What about Barbri?

Don't fret, Barbri peeps--your chance for focused practice is coming! But not until after the Simulated MBE later this month. Although you'll start focused practice later than your Themis colleagues, you will have much better data to work from--because the SimMBE is 200 questions and Barbri's report is very detailed. After that, you'll be in the focused practice>>mixed practice>>assessment groove, too.

Speaking of Barbri's SimMBE . . .

We're planning to host the SimMBE on campus the week of June 24. I'll have more details next week. If you can, you should take the Sim on campus to better simulate exam-day conditions. We'll buy your lunch!

But some of you are so far ahead in Barbri that the Sim will appear on your schedule as early as this week! If that's you, you should plan to complete the Sim when it comes up on your schedule; it's not worth putting it off until June 24 just so you can take it on campus. Feel free to come to campus if you want a quiet place to complete the Sim; you can probably have a whole classroom to yourself.

All Barbri preppers should complete Study Aid 1 (SA1) three or four days before the Sim. SA1 is the first of four, 100-question practice exams in Adaptibar. It's an excellent warm-up for the Sim; it will help prepare your mind and body for grinding through 200 MCQs on Sim day. You'll find SA1 under Exams>NCBE Practice Exams>MBE Study Aid 1. So look at your Barbri upcoming assignments, figure out how far out the Sim is for you, and take SA1 a few days before that.

Chart your Barbri/Themis progress

Would you like to see a graph that charts your progress on Barbri/Themis vs. the TAMU who passed or failed the bar exam over the past four years AND the average of TAMU grads studying for the current exam? Like this:

I thought it might be helpful (it's certainly helpful to me)  and I'm collecting all the data anyway, so I built a tool that will generate your own personal progress chart. Look at it if you want to; ignore it if you don't. 

Here's how to access it:

1. Open one of these Google Sheets (depending on whether you're using Barbri or Themis) and bookmark it for future reference
   PUBLIC Barbri chart tool (2025J) - Google Sheets
   PUBLIC Themis progress chart (2025J) - Google Sheets 

2. Make a copy for your own use in Google Drive! If several people are looking up their chart at the same time in the original document, chaos will ensue. After you make a copy, click the "anonData" tab. Hover over the #REF error and click "Allow Access." This will connect your copy to the original's data. Your copy should update automatically each week when I upload new data each Mondays.

3. Select your 8-digit anonymized ID number (which I emailed to you earlier today; check your @tamu.edu mailbox).

4. You should see a plot of your progress data on the chart.

5. I will update the charts every Monday.

These tools are "beta" and have some limitations:

• They only work for Barbri and Themis. Folks on other platforms are out of luck because I don't have data portals on those platforms.

• They work only for JD first-time examinees (in any jurisdiction) because that's the only complete dataset I have.

• I might add Adaptibar/QBank data later, but don't hold your breath.

• If you look at your chart and say, "That can't be right!," let me know (john.murphy@tamu.edu).

Help! I'm behind and need to catch up!

If you've fallen behind in Barbri or Themis, take a deep breath--there's still time to turn this around. For this discussion, "behind" means "behind the Themis/Barbi default schedule." Under Themis' default schedule, you should hit 29.5% today; Barbri's says 143.4 hours or 36.8% (these numbers are lower than the goals you set before bar prep and a little lower than the incentive-drawing goals).

If you're on Barbri, you want to be caught up in time to take the SimMBE on June 24 (=56% complete). If you're on Themis, you want to be caught up by the 2-day practice exam on July 6 & 7 (=68% complete).

You could simply do what Barbri or Themis tells you to do every day, but that would be rolling the dice. Barbri's algorithm starts dropping assignments when you fall behind, and that's bad for your odds of passing. Themis simply adds more work to every day between now and the real exam--meaning you'd catch up maybe a couple of days before the exam. That's bad, too. In both platforms, you want to take the big practice exams on time lest you not have time to work strengthen the weaknesses they reveal. And you want to be ready to take the practice exam by having completed all the assignments that lead up to it.

So if Barbri and Themis won't tell you how to get caught up by the simulated exams, what can you do? There's an app for that! Or really, a spreadsheet (because you know I lurves me a spreadsheet!). 

Here's how to use it:

• Make a copy in GDrive. You can't edit my original!

• The sheet contains several calculators--How many Question In Adaptibar/QBank should I do per day? How many essays per week? The Themis and Barbri catch-up calculators are at the bottom of the page. Use the appropriate one.

• In put the date by which you want to be caught up (June 23 for Barbri, July 5 for Themis), today's date, how many days you plan to take off, how much of BB/Th you've completed so far, and how much you want to complete to catch up (56% for Barbri; 68% for Themis).

• The calculator will tell you how what percent and how many hours of BB/Th to complete each day.

• Note that the hours are "BB/Th" hours; actual clock hours may be lower. E.g., if you watch a 3-hour BB video on 1.5x speed, the clock time will be under 2.5 hours.

• "How many days will you take off?" can make a dramatic difference in the hours-per-day number.

If you're behind, don't put this off! Every day makes a difference. I'm happy to discuss a workable schedule with you; email or text me.

Week 6 incentive targets

By 10pm on June 15, complete 42.5% of Barbri or 40% of Themis (including Practice Exam 1) AND 740 questions in Adaptibar or QBank.