Exam Day Schedule

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Today marks 8 days to the bar exam.  Hopefully, this weekend, you caught up on any sleep you have been missing.  You need to be physically well and fit.  You need to be sharp on the days of the bar exam and you can’t be smart when you are exhausted.  Keep that in mind this week.  If you need to take a cat nap, go ahead and take it.  Meanwhile, keep on your bar exam schedule.  Start studying at 9 am for a 3 hour stretch.  Take an hour break and study again for another 3 hour stretch.  It will be up to you whether you want to study longer.  If you feel you need to, go ahead and review your notes or essays at night, but don’t study night and day.  You will only tire yourself out.  Try to keep your nerves under control.  Think about today and what you need to accomplish today only.  This technique should help you not think too much about next week.

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

We can help you succeed!

2 Weeks to the July 2013 Bar Exam: Keep Practicing

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You have 2 weeks until the bar examination. Instead of spending the day getting nervous about the time, concentrate on what you have left to do.

By this time, you should have pretty much memorized as much black letter law as you can cram into your brain. It is now time to put away the books and stop studying the law.

What you need to do in these final 2 weeks to prepare yourself for the bar exam is to practice, practice, practice. You are now familiar with your state test and the MBE  questions and what to expect from the bar exam.

Try to do an essay or two every day, testing yourself on a variety of subjects that you know your state tests. Do the essays under test conditions. Once you finish your essay under time constraints, spend an equal amount of time reading your essay and comparing it to the model answer. Read for comprehension, also. There might be a point of law that you did not know that you can learn from reading the model answer.

For those states who  have the UBE, and California or New York who have performance tests, you also must include taking the time to do the performance test also. Try doing 1 performance test every other day. This way you can probably get 5 or 6 performance tests in to your practice sessions prior to the bar exam. On the days you do not do a performance test, practice your essays.

In between the essays and performance tests, you also need to work on questions for the Multistate. Try to get in at least 50-100 MBE questions per day, if you can. This way you can really be sharp when exam time comes.

Don’t waste the time to panic, but do take the time to practice. You will be more prepared than ever if you follow this schedule.

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

We can help you succeed!

The July 2013 Bar Exam: 3 Weeks to the Bar Exam

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Three weeks to the bar exam is a good time to evaluate how you are doing. You have enough time to now pinpoint your weak areas and enough time to change your schedule if you feel you’re spinning your wheels. Consider this day your line in the sand.

By now you should have done several hundred multistate questions, at least 15 state essays and at least 4 performance tests.

If you haven’t done it, get busy. Change your schedule if you need to, work on your weak areas and keep testing.

If you have, you are ready for the bar exam. You just need to keep working, stay cool and continue to test yourself.

Make sure you are peaking on exam day. If you are like some of my students who study all night, stop it today. Get up at 6 am or 7 am and start studying at 9 am until 12 pm, with no breaks, then study from 1 pm to 4 pm, with no breaks,  You want to mimic the bar exam hours so you are at your peak at 9 am every day.   .

Don’t pretend you’re not nervous. Accept that it’s okay to be nervous. Channel that nervous energy properly by attacking your study schedule and transform your nerves into confidence. But, remember, you do not want to be overly tired for the bar exam.  Try to sleep through the night or, at least, take some cat naps during the day to catch up on missed sleep.

One of the most important things to do during this 3 week period is not to doubt your abilities. You can pass this bar and you know it.  You just need to be in the top 2/3rds of your state. Don’t stress too much about what you don’t know – you are not expected to get a 100% on this test – it’s more like 60%. The examiners expect that you will have weak areas.  Go into the bar exam with the knowledge you will pass the bar exam. 

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

We can help you succeed!

The July 2013 Bar Exam: It’s a Marathon of Study

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I always tell my students that studying for the bar is more like a marathon than a sprint.  I want you to compare it to your favorite sport that you play.  Do you remember how hard it was to pick it up in the beginning?  You had to keep at it and practice every day before you started to improve and get better at your game.  You worked at that game until you became a true proficient at it.

That game you mastered long ago is similar to how you must master and pass the bar exam.  Every day you chip away at the large amount of material, taking manageable bites until you have mastered that bite and go onto the next one.  As someone has once said, how do you eat an elephant – with one bite at a time.  In other words, take smaller sections of the vast material, learn it and then take another section of the bar exam and learn that section, until, before you know it, you have learned the law, practiced your questions and are ready to sit for the bar exam. 

Always stay in the moment of that day, because if you look too far ahead, you will waste precious time worrying about the large amount of material you must learn or how fast the time is ticking before the bar exam.

I tell my students that taking the bar exam is not a sprint.  You cannot do everything in one day.  Do not drive yourself to exhaustion thinking that you must skip meals, skip the gym, skip sleeping in order to prepare yourself for the bar exam.  You cannot run down your body or your mind.  Take regular breaks so that you can come back refreshed and ready to learn.

Remember, it was the tortoise that won the race, and not the hare.  And to quote the tortoise, “slowly does it every time”.

The bar exam is a marathon, not a sprint.

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

We can help you succeed!

The July 2013 Bar Exam: Today Marks 4 Weeks to the Bar Exam

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Today marks 1 month to the July bar exam. Today is a good day to think about where you are in terms of your studying.  By this time, you should be well into knowing and understanding the law.  Of course, there will be areas where you are still weak, but, overall, do you know enough law to make it through the bar exam?  If not, hit those review books and try to memorize the law as much as you are able to in the next 4 weeks.

The next 4 weeks are crucial to your run up to the bar exam. Once you have the law down, you need to practice – and practice alot.  Go through your practice essays and your MBE questions like the bar exam is tomorrow.  Practicing your essays, PTs and MBEs will ensure that you know the law and you know how to apply the law.  Application of the law will be the difference between passing and failing.

Resist those voices of people who tell you horror stories, or want you to stop studying and power down.. Accept that you have 30 days of study ahead of you. In the scheme of your lifetime, the next 30 days are not a lot of time to get yourself ready or to sacrifice to get yourself ready. It’s worth your time to have a lifetime career as a lawyer.

It’s all about getting yourself ready for the best performance of your life in July. Keep your focus.

Happy Studying!!!

Contact us at barprofessors.com for more information.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, MEE, UBE, Florida, California, and New York bar exams. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or email us at pass@barprofessors.com.

We can help you succeed!