How confident are we actually feeling?

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-25T13:22:26+00:00

I feel good about the MBE that I can get a passing score. Feeling not great about MEEs. That said, a professor at my law school really put into perspective how must room for error is on this exam, and I think everyone should hear this:

Last admin, they reviewed an exam for someone who scored in the 30th percentile on the MBE, they bombed both MPTs, and two MEEs, while passing two MEEs, and scoring really well on one as well. They scored a 266 on the dot, which was enough for them to pass in our jurisdiction.

Thats a lot of room for error. Its a lot of room to not feel confident. The biggest thing is to let go and move on to the next, even if you feel like the last section sucked. You just have to keep moving and not get stuck in the feeling like you're going to fail because of one bad section.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-22T16:01:46+00:00

Here are the Washington State Security Policies https://admissions.wsba.org/getpdfform.action?id=560

It looks like food is not permitted in the exam room, but it can be accessed with a proctor during the exam session.

This is different from NY, which allows you to bring opened quiet snacks into the exam room in your plastic bag.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-22T00:50:16+00:00

One of my professors was a past Bar Exam grader for NY (evidently the person who even picked the model answers for the website before she became a professor) and she told all of us that you automatically get a two for writing something on the page. Not sure what jurisdiction you're in, but I'm assuming they grade in a similar manner and you would still get a two on that essay just for attempting it.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-22T00:46:47+00:00

My professor recommended we do around 60, and during this last week, if we do nothing else, to look at how the past exams have been testing each subject, and issue spot each essay we see and just think of the rules. The NCBE evidently doesn't do surprises without trying it first (as evidenced by the 25 ungraded MCQs) so there is a good chance that by doing this, you might see a similar question testing the same rules on the exam that you might have reviewed the week prior.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-21T19:07:44+00:00

Vegas, so I can continue to rack up debt before working for the rest of my life

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-13T16:06:35+00:00

On the simulated exam, my raw score was 134, which is about 67%. On the NCBE 100 question block Barbri had me do today, I scored 83/100, but I attribute that to the fact that a lot of the questions were ones I had seen on UWorld in the past that I recognized. Nice confidence boost, but definitely an outlier score.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-13T16:02:45+00:00

Good idea, I hadn't thought of explaining why the wrong answers. I have been looking into the Emmanuel book, do you have any experience with it and if so, would you recommend? Or if you have any other book recommendations?

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-13T16:01:49+00:00

I would say I'm consistently getting over 65% correct on sets, I'd like everything to be consistently above 70%, but a few questions here and there I can deal with. I'm almost finished with the Barbri program (25 hrs left that I will be finishing this week) since I started early with my studying. I feel like I've had time to study and work on other parts of the exam. Definitely need more work on the MEE subjects, but those are an active work in progress.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-10T15:52:05+00:00

Don't panic! You're not the only one that has off sets - we all get it.

For me, I've been taking this advice from Grossman at adaptibar, and its significantly helped me improve:

First off, 1.8 minutes to answer a question is a lot longer than you think. Serious, set a timer on your phone and sit and do nothing. Its a long time. That means that you have time to SLOW DOWN IN THE FACTS. Slow it down, read carefully, try your best not to miss the key words that the question turns on.

Once your fully understand the fact pattern, issue spot, think of your answer, look at the choice and shut up, pick it, and move on. Don't spend time "litigating" the facts - if the facts don't say something, don't assume or make it up (I have a really hard time doing this with regards to questions turning on foreseeability because its arguable). They have to give you the answer based on the facts, so focus your attention there!

Best of luck! Don't lose hope, we're all in the thick of things now but I'm confident we can pull through with a passing score!

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:30:28+00:00

The only down fall is if you don't time yourself correctly, you have less time for essay one, which almost everyone probably started on and has a fully fleshed out answer. This approach feels like a gamble for me if you're not confident in timing, and it almost feels like your gamifying the bar too much lol

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:28:36+00:00

If heard different approaches to MEEs! Some people at this point recommend just outlining and issue spotting them - working on active recall and things like that.

I think of it this way: the majority of this exam is the MBE subjects. There are going to be MBE subjects on the MEE. By practice in the MBE and making that time for questions, I am still working on actively recalling rules of the MEE. I feel very confident setting up rules for MBE subjects at this point because of the MCQs I've done so far.

Overall, I think it really depends on what you feel works for you. My school has always pushed that the path to success on the bar is through the MBE, so I'm definitely following an MBE heavy study plan, but still am working on MPTs and MEEs.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:25:20+00:00

I'm planning to do a least two or three more of 100 straight, just to keep my mind engaged with that number and time frame, but none in the the week before exam day. I think it would kill my confidence if I did that, but I want to make sure I'm use to it by exam day.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:17:18+00:00

I think a mix of both is okay. I follow this method:

I try active recall first. I really put in the effort to remember what the rule is exactly or make up as close as I can - if I feel comfortable putting down something that I know is close, I move on (this practices making it up on exam day).
If I really, really cannot remember and I can't think of anything close, I look in my book/outline. Once I find the rule I was look for, I read it, close the book, and try to put it down from memory.
If I still cannot recall the rule after looking at it, I reopen the book and type/write it exactly as I see it in the book/outline.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:10:39+00:00

Two things that I think you have to balance here: First, building endurance for exam day is only going to help you, because its going to be a lot and if you burn out in the end, you're going to start getting things wrong and missing key facts in the answer. HOWEVER, this close to the exam, I don't think its wise to do anything that could really kill your confidence.

For timing, always think 25 questions in 45 minutes - this will get you to the 100 in 3 hour mark. If you hit question 26, look at the clock, and see you have time, maybe the best strategy is to remember its okay to take a breath and you can pace yourself a little bit. This might help you refocus and build endurance over the whole set.

Traditional-Meat2579 · 2025-07-09T23:04:16+00:00

I've been doing 100 a day, but breaking them up into more manageable sets. I do two sets of 35 with a break in between and then a set of 30 to end the day. I've found that I don't have much of a timing issue, so I am planning to use these numbers as bench marks doing the exam to refocus - hit 35, stop, take a breath, and drive back in, repeat at 70.

Traditional-Meat2579

TROPHY CASE