Tag: #MBE

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Advice Daily Dose Law School

Crash-Course Study Methods

I’ve realized that I loathe Barbri’s Property outline. I actually graduated from law school and yet, reading their property outline confuses the ever-loving hell out of me. The condensed version spans more than 60 freaking pages. yes, the CONDENSED version. I searched high and low for other options, including re-reading my own course notes and textbook from 1L year. That helped, but it was still too much to review. Luckily for me, a really helpful guy happened to read my blog and kindly suggested I use a new study tool.

Enter – CRUSHENDO.

I must tell you that I do not consider myself an auditory learner, at least not one that can simply listen to a lecture and nothing else. I’m a multiple-modality learner, which requires me to doodle or write along to what I’m listening. Sometimes, when the audio is too long or not engaging, I find myself drifting. So, I wasn’t too sure Crushendo would offer me anything worthwhile. But this is the freaking BAR EXAM, so there was absolutely no way I was going to avoid trying it out. Here’s my honest review, folks:

This program combines a written outline with a series of audio files. You can read the outline, which is considerably shorter than the Barbri work, and then listen to the playlist for each outline. The playlist includes audio files which are broken into digestible lengths (approximately 4 minutes each). I can listen to them while running at the gym, or while cooking; both scenarios offer me the chance to focus on moving, while also using neurons to work through concepts. Another aspect I love about the outlines are the pictures and mnemonics they incorporate. They’re pretty funny and memorable, albeit really corny or weird. But hey, they suit their purpose!

I had a chance to speak with Adam, creator of Crushendo, and he told me about the history of the company and why they started. These outlines, several times edited and improved, were what he created to get through the Bar Exam himself. He aced it on the first try and scored in the top 5% nationally. [In case you needed to know whether his study tools are useful, they are].

I’m really thankful he had the foresight to create these outlines because I’ve found them invaluable in preparing myself for the Texas Bar Exam. If you’re a law student, especially a 1L, I highly recommend you purchase these MBE, MPT, and MEE (for those states using the UBE) outlines and essay tools. This program allows you to prepare with MBE multiple choice questions, as well as MPT and essay exams (for the UBE only). They include point sheets and you can self-grade to see where you still need improvement. SO USEFUL!

This is a sample piece from Crushendo

I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d found Crushendo during my 1L year. I’m just thrilled these outlines found their way to me. If you need a crash-course for the MBE, these outlines might be just the ticket for you. If you’re barely beginning your law school career, do yourself the favor of purchasing this course content. Once purchased, you have lifetime access to the program; whenever they update with more MBE questions or essays from the NCBE, you have instant access to the content. How great is that?!

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Daily Dose Law School

You Don’t Know Everything. Adaptibar Can Help.

This is some bullshit. But it’s a mess of my own making and I am big enough to admit that.

I’ve put off intensely studying for Day 2 of the Bar exam because, well…obviously “it’s not that hard.” Welp, I received a helluva gut check when I took the practice MBE this week. I didn’t do well, by any standard. So, I’ve relegated myself to daily practice questions (approximately 100 of them) in each MBE subject until next week, when I re-take the practice exam. As my professors said – I did this to myself. And it’s true. Sucks so much, but it’s too accurate.

I let my personal emotions, things going on at home, with friends, with family…everything else kinda seeped into my mind during my study time and I failed to focus properly. Plus, I didn’t think the multiple choice was going to be that bad and figured what Barbri offered would be enough. I didn’t take my own [prior] advice about ignoring the world and just getting things done. Don’t you just hate when that happens?

For the next five days, I’ll be neck-deep in all things MBE. I’ve added Adaptibar to my study routine, too. Sure, I purchased it in June, but I certainly hadn’t used it. I should have. Hopefully, you’ve already gone through several hundred [yes, I’m dead serious about this] practice problems and are using the hell out of this excellent tool. I didn’t realize how much I was going enjoy the statistics and progress analytics it offers. You can, quite literally, view your progress over time.

With more than 1500 former MBE practice questions, it behooves you to go through them and get better at understanding what the examiners want to know. Remember, we only have about 1.8 minutes to read and answer each question, so it’s imperative you get quite good at speed reading because there will be – without a doubt – several lengthy fact patterns. Shave seconds off the easier questions (from which there should be approximately 35) in order to spend that extra time on more difficult ones.

Extra bonus with Adaptibar? They keep track of the time you spend on EACH question! That’s so damn fantastic. They also compare that time with the average time it took other users to get through the problem. What?! Seriously one of my favorite features, second only to how you rank among other users overall.

Image from my First Login
Plenty of room for improvement…

For transparency, just know I was offered a discount to play around with their tech tools to prepare for the Bar Exam, in exchange for an honest review. After getting spanked on the BarBri practice MBE, I’ve gotta admit that I only know of ONE other tool (crushendo) that would be able to help me get where I need to be score-wise, and that’s for a later post (however, I was informed that program and Adaptibar both license the same set of released NCBE questions, so I did not get access to their platform because I already had Adaptibar).

If you’d like a $30 discount for AdaptiBar, enter Cerebellum as your promo code at checkout. Happy Studying!

I didn’t pay for access to their flashcards, because I do better writing them out myself and subscribe to this method for memorizing the essay components. [Saluting all my multiple-modality learners! đŸ˜› ] Using Adaptibar and going through the practice problems, coupled with reading their rationale after each and every question, is the most effective way (in my opinion) to get the most out of your study efforts.

By the time I sit for the MBE on Day 2 of the Bar exam, I will have completed roughly 1800+ practice questions and studied [dutifully] for more than 300 hours in preparation for this exam.

My (new) study plan was laid out by our Academic Success program, where my professors kindly chewed me out for failing to effectively prepare for this portion of the exam. But you know what? My ego needed the kick in the face. This exam is set for minimum competency, but that certainly doesn’t mean I (or you) should only put the minimum effort into preparing for this test. It’s already grueling, and these next 24 days are going to be completely terrible – but we can do this. You can do this!