Month: November 2014

How do I prepare for the bar exam and work at the same time

In this bar exam video, I share how you can still work at a job and pass the bar exam at the same time.

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller The 7 Steps To Bar Exam Success. And one question that I got in a recent webinar I did was how can one really balance between working and studying for the bar exam? You know it’s a delicate and careful, not so easy to define balance.

I’ll give you some advice but it’s not personal advice because I didn’t work while preparing for the bar exam. However, I’ve talked to numerous people who have and done a lot of research on this issue to help students who are working and taking the bar exam. There’s a couple things to be aware of. One is sometimes working while taking the bar exam can actually be beneficial because you’ve heard the saying if you give something to someone who’s already busy, they’re more likely to get it done.

The fact that you’re working maybe an 8 hour a day job puts you in that kind of mindset of going out there and accomplishing and getting things done. You’re already in that mindset, so when you come home you might be exhausted or whatnot but if you put some focus on the bar exam as well and you kind of still have that mindset of going in, you can be more efficient than those who don’t.

There’s also a saying, ‘the time it takes is the time you have.’ If you have 4 hours to do something versus 8 hours to do something, you’ll get it done in the 4 hours, whereas someone if they have 8 hours, they’ll probably still take 8 hours. You end up being more efficient through your bar prep as well.

Some study plans that I’ve heard from people who’ve worked and taken the bar exam, here’s one of them – if they work from 8:00-5:00, they come home, they have dinner, relax a little bit. And then from 6:00 – 10:00 they spend studying for the bar exam. And they’ll do that 5 nights a week. And then the weekends they’ll dedicate the whole weekend to studying for the bar exam as well.

If you can kind of handle that kind of intensity in your bar prep, then that’s not a bad schedule for you and that could work. You’ll end up being a lot more efficient, a lot more focus and you probably get things done more than if you have the whole week open to do whatever the heck you want. Working while taking the bar exam can be an advantage in that way.

Another technique that people use while working is maybe they’re working full time; they’ll cut their hours to part time. So instead of working 40 hours a week, they’ll work 20 hours a week and spend that time studying for the bar. Or you’ll start full time initially and then maybe the last 2 or 3 weeks you cut it down to part time or even you take off those 2-3 weeks and just focus on the bar exam, get those last things down that you want. You can even start studying earlier if not as well. So that’s another possibility, you start studying earlier for the bar exam and that can help you as well while working.

These are some options that you can utilize how to maintain a really work and bar exam prep balance. Energy management is going to be key, so if you have family or support, someone when you come home the dinner is made. They give you a nice little 10-minute massage or something like that, loosen you up, relax you a little bit. That can be a huge help during your bar prep as well if you happen to be working.

That’s my advice on how to deal with working in the bar exam. Please go ahead and like and share this video if you’ve found some use for it. Also head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys and get your free PDF download, The 12 Keys To Bar Exam Success, to help you save time, save money and pass your bar exam this time around. Until next time. I’ll see you in the next video. And always remember that your name appears on the pass list.         

Bar Exam Essay Samples: How many years back should I go study

In this video I discuss how many years to go back when doing sample bar exam essays.

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller The 7 Steps to Bar Exam Success. And a question I got on a webinar that I recently did was “how far back should I go back in taking practice essays? Should I go back to 99? 2000? How far back should I go?” And my answer is it kind of varies based on the jurisdiction.

However, if you go really far back, you’ll see that the essays that they used to test are nothing really like the essays they’ve maybe tested in the last 5-10 years. As a general rule of thumb, again it depends on the jurisdiction, 5-10 years back is a pretty good measure of how far to go back on bar exam questions that you want to practice.

For example, in California, if you go back to like before 2000, the questions are really bizarre and just totally off base and just kind of weird to be honest. They’re nothing like what’s been tested in maybe in the last 10 years. I think if you focus on the last 10 years or so of questions in your question bank, that should be a good measure and indicator of the types of questions and issues and things that might come up on your bar exam this time around.

That’s my tip for that. That’s my advice on that. Go out there and get it this week. Go ahead and please like and share this video if it provided some help and some use for you. Also, head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys, #1 #2 keys and download your free PDF guide, The 12 Keys to Bar Exam Success. Until next time. I’ll see you in the next video and always remember that your name appears on the pass list.    

Bar Exam Memorization: What Rules are actually important to Memorize

In this video I talk about bar exam memorization and the truth behind having to memorize all the rules and law.

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, The Seven Steps to Bar Exam Success. And the question you’re probably wondering today, because you came to this video, is how do I memorize all the law and all the rules to be ready for my bar exam? And the answer is you don’t. You don’t memorize all the rules and all the law because it’s pretty much impossible. There are so many rules out there, thousands upon thousands of rules out there that in the time allotted, even if you had a whole year to prepare, you probably still wouldn’t be able to memorize every single rule and law out there.

But here’s the good news today, is that you don’t have to memorize it all. You don’t need to know it all. You don’t have to know it all. There’s only a very slim portion, believe it or not, of all those rules that you actually need to have memorized to be successful in your bar exam.

For the MBE questions, you don’t have to have any law memorized. I mean it’s good to obviously know how the law works in situations but you definitely don’t need to memorize any rules to pass the MBE questions. And then the essays, you do want to have some rules memorized but if you look at practice essays and past essays in your jurisdiction, you’ll find that very few issues, very few rules come up compared to the whole world of rules that could potentially come up. So if you’re one of those people out there that are focused on “How am I going to get all these rules? How am I going to know all these rules?” Know that you don’t need to know all these rules. You just need to know that narrow slim amount that typically show up on the essays when they come up.

That’s my advice, is to focus on the rules that have shown up on prior exams. That’s where you want to put your focus, really want to make sure you memorize those rules. Also focus on main issue type things, things that are likely to come up or at some level have come up in the past. Again, those are main things to memorize, to focus on and to learn.

All those little subtle rules, yeah it could come up on your bar exam. It very well could. But truth be told, they’re going to be worth so little points typically that’s not going to matter as much. Secondly, if you make up rules on your bar exams, you get partial credit. So you may not know what the exact rule is but if you have an idea and you get kind of some of the elements or some of the rules, you still get partial credit. And the third thing is if you don’t know those little answer to the rules, probably nobody else does either. If you don’t know it, nobody does. It is a current exam and what not. Don’t worry too much about all these side rules because if you put your focus and energy there, you’re taking it away from what really matters in the middle and truth be told, it can cause you more likely to fail if you focus on all these things rather than on what really matters.

Don’t fret. You don’t need to know all the rules, just the main ones. Focus on those. And then if you don’t know the other stuff that shows up on exam, you make it up, you get partial credit and that is an art and that should be practiced while you’re preparing. That’s why it’s great to take practice exams, even if you don’t know the rules, because you developed the art of making up rules on the go.

That’s my tip for today. I hope you enjoy it. If you like it, click the like button. Some of you might not like that because you want to complete and get everything out there. I understand. I was there too. But that’s really the best advice I can give and a lot of students have taken that advice to heart and has helped them pass the bar exam, so I recommend you take it out there as well.

Please click like and share on this video. Also, head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys, #1 #2 keys, K-E-Y-S and download your free PDF, the 12 Keys to Bar Exam Success to help you have a successful bar exam prep. Until next time. I’ll see you in the next video. And always remember that your name appears on the pass list.      

Bar Exam Essay Predictions: Should I Listen or Not?

In this bar exam video, I tell you how to handle bar exam essay predictions and whether to listen to them or not.

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, The Seven Steps to Bar Exam Success. And one of my bar exam coaching clients asked me what my thoughts were on essay predictions, whether she should listen to people who are going out there and giving predictions about what essays will show up on the bar exam. And my thought, generally speaking, don’t listen to those.

I know there’s a lot of people, they do a lot of studies and some of them can be relatively accurate in terms of what comes up; however, it’s still important to know all the topics that are going to show up on the bar exam, because if you do all this studying and you go based on a prediction and then a topic shows up and you didn’t study it, you know you could be throwing your entire bar exam, your entire bar prep out the door if you have no idea of what to do on a specific essay because you’ve never even looked at any of it.

If you want to go with their predictions, go for it. You want to maybe spend more time on those, from people who maybe have a better record of it, but in my opinion it’s good to know all the topics and be able to handle all the topics that show up on bar exam day as opposed to just relying on the predictions.

That’s my take on it. Go with whatever your intuition feels. If you feel intuitively drawn one way versus another, then go for it. To be totally honest, on my bar exam I had an intuitive feeling that we would not be tested on evidence. I did very little studying of evidence at all. I lucked out. We didn’t have evidence as an essay but that was a very strong intuition that I had. If you have strong intuitions pulling you somewhere or you want to listen to some predictions and you intuitively feel you could, then go for it. Otherwise, just prepare all the topics.

That’s my tip for today. Go out there and get them this week. I’ll see you in the next video. And always remember that your name appears on the pass list. And also, please go ahead and head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys and download your 12 Keys free PDF to bar exam success, to help you study better, be more effective and save time on your bar prep so you can go out there and pass your bar exam. Head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys to download that now. Take care.