HOW ARE THE ESSAYS DIFFERENT FROM THE MPT? One obvious answer is that the bar exam essays are different from the Multistate Performance Test (MPT)--or the California Performance Test--because the essays require knowing a lot of law, which the MPT does not.But don't let that difference distract you. It''s easy to overlook key similarities. First, both the essays and the MPT require a bar candidate to stay in control of time. Second, both the essays and the MPT require a bar candidate to read
the instructions carefully, either the interrogatories or, on the MPT, the partner memo. Third, on both the essays and the MPT, a bar candidate has to follow directions to the letter. In this post, I'll just talk about staying in control of your time on the MPT and the essays. We teach skills for finishing on time in both the BarWrite 1-Day MPT Boot Camp on February 14, and the BarWrite 3-Day New York Bar Exam Essay Boot Camp on February 15-17-18. See below for details.
CONTROLLING YOUR TIME ON THE MPT. On the MPT, controlling your time is even more important than on the essays. The MPT requires you to follow directions, to do research effectively, and to draft your written law-office work product, all in 90 minutes. On the California Performance Test, although the entire assignment takes three hours, one of the tasks can take 90 minutes. The MPT can seem especially difficult if you are facing a new area of law, as well as where the issue is not clear to you, or where the cases and statutes you must read seem opaque. Confusion gets in the way of a good answer. So managing the time is the only way to assure that you finish the task. And finish you must.
I recommend that once you have thoroughly understood the directions in the partner memo and written down the main issue, you then read through everything in the File and Library in about 25 minutes, creating an outline as you go along. That will leave you about 40 minutes for creating your draft work product. Then in the last five minutes, you can go back and check to make absolutely sure that you have done what the partner memo told you to do, that your format is correct, and that your headings are clear and persuasive. For practice doing MPT tasks using the outstanding BarWrite® systems, look into the BarWrite® 1-Day MPT Boot Camp, which will take place in Manhattan on February 14, 2011. And as long as you will be in New York, if you are taking the New York bar exam, look at the BarWrite® 3-Day New York bar Exam Essay Boot Camp, too.
CONTROLLING YOUR TIME ON THE ESSAYS. Whether the bar essays in your jurisdiction are 10 minutes long or 60 minutes long, to do well on the bar exam essays, you have to finish every essay within the time allowed. There is rarely such a thing as not finishing an essay and still getting a good grade. The bar exam is not undergraduate school.
How to make sure you finish on time? The method we teach includes taking about a third of your time for reading and outlining, and then dividing the time for writing the essay into paragraph-sections and timing yourself on every paragraph. In New York, you have about 45 minutes for each essay. If you spend 15 minutes reading and outlining and then you write five six-minute paragraphs, you will finish on time. In California, candidates get about an hour for each essay, and the arguments in the paragraphs are more factually complex. Accordingly, you can spend about 20 minutes on reading and outlining, and then write six paragraphs that are approximately seven minutes long.
We practice timing in our BarWrite® courses, including the intensive 3-Day New York Essay Boot Camp, which start on February 15, and also meet on February 17 and 18, in Manhattan. Visit http://www.BarWrite.com for information on the BarWrite® 3-Day New York bar Exam Essay Boot Camp. Enroll for the Combo! It works well with the BarWrite® 1-Day MPT Boot Camp
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To look at BarWrite®'s other classes, visit http://www.BarWrite.com. And you can purchase the book and CDs Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays directly from the distributor, at http://www.LegalBooksDistributing.com.
And now a key hint for how to study effectively, from Bar Write Blog's sponsor:
SCORING HIGH ON BAR EXAM ESSAYS . This book "may be the best money you can spend on bar exam preparation." -- The St. John's Law School Forum. The BARWRITE® ALL-STATES MPT BOOT CAMP boosts your score on an often-overlooked source of competitive advantage, the Multistate Performance Test (MPT). THE BARWRITE® TEN-DAY GROUP COACHING SCHOOL helps you pole-vault the bar. "My MBE went from a 126 to a 149!" Gemma Waananen Kenney (Member, New York and New Jersey Bars). Dr. Gallagher recommends that foreign-trained attorneys supplement BarBri or Pieper with BarWrite's TEN-DAY ESSAY-INTENSIVE GROUP COACHING SCHOOL. THE BARWRITE® 3-DAY NEW YORK ESSAY BOOT CAMP boosts essay scores. "Dr. Gallagher takes the mass of information studied and teaches her students how to apply it effectively in essays," says Christina Valentine, Australian solicitor (Member, New York Bar).
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Wishing you the greatest success on the bar exam,
MCG
