2020 Bar Exam: #20 Best Exam Tips for the July & September UBE Session

There are so many Bar exam tips; it can be as varied as there are people in the world. Everyone who passes has their own tricks or tips that were effective for them. The following bar exam tips, however, are ones that worked for us and that we have seen work with great success.

Illustration Photo – Pixabay License

Whether you struggle with your Bar Preparation; or simply want a few more tips on certain aspect of the Bar Exam; the following #20 bar exam tips work time and time again with our readers! This is written by someone who score 180 on the MBE and a 184 on the essay portion of the New York bar exam in February 2018. In other words, those are rock solid tips and we hope it would give you confidence along your Bar preparation.

Before You Start Studying

#1 Eliminate distractions ahead of time: Clear your schedule, put your phone away and prepare a list of your goal for the day. Use a checklist and cross it every time you finish something.

#2 Decide how you want to use your time: You don’t have to follow your Bar Preparation schedule: we were bored watching the lecture video in the morning so instead we watched them at the end of the day to ‘check’ that we understood everything. See when you are effective: most people are effective early in the morning; so use that timeframe for the ‘heavy’ stuff.

#3 Your Family and Friend: The current pandemic is a ‘good’ excuse to isolate yourself from your family and friends. Make sure that they know you are taking the Bar Exam and that you need to eliminate outside stress.

#4 Deal with Anxiety: It is natural to have anxiety about the bar exam. After all, it is a difficult test of great significance. But, too much anxiety or fear can sabotage your chances of success. Learn techniques to decrease and channel your anxiety. If you feel it is necessary, seek help from a therapist.

#5 Eliminate Potential Sources of Stress: Arrange your finances and bill paying. Look at your life and ask yourself: What sort of day-to-day tasks might be difficult when I need to study all week long? If you think you might have any trouble completing these tasks, take the time now — before you start studying — to figure out how to fix that problem. Can you put some stuff off for a few months? Set your computer to remind you to do stuff?

#6 Take time off work: If you have a day job, it is important to take time off, if at all possible. If you are not able to substantially reduce your hours at work, it is important to start studying early to make up for lost time.

Learn the basic of the Bar Exam

#7 Do you have good materials This means good outlines! If you don’t like your bar exam outlines, cannot stand how they are organized, or need something different, buy different outlines. At this time you should not be preparing your outlines anymore, rather you should focus on memorizing your material & practice. Check out our materials to save you time and increase your chances at passing the bar exam.

#8 Memorize your material: Dont’ skip this step! Commercial course are terrible when it comes to memorization because they throw you huge amount of information. Learn the general principles of law but make sure to learn the nuances too: Both the MBE and essay portion test the nuances!

#9 Practice with real questions: The important thing is that you practice answering questions early and often! Do not skip this critical step. Do not wait until you feel completely “ready”. You have to make a habit of answering questions early and often. One of the book we found very useful was” Strategies & Tactics for the MBE” by Emanuel Bar Review.

#10 Take time to assess your weekly goals and adjust them if needed: Your goal is to finish the lectures video, but they are terrible? Stop watching! Move to something more efficient! If you already know Constitutional Law inside and out, there is no reason to spend as much time on that subject as, say, Contracts. Take five minutes a week to reflect on what is working and what isn’t. And if something isn’t effective for you, stop doing it!

General Bar Exam Study Advice

#11 Don’t Overstudy. Exercise physiologists know that extreme exercising can lead to injuries from overuse and can sabotage performance at critical times. Too much running, for instance, can lead to slower race times rather than faster race times. The same is true with bar preparation.

#12 Practice under test-like conditions: It is easy to train for certain section, but have you taken a full practice under test-like conditions? If not, you should take as many practice test as you can. For instance, you will want to practice writing essays and performance tests within the time limits your state’s bar allows. Practice until it is easy to complete your task within the time allowed.

#13 The MBE is about how well you take a test, not what you know: The MBE is a difficult test because both the questions and the answers can be cryptic or confusing. Even worse, two of the answers are often arguably correct, and you have to choose “the best” answer. If the bar examiners only wanted to test your knowledge of the law, essays would be sufficient. Instead, they have chosen to test your dedication to the law by creating a test that is about learning how to spot tricks. Figure the tricks out so that you don’t fall for them during the bar exam.

#14 “Self-grade” your own essays: The most important task when taking an essay is to analyze the right answer. Compare your issue statements, your rule statements, analyses, and conclusions to those of the sample answer. It is much better to use answers that are written by your state board rather than past student answers.

#15 Try different learning techniques: Try making charts, or drawing diagrams, or creating mnemonics. Color code your outline. Scrawl out elements over and over until you know them all. Quiz yourself, etc. We went creative when we took the bar exam: from covering the wall with the rules to singing some key concepts, we had it all.

#16 Adjust your sleep schedule: If you are a night owl and have been studying until midnight every night, start adjusting your schedule to match the exam. You will be expected to perform your best between 8am and 5pm. If you are normally hitting the snooze button at 8am, this will not be good when bar exam time comes around.

When you are on the ring (the day of the bar exam)

#17 Play Your Own Game — For the best results in law school or on the bar exam, you have to focus on your own game and what works for you. “We may all start from a different opening set, but it is how we play the game that will ultimately determine our fate.” You have to discover what works for you and stick with it. Why waste your time playing someone else’s game?

#18 Avoid Talking about the Exam with Others: On bar exam test days, people love to talk over lunch and dinner about how they answered a certain question or what issues they spotted in a fact pattern. Get away from this. It will totally stress you out.

#19 Do What You Need to Do: You know yourself better than anybody else. Our list is simply a compilation of suggestions. You can pass the bar whether you implement all, some, or none of these ideas. Some of friends studied past midnight and passed; some studied from 9AM to 5PM and also passed.

#20 The Finish Line will Feel Terrible: Everybody already told you: the bar exam is a marathon and the finish line will feel terrible.

Just remember, worrying is like a rocking chair, sure it gives you something to do, but it never gets you anywhere. So when you are finished with the bar exam, do your best to put it in the back of your mind. Don’t beat yourself up over questions you could’ve answered better. If you truly gave it your best shot, then you should have no regrets.
You have just one last hoop to jump through to become a lawyer. Having to retake an exam isn’t the end of the world.

We are more than happy to answer your question and receive your insights on the Bar Exam. Feel free to contact us at any time with your suggestions! Make sure to check our website for free posts & materials on the Bar Exam.