How to Pass the Bar Exam the First Time You Take It
Taking the bar exam? Want to succeed? Here’s a few tips from a poor soul that had to take the bar exam in two different states…and taking these tips to heart helped her pass the first time, both times.
- Understand the distinctions in the law, and understand them well. If you don’t understand them, or you think you “sort of†do, make sure you talk to other students or appropriate person. This is especially important for multiple choice.
- SLEEP. Every night. 8 hours. Your brain needs to process and rest. It’s better to get the sleep and feel refreshed instead of cramming that last piece of information in that you won’t remember, anyway, because you’re too tired.
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Alfred E. Neuman sez: What, Me Worry About the Bar Exam?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so you need to be able to train yourself appropriately. Your brain is like a muscle–you probably haven’t utilized it ever before like you will in the bar exam, so you need to realize that you actually have to train yourself to absorb more and more information over time.
- Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. If you ARE getting overwhelmed, stop, breathe, think of something else for a few minutes, go for a walk, work out, go to the beach for a short swim!
- Don’t underestimate the bar exam. Just as some of you have to control your tendency to freak out and find it all too much, some of you have to remember that this is big–a lot of money and a lot of wasted time if you do not take it seriously. Study every day, no matter what, for at least a few hours.
- The biggest fear, of course, is fear of failure. But quit fearing failure if it is driving you to panic (which then will drive you to fail, because you can t think). The reality is-those of us that have taken the bar know that it is incredibly difficult. I don t know a single person that was 100% confident they passed right after they took it. If you fail, we won t look down on you, we know how hard it is –and how easy it could be to slip into panic. Take a breath, know you can do it again and it will not be the end of the world, I promise.
- FOCUS. Keep your mind on the matter. Make the time you spend studying QUALITY time, as opposed to quantity. I personally would rather study in a focused manner for 2-3 hours than spend 8 hours doing it half-heartedly, wouldn’t you?
- Know, now, that your friends and family, no matter how well-intentioned, do not understand what it means to study for the bar exam.
- DO NOT sit and obsess with everyone else about the bar exam (this includes the days of the bar exam).
- DO NOT compare the amount you study to what others say they are studying. It’s irrelevant. The quality of your time and focus, and covering all the material, is what matters.
The key components to success, in a nutshell, are that you learn to focus and avoid distractions, especially those that are emotionally draining/straining.
Exhausted by the Bar Exam
Found a great recap on the mental and physical toll the bar exam takes on you at Amicus Curiae… Hardcore stuff! Read on:
It’s true what they say. It was absolutely horrible.
People told me I would hate law school. I came to UT expecting to do just that. Instead I thought it wasn’t so bad, and then I actually liked it. Not so with the bar. People said I would hate it, and while the studying was boring as hell, it was nothing compared to the exam itself. I was probably as prepared as I could have been for the substance of the exam (although stay tuned for details on that). I was not prepared for the sheer physical, mental, and emotional exhaust of it all, which all came to a head yesterday at lunch, when I called my mom sobbing that I didn’t want to do this again, but that I was probably going to have to since I wasn’t even sure what subject the first essay was. I also left the morning part of the exam with 40 minutes to go, because I didn’t know anything and studying had sucked away my creativity and ability to make shit up as I go. I turned in three essays that were no longer than one page. On the other three, I at least managed to drop in some key terms that were consistent with the area of law, but I’m pretty sure I still got the rules wrong.
Law Student Study Tips: Memorization, Speed Reading and Review
Here are some ways to maximize the way you study so that you can learn the most in the shortest time, and make it all stick!
Memorization
Learning vast amounts of material that can be regurgitated on an exam is vitally important for most of the core classes. Sure, you may never see those questions again, but for the four times each semester that you have your exams, you’ll be required to pump out facts about the various elements (e.g. criminal law), standards of review (e.g. constitutional law), rules (e.g. property), or other information. Law school is even worse for requiring students to memorize verbatim lots of information that they’ll never use again. Simply put, the key to success in most classes is to memorize everything you can. Memorization is important in certain law classes because so much of the material is fact-based.
I’m sure that when you were younger, you were required to memorize Shakespearian monologues or the capitals of U.S. states. You probably read over each sentence again and again until you could perfect Romeo’s speeches. The good news is that you have already seen how much material you can memorize. The bad news is that you’ve been doing it all wrong. The correct way to go about memorizing is by reading the words backwards. Here’s a demonstration. Look at this number:
75713650058
Cover up everything with a sheet of paper except the last digit, 8. Now slowly say, “eight,” aloud three times. Next, slide the paper over one digit and slowly say, “five-eight,” three times. Again, slide the paper over to reveal 058 and say, “zero-five-eight.” Continue the exercise all the way until the first number. Don’t try to get ahead of yourself by jumping two to three numbers at a time. Just continue working one number after another until you’ve finished. Once you’re done, test your new memorization skills by covering up everything once again and then saying the number aloud.
Are you impressed yet? Go ahead and try memorizing other random things just to get a feel for the backwards memorization technique. Practice on song lyrics and speeches. Just cover up everything but the last word and then work your way back to the beginning. For longer pieces of text, you may want to try memorizing only one paragraph at a time. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to retain large volumes of material in a short amount of time. You can impress your friends by showing them that you can memorize the serial numbers on dollar bills within seconds of staring at the paper. This technique is not only useful for learning long numbers and speeches, but can easily be applied to law as well.
Tkey is to make sure that you have a particular piece fully committed to memory before trying the next item. For the number example above, don’t move to 50058 if you cannot say, “0058,” without effort. If you want to learn the theory behind this memorization trick, read Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog! or you could go as far as taking behavioral and cognitive psychology courses.
As a final, cautionary note, stay away from flash cards. They are a waste of time to produce. Yes, some people do learn from them, but keep in mind that the time spent writing flash cards could be better spent working on memorizing the material. By the time your friends are done writing their cards, you’ll be finished studying if you follow the method I described here. If you don’t like the backwards memorization technique that I’ve described, the book Learn to Remember by Dominic O’Brien (ISBN: 0811827151) details methods that use your imagination to create either sequential movies or static pictures of associations to help you remember things.
Speed Reading
Another useful tool for learning is speed reading. You’ll need to wade through a lot of material very quickly whenever you read for pre-med classes. Like most people reading this manual, you’re probably reading every single word in succession. Nicholas Schaffzin’s Reading Smart is what I used to break this habit. There are plenty of other books on speed reading, but they all teach the same principle. Instead of looking at words as individuals, you should divide each line into three parts, glance at the sections, and then use your peripheral vision to pick up everything.
As an example, Figure 1.1 contains an excerpt from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Read the paragraph as you would normally. Now move to Figure 1.2 and read the section again—this time by glancing at the bullets. At first this technique seems pretty odd. You’ll need some time to adjust to the new style of reading. The more you practice, however, the better you’ll get at speed reading. My own pace has doubled ever since I adapted to this method. Again, I only give a summarized explanation of how speed reading works. I strongly suggest that you pick up a book on the subject and learn from it.
Figure 1.1: Read this section as you normally would
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Figure 1.2: Now read it again using only the bullets
Call me Ishmael. ∙ Some years ago—never ∙ mind how long precisely—having ∙ little or no money in my ∙ purse, and nothing particular to interest ∙ me on shore, I thought ∙ I would sail about a little and see the ∙ watery part of the world. ∙ It is a way I have of driving ∙ off the spleen and regulating ∙ the circulation. Whenever I find ∙ myself growing grim about ∙ the mouth; whenever it is a damp, ∙ drizzly November in my soul; ∙ whenever I find myself involuntarily ∙ pausing before coffin ∙ warehouses, and bringing up the rear ∙ of every funeral I meet; ∙ and especially whenever my hypos ∙ get such an upper hand of me, ∙ that it requires a strong moral ∙ principle to prevent me ∙ from deliberately stepping into the ∙ street, and methodically ∙ knocking people’s hats off—then, I ∙ account it high time to get to sea ∙ as soon as I can.
Immediate Review
Whenever you get out of class, immediately go somewhere quiet and review everything that the professor covered for the day. You should re-derive all of the equations, rework the ways the molecules attach, rewrite the important definitions that were written on the board, etc . . . Neurobiologists have discovered that if you repeat the work done in class within one hour of seeing the material, the information will become part of your permanent memory! While I’m sure that after you get done with class, the last thing on your mind is more studying, but trust me when I say that the thirty minutes you spend reworking the lecture now will save you hours later. It will change your life forever.
[thanks to noii and student doctor wiki via cc]
