February 2007 Bar Exam

Good luck to EVERYONE taking the bar exam this week. Remember: the key is to remain CALM and keep your emotions positive.

DO NOT come online tonight looking for info about the essays and whether you answered them correctly -- the essays will be OVER. Forget about them, eat dinner, review your MBE outlines, and have a GREAT day tomorrow.

I PASSED THE NEW YORK BAR EXAM!!!!!

NAME: ******
Date of Birth: *****

The State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State bar examination held on July 25-26, 2006. Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this lookup screen, each applicant must rely on the official notification (via U.S. Mail) as to whether he or she has passed the examination.

An official certification notice has been mailed and will contain your Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) scores. The notification which has been mailed is a required part of your application for admission to the Bar. In order to allow a reasonable time for the results to arrive by mail, requests for duplicate notices received prior to November 24, 2006 will be disregarded. Although there is normally a $10 charge for a duplicate, due to the possibility of loss or damage in a bulk mailing, there will be a grace period with no charge for those requests received prior to December 11, 2006.

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I genuinely hope that all of my fellow bloggers and internet friends passed the bar too! I am SO excited that I passed. But I really have to say it was God's doing. I did not study that much and we all know that the NCBEX was on to PMBR and changed all their questions . . . and I used PMBR exclusively to practice for the MBE. So it wasn't all me. Everything definitely happens for a reason!

MBE Again

Why I love PMBR, never used BarBri MBE materials, and did great the first time I took the MBE: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/06D1065P.pdf

Why everyone is freaked about the July 2006 MBE and why a whole lot of the question formats did not look familiar to me: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/06D1065P.pdf

Why we should all be happy the MBE is graded on a curve (if we all sucked, it balances itself out): http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/06D1065P.pdf


Hint: it's the same link all 3 times.

My take on the MBE

All the world's aflutter about the MBE difficulty yesterday. I will say that there were a LOT of different types of questions that were not on the MBE when I passed the bar the first time. I think NCBEX is trying to circumvent many of the BarBri and PMBR subject areas that we learn in prep class.

I am already a member of one bar. When I was studying the first summer after law school, I thought the PMBR practice exam was SO easy. When we graded it, my score sucked.

When I took the bar exam a few weeks later, I thought the MBE questions were SO hard and the questions were horrible and the answer choices were obnoxious. When I got my MBE score, it was good and I passed the bar by a comfortable margin.

So, for those of you who are having negative feelings about the MBE, it is probably because you PASSED. I heard this from PMBR -- I can't remember if it was at the 6-day or the 3-day or on one of the subject-specific lecture CD's, but they said: if you know the law, then you discover that the MBE is really tricky. Part of succeeding on the MBE is picking the "least wrong" answer from the four "wrong" answer choices. I literally remember reading a question, knowing the correct rule of law, and looking at the four answer choices and NOT seeing the rule. When that happens, you have to use process of elimination and go with what you end up with.

If you think the MBE was easy and you flew through it, that is probably because you don't know the law and you were tricked into picking the incorrect answer that the MBE people wanted you to pick -- it creates a false sense of security.

I have never done BarBri practice questions so I am not sure of their quality. However, if you did most or all of the PMBR red book and reviewed the questions and answers, you learned enough law to pass the MBE.

Hope this helps!!!!! :)

ain't that a *itch!

Here was my plan: Buy a Subway sandwich, put it in a cooler with ice, and leave it in my car so I can have an enjoyable lunch without waiting on line in downtown Albany. I planned to go to Subway at 9pm tonight, right before it closes, so the sandwich would be as "fresh" as possible tomorrow.

So, I stroll into Subway all calm and collected, ready to execute my plan. Here's what happened:

Kid behind the counter: We're out of bread.

Me: facial expression indicating, "WTF?"

Kid behind the counter: All of the Subway restaurants in the Albany area are out of bread.

Me: ALL of them?

Kid behind the counter: Yes. The lawyer exam is here and everyone came to get sandwiches. Once the other stores ran out of bread they all came to this one.

Me: Great. Thanks.


There is a supermarket right across the street from Subway but I was so frustrated I just came back to the hotel. So much for my plan. It was a god one, but apparently not a unique one! So now I will be eating PB&J, water, and 1/2 a Snickers Marathon Energy Bar. I might try to eat at one of the local establishments depending on the lines. No way in hell am I going to post which places I am considering -- if I do, they will probably be out of "lunch" by the time I get there!

Maybe I should skip the exam, stay up all night baking bread, and sell sandwiches out of my trunk during lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'd probably make a ton of money. :)

Oh well, I'm off to cram as many things as I can into my gallon-sized Ziploc bag. It really is smaller than one would think . . . .

Good luck to everyone tomorrow.

Goodbye for a few days

This is probably my last post until after the exam. I still have some studying/reviewing to do, plus packing, flying to Albany, etc. I hope every single person who has ever visited this blog passes the bar exam.

I'd especially like to say GOOD LUCK to my 3 favorite bloggers:

LuxLegis

Strict Scrutiny

California Bar Girl

I wish everyone the best. Remember to remain calm and stay focused. Everything is going to turn out exactly the way it was meant to. God bless . . . .

Aargh!

I am soooo tense. I've been working out almost every day but yesterday it was just TOO hot outside (and the day before I almost gave myself heat stroke). I set my alarm for 6:30am today so I could get in a walk/run before the sun and the heat come. I just walked out onto my balcony and I could barely breathe. According to the Weather Channel, it is currently 80 degrees and 90% humidity. AT SIX FREAKING THIRTY IN THE FRIGGIN' MORNING!!!! So much for de-stressing in the fresh morning air. Now I am tense and pissed off at the weather. Who the hell gets pissed off at the weather? An irrational person studying for the bar exam.

To all the BarBri haters

There are many negative things we can say about BarBri. Most of them are true, particularly that it is obscenely overpriced.

However, one thing I can say is that their written materials are more accurate than their competitors. Sure, there are some contradictions here and there, and some typos that need to be corrected, but nothing compared to some of the errors I have seen in other prep materials. I have seen prep materials from 3 different sources; I was swayed by reading the message boards and decided to get "everything" so I could figure out what was "best" (or the lesser of all the evils).

So at least we know our money has gone to some good use as far as hiring staff and researchers to compile the materials. We at least have "good law" to study from. When you fall asleep listening to the lecture or get sidetracked playing Snood, you can go home and rely on the correct information in the books.

Oh, and for the record, I am definitely pissed off that I spent a TON of money getting different prep materials from multiple sources just to discover 11 days before the exam that a lot of them suck. Not a great morale booster.

More info. on the Pepsi Arena

I emailed them and received the following information:

No food/concessions will be available inside the arena

There are several restaurants available for lunch on South Pearl Street

The arena opens at 7:30am

Pepsi Arena, here I come!

I've been assigned to the Pepsi Arena for the exam. Has anyone taken the exam there in the past? Anything notable you'd like to share? Did you walk, take a cab, or drive there? Did they have food for sale at the Arena? If so, what food selections were available? Just hot dogs and pretzels or something sensible like salads and sandwiches? (I know I can always bring PB&J and a protein bar)

I printed out my map, driving directions, exam ticket, etc. Now I just have to continue studying to make sure the trip up to Albany is not in vain. Back to the books . . . . . .

Still Here

Not much to say. I have studied more in the past 3 days than I have in the past 3 months. Apparently, not working full-time allows one to study a lot. I hope to keep it up and study even MORE than I have been. I hope everyone is doing well.

DON'T PANIC!!! It won't help you learn anything, but it may cause you to forget. So try your best to remain calm.