As the title says, I passed first in IL in 2014 when I graduated and then recently in Texas (my career isn’t fully practicing law and so I needed to retake to remain licensed in state). The first time around I used a full Themis study program and was able to dedicate myself to full time study.
This time around, I didn’t want to pay those types of fees and I had no time to study like that. I have a full time career and a family now. To pass, I realized there were a few realities required to pass the bar exam.
Don’t waste time with lectures. That’s too passive. You really learn by doing questions with explanations.
There is no way around powering through as many questions as you can. Redo questions you miss until you get them right every time. Painful but true.
Actually write what rule you think applies before you answer. Don’t try and be perfect, but you do have to try to state the rule before you answer. Then update your understanding of the rule after seeing the explanation. *no one wants to do this, but this is actually the most powerful tip. *most people don’t do this because they try to state perfect rules….just get close
There is no way around writing the essays. Do it! Writing is thinking! And then I had a great AI prompt to instantly evaluate my writing and have it tell me how to max points even I didn’t remember every rule in detail.
Spaced repetition is a thing that’s been around for a long time. Actually use it to make sure your short term cramming turns into long term memory.
Anyway, the bar exam sucks, but it’s beatable. Bar prep feels broken in that it’s way too expensive and too time consuming. But there is no way around putting in the work. I passed twice, and now as a side project I built an AI tutor that uses my principles above to hopefully help a few people that would be interested in my methods. I wanted to charge pennies on the dollar, just basically enough to cover my tokens and infrastructure costs. I also put together a free MBE outline for you all as well. Take the outline for free and enjoy, my goal was to be as concise about thorough as possible.
https://cruciblebarexam.com/mbe-outline
The outline is great, but it’s useless unless you get those rules in your head. You can try out the system for $9.99 a week and cancel anytime if it’s not your thing. (cruciblebarexam.com) I do hope this helps a few people. The bar is stressful and painful, so anything I can do to help the pain is good right?