First full day of studying & review of MBE Book

Yikes. I can’t belive that TODAY was only my first full day of studying. All last week, while agonizing over my situation, I tried to do a cursory review of Torts. Today, I finally finished Torts. I read the rest of the outline provided by MicroMash, did 15 MBE’s (I did 50 on Thursday!) and attempted a practice essay. My tentative plan for the next 5 subjects is to - in two days - read the outline for a subject, do 50-100 practice questions on the subject, and complete 2 practice essays for the subject. I hope to do one practice performance test a week, as well as do 10-20 MBE’s on the previously studied subject. I figure I’ll have to test this out in the next two days to see if it’s really possible to accomplish. As far as the state subjects go, I haven’t quite formulated a plan as to how to approach them. California only weighs the MBE as 35% of your score, but the MBE subjects can be tested in the essays which are worth a whopping 65%. So, I feel I need to spend a lot of time writing and prepping for the essays and performance test. I think this is different from those states who give the MBE equal or almost equal weight as the essays… But, again, I’m not quite sure how to formulate a study plan for the essays just yet. I’m going to have to figure that out in a week or two.

The MBE book I read - “Mastering the Multistate Bar Exam” by John Talamo was kind of helpful. In the book he talked alot about all the different things “your Bar Review Course would teach you.” So, if you’re not taking one, the book doesn’t offer a WHOLE lot in the way of in-depth strategies and approaches. However, I appreciated his mindset towards the Bar and his approach of studying vs. practicing the MBE questions. He said to spend a fair amount of time studying the questions - how they’re designed, what the answer choices are, the given explanations for the right/wrong answers… He recommended that you spend a decent amount of time going through the questions, not timing yourself, and not paying attention to what percentage of q’s you get right. Use these study sessions to familiarize yourself with the test, not just test whether you know the rules involved. Obviously you will be enforcing your knowledge of the law as you answer the questions and read the explanations, but also try to get to know the test and the different techniques used by the MBE authors. Only after studying this way for a while (you can judge), THEN start “practicing” the questions by doing chunks of MBE’s before checking your answers.

I thought this was a good approach on a couple of levels. Most of what I’ve heard/read about from others is that they are advised to do 50 MBE’s a day, mostly to determine what percentage of q’s they’re getting right. BUT - several people & books have pointed out that you can tend to peak on your MBE score mid-summer instead of in July when you need it most. Plus, people tend to get discouraged when they’re not getting a high enough percentage of q’s right and you create additional stress on yourself. But, if you take the study/practice approach, you won’t really start practicing the MBE’s until after a couple of weeks studying them. So, you’ll “peak” later *hopefully* and won’t get as frustrated because you know your purpose in studying the questions is to learn the test and reinforce your knowledge rather than trying to gauge whether you’re up to par for the real MBE. Since I’m not taking Bar/Bri, i have no idea whether this approach is unique or run-of-the-mill/what-they-all-recommend. MicroMash doesn’t really talk too much about how to approach the MBE other than mention the alternate ways you can use their online program.

Another thing the MBE book mentioned, which is not mind-blowing AT ALL, is that every q on the MBE is worth the same amount. So, don’t get hung up on a super long confusing question because the difficulty of the question doesn’t determine it’s weight; they’re all worth the SAME. Don’t waste time trying to figure out one q when you could use that time to answer several. Common sense, right? But, I know that i’ve got stuck on a lower-points essay before, to my detriment, just because I really really really wanted to figure it out…. This is a good thing for me to remember.

The book gives a few suggestions on how to study for the MBE (as noted above) and a few strategies about answering questions and the types of questions asked on the MBE. Overall, for me, it was helpful and a nice easy introduction into thinking about how to approach the MBE. Again, since I’m not taking Bar/Bri, I don’t have the advantage of hearing all the little tricks of the trade, so reading about some of the different techniques used by the MBE authors prepared me to think differently about the MBE and to evaluate the questions in a better way. For me, it was worth the $$, but if you’re taking Bar/Bri or any other live lecture course, you’ll probably get the same info from your instructors.