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

February 2009 Bar Exam is Finished

Written by

Dwight Zenzano

in

Well, it’s over… The MBE was harder than expected… Morning section was particularly brutal, I saw a lot of dejected faces at the end of the morning session… There were some VERY tricky questions, one of them was such a fine line that I found myself asking myself “What point does such a fine line question serve other than a ritual-style hazing of bar examinees?”

I must say, the questions on the actual MBE were not very similar to any practice questions, not even the released ones… Maybe a small minority were similar, say, 15-20%, but the rest were pretty different, many topics that I had never seen and many others where the question required a deeper mastery of the material than I had…

Anyway, I hope everyone did well, I will do a post in a few days discussing all the various materials I used and how useful I found them for the actual exam, as well as which study strategies worked best for me…

Comments

15 responses to “February 2009 Bar Exam is Finished”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I hope you did well – all I had to do was take the essays and that was enough for me. I had a hard time on the Torts essay – I felt like you could have written 10 pages or 2 pages. Good luck

    Reply
  2. Melissa Avatar
    Melissa

    I took the PA bar exam these past two days. You expressed my feelings exactly about the MBE. It was WAY harder than any practice questions I did, and two of the answer choices were consistently virtually indistinguishable. I also agree the the morning session was particularly brutal. As a matter of fact, those are the exact words I used in describing it to my husband. I wonder how they grade this thing if everyone fails it?

    Reply
  3. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    Good Luck!

    I thought the morning session was harder than the afternoon session as well. I do wonder if anyone walks out of there feeling confident (I was in NC).

    Reply
  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    How did you like the NPR break that we had. I was thinking to myself “this is just going to smooth right now,” then all of a sudden talk radio just comes through the loud speakers.

    Anyway…I think that the first part was definitely harder than the second.

    Reply
  5. DCBar Avatar
    DCBar

    Ya, it was a real mess… Don’t know if you heard, but about 5 minutes before NPR came blasting over the loudspeakers, a cell phone started ringing in one of the backpacks against the back wall (2 rows behind me) and the proctors came over and started looking for it and talking… It was such a mess… Glad I had my earplugs…

    Reply
  6. Anastasia Avatar
    Anastasia

    Does anybody remember the question about Alice, who divided her land into two parcels and gave Wanda a deed to one of them and a 20-year right of first refusal on the other one? Why couldn’t Wanda exercise it after Alice died?

    Reply
  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Why were there so many unrecorded mortgage questions?

    Reply
  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    no clue – I am a little twisted over the essays still – I really did not know where to go with CivPro besides talking about Rule 4 and with Torts I did not know how much they wanted – it seemed a little open – the 1st MPT was a little hard to get going for me too – I had to cut myself off at 90 and I was not really done – I just wrote down those facts with a sentence of analysis – anyone know what they really wanted on the 4th call of the evidence question? I thought it could have went a few different ways.

    Reply
  9. DCBar Avatar
    DCBar

    4th call of the evidence question was the manager/supervisor being called to the stand to impeach the original witness over his job application right?

    The court did not err in sustaining that objection. I believe on cross counsel attemped to impeach via bad act, the witness constantly denied, then they called the new witness to impeach. That is improper to use extrinsic evidence (another witness) to impeach re opinion evidence, pretty sure it’s FRE 608. So the objection to the new witness was proper. (I hope, lol)

    Reply
  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was with you on that 4th call – what I meant about it going a few ways is I was wondering if the judge would say that shit is not relevant and kick it out under 403 as a way to get it out also? Also, did you feel the torts essay was a 45 min answer? I only spent 30 minutes on it and could have spent more – I had to cut myself off – I really had a hard time because of I could have blown that essay out, but did not think I had the time to do. the landlord part maybe some negligence per se????????????

    Reply
  11. DCBar Avatar
    DCBar

    I kept it brief, and didn’t go into relevancy for the 4th call, but by that point I was tired and just wanted to get it over with :)

    As for the torts question, ya, it was pretty open ended… There were a plethora of issues that could have potentially been raised, but no way was there enough time to list them all, let alone IRAC them all… So I just hit the biggest ones and then sat there and scratched my head quietly swearing to myself for 20 minutes reading the civ pro/conflicts question, lol…

    Reply
  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Did anybody take the VA bar? What did you think? I thought the afternoon essays were completely ridiculous!

    Reply
  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    didnt take the VA – but wanted to thank admin for this blog – I followed it a lot since I was also a self-study person and did use some of the same materials. THANKS ADMIN!

    Reply
  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    February 2009 D.C. Bar Exam Results Posted Today. Went down to the DCCA. 53% passage rate for first timers (which means 47% failed). That room was chock full of exam takers and the list is barely a page and a half of people who passed.

    It was brutal. I spoke to a lawyer who took the Ohio bar and waived in and said if he had to take the DC bar exam he would have failed.

    I’m in a daze, but there are 47 out of every 100 test takers who feel the same way I do right now. Oh well, on to July.

    There were a LOT of tricky MBE questions that I came across before lunch on the 2nd day that could have literally gone either way.

    Reply
  15. Midwesterner in D.C. Avatar
    Midwesterner in D.C.

    In case you haven’t already hear, there is discussion on all4jds.com about the results being posted at the courthouse this morning:

    http://www.all4jds.com/Forums/aff/1/aft/11371/afv/topic/afpg/1.aspx

    Someone posted at 9:37 am:

    I just called the COA
    The are posted NOW in the admissions office.
    They will be mailed TODAY.
    They will go onlines sometime this week.

    Someone posted at 10:33 am:

    Confirmed, they are up in the Office of Admissions 430 E. St.

    The 9:37 poster posted again at 11:26 am:

    Went to court – they are right inside the door on a few blue sheets of paper.
    57% pass rate.
    I PASSED! (After failing VA last summer I am thrilled).
    Swearing in will be June 8.

    Someone else posted at 3:46 pmbr
    Mine arrived in the mail today (from DC to NOVA).

    Good luck!

    Reply

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