Category: Fundamental

Posted on - 23 Comments on How to Systematically Identify All the Relevant Issues in a Bar Exam Essay Using “Issue Checking” (Stop “Issue Spotting”)

How to Systematically Identify All the Relevant Issues in a Bar Exam Essay Using “Issue Checking” (Stop “Issue Spotting”)

Be honest now. Imagine you’re mentoring a starry-eyed 1L starting law school. How would you explain how to “spot the issues” in an essay? How exact and specific can you get?

Is it just a mystical process where the crystal ball in your head somehow divines issues from the heavens?

On its surface, a bar exam essay is simply a string of IRACs (easier said than done of course). Prep companies and law schools tend to focus on the “R” and “A” and assume that you already know how to find the “I” naturally.

That’s funny (not really) because an issue that’s never raised, or an irrelevant issue, is completely worthless.

Unlike multiple choice with an objectively correct answer, essays are subject to the whims of the grader. Getting (“spotting”) the correct issues is the easiest way to quickly signal to the grader that you’re at least discussing the right things.

But has anyone actually taught you how to be able to spot those issues? They give you the IRAC framework and leave you in the dust to figure it out. How did those law school exams turn out?

Issue spotting is essential. And it’s a learnable skill you can practice for your bar essay preparation, even if your law school grades didn’t reflect it (like mine).

That’s why I’m going to explain it to you in more detail than this “tip”:

issue spotting

To spot issues, try your best.

Let’s try something more reliable, shall we? There’s a subtle difference between “issue spotting” and the technique I’m about to share.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bar_Prep/comments/ou489a/review_of_the_bar_prep_materials_i_used/
Continue reading “How to Systematically Identify All the Relevant Issues in a Bar Exam Essay Using “Issue Checking” (Stop “Issue Spotting”)”
Posted on - 28 Comments on Improve Your MBE Score: 3 Rules for Effective MBE Preparation

Improve Your MBE Score: 3 Rules for Effective MBE Preparation

Ah yes, the MBE, everyone’s favorite multiple-guess section…

  • 1.8 minutes per question for 6 hours
  • Paranoia from seeing 7 of the same letter in a row
  • 50/50 choices that make you go, “Damn, what’s with this ultimate decision?”

Up to half of your score hangs on a series of letters. I don’t mean essays, which are also a series of letters.

Wow! That sounds important. So how do you practice and prepare to improve your MBE score?

That’s actually the good thing about the MBE. It’s relatively objective and quantitative. This means that, while the MBE is formidable, improving on the MBE is a very improvable and figure-out-able portion of the bar.

Keep these rules in mind to go from “multiple guess” to “multiple choice”:

Continue reading “Improve Your MBE Score: 3 Rules for Effective MBE Preparation”
Posted on - 1 Comment on Bar Exam Success Commandment 3: How to Exploit Scarcity (and Improve Your Bar Essays)

Bar Exam Success Commandment 3: How to Exploit Scarcity (and Improve Your Bar Essays)

We like to tell people we “don’t have time” or that “time is the most valuable resource” or that “life is short” (even though we love to procrastinate). But I think we do have a lot of time at our disposal. We just choose to squander a lot of it, too.

Then what’s the true scarcity of this world? What is the one thing that’s radically limited and expires very quickly?

Money? Time? Milk?

I think there’s something even more scarce: human attention.

Read on to see how you can use this scarcity principle to give yourself an edge on the written portions of the bar exam.

Continue reading “Bar Exam Success Commandment 3: How to Exploit Scarcity (and Improve Your Bar Essays)”

Posted on - 4 Comments on Bar Exam Success Commandment 1: How to Gain a Superpower for the Bar Exam

Bar Exam Success Commandment 1: How to Gain a Superpower for the Bar Exam

Batman kicks ass! He’s also a classic embodiment of the idea that someone who can provide a unique benefit has a duty to offer it. A suffering pariah we can both relate to sometimes.

What? Are you one of those people who don’t care about animated characters because “they’re not real people”? Fortunately, superhero movies are all the rage nowadays, and I’m gonna use my favorite superhero as an exemplar regardless of what you think.

In conclusion, I think Batman is a pretty cool guy, especially with the current trend started by grimdark Nolan reboots. Is this post over? Everyone go home! Yeah right, like I’d ever fill your brain with nonsense (on purpose).

We’re pretty sure Batman hates the Joker, who always taunts Batman by causing chaos and even putting himself in harm’s way to see if he’d be rescued. So why doesn’t Batman just succumb to his temptations and commit the irreversible moral act? One life to save many. Here are some answers I like:

It always starts with one. That’s how justification works. But once you justify something once—you can do it again and again. It becomes easier. Right and wrong blur.
—Bruce Wayne

He refuses to become a murderer, because he knows that murdering the Joker leads to murdering all of them, making each killing easier than the last. And that casts him as the very thing that created him, as the thing he fights against, because at that point the only difference between Batman and the Joker would be that Batman thinks he’s able to justify his own murders.
—Mark Hughes, Quora

That is, Batman understands the dangers of a slippery slope and post hoc justification. Some even call his self-control a superpower.

Don’t you wish you could borrow this self-control superpower for bar success? Hold onto your tighties because I’ll show you a simple way to use it.

Wait, learn a superpower? Although we’d love to dress up in hockey masks and beat up the examiners who taunt us with their riddles, isn’t that a bit of a stretch?

Continue reading “Bar Exam Success Commandment 1: How to Gain a Superpower for the Bar Exam”

Posted on - 9 Comments on 5 Things I Did Differently the Second Time to Pass the Bar as a Repeater

5 Things I Did Differently the Second Time to Pass the Bar as a Repeater

The thing about reality is that your brain doesn’t notice it until it’s wrapped tightly around your brain like a sheet of aluminum foil, crinkling and making a polygonal mess.

0 minutes remaining. I slapped in my applicant ID, my entry ticket to three seconds of pristine agony. Then two, three more times. I made sure I was reading correctly. For once, I wasn’t delusional.

I could feel the heavy air of TRUTH closing in around me. Light fading quickly. But I wanted to believe. No, the silvery foil pushed its way around the noodles of my brain, turning into TV static. It was wrapped around the potato, and my brain realized it then.

In some other universe, I passed. But in this one, I failed. I failed. I failed.

2013 was the worst year of my life. My brain convinced me to break up with my friend of ten years and girlfriend of three. My dad screamed at our family on Christmas morning and night. I failed the July bar and haven’t since posted a status on Facebook out of supreme shame. 16 months and counting since becoming Facebook celibate. Facelibate.

I lied down on my bed. Then I got up.

The experiment was a failure. It was time to change the variables. This was how I would prove I was not insane. Then 2014 became the best year of my life.

Having experienced both outcomes of the California Bar Exam, I’ve distilled the following insights that were instrumental to passing the bar. These are things I did the second time but not the first time. Do you like clickbait? You won’t believe #4!

“Any fool can learn from experience. I prefer to learn from other people’s experiences.”

Make this the last time you have to walk the line between heaven and hell with these 5 things I did differently the second time to pass the bar exam.

Continue reading “5 Things I Did Differently the Second Time to Pass the Bar as a Repeater”