Four Smart Ways to Use Essay Critiques During Bar Prep

Four Smart Ways to Use Essay Critiques During Bar Prep

Most bar prep courses come with a few personalized essay critiques, meaning you can submit a practice essay and receive a score and feedback. Depending on which bar prep course you choose, you may a few or dozens of opportunities to submit essays for feedback. Here are four smart ways to take advantage of those essay critiques during bar prep.

Four Smart Ways to Use Essay Critiques During Bar Prep

1. Space them out.

You may be tempted to send in four or five or even six essays for grading all at once. After all, you want to know exactly how you would score on a variety of topics so you can calculate your chances of passing the bar exam.  However, try not to give in to this temptation. Rather than worrying about your exact score, worry about how you can improve! Pay attention to the comments left by the grader; they can help you identify what you should do differently in order to maximize the number of points you might earn.

If you submit only one or two essays at a time, you’ll have a chance to focus on the comments and incorporate them in future essays!  Maybe you missed some key issues. Perhaps you are struggling with how to best organize your answer. Whatever it is, it’s much better if you internalize those comments and make a conscious effort to work on those issues in your next essay. By incorporating comments essay by essay, students have more opportunities to evaluate their work, figure out how to improve, and ultimately pass the bar exam.

2. Submit essays for different subjects.

Just because you get a great score on one essay doesn’t mean you will do well on every essay you encounter. While a good score is certainly fantastic, it just means it’s time to move on to other subjects or subtopics that you might not have mastered quite yet. Some essays are harder to organize than others. Some questions basically lay out the issues for you, while others have issues that are cleverly hidden. So, don’t stop submitting essays just because you have gotten a passing score on one or two. Try everything from contracts to property and even performance tests. The more practice, and the more feedback, the better.

3. Self-Grade

Ultimately, the only way you’ll learn how to improve is by going through all the materials and seeing for yourself where you went wrong. Once you complete a practice essay, read the model answer (and rubric if one is provided), and compare it to your answer. You’ll likely see some things you missed and some things you could have discussed in more detail. Go ahead and mark up your practice essay with what you missed (in a different color font), so you know what material you need to review. Your grader’s feedback can then supplement your own thoughts about how you can improve, make sure your understanding of the law is correct, and provide you with some suggestions on how to improve.  Self-grading is an active study technique and can be helpful to incorporate into practice essays and essays you plan to submit for grading!

4. Be honest with yourself.

Your grader will try to leave some helpful comments but notes in the margins just aren’t always a great teaching method. If you’re not understanding what you’re missing on an essay or if you are struggling to fix a problem that your grader keeps pointing out in your essays, you may need to be more honest with yourself. Perhaps it’s time to ask a classmate for help, talk to an academic skills professor at your law school, or get some private tutoring. You’ll want to address these problems in your essays before exam day. The essays are a major component of any bar exam, and you will greatly improve your chances of passing by addressing any issues early and thoroughly. Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help if you think you may need it.

• Looking to Pass the Bar Exam?

  Free Resources:

  • 🌟Bar Exam Free Resource Center: Access our most popular free guides, webinars, and resources to set you on the path to success.
  • Free Bar Exam Guides: Expert advice on the MBE, the MEE, passing strategies, and overcoming failure.
  • Free Webinars: Get insight from top bar exam experts to ace your preparation.

  Paid Resources:

  • 🏆One-Sheets: Our most popular product! Master the Bar Exam with these five-star rated essentials.
  • Bar Exam Outlines: Our comprehensive and condensed bar exam outlines present key information in an organized, easy-to-digest layout.
  • Exclusive Mastery Classes: Dive deep into highly tested areas of the MBE, MEE, MPT, and CA bar exams in these live, one-time events.
  • Specialized Private Tutoring: With years of experience under our belt, our experts provide personalized guidance to ensure you excel.
  • Bar Exam Courses: On Demand and Premium options tailored to your needs.
  • Bar Exam Crash Course + Mini Outlines: A great review of the topics you need to know!

  🔥 NEW! Check out our Repeat Taker Bar Exam Course and our new premier Guarantee Pass Program!