Sunday, June 3, 2007

Two MicroMash Negatives & a HUGE plus!!

Since I’ve been using the MicroMash books/program for a day or two now, I have come across a few things that I dislike. Overall, I find their stuff easy to use and presented in a relatively decent manner, though. I plan to write a letter to MM at the end of it all letting them know of the ways I think they can improve their product. Here are the first things on my list:

1) When you’re using the online program and the explanation box pops up, MM doesn’t always tell you where to find the corresponding explanations in the hard copy outlines. The only time you get this information is if there’s an “exam alert” button. For one of the questions, the answer depended on whether you knew the “Dillon-Legg” case - which I didn’t. The explanations stated the rule but didn’t give any indication of where you could find the case in the outlines… So, I spent 10mins flipping through the sections trying to find it. V. Inconvenient. They need to ALWAYS put the corresponding pages with the explanations, no matter how easy and lame the involved rule is.

2) MM needs to state a rule the same way, always. I did three MBE’s. The first said there were two exceptions to employer liability for ind. contractor’s torts: inherently dangerous activities and non-delegable duties/activities. Two questions later, I get another question about it. Thinking I now know the exceptions, I answer confidently and am wrong. Apparently, there were THREE exceptions to the rule, adding owner/invitee to the list… So, I check the outline and it seems that the owner/invitee exception falls under non-delegable duties and isn’t really an independent exception. BUT - the MM explanation called it a third exception. Make up your mind how many exceptions there are and state the rule the same way, always.

**** Despite those negatives, one thing I LOVE about doing the MM questions is that they’re actually FUN. The best part is there is a bit of a delay (like 2 secs) between the time you answer the question and when the answer box pops up, and I can feel myself anticipating the box - CORRECT!!! You get a little green “correct” sign and a cute green check by your answer. How rewarding is THAT?!?!!?! As miserable as all this studying is, it truly is the small things that give great satisfaction.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey K,
I'm doing the Micromash thing too, although I started about two weeks ago so that I could get some of the MBE stuff out of the way before I jumped into the state material.

Anyhow, just wanted to let you know that I recommend the guided study option. Basically the way it works is that each test varies based on your performance, so you will get more questions in your problem areas than your strong areas (you'll see the questions you missed again until you get them right). After you hit about 75% correct overall, the topic will be removed from the guided study.

What I found works well for me is to do the guided study option until you reach "proficiency," then go back and do all the questions you missed under self study. You can always leave some for review later too (like the week before the bar).

By the way, it takes a while to get used to what kinds/types of questions are asked in each subject. You'll recogize the patterns after a while. My scores generally suck for the first 100 or so questions, then improve quickly afterwords.

Sorry for the long comment...just thought I'd say "hey" to a fellow Micromasher :)

K said...

Thanks Rabble :) I appreciate the note. I just tried the self-study option today and think i might use it more often. I have really only been doing 25-30 MBE q's at a time and am not yet aiming at a particular score.. i'm just trying to get the material memorized, and figure out the test a little more. I have started noticing patterns though, which is helping. Thanks for the suggestion!!

Anonymous said...

Hi

If you use MM online method of answering questions you get the exact section number for each question that you answered. Took me a week to learn this.