Speaker 1: Okay, hi guys. Welcome back to my channel, or welcome if you're new. My name is Jen, I'm an attorney in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the bar exam's coming up, so I figured I would just make a quick video sharing some tips as someone who just passed the bar and passed it on their first try. So that's really my only qualification for making this video, is that I have now passed the bar. And hopefully these tips will help you guys out and just maybe make you a little bit less stressed, although I know that's a pretty tall order this time of year, given that the July exam is coming up at the end of the month. So yeah, with that being said, I'm not going to try to act like you guys should just be calm at this point, because I certainly wasn't, but hopefully this helps a little. So let's dive in. My first tip... Is this camera really high?

Speaker 2: That's better, I felt like the camera was a little too high.

Speaker 1: Okay, my first tip is once you're about halfway through, or you know, most of you are probably more than halfway through with this, you're going to want to make sure that you're not going to be a little too close to the camera. So if you're going to be a little too close to the camera, feel free to veer off the course that your study plan has you on. Because at the end of the day, studying, I mean these prep courses are great, but studying is really not one size fits all. And so for them to design a plan that's going to work for everyone, that's just not really possible. And you know yourself better than this course knows you. So for me, for example, if you've watched my channel for a while, you know that a major component of me studying is writing things by hand. It really gets things in my memory a lot better. Studies show it gets it in everyone's head a lot better. So if you're in the middle of the day, you're going to want to be a little bit more careful about what you're doing. And so oftentimes like hours of my studying would be taken up not by doing endless practice questions or like practice essays and things like that. A lot of the time it was just taking my lecture notes or outlines I had made and just copying them over by hand. And that got it in my brain so much better. And then when I would go to do practice questions, I felt more prepared for them. So just don't lose sight of how you study. That hasn't changed just because you're now starting a bar prep course. And don't worry too much about, hitting the marks on your prep course progress. I think by the time I took the bar exam, I had only completed like 70% of the course or something like that. And I didn't even have a target number in mind. I just, once I had all the lecture notes, I just started memorizing them in the ways that worked best for me. So don't doubt your study methods just because it's not exactly what's prescribed that day. At the end of the day, the bar exam doesn't really care how you learned the

Speaker 2: material. You just need to know it. Okay, my second tip, especially

Speaker 1: as you get closer to the test date is to start memorizing rule statements from the sample essay answers. That goes a long way. It can help you a ton. And I, someone gave me that tip when I was studying. And then I can now say from my own experience that it helped me massively in studying for and taking the exam because some of the concepts that weren't as familiar to me, like for example, I never took secure transactions in law school. So all of that was a bit foreign to me. And so sometimes it really, like I could watch all the lectures and make these outlines and things, but the rules just weren't making a ton of sense to me. And then when I started reading sample essay answers, I was able to see the rule statements written out in sentence form and then apply to some fact patterns. It made them click a little bit more for me. And they can also save you if you have no idea what's going on, on an essay. Speaking from personal experience, we had one essay on my exam. I took the February bar exam and we had one essay on trusts. I don't remember the specifics, but it was like not your average trusts question. And I, wasn't very good at trusts to begin with. So I just like regurgitated some rule statements I had memorized from sample trust essay answers, and then like kind of tried to fit them to the facts. And I got a four on the essay out of a six. So that was like pretty good. Cause I left being like, I bombed the trust essay, but I just recited some rule statements that I had memorized from sample answers. And clearly it worked out well enough. I mean, a four is not like the best you could do, but that's better than getting a one or a two. So, and there's no need for you to try to create your own rule statements. And you absolutely can, especially if subjects are going to make a lot more sense in your head, but for the ones that you're having trouble with, take the next few weeks and just start memorizing the ones from the sample answers. And then at the very least, if you get an essay on that topic, you can just say what you've memorized and try to apply it to the facts, even if you don't totally understand it. That's what I did. And it helped me a lot. And this was actually a tip I got from someone else when I started studying. So that's my second tip. Start to memorize rule statements from sample answers on your essays.

Speaker 2: Okay. My third tip is about multiple choice questions. I realize I'm kind of bouncing

Speaker 1: around, but I really wanted to distill this video down into just like five actually helpful tips, as opposed to like stuff you've heard in your prep course. So that's why I'm kind of like moving around topic to topic. But with that being said, my third tip is to develop really strong routines for the multiple choice questions that you don't know the answer to, because most prep courses will give you routines for multiple choice questions. Like I know Barbary and probably the other prep courses to say like, start with the call of the question, figure out what subject is being tested, and then what subcategory within that subject is being tested, think of the rule, et cetera. But beyond that, I found it really helpful to have a strategy in place for questions I didn't know the answer to. And don't let that strategy be just going to look up the answer because in reality, there's going to be so many multiple choice questions on test day that you don't know the answer to, like that's just the way it goes. And you won't be able to go look up the answer for those. So if you have a process and like a system in mind of how you handle those questions, you don't know the answer to, you won't be able to the answer to, it's going to serve you so much better as far as time management and maybe even like, you know, discerning the answer and figuring it out. But to be prepared for that to be the case is going to do so much more good than just looking up the answer when you don't know it. So that's, so just try to like, for me, for example, if I had spent like a minute to a minute 15 on the question and I like totally realized I don't know it, if my brain can lead me down a pathway that at least one of those answers makes sense to me, then I'm going to have a why as to why I'm choosing that answer. I went with it and I moved on. I know that's really vague, but it's kind of hard to give you my like routine because it kind of varies subject to subject. But in general, as long as I had a why in my head of like, well, that makes sense. And they did use this word in the question. And so my best guess is that it's this for these reasons. And as long as I had a reason in my head that I was choosing it, even if I didn't really know it was right, I selected it and I moved on just so that I didn't get stressed with time pressure. And then they give you scratch paper and I would write down the answer. And I would write down the numbers of the questions I wanted to go back to. And if I had time, I would go back. But to be honest, like even when I went back, I still didn't know the answers to these questions. So just start whatever that means for you. Just build routines for questions you don't know the answers to as you do your practice multiple choice, because there are going to be tons of those on test day. So get comfortable in those scenarios and build yourself a little routine. And then at least you can feel a little bit better and you don't get hung up and waste time panicking or like blindly guessing or anything like that, or rereading the question a million times thinking about it. So that's what I'm going to do. And then I'm going to go back and think about it a million times thinking you missed something. Usually you didn't miss anything. Like you probably just don't know the answer and that's okay. You can get a ton of these wrong and still pass the bar. So don't worry too much about right or wrong, but time management is big. So if you can build those habits, then you'll waste far less time on test day. And then you can,

Speaker 2: and then at least you can answer all the questions. Okay. My next tip, moving over to the

Speaker 1: essays again, is just to remember how they're graded and basically type as fast as you can on test day. And I know that sounds really obvious, but, um, just keep in mind that this is not going to be the best writing you've ever done, because that's not really how these essays are graded. And that's not how they work. Your score on these is based off of how many points you accumulated and you accumulate points by raising issues. So don't worry about it being the best writing of your life. Just worry about like mentioning as much stuff as you can try not to waste your time and energy mentioning really irrelevant stuff. But if there's any rules that you need to follow, you can do it. And if there's any rules that you need to follow, you can do it. But if there's any rules statements that you kind of think might apply, just type them as fast as you can and move on. Stick to your IRAC format mechanically. It's again, it's really not going to be like the best writing you've ever done, but the issue is X type all the rules that are relevant, just get them out there. And then when you get to the analysis, these fact patterns have a lot of sentences in them. And most of them are relevant. There's a few red herrings that really don't matter for anything, but most of them matter for something. And you want to address as many of them as you can. So don't worry about like making the best sentences, you've ever made or structuring it, like in a way that flows well, just stick to your IRAC mechanically and just get as much in there as possible because that's how you earn points. And like, I'm someone, I love legal writing. I love to edit my writing to make sure it sounds exactly as I want it to. And the transitions and the flow are there and things like that. I had to totally take that hat off to write these essays and just like, it's not that kind of a writing assignment. So, um, that was a switch for me, but once I sort of understood that and did that on my project, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to practice essays and stuff. Things got a lot better. And I scored very well in my essays and that's not because it was good writing. It's just because I like spilled onto the page as many points as I could think of. My essays were really long. Like I remember thinking like, this is whoever has to grade this. I feel so sorry for them, but that's how the game works, right? You just have to play the game. So type really fast, get as many points out of there.

Speaker 2: And don't worry if it's not good writing. That's really not what the game's about. Okay. My final tip, it's kind of hard to explain, but I'm going to articulate this thought as best I can.

Speaker 1: The subjects require different things of you. And so keep that in mind as you're nearing test day, especially as I said, as you might be like veering off of your prep courses study plan, think about what makes the most sense for you. And not all subjects are created equally. Studying each of them is going to look a bit different. So for example, civil procedure is a ton of memorization. Like how many days do you have to file this type of document? I think on my bar exam, I don't even think, I can't think of anywhere. It's been a while, so I don't totally remember, but I can't think of anywhere where I ever explained like personal jurisdiction or subject matter jurisdiction. As far as I can remember, all of the questions were targeted at like very specific rules. So that's a very memorization heavy subject. So for me, I just did a lot more like writing my outline by hand for things like that. Like those are just numbers I needed in my brain. And I would way rather see all of the rules in one outline than just do some pro multiple choice questions and hope that like all the topics are tested, if that makes sense. But for example, constitutional law is a lot more ideological. It's more like theory based, and there's only so much you can memorize, right? A lot of con laws based off of like specific Supreme court cases, you can memorize how those came out, but a lot of it is like ideas and theories and things like that. So for me, that looks like a lot more multiple choice questions just to practice applying that school of thought, if that makes sense. And I'm not saying that my study plan was like the way to go. I only give these examples to just say treat subjects differently and start to understand the game of what's required within each of them, because just doing practice multiple choice all day long might not allow you to learn each subject the best you possibly could. So I guess what I'm saying is like, don't be afraid to treat these subjects differently and studying contracts might look very different from studying property. And that is totally fine. Again, there is no one size fits all here, there is no right way to study. You just want to know as much as you can by test day. It's that simple. So develop your own strategies and don't be afraid to veer off your study plan. Don't be afraid to study different subjects differently. Because I feel like towards the end, sometimes it was so tempting to just sit and do multiple choice questions all day. And I had to be really honest with myself. And I'm like, is this the best use of my time? For some subjects? Absolutely. For others, really not at all. Like it was way more beneficial for me to just like go memorize all the rules for Civ Pro as opposed to waiting to see if that rule got triggered in a multiple choice question. So that's my advice. Not all subjects are alike. Not all studiers are alike. Not all test takers are alike. Um, I hope this helps, but just believe in yourself. And I said, this is my last vlog, but like just push through. If you're watching this in preparation for the July exam, it's only a few more weeks. You can last that long. And then hopefully you never have to think about it again. If you haven't even started studying, you're taking the exam in the future, it's only about two months of your life that you'll be doing this. Push through and know that there is an end in sight. And hopefully you can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Um, and just stay disciplined for a few more weeks or for those two months, depending on when you're watching this, because you don't want to have any regrets come test day. And if you have to take it again, no big deal. Like I've said in previous videos, the bar exam is not life or death, but you want to at least be able to say I did everything I could. Just think about future you and let future you get to say that. Be disciplined. It's only two months of your life. You only have a few more weeks. You guys can do it. Believe in yourself. And I'll see you in the next video. Bye. yourselves and get a lot of sleep as often as you can. And those are my tips. Best of luck. I know it's so awful and I'm not going to sugarcoat how awful it is. I'm just hoping that these were some practical tips that you can take with you and best of luck whenever you take it. And I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye you guys.