With one week until exam day, the July 2013 bar exam is just around the corner. I like to make this week all about review: practicing MBE questions, reading over past essays, perusing flash cards and skimming notes. I’ve also like going over the Strategies and Tactics for the MBE book every day for the rest of this week leading up to the next week. It’s a great book for nailing down the trickiest and most tested distinctions on the MBE, and unlike essay questions, the MBE requires highly detailed knowledge of distinctions. For those of you taking Virginia, don’t be fooled into thinking (more…)
DC & VA Bar Exam Coaching
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Less than 4 weeks to go until the July 2013 Bar Exam
Happy 4th of July! With just under four weeks remaining until the July 2013 bar exam, I’ve been telling everyone I know taking the exam that if they have not been 100% focused up until this point, now is the time to get serious. The bar exam is not something that many people can cram for a week before and pass, it takes time. 1 month is about the minimum for most people, although the standard study period is usually 2 months. However, as most of us know 2 months is a long time in advance to memorize details, so the most important study time is the month before the bar exam. I’ve been re-reading the Strategies and Tactics book for the MBE this week, and doing a few MBE questions each day. This is my basic routine for MBE prep and keeps me on top of my game all month long. I also make sure and listen to my favorite PMBR MBE lectures for at least 30 minutes a day, usually when I am at the gym or driving. I’ve also been going over some state essay questions (Virginia, New York and California) from recent years and looking at the style of questions. This helps me to focus my studying and hone in on what areas/subjects I should be spending my time from now until the exam. I’ve been focusing on criminal law and UCC2 (Sales) quite a bit as those are popular topics on bar exam essays. Today I am basically taking the day off, and my students are welcome to as well. A quick read of the Strategies & Tactics book plus 3 MBE questions is all I need to do and then I can enjoy the rest of my day with BBQ and fireworks.
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California Feb 2013 bar exam results posted
The February 2013 California bar exam results are now available online. 41% of test takers (1,810 people) passed the exam. 52% of first time test takers passed the exam while only 36% of repeat takers passed. Letters were mailed out this weekend but the full list and name lookup are available online here: http://apps.calbar.ca.gov/exam/
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Tutoring roster for July 2013 bar exam is FULL
I am completely full for tutoring this summer, including my tutors that work for me. If you have extraordinary circumstances, feel free to email me and I’ll do my best to try help/give advice or point you in the right direction. But at this point I am not taking any more students for July 2013 and my February 2014 roster is nearly half full as well. I will try to post as many helpful posts as I can between now and the bar exam to help everyone out. Best bet is to get started with studying in the next week or two and be sure and have a good, solid plan of attack. You don’t need a comprehensive day-by-day plan, but put a good framework together so you can hit the necessary weekly milestones. Good luck!
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February 2013 DC Bar Exam Results Posted
The results have been made available at the courthouse on the door of the Committee on Admissions. Letters are in the mail to all test takers. Here is the official pass list available online: http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/membership/current_members/examResults.cfm. Here is a photo of the pass list (Thanks JB!):
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Virginia February 2013 Bar Exam Results Posted
Results are posted. Good luck!
http://www.vbbe.state.va.us/bar/barresults.html
Overall pass rate was just over half of test takers passing at 57.45%, with 65.71% of first time takers passing. The top prize this time goes to UVA with an overall pass rate of 90.48% and a 100% pass rate for all of their first time test takers. Liberty University also had all of their first time takers pass, so congratulations as well. Congratulations to everyone who passed! The swearing in ceremony is June 3rd this year, Monday @ 10AM.
If you did not pass, please don’t give up. Look over how you studied, how many hours you put in, etc. Did you have a plan? If so, did you stick to it? Analyze what you did and think about how you would have done things differently and make that your new plan for this July.
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February 2013 MBE Score Analysis
The official national mean scores for the Feb 2013 MBE exam have been posted. Looks like people did slightly better this past February than usual as the mean was 138.0, which is about a point or so higher than the typical Feb mean. The range of scoring was pretty normal, showing a low score of 73.3 to a most excellent high score of 183.2. Good luck to everyone still waiting for results to be released for their jurisdiction.
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Feb 2013 Bar Exam Results anticipated posting dates for VA, DC, MD, NY, TX and CA
We’re getting closer to February’s bar exam results, with Virginia’s coming next week. Here are the expected and anticipated dates for the February 2013 bar exam results for VA, DC, MD, NY, TX and CA:
Virginia – Expected April 25, 2013
DC – Anticipated May 1, 2013
Maryland – Expected May 3, 2013
Texas – Expected May 3, 2013
New York – Anticipated May 9, 2013
California – Expected May 17, 2013 -
Feb 2013 DC Bar exam Essay day Analysis
The Feb 2013 DC Bar exam is over! Congrats to everyone who took it, just for surviving. This one was a little tougher than usual in some ways. To start with, we had two persuasive MPTs, and neither was a memo. Definitely not the best way to start the bar exam. The good news is that the essays were MBE subject heavy which was a nice treat. In fact, for the first time ever we had four out of six essay questions that were MBE subjects. They were Property, Con law, Evidence and Contracts. Speaking of predictions, getting 5 out of 6 ain’t all that bad so I was feeling pretty good. The other two questions were Agency and Fed Civ Pro.
For the MPTs, as I said, neither were memos. One was a letter and one was a brief. Both were persuasive, which for most people is a more difficult assignment. Time was a major issue on these MPTs, and finishing both in 3 hours was more difficult than usual.
Now that it’s over, I’m going to relax and not think about anything bar exam related. We’ve got a few months till the results come out. I’ll post when I know more details about when to expect results.
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Changes to the MBE – Civil Procedure is coming in 2015
So last week we received a nice memo from the President of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) letting us know that the long-awaited changes to the MBE are now official and that starting with the February 2015 examination, we will be seeing Civil Procedure as the 7th tested subject. As you know, the MBE has 200 multiple-choice questions, of which 190 are scored items and 10 are experimental questions that are not graded. We’ve seen civ pro-like questions for some time in those experimental questions, but now it’s official. With the addition of Civil Procedure to the MBE, that means that the number of questions per topic will decrease. Starting in 2015, there will be 28 questions covering Contracts, and 27 questions covering each of the six remaining topics, for a total of 190 graded questions, and of course the 10 experimental. Every U.S. jurisdiction but Louisiana uses the MBE.
The NCBE has promised to release test specifications for the MBE Civil Procedure items no later than June 30 of this year. In the meantime, the specifications for Civil Procedure, already a topic on the Multistate Essay Examination, are available on the NCBE website, http://www.ncbex.org. 3 years seems far away but for those of you in law school that will be taking the exam after July 2014, this will affect you. Whether or not this is good news or bad news depends on whether you dislike civ pro more or less than the other 6 subjects. Here is a link to the official memo that was sent out.
As for the Feb 2013 MBE that we just saw, it was tough as usual, but no major surprises. Evidence questions were a touch trickier than usual, but the question length was the same and time was not as much a factor this time as it normally is.
