Washington DC (UBE) & Virginia Bar Exam Tutoring & Self-Study

1 month till the bar…

Written by

Dwight Zenzano

in

Exactly 1 calendar month until the bar exam… I am going to begin MEE/MPT studying Monday… Up to this point, I’ve been 100% focused on MBE subjects… I have finished all the practice questions in Strategies and Tactics… That’s 354 questions, which I completed in an average time of 1.5 minutes per question (fastest questions were Torts and Evidence which I finished in about 1.2 and 1.3 minutes per question, respectively… Slowest was Con Law, which I finished in 1.8 minutes per question) so time doesn’t appear to be too big of an issue at this point…

This weekend, I am doing the 200-question practice MBE in Strategies and Tactics, as I plan to do a 3 hour timed session this morning of the AM portion of the exam (100 questions) and then go over the answers this afternoon, then do the same tomorrow with the PM portion… I hope to score, at a bare minimum, a 130 raw, with my target being a 150 raw score… This will be the first time I have done mixed-subject MBE questions…

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One response to “1 month till the bar…”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    You sound like you started a bit late; I hope you’re tracking well with the MBE. But also remember not to underestimate the essays. Everybody freaks out about the MBE and BarBri/PMBR encourages this with stupid quotes like “You’ve been doing essays your whole law school career – don’t sweat the essays!” That’s irresponsible and utter bullshit. The essays are graded to much stricter standards than in law school and are extremely format-intensive. This is even more true with the MPT – format is everything.

    The good news is that DC for whatever reason tends to go heavy on the MBE subjects for their MEE essays, and since you’re already studying the MBE, you *should* have a bit of study-synergy going on there. Also, the MPT is almost always a client letter or letter to partner, two of the easiest formats available, and DC likes these too. Whatever you do, try to write legibly. I’m quite sure this is why I originally failed but was later passed after the review period and subsequent re-grade.

    On that subject, there is an optional essay review period and subsequent re-grading for failed applicants. You can go to DC, review your responses and the grading sheets, then write and submit appeals of the scoring decisions on your essays. This is what saved my ass on the July 2008 bar – I made up ten points during the re-grade and was added to the list of passers a few months later.

    This is a last ditch effort and not a strategy, but remember it if you find yourself on the losing team when the results are released.

    Good luck and don’t spend a lot of time on this blog – you’ve got bigger fish to fry.

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