How I Failed the Bar Exam then Passed With a 295 (50-point score increase)!

How I Failed the Bar Exam then Passed With a 295 (50-point score increase)!

I finally feel as if I can call myself a lawyer without reserve.

A 295 is a passing score in EVERY jurisdiction.

Here I want to tell you how I failed the bar exam, then increased my score 50 points to pass with a 295.

How I Failed the Bar Exam then Passed With a 295 (50-point score increase)!

(Note: this is a guest post by one of our students. You may find that some of these techniques work for you and some of them do not! However, this is the story of how one of our students increased his score 50 points to pass the bar exam in a high percentile!)

Background: 

I sat for and failed the July 2018 Bar.  Upon reflection, there were ample reasons for me not passing, but one thing was for certain, it was a huge wake-up call and my approach was not conducive to success on the bar examination.  I attempted studying on my own for a while, with the intent of moving slower to become familiar with nuances and learn EVERYTHING over a longer period of time.  This often led to much anxiety and I identified why my anxiety would spike every time I would come within two weeks of the exam and end up not taking the exam: I was not prepared and did not know how the law functioned.

But I am so happy to announce that I found JD Advising and passed the Illinois Bar with a score 295!  I jumped 50 points! I scored a 156.3 on the MBE and a 138.5 on the Written portion.  A 34 point jump in the MBE and 17 point jump for the writing section!

I honestly owe my success to JD Advising! The materials allowed me to solve the puzzle of how many facets of the law fit together, especially for Civil Procedure and Secured Transactions.

But let me give you a few other tips that I learned along the way.

1. Wake up early 

JD Advising tells you to study at the best time of day and for me, this means that I would wake up early.

the first thing I would do would be to review the MEE one-sheets for the highly tested topics within each subject.  After about two hours of reading, studying and and adding any notes to the one sheet, I would take a break and make breakfast.  Then I would study, in depth, the materials we covered in class.  I would do about 10 -15 pages a day with the intent of increasing comprehension.   This process was slow in the beginning, but worked for me.  After class, I would do about 5-10 multiple choice questions, and one essay a day.

2. Focus on comprehension 

I focused heavily on comprehension, as it became the key in understanding why fact patterns would turn out a certain way.   I also took the JD Advising weekly quizzes very seriously, seeking to ace all of them and internalize all the outlines.

3. I increased my MBE 34 points by using the following method. 

I became really good at the MBE section, being able to identify the issue and any exceptions by:

1. Reading the question at the bottom first (this worked for me better than starting at the very top of the fact pattern)
2. Identifying what area of law they are testing (sometimes that might not come right away);
3. Reading the fact pattern and identifying the issue/exception;
4. Answering the question in terms of yes or no before reading the answers.

I increased my MBE score 34 points by using this approach.

4. Try something different!

If you do what you did, you will get what you got. I trusted the JD Advising program and it worked for me.

If you try the same approach you used in the past, you will probably score the same as you did in the past. Try a different approach, and you may find yourself with a very different score!

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