What If I Fall Behind During Bar Prep?

What If I Fall Behind During Bar Prep?

Despite your best efforts while studying for the bar exam and trying to stay on schedule, you may find yourself behind in your studies. If you are running up against the bar exam, you may wonder what to do if you fall behind during bar prep. In this post, we cover some steps you can take to try to close the gap!

What If I Fall Behind During Bar Prep?

However, despite many students trying to adhere to their bar prep schedules as close as possible, sometimes life happens or sometimes it takes longer to memorize subject matter than originally anticipated.  This can put a pause on bar prep in order to attend to more pressing matters. For students, falling behind during bar prep can make an already stressful process even more so. However, not all hope is lost! You can still be in good shape by the time the bar exam rolls around. Here are JD Advising’s recommendations for what to do if you’re falling behind during bar prep.

Shift Attention To Subjects You Struggle With

Depending on how far behind you’ve fallen in your bar prep, it’s likely a good idea to start prioritizing. Focus your attention on subjects either not yet reviewed or those you traditionally don’t perform well in. This will allow you to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the preparation time you have remaining. There’s no sense in spending hours and hours of a limited amount of time focusing on subjects you fully comprehend. If you’re unsure of what subjects to focus on, start by taking a practice exam to identify weaker subjects. From there, you’ll better understand what subjects to prioritize and what subjects to put on the back burner.

Focus On Highly Tested Subjects

Similar to the point we made above, focus your time on highly tested areas of the law. There’s no benefit to spending time on concepts unlikely to make an appearance during the bar exam. For example, subjects such as breach of contract, jurisdiction, and negligence are popular and almost guaranteed to appear on the MBE or an MEE. In fact, JD Advising has tracked the frequency with which subjects appear on the bar exam. This will allow you to get a better feel for what subjects are more popular than others. Falling behind during bar prep means that you need to maximize every minute of study time!

Study Whenever You Can

While most bar prep courses factor in time for breaks and days off, you may not have that luxury. Depending on how far behind you are in bar prep, you may need to sacrifice time otherwise spent not studying. For example, weekends, nights, early mornings, and any other opportunity you get to study should be utilized. While this may not sound ideal, keep in mind the Bar Exam has a broad scope of tested subjects. This means that while moving away from your bar prep schedule isn’t fatal, it isn’t ideal either. Falling behind during bar prep means that certain opportunities to study must be taken.

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