November 2015 - Bar Exam

When Should I Feel Prepared to Pass Bar Exam

Hi everyone, Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of number one Amazon bestseller The Seven Steps to Bar Exam Success. And I get this question all the time: When should I feel ready that I can go in there and pass the Bar Exam? When do I really feel ready, when should I feel ready?

You know, this is a question that comes up a lot and creates a lot of anxiety for Bar Exam students as they go through the Bar Exam Prep. Because really the first week, the first couple of weeks they are thinking the first time that they look at this material they should be able to get it down, get it down solid.

In reality that’s not going to happen. What the Bar Exam really is it’s a layered approach, that’s like an onion, you’re going to peel layers at a time, and the more layers that you peel, the deeper you’ll get, the more you’ll obtain, the more you’ll remember.

So if you’re not getting everything down those first couple of weeks or the first month or even, you know, the first five-six weeks later after that first one, don’t freak out, don’t trip out, it’s normal and a lot of people are going through that. You really, really for me when I felt like I was really ready to go and take the Bar Exam, by the way that’s not a 100% ready, I don’t know if anybody ever feels a 100% ready, but I felt at a higher level of comfort that I could go in there, I could see an essay and I could be able to handle that essay or handle that MBE, you know, in a passing fashion.

At a certain level, again, it does not appear but as you go through your Bar Prep you’ll notice a transition from “I’ve no idea what I’m doing”, transition it’s you “I kind of get it, I kind of know what I’m doing, I think I can go in there and maybe pass this Exam”. So, when did that moment happen for me, really it was like the final two weeks.

Everything else was kind of a built up, putting things together until it was final two weeks, that’s when I started to feel like “Okay, now I can feel like I can go in there and handle it”. And I realized that because when I started taking essays, brand-new essays I hadn’t seen, for the most part I was spotting most of the issues, I was spotting most of the rules, I was reciting most of the facts and when I looked at the sample answers I saw that both my answer and the sample answer were so more congruent.

So, if it’s not the last couple of weeks yet, don’t freak out, just keep moving, keep your eyes on, keep practicing your exams, keep studying, keep moving forward and really those final two weeks all kind of comes together at that time. So try not to let the mind freak, mess you up as you’re going through, try to just breathe, stay calm and realize: hey, it’s not the final two weeks yet. I can still get this down, I’m still moving forward in my Prep.

So, that’s my tip on when should you feel like you’re ready to go in and take the Bar Exam. You know, never was a 90% ready, but these final couple of weeks this is when things should really start coming together.

So, thanks for watching this video, please like this video and share this video and also head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys and number 1 , number 2 keys, again your free PDF download ‘The 12 keys to Bar Exam success.’ They will help you save time, study smarter and pass the Bar Exam. Head on over right now, IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys. Until next time I’ll see you in the next video and always remember that your name appears on the pass list.

The State Bar Exam Model Answers: To Review or Not to Review During Your Prep

Hi everyone, Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of number one Amazon bestseller The Seven Steps to Bar Exam Success. I have a question for you: Did you just review a state model answer and are freaking out because your answer was nothing like the State model answer?

Well, good news, you’re in the right place, because that has happened to a lot of people, myself included, and reality is this. When you are typing up your essays the best advice is not to compare them to the state model answers.

Usually those are pristine prime top of the top like 90% – 95% maybe 100% passing and you don’t need that to pass your Bar Exam, you need around a 60 -65% range, it depends on your jurisdiction. So, comparing your answers to those answers, it’s going to give you a false sense of what it takes to pass the Bar Exam and it can really decrease your confidence and hurt your chances of passing because hardly anyone ever writes something of that caliber and that high– I certainly never wrote anything close to that and I was still able to pass, you know, on my first try.

So, when comparing your answers, don’t compare the model answers, second options to get like a Bar/Bri book, maybe The Bar/Bri Sample Answers and you compare to those. Again, that’s not the best option because Bar/Bri Answers are not real answers, they are manufactured answers, it often takes a week or a couple of weeks and several people studying down and looking at them and writing those answers out, they will probably score maybe a 80-85 on an actual Exam.

So again, those aren’t actual great competitors , they are little better than the model answers, but they’re not the best option. The best option that I really really recommend especially if you are in California is to check out BarEssays.com.

And on BarEssays.com as done they’ve gone on collecting thousands of actual graded essays from past Bar Exam takers. And they compiled a big database of these essays and the essays are graded in score so you might see essays that actually got a 45 or a 55 , you’ll see some essays that got a 75 or a 70 and you can actually compare your essay with those essays and see how you did.

See what issues you got, see how the wording was, what the rule was, what the facts were. So that’s a much more realistic, you’ve got a much more realistic sense of what it takes to pass the Bar Exam as opposed to comparing it to the model answer or a Bar/Bri manufactured answer. So, what I recommend you do is to head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/BarEssays and you can download– , you can sign up for their program and get a list, get a host –, get access to all the thousands of essays that they have, all the way back, I think from the year 2000 through to 2014.

Their essays are powerfully specific so in other jurisdictions other than California, it may not help out; at the same time it could help to see again on what the real passing answers look like I mean in your jurisdiction and maybe the same kind of wording, the same type of material that’s in the—obviously, the contents might be different, but the same, you know, structure I wonder how that could be the same.

So if you head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/BarEssays you can get that program today, that is an affiliate link, so I do get a small commission if you sign up for that which I do appreciate. I can also give you a $15 discount code if you head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/BE, again BE, B as in boy and E as in Edgar, it will send you something so you can actually just type in your email and automatically shoot you the discount code.

The founder Bar Essays doesn’t want me advertising what the code is out on cyberspace, so you send me an email or you go to IPassedMyBarExam.com/BE, I’ll automatically send that code to you so you can use that when signing up for Bar essays. So, that’s my recommendation for what to compare yourself to when you’re taking Bar Exam Essays and how to, you know, increase the score of your Bar Exam Essay. So, that’s my advice for today.

If you liked this video please go to the like button below or share this video, also head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys and get the 12 Keys to Bar Exam success free PDF download. Until next time, I’ll see you on the next video and always remember that your name appears on the pass list.

The Bar Exam Guide: The Best Place for Your Bar Prep Tips

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller The 7 Steps To Bar Exam Success. And today I want to share something special with you that I received after I graduated from law school. It was actually one of those gag awards that maybe sometimes schools give and whatnot after they graduate.

But anyway I got the Most Likely To Write A Memoir About Their Experience As A Law Student or Attorney Award. That’s the award I won from the student bar association at my school. And I’ll tell you what, technically was actually way off. I haven’t written about my experiences as a law student or as an attorney. However, I did share my experiences about the bar exam.

After I took the bar exam, there’s a lot that I learned through that process and I had a lot of my friends asking me questions about the bar, a lot of little things like “how much time should I spend? Which bar prep program should I take? How should I approach the materials? How do I deal with the mindset of the bar exam?” What I decided to do was take all these questions and all my own experience and write them up.

I created a blog and then I also created a book called the 7 Steps to Bar Exam Success book. And it’s really just a practical guide of how to go through the bar exam. It’s not a replacement of a bar prep program. There’s no content stuff in here but it’s really a guide to go through the bar exam whether you have a bar prep program or you’re studying on your own. It really, really is helpful.

What I did is give a lot of practical tips about mindset, about how to approach the essays, how to approach the MBE. For those of you starting BarBri, how to actually go through BarBri, rather than doing their schedule that they give you, how to actually make that an effective way as you go through and I’ve been grateful because I get tons of emails all the time of how many people have enjoyed this book, how many people have liked this book.

I’m very grateful for all the 5-star reviews that it has on Amazon and it really have been a huge help and huge resource for people. It’s a short read. It’s like 2 hours to read this whole thing. It really just alters people’s mindset, whether you’re a first time or a repeater. A lot of repeaters have emailed me, said they got hope again. They have new found hope and they’re actually excited. Yes, they use the word ‘excited’ to take the bar exam. A lot of first time takers have read it as well and told me it was a huge help for them as well.

I want to invite you to go and grab your copy of this book. It’s called the 7 Steps To Bar Exam Success. I have it on my website. You can head over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/book, b-o-o-k, and get it there. I hope you’ll do this. I hope you’ll spend a couple of bucks really to really change your paradigm and really help you on the bar exam.

I know for sure it’s going to be a huge help regardless of your jurisdiction. I took California but this is a guide book that’s helped people in all the types of jurisdiction. So head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/book and go ahead and grab yourself a copy. Until next time, always remember that your name appears on the pass list.

How to Avoid Early Bar Exam Prep Burnout

Hey everyone! Dustin here from IPassedMyBarExam.com and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller the 7 Steps To Bar Exam Success. And a question recently came up from someone that I was helping, who was a repeater student, and the question was this – how do I avoid burnout early on in bar prep?

And this is a common issue for many bar prep students because I know how we are as law students, we come in there and we have this warrior mode energy of trying to get everything done, get it done quick, and what happens is that may work for the first couple of weeks of bar prep but then after that, your energy just gets drained and you just want to stop and you hit a brick wall and you want to cry and that’s where all these emotional problems come up during the bar exam that we tend to hear about and why people complain so much about the bar exam.

What I recommend is as you’re going through the bar exam, don’t treat the bar prep as a sprint. Treat it as a marathon pacing is going to be very, very important. To avoid burnout, there’s a couple of things to do. One is take at least one day off per week where you do nothing bar exam related. You don’t talk to anyone about the bar exam. You don’t even hopefully see anyone related to the bar exam.

You spend time with some family. You go out to nature. You go for a walk. You go have fun. Do something that’s fun, that’s lively that you enjoy and that’s going to recharge your spirit and gets you ready for that next week coming up.

Don’t worry, taking a day off is not going to make you fail the bar exam. In fact, it can help you pass the bar exam if you do it right and you’re systematic about it.
A second way is to really pace yourself as you go through and that really means eating healthy, that means exercising and really managing your energy.

Manage the thoughts, manage the things that come into your head if you’re coming around other stressed out bar exam students. That’s going to drain your energy. They’re using lower power language, lower power words.

Your vibration is going to just drop and it’s going to drain your energy, make you less focus. Surround yourself with higher energy people – positive people, positive audios, positive discussions and whatnot, things that are going to raise your vibration.

Food and exercise, super, super important. It’s stuff that’s very simple, very basic, but can have a huge impact because a lot of people don’t manage that well. Don’t go eat cupcakes for breakfast and then bagel for lunch and then drink a lot of coffee. That’s going to lower your energy.

It’s going to increase your stress and it’s going to cause burnout. Really managing yourself is the #1 key to preventing burnout during the bar exam. And also managing your thoughts, knowing that “Hey, I don’t have to be studying just because everyone else is studying. I don’t have to listen to so and so because they said they study 10 hours a day. I’m not studying 10 hours a day so I’m going to fail.”

Disconnecting, disassociating for what other people are doing and not comparing yourself to what they’re doing. Just focus on what you got to do and where you want to go.

That’s a key to avoiding burnout during your bar prep. I hope that tip serves you. If it does, go ahead and hit the like button below please and also share it with someone that could benefit from this. Also, head on over to IPassedMyBarExam.com/12Keys and get your 12 Keys To Bar Exam Success. It’s a free pdf guide that I’m sending you to help you on your bar exam journey. Until next time. I’ll see in the next video. And always remember that your name appears on the pass list.