BarWrite® Blog

BarWrite® Blog: MBE Bar Exam Myths

"People always say that time changes things, but actually, you have to change them yourself."                                                                                          --  Andy Warhol

The bar exam season is here, and so students are asking me, "How many practice MBE questions should I do every day?" They expect me to give them a big number, like 33 or 50 or 100.

In fact, I take a totally different approach to the MBE.  Numbers have nothing to do with it.  My method for raising your score on the MBE is painful but effective, and it does not involve 33 or 50 or 100.  I say that the way to raise your MBE score is to learn more law and learn to do patient legal analysis.  That's right:  learn more law, do better on the bar exam.  What a concept!   But learning more law is painful.  Patiently applying the law to practice fact patterns, one element at a time, is slow and agonizing.  And on many days, you won't feel the progress you are making.

BarWrite® Blog: Why Memorize for the Bar Exam? Part I

Can memorizing help raise your scores on the bar exam?  Yes, and memorizing will also help you practice law.  That's how the brain works and grows.  Read on for Part I of our series about Memorizing for Higher Bar Exam Scores and see below for information about BarWrite® bar classes for New York or for All States.

Surprised that memorizing is so good?  We all use our memories intensively every day.  We remember our telephone numbers and our loved one's names, and we remember what we are supposed to buy at the grocery store and what happened last year and ten years ago.  Without memory, we would be lost in the hell of amnesia.  Not only can we remember much of what happens, and the things we hear about, but we also know how to put things into our memories systematically, by practicing new skills.  And for

Don't Let a Bad Study Schedule Kill Your Bar Examination Score

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Dear Future Attorneys,

A bad bar exam study schedule will kill your chances to pass the bar examination. Here are five key tips to avoid bar exam study schedule killers and make sure you have the knowledge and skills you need to come out of the bar exam alive and ready for your swearing-in.

1. Make a detailed written study schedule and stick to it. Account for every minute. Every day, day in and day out, from now to the bar exam. Plan your life, live your plan.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM:BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 5/29/06

Bar exam essays are different from law school essay exams. When you prepare to write bar exam essays, keep in mind that the bar exam graders are scrutinizing your papers for signs that you know the black letter law and can apply it in a logical way, reasoning from law to conclusions.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM:BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 5/22/06

Using an outline is always key in studying law, and studying for the bar exam is no exception. If your bar review course provides a short outline for every subject on your bar exam--one or at most two pages long--that is the outline to learn. Start from a barebones outline and sparingly add other rules. Make

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM:BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 5/15/06

A popular song about card-playing sings of the wisdom of knowing "when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em." Sometimes a law school graduate should prepare for the bar exam, but sometimes he or she should fold 'em and wait for next time. Preparing for the bar exam requires total concentration, all day, almost every day. It is a high-intensity, high-stress, high-stakes performance. Focus is key when you are studying for the bar exam.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM:BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 5/8/06

This week's BarWrite Tip of the Week is in fact two tips, and both come from Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays.

Be an Active, not Passive, Learner

To make learning active, not passive, write down two or three questions you have on the basics of each

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM:BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 5/1/06

Memorization is vital to preparing for the bar exam.  Memorization is not sufficient by itself, but it is important to the exam-taker's study kit.  Every bar candidate must memorize basic rules and mnemonics, if only because memorizing makes writing good essays so much easier.  Unfortunately, owing to some grade school teachers' preference for theory over practicality, many American students have only crippled memorizing skills.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM: BARWRITE TIP OF THE WEEK 4/9/06

BARWRITE TIP NUMBER ONE.  Organize your study materials so that you can find things at a glance.  Put the different subjects in three-ring binders in different colors.  Sort the index cards you use for memorizing.  Only carry with you the materials you will use that day.

A few years ago I asked a private coaching student to empty her black book bag for me.  She was carrying around not just all her flash cards but all her BarWrite materials, all her PMBR materials, all her Pieper books, and all her class notes from every class she was taking.  She was carrying everything around on her back all the time.  Is it any wonder that she felt burdened, disorganized and tired?

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE BAR EXAM: TIPS OF THE WEEK (12/12/05)

BARWRITE TIP NUMBER ONE. When you learn a rule of law, learn it thoroughly, one element at a time. Work out a hypo to show how each element applies to facts. Remember that you will be using that rule to solve a client's problem in the bar exam essays. To outline each bar exam essay, you will list the major principles of law needed to answer each part of the question and write the answer by applying those rules to the facts. As you learn each rule, you are putting it into your inventory, so that you can use it when you write the essays.

As you learn each major rule, associate with it the higher-level rules and subordinate rules you will be using at the same time. Remember that what you get credit for is the amount of law that you put into each paragraph. Never stop with one rule per paragraph. Always give a rule to define a major legal