It’s easy to get discouraged when studying. Mountains of materials make it all overwhelming. But please remember that education is a treasure; it is an endless gift to be able to spend time learning. Confront challenges and problem solve to dissipate road blocks. And, try hard to put a smile on your face when you are working. It is amazing how inner positivity can have a productive ripple effect.
Category: Failed the Bar Exam
Simulated bar exams: Take them next week!
If you are preparing to PASS the upcoming bar exam, calendar your simulated bar exam next week so you have time to learn from -and improve from- the experience. Take the exam under as close as possible to simulated exam conditions. And, study the sample answers to any questions you got wrong or guessed on as soon as possible after the simulated exam.
#barexam, #simulatedbar, #barreview
Don’t forget to Breathe!
How tense are you right now? How much learning is blocked from coming into and staying in your brain because of nerves.
My constant refrain that I ask bar takers and other students getting ready for exam to tell yourselves is: “Turn Panic into Power and not Paralysis.” That power phrase appears in my books and articles and in most every talk I give to students preparing for high stakes exams.
There are many steps for turning panic into power. Step one is always to breathe. We’ll talk about next steps in future blog posts.
February Bar Takers: Have you done your daily MBEs?
How many MBEs, Essays and MPTs did you complete last week, and how many will you complete this coming week?
July Bar Takers: Five Prompts for Bar Success Planning, Starting Now
If you are taking the July bar exam, start planning now. Here are five prompts to get you started:
1. Where will you live after graduation?
2. Do you have a place to study that is conducive to learning?
3. Have you lined up all the bar review resources you will need?
4. Have you let your family and friends know you’ll be gone in June and July – and, have you taken care of all summer obligations so that you can either handle them by May or put them off until August?
And, last but not least, for now,
5. Do you have enough money saved to live for two months after graduation without working?
#barexam, #barexamtips, #barsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent
Ten tips to manage procrastination
Many students share that as midterms and finals approach, and during bar prep, they find themselves unusually eager to clean their homes, review and delete old emails, clip their toenails. You get the idea – anything other than studying!
Here are tips if this is your situation:
- Know that procrastination is normal. Lose the self-criticism.
- See some procrastinating as a positive. Sometimes, it does serve a useful purpose – helping re-charge your batteries so that you are all-in when you are studying.
- If your procrastination is paralyzing, rather than positive, seek help from reliable, expert resources.
- Think of an academic goal as a series of finite projects. It is more tempting to avoid something that feels like a huge challenge. Identifying tasks as doable parts of a project makes them more approachable.
- Once you identify the various tasks, ask yourself if any of them feel overwhelming, and see if you can get some help with those pieces of the puzzle.
- List what you tend to do when you procrastinate and schedule specific, limited time slots for those things. Don’t make them guilty pleasures. Make them a controlled part of your day. For example, if you procrastinate with social media, you may find yourself losing many hours. If you know that every day, you have social media “office hours,” you will be less apt to use that as an escape.
- Study first, then take your time “off.”
- Adopt a routine. Being on a schedule will help your body and brain “accept” that you just do particular tasks at certain times. You just do.
- Talk to yourself about how good you feel when you accomplish what you set out to do. And, if it’s helpful, remind yourself how icky it feels when you don’t. Simple example: many people have a habit of never going to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink. No matter how tired they are, they just don’t procrastinate on that one. Why? They find it pleasant to wake to a clean sink and very unpleasant to wake to dirt. They also realize that the task gets more difficult the longer food sticks to dishes. And, they know that a sink for of dirty dishes attracts bugs.
- Articulate why your big goals are important and valuable. And give yourself props for all the hard work you are doing.
#studysuccess, #academicsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent, #ASP, #barsuccess
Bar Exams and Law School Differ
For example, when you go into your Civ Pro final, you knew you would be tested on civil procedure. Bar examiners will fire questions at you on dozens of subjects, in random order –and they won’t be labeled! You’ll have to figure out what subject you are in, hopefully before even reading the full question.
The are many differences. The one I am thinking about today is with the MPT. Format your answer the way the Task Memo (sometimes called the Sr. Partner Memo) tells you to.
When my students show me beautiful Memos, for example, formatted just the way their Legal Writing professor told them to write and ask why they got low grades in bar prep, I simply say, “You need to follow the instructions for this exam.”
In practice, you may work for and report to different partners who will have completely different styles. You may appear before different judges who have different rules in their courtrooms. Likewise, when you are writing for the bar exam, write for bar graders.
In bar prep and on the bar exam, forget for a moment what you learned in law school and in any legal work experiences. Follow the bar examiners’ directions. (I say for a moment because all that learning will come back and be utilized when you are in practice.)
For more bar success tips and strategies, read or listen to the audio book of Bar Exam Success: A Comprehensive Guide –available on Amazon, ABA Publishing, and West Academics (free for certain law students who have West Academics subscriptions).
#barexam, #barsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent, #ASP, #academicsuccess,
Don’t wait to take practice tests!
Bar Review outlines are only as useful as you make them. They do not come into the exam. Only what is in your brain comes into the test site. So, use the outlines now to help you learn, along with lectures, flashcards, flowcharts, and other learning tools. And, remember, the best way to learn law is to put it into practice! So, be sure to be completing daily MBEs and MEEs and weekly MPTs.
The Age of Corona Virus: July Bar Exam??
All posts on this blog are my own; they do not represent any institution.
A group of us who have been involved in lawyer licensing and legal education for many years lay out options for bar admission in the current context at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559060.
Took a simulated exam and feeling like $%$##@@!$
Have you taken any simulated exams yet? Did you score way below what you think you need to pass? Did you take a simulated bar exam and walk out of the room with that “Huh???” look all over your face? Do you feel like the last thing in the world you are ready for now is the real exam?
Take a big, deep breath, hang on, and hang in there! Many have been right where you are –dazed and scared, taking the scores on a simulated exam like a cannon to the gut, and yet on they went to PASS the Bar Exam just a week later. You CAN too.
1. You don’t have to take the real thing until the end of this month. You have a 17 days more days to study. Think of all you were able to learn in one day before certain finals! There is so much you can still get clear in these last weeks.
2. Your simulated exam may have been harder than the real exam.
3. The real thing is a PASS -FAIL test; you don’t have to get an “A.”
4. Use the simulated exams to help with strategies on how to pass the real thing.
- Did you budget your time well? If not, watch the clock more carefully and limit your time per question.
- Were you tired after lunch? Perhaps you can eat a bit less and take some of that lunch hour to walk a bit and burn off some stress or listen to some motivating music.
- Did you “blank out” on any questions? If so, get a plan ready to work through a temporary “brain freeze” should one occur during the exam!
- Most important, do not get psyched out. Simulated exams help you by providing an opportunity to make necessary adjustments before the real thing. Simulated exams are not necessarily a referendum on how you will actually perform next week. They are, however, an opportunity to get lots of useful information. Use that data wisely, and use these two weeks to improve!
Law School & Bar Exam Success 