Speaker 1: People overcomplicate the bar exam when in reality it's quite simple. When you peel back the layers of the test, it comes down to doing well on three portions. The first is the essay portion, the multiple choice, and finally the performance test. If you can master each of these three sections, then you can pass the bar exam. This test is all about active studying. Active studying is like doing practice tests, essays, and multiple choice versus passive studying which is more like reading your outlines and watching video lectures. So the tip here is that you want to study less and practice more. That's it. There's no other BS to tell you here. There are no magic tricks to easily pass the bar exam. As a note, this is the way that I actually studied. Of course, every student is different. So just study the way that you know yourself best. First I'll be breaking down my monthly schedule of how I study for the bar exam. Now keep in mind, I took the July California bar exam. So the way that I scheduled my month was based off of its 14 tested subjects. I set my schedule up to be studying for around eight weeks or two months. And since I took the July bar, that meant that I would actually start studying around the last week of May and then all the way through the last week of July. Now my strategy here was quite simple. I wanted to go through each of the 14 subjects three times. In the first month, that meant I went through each of the subjects one time so that way I can go through it in depth and thoroughly. And then in the second month, I buckled down and I went through all the subjects again twice. If I pull up my calendar and if I'm taking the exam, let's say on July 25th and 26th of 2023, then I'll go back eight weeks from those days. So that way I know how to separate my months. So month one would look like June, those first four weeks, and then my second month would look all of July. All right, so let's start with week one. And what I like to do here for the first month is I like to break up all 14 subjects into two days. So for example, week one, Monday, Tuesday, I'll do contracts. On Wednesday and Thursday, I'll do torts. Friday and Saturday would be property. And then Sunday, I would take it off. So each of my weeks are basically scheduled to be five and a half days of studying and then Sunday will be off. Of course, you can pick whichever day you want to take off that works for you, but that worked for me and my schedule. And then also I wanted to note that on Saturday, I actually use that as a half day. So now moving on to week two, which would be June 12th now. So June 12th and 13th, I would do remedies. Wednesday and Thursday would be con law. Friday, Saturday would be evidence. And Sunday would be off. And then moving on to... I know Saturday is supposed to be a half day, but because you're going over a community property and it could be longer, feel free to do like a Friday and Saturday can kind of be a mesh of all three of those subjects because it should be pretty fast to go through. You still want to honor taking that half day on Saturday. And moving on to my daily routine of how I study for the bar exam. What I would do here is that I would actually study between nine to 10 hours a day. I didn't want to go over 12 hours because that is just ludicrous and no one should be studying for that long. I try to mirror the times of my day to be just like the bar exam. So if the bar exam is administered between nine to 12 and two to 5 p.m., then I try to pick those hours to study in so I can emulate the exam. Now my main goal here was to make sure that I was actually getting eight hours of sleep. So that way I didn't feel sluggish or that way I didn't feel tired or just completely burnt out because as you all know that the bar exam is a marathon and not a sprint. All right, now the next thing I would do is I would section off my day into what I like to call three, three hour studying shifts, but you can call it whatever you want. All right, now onto my favorite part of this video, which is going to be my detailed schedule of what I actually did from when I first woke up in the morning all the way until I go to sleep. So I would start from the very beginning of my study day, which is my morning routine. I would wake up between 7.45 to 8 a.m. every single day, Monday through Saturday. And I would wake up, wash my face and make my cup of coffee. And then from 8 to 8.55, I would typically meditate. I know this is a long period of time, but I like to section off my morning to first meditate, stretch, do yoga. I would actually use the Headspace app, pretty much available on all smart devices.

Speaker 2: Welcome to Headspace. Take a big, deep breath, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Speaker 1: But it's something that really helped me during the bar exam and to keep my mental health in the right spot. So highly recommend. This is not sponsored. I wish it was, but I love Headspace. Now moving on to my first shift of the day. I like to call these studying session shifts because I always use these shifts to be three hour increments of how long I was studying for. So the first shift of the day would be 9 to 12 p.m. And I call this active studying because I was doing active studying. And for the first shift, since I had the most peak and let's go energy, I always wanted to start with the hardest part of my day, which were the multiple choice for me. So I would do 100 multiple choice for three hours, where I would do 50 MBEs from Adaptabar, which is an online resource, and then another 50 MBEs from the Strategies and Tactics by Emmanuel. This was a textbook version and something that I really enjoyed using because the answer explanations were super, super thorough. So it was an easy way for me to learn. Then from 12 to 1 p.m., I would take my lunch break and I would just take this for probably around an hour. And then during my lunch break, I did my best not to look at my phone or any screen since I had just spent the last shift looking at a screen the entire time. So when I take my breaks, I try to fully shut my brain down and relax. I also made it a habit that during my breaks that I would go on walks, stretch my legs, stretch my body. So that way I could feel refreshed and that my brain would get the appropriate amount of blood and oxygen flowing. Now for my second shift, I would do this shift between 1 to 4 p.m. And this is another active studying shift. So here I would practice working on two essays. If, for example, the subject of the day were contracts, then I would print out two past contract essays from the California Bar website and review them. I would then read through the essay prompt and the call of the question, and then go straight into reading the model answers. Usually there were two answers given, so I would make sure that I read through both of those answers so that way I can prime my brain to see how the model answers are issue spotting. Then I would issue spot the actual essay and start typing out on my laptop what the skeleton outline would be. And then I would type out the actual full essay answer. I would then repeat the same process for the second contracts essay question. Then from 4 to 6 p.m., I would have my next big break, which is around two hours. And during this two hour break, I usually would have dinner, go to the gym, take a shower, kind of get ready for bed and that next night shift. But I would definitely utilize this time to stretch, get a good break in, and have some dinner. Now my final shift of the day, which is between 6 to 9 p.m., is passive studying. This meant that I would review my answers from the day, like multiple choice or essays, review my outlines, and review any of the flashcards with rule statements. I would save this to be my last part of the day because at this point, my brain and my body are already so gassed. I would save the passive studying of the day to be the last shift. Now that you've completed your final shift of the day, I would say between 9 to 10 p.m., I would start winding down. So whether that's washing your face, brushing your teeth, making a nice hot tea, but I would not study at all after 10 p.m. This is what I did every single day leading into the bar exam week for a total of eight weeks. Moving on to month two, which is July, I would go through all the subjects again two more times through, so that way at the end of the cycle, I have gone through all 14 subjects three times. All the weeks are pretty much going to look the same because now we're just buckling down and doing two subjects every single day. So Monday through Friday, it's going to look like two subjects every single day. And then right when you get to Saturday, it's no longer going to be a half day, but you're going to be doing a mock bar exam. Those first three Saturdays of the second month will all be mock bar exams. And week two and week three is going to be the same as week one. And then when you get into your fourth week of going into the bar exam weekend, you want to make sure that you take that weekend before the bar exam off. I would say lightly study or just go through your outlines, go through your essay templates, but I wouldn't be taking like full on mock bars at that point because you don't want to burn yourself out before actually taking the exam on Tuesday and Wednesday. Going into the actual details of what month two would look like, let's say for example on Monday, we're doing contracts and torts because we're doing two subjects every single day now. So that way we can go through all of the 14 subjects two more times through. So the first shift in the morning would again be from nine to 12 PM and you would do a hundred multiple choice, making sure that you finish all hundred MBEs within that three hour period. And then in the shift in the afternoon, you would do four essays as opposed to two essays. You can outline two of those essays like a skeleton outline, just making sure that you're actually issue spotting all of the essays. And finally your third shift of the day, which is going to be reviewing all the answers from the day and going through your outlines for the two subjects that you went through. So if it was contracts and torts, then in your last and third final shift, you want to make sure that you're actually looking at your contracts outline and your torts outline because we're getting closer and closer to the exam day. Now for the mock bar test that I would take every Saturday in month two, I wouldn't actually do like two days of like emulating the bar exam. You can do that. But for me, I thought I can just distinct everything into one day. So what I like to do is in the morning shift for three hours, I would do a hundred MBEs and I would strictly time it. So I wouldn't go over the three hours, but literally from nine to 12 PM, I was doing a hundred MBEs. And the afternoon I would do the second half of the bar exam, which would be two essays and one performance test. And I would make sure that I was doing that all within the three and a half hours that I was allotted. So it really felt like I was doing the MBE portion under time conditions and I was doing the essays and the performance test all in one chunk. And of course, like I said, again, Sunday is off. Now that you've seen my very detailed bar prep schedule, then now you'll probably want to see this next video where I explain the best tips on how to pass the bar exam. And if you're liking this content so far, feel free to like and subscribe.