Top 5 Tips to Ace the Bar Exam

By now, you should be into your bar-prep groove (or rut, depending on how you feel). Keep your eyes on the finish line, now 64 days away (seems like a long time—but it isn't!). If you haven't started, get going!

In this week's blog post:

"General Instructions" for the Texas exam

The Texas Board of Law Examiners has issued the "General Instructions" for the July exam. Read them! Pay special attention to pages 3–5, which list the items "required, allowed, prohibited, and provided" in the "secure area" of the testing location.

Top 5 Tips for Bar-exam Success

1. Don't fall behind! If you haven't started hard-core bar prep, now is the time. Complete the daily assignments on Barbri/Themis every day (and remember, that's the minimum you should do every day; make time for Adaptibar, extra essays, flashcards, and the occasional MPT). If you do fall behind (life happens), get caught up ASAP by adding 30-60 minutes to your study day until you are caught up. Do not cherry-pick or skip assignments; just do whatever your prep co. says to do next. If you know you will have to take a day off during prep (e.g., Memorial Day, July 4, wedding, or family reunion), work ahead by adding extra hours to your study days to build up a "cushion" so you will not be behind when you come back. A detailed, realistic schedule can help you stay on track. See the "Bar Exam Boot Camp" link in the navigation menu for more info and sample schedules.
   
   

2. 85% of Barbri = highly likely to pass. Aim to complete 85% of Barbri (or 85% of Themis). Completing 85% in Barbri with a good-faith effort (not just marking assignments done or multitasking) has a high correlation with first-time bar passage. Find the Barbri website overwhelming? Check out my Barbri "missing manual" from last week's post.
   
   

3. 1,300 questions in Adaptibar. TAMU Law grads started using Adaptibar in significant numbers in 2019, and our bar pass rate went from 88% to 89%. Almost the entire 2021 class used Adaptibar, and our pass rate rose from 89% to 93%. Correlation is not causation, but I think Adaptibar is a significant factor in our pass rate. It's not too late to buy Adaptibar. Our discount code is TAMUAB21 (sign up with your @tamu.edu email address). Aim for at least 1,300 questions in AB (more is better!). Already have Adaptibar? See my Adaptibar "missing manual" to get the most bang for your buck. Use my Adaptibar/Essay calculator to estimate how many questions you should answer per day (see link in the navigation bar).
   
   

4. 130 practice essay questions. Last year, successful examinees completed an average of 130 practice essays—a combination of essays in their bar-prep program and extra essays outside the program. "Completed" means some combination of fully writing out answers, outlining answers, and simply reading the prompt, thinking about the answer, and then reading the sample answer. You should write out most answers until you know you can comfortably write a well-structured answer in 30 minutes (assuming you know the law). Gradually, we will shift to more outlining and then (toward the end of prep) reading the prompt, then reading the answer. You won't run out of essay prompts; we have a bank of over 190 essays from former UBE exams for you to dive into. The Google folder contains a spreadsheet listing every essay by date, topic, and subtopic. Make a copy of the sheet to use as a "done it!" checklist. I'll write more about essays in another post.
   
   

5. Work with your mentor! Every first-time examinee is assigned a mentor. Our data from the past six exams (July '19 to Feb. '22) show a very high correlation between active participation in the mentor program and first-time bar passage—especially in the "intensive" mentoring program. Work with your mentor!

Questions of the Week

Q: Barbri was offline for a whole day last week. What should I do if that happens again?

A: All of the bar-prep platforms experience glitches from time to time. Last week's Barbri problem was unusually egregious; "I can't log in" issues are usually resolved within a couple of hours. If (when?) you can't access Barbri/Themis/Adaptibar: First, check with a classmate to make sure you are not the only one experiencing the issue. If it's just you, contact the platform's tech support for help. If the problem is widespread, contact the platform's tech support to make sure they know about the issue (and let me know, too, please)—and then keep studying! If Barbri is down, work on Adaptibar. If Adaptibar is down, work on essays. Don't let tech problems erode your study time. It's tempting to waste your precious study time trying to troubleshoot the issue (or just complaining about it); resist the temptation!

Q: I am wondering how the bar exam will test the Constitutionality of privacy-related rights (specifically, rights to abortion and contraception) given the leaked draft opinion and the likelihood that this opinion will change the law right before the exam. Do you know if they plan to test it as if the opinion did not exist or if they plan to not test that subject due to the late notice of the changes?

A: That's a good question—and one without a clear answer. The NCBE (the entity that writes the exam) is extremely tight-lipped about what will be tested on the exam (it publishes extremely broad and vague outlines of possible test topics). My general impression from prior exams is that the NCBE avoids cutting-edge or muddy areas of the law. A quick search through the essays in our essay bank found no prior essays testing reproductive rights. There are 5 abortion-related questions on Adaptibar (and presumably the NCBE wrote those questions), but 3 or 4 of those questions are actually testing something other than privacy/reproductive rights (e.g., judicial review). So I suspect that if the NCBE were planning to include a question that implicated Roe v. Wade or its progeny (which seems unlikely, based on prior questions), it would remove that question from the exam. If I learn anything different, I will let you know.