Can I Download Mp3s of Kaplan Bar Review Outside the Kaplan App

We are pleased to welcome back Brian Hahn to the Bar Test Toolbox. Brian is the founder ofMake This Your Final Time, and is a second-time passer of the California bar exam and is hither today to share five things he did differently the second time around taking the bar exam. Welcome, Brian!

The thing nigh reality is that your brain doesn't notice it until it'southward wrapped tightly around your brain like a sheet of aluminum foil, crinkling and making a polygonal mess.

0 minutes remaining. I slapped in my applicant ID, my entry ticket to iii seconds of pristine agony. So two, three more than times. I fabricated sure I was reading correctly. For in one case, I wasn't delusional.

I could feel the heavy air of TRUTH closing in effectually me. Light fading quickly. But I wanted to believe. No, the argent foil pushed its style effectually the noodles of my brain, turning into TV static. It was wrapped effectually the potato, and my brain realized information technology then.

In another universe, I passed. But in this one, I failed. I failed. I failed.

2013 was the worst year of my life. My brain convinced me to suspension upwards with my friend of ten years and girlfriend of 3. My dad screamed at our family on Christmas morn and night. I failed the July bar and oasis't since posted a status on Facebook out of supreme shame. 16 months and counting since becoming Facebook celibate. Facelibate.

I lied downward on my bed. And so I got up.

The experiment was a failure. It was time to change the variables. This was how I would prove I was non insane. Then 2014 became the best twelvemonth of my life.

Having experienced both outcomes of the California Bar Exam, I've distilled the post-obit insights that were instrumental to passing the bar. These are things I did the 2nd time but not the showtime time. Do you like clickbaits? You won't believe #4! I still go on Facebook.

"Whatsoever fool can larn from experience. I prefer to learn from other people's experiences."

Make this the last time you lot have to walk the line between heaven and hell with these 5 things I did differently the 2nd time to laissez passer the bar exam.

1. Don't break the chain
2. Practice real MBE questions
3. Lectures are worthless
4. "Issue checking" and upshot statements
5. Become a room

one) Don't interruption the chain

A lot of people feel anxious studying for the bar, and maybe that's better than taking information technology like shooting fish in a barrel. Apparently, Barbri is actually good at scaring people, but you really don't demand to practise everything they tell y'all. If you arroyo the bar methodically, yous'll detect yourself in a flow that helps you calm down and control your emotions.

To do that, my first advice to people request me for assistance is, before anything else, try not to "break the chain."

Get into a habit of doing something bar related every day, even if it'southward two MBE questions. Don't experience like it? Just open up your book and let information technology sit on your desk for the twenty-four hour period. The next day, y'all can exercise the kickoff folio. And then two pages, four pages, 12 hours a day volition go doable. No wonder habit show is more than powerful in court than character evidence!

It might seem overwhelming for get-go timers. You have to deal with all these lectures (run into #iii), homework, maybe even a concurrent clerkship. Merely become into those habits. Continue a consequent schedule. You're developing a systematic process that doesn't bog you down because yous won't take to brand decisions all the time.

Yous don't want to be similar me last July where I was frazzled, didn't know what I was doing, and stressed even though I didn't written report as hard equally the second time.

ii) Practice real MBE questions

Speaking of the MBE, you should devote almost, if not all, of your MBE practice with existent questions. Use imitation questions only for drilling specific weak subjects.

Do you call up getting those $8 PrepTest booklets to written report for the LSAT? Would you lot have used questions invented by commercial prep courses? Like downloading music, it would have felt wrong (considering the metadata is never consistent). It'due south like telling everyone you love police force school~ but you know deep down yous detest your school and yourself. It'south like telling yourself y'all can ever await for a new girl, but you're even so thinking nearly the one y'all had to permit get.

You don't know whether the impostors are an accurate reflection of the format or the law that is really and frequently tested.

So where can you get MBE questions? I personally used Emanuel's Strategies & Tactics for the MBE Vols. 1 and 2 (about 800 questions total, highly recommended). The NCBE offers sample questions for Civil Procedure. I have heard good things about Adaptibar ($399 or $369) and to a lesser extent BarMax's MBE app ($349.99), both of which give you access to 1,500+ existent MBE questions.

Whatever yous do, reviewall the answers (i.e., explanations for choices A, B, C and D for questions you got right and wrong). Each question is an opportunity to validate your understanding of a concept (why your answer was right and why the others were incorrect) or to learn the concept (why your answer was wrong and why the credited ane was right).

Ran out and want more to do? Do them again. You wouldn't await to recall something in full after reading information technology once.

If you feel like you can do them only because you memorized the answers, that's likewise good because the real thing will look similar and you'll see a blueprint (particularly those mortgage questions). It'due south nigh like yous're memorizing the law! If you really got the material down, you should get 100%, correct?

As you practice, see if you can keep rails of what you lot got right and wrong in each discipline. Here are my analytics from Feb.

For me, property, torts, and contracts tended to be worse. Crim in general was good, merely Crim Pro was horrible. This is useful information tosurgically care for your weaknesses. Fake questions from commercial prep material could exist helpful in drilling weak areas since they are conveniently separated by subject and are more often than not harder.

3) Lectures are worthless

Yes, I know you are tempted and your default mode is to sentinel the lectures. We are not going to follow the i-size-fits-all approach for the average educatee because you are not an average educatee.

Lectures add perceived value to your overpriced grade but provide miniscule bodily value. Everything you need to know should be in your written outlines. What's important is actually seeing the concepts in action in exercise essays and MBE questions.

This is especially true for repeaters!

If this is your commencement fourth dimension or if you larn meliorate aurally you tin can listen to the lectures to get a wide idea of what's going on. But use them for what they are for—listening. Don't intermission the lectures. Don't go back and attempt to fill up in your notes.

"I actually merely remember trivial from the lectures."—Erica L. (see comment below)

Even if y'all spent 6 hours a day trying to get all the notes downward (similar I did the outset time), you nonetheless won't know what the hell is going on, and you'd be too tired to practice anything else as you suffer from a vague feeling of angst.

Actually, let's go i step further. Who says yous accept to waste material your precious mental free energy listening to lectures in the morning? Here's an idea that flips the idea around: What if you lot listen to them at dark as review? It might even aid yous fall asleep faster.

Don't actually try that random idea if you don't want to, especially since I've never tried information technology. In fact, y'all don't accept to listen to me or anyone else in general. I'm just writing an autobiography.

That said, if lectures aren't too helpful, how do you first improving now?

Practice.

Non just "going through the motion" kind of exercise. Improvement comes from constant feedback and learning every fourth dimension y'all solve a problem. If there is one truth to realize in this endeavor, information technology is that preparing for the bar exam is a learnable skill.

Or practise you feel that practicing with old exams is somehow unfair to others, uncool, or unnecessary? If anybody else is doing information technology, this is merely part of what yous have to do to compete and keep upward. And so don't feel guilty about using all resources bachelor to you.

How you can practice:

1. Become immediate feedback: In chapter 7 of the bookSo Practiced They Tin't Ignore You lot, the writer says to approach your arts and crafts with a dedication to deliberate practice. This basically means forget the fluff, and focus on improving specific parts that need it. In serious study,feedback is firsthand. "[I]f you just testify up and piece of work hard, you'll before long hitting a functioning plateau across which you fail to become any better." You can get immediate feedback from model answers from the state bar, BarEssays.com [CA only], your MBE practice volume'southward answer explanations (understand for all questions), tutors, and graders from your prep class.
2. The will to act: Batman's mentor, Ra's al Ghul, credits the will to act for arriving at a solution. Even with training, inaction means decease in Crime Alley. Planning without execution is zilch. Learning the constabulary without practice is nothing. In fact, I would bet every time on the person who only did real practise, over the person who simply memorized the law.
   1. In undergrad, I gave my cheat sheet full of equations to someone who didn't do any practice problems, and she got the lowest score on the midterm. Don't risk on or wing the bar exam simply considering practice is painful. Waiting in anxiety for months and wasting half dozen months of your life is more painful. Be comfy with being uncomfortable now. Train as if it were the real thing, and do the existent thing as if it were practice (exception applies to essays, every bit discussed below).
3. The dominion of 2-thirds: Balancing memorization and application (i.e., practise) is definitely a sliding scale with respect to how far you are in your prep. Feel free to acquire and read outlines in the offset, but by the end of your studies, y'all should accomplish a steady state where you mostly test yourself on your knowledge—2/3 practicing, 1/iii learning.It slowly moves from exploring the bar globe to practicing and then that you can exploit that knowledge.

So what are some specific ways to exercise with greater efficiency?

Essays: Use the essay cooking method to double or triple your practice efficiency. The byproducts of this method can also be used as review material including during bar week.

MBE: Rather than keeping track of your overall win charge per unit, analyze trends in your answers (to existent MBE questions!)by subject and subtopic to determine where to prioritize your efforts. This idea was touched upon before, but run into here for a more than in-depth give-and-take.

Operation tests: It seems that if you practice even a few fully timed PTs, you lot're ahead of most people. Y'all can further pin down areas of business organization by practicing only those areas. For example, if y'all have trouble pulling out the police in time, solely exercise identifying the rules in the library without ever opening the file. For a costless, comprehensive guide to killing the PTs, go admission to information technology on my blog.

4) "Consequence checking" and issue statements

This is the biggest game-changing insight I had for Feb: Inside IRAC, the Near important is finding all the bug and sub-issues. Practice you really know how to "spot" problems?

Because essays are not real life, you lot practice not demand to be inventive or creative with issues.What you desire is a finite list of testable issues. The best thing I did for myself was to parse out the available issues and weave them into a report tool.

Rather than thinking of it asspotting bug, y'all are at presentchecking for issues. "Spotting" to me implies that you're coming upwardly with issues rather than matching the facts toall known and preexisting issues.

And then now you know that you tin canknow andexpect the essay will ask for something from those lists, like y'all're inMinority Report. Once you get an idea which major area is being tested, you can so mentally check your list of sub-bug against the facts.

How do y'all know which facts trigger which issues? This comes with exercise (see thing #3 above). In one case you exercise several essays within a subject, you will discover a pattern. Facts drive the rules, and rules bulldoze the issues, and a pattern can autumn into one of two categories:

1. "This issue comes up oftentimes and is likely one to discuss. Be on the spotter." Examples: confidentiality (PR), state activeness (Con Police force). You will larn by practice the statistically likely problems.
2. "Information technology's as if these particular facts were intentionally placed hither with this issue in mind." Instance: A building was "blackened" → hash out whether Δ committed arson (an chemical element of the relevant rule is that a building must exist "charred"). A elementary example just one that hopefully shows how a fact, indeed a word, can trigger a known issue. FACTS → RULES → Bug.

Co-ordinate to legends, bar graders volition skim your essays at the red lite, in the bathroom, etc. Information technology is to your advantage to blend in with hundreds of other essays and make your essay easy and relatively pleasing to read. This is non the fourth dimension to get creative! The only way you should effort to distinguish yourself is by the number of relevant bug you identify + quality of your fact application.

Also, if you don't use IRAC with a simple result statement, switch to it now. For example, check out my issue headings from i of my essays from July:

Please comprise your laughter. This is not IRAC. Whatever this is, it either has besides many Cs or the C came also early (that'due south what she said). I thought this wouldassist the graders by telling them the bottom line up front. But like many things in life,especially anything related to law school, bad things happen if you try too hard.

Notice the rule statements are pretty skillful, but telegraphing the result of your analysis ahead of time detracts from a good experience for the graders:

1. Graders may already have their own conclusion about the result. Moreover, your conclusion may be wrong in some situations. Even if you happen to be in concurrence with the graders, it wouldn't actually add together much anyhow. So you take nothing to gain and everything to lose.
2. If the issue is broad (due east.1000., validity of will), you are jumping the gun by skipping the many sub-issues and analyses involved in arriving at a conclusion, instead of showing the graders how you got at that place. The conclusion is a outcome of your analysis, non a hard assertion. Show your work!
3. The determination is worth the to the lowest degree amount of credit. The conclusion usually proves an chemical element for a broader rule. Graders only want to go through your teary-ho-hum essay to ostend that y'all tin can IRAC and collect their $3.25 and go, "Ahhh, that was as well like shooting fish in a barrel to check off. This person gets the bug. I am in a relatively non bad mood" *drinks coffee that cost $3.25*

In Feb, the above heading would accept simply been "Validity of Will", typical for a model answer. You want to blend in so the graders tin can cheque off issues and movement on with their lives. No inventiveness allowed—this is supposed to test your aptitude for existent practise of law. Corral the facts to the appropriate rule elements; hold their hands like they're lost children because they don't know where the hell they are.

My first time, near of my essays got a 55. I striking all or most of the problems in July'south con law essay, but I still merely got a 65 on information technology. Later on fixing my issue statements, I bet they had fewer things to complain most.

5) Get a room

A hotel room.

Well, that didn't really resolve the double entendre, but in any case I reserved a hotel room because my exam centre was in another urban center. It turned out to exist a big help for the psychological differences that made.

"B-only I don't need a hotel! I got my parents' basement for costless! It's but 20 minutes away (not counting the time my mom spends fixing my shirt)!" you might exist thinking.

It'south an investment: I was able to swallow whatever I wanted. I could exist alone without existence witting of people I knew asking me about the test.  I could traverse locations in five minutes instead of dealing with traffic and parking with other cars piled effectually you. All things I didn't get my first time.

A late checkout for the last day is highly recommended. I was able to negotiate a 5:30PM checkout for half toll. Past the third twenty-four hour period, lying down on a bed during lunchtime felt like a luxury. Brand sure the janitors chattering exterior know you're trying to nap.

The exam isn't simply notwithstanding long you spend in your seat. Information technology is continuous from Monday until it ends. You want to be focusing on it with minimal distractions. For this reason, adapt your itinerary alee of time.

What are you lot going to practice for dejeuner? Snacks? Restaurants? If you lot can, I would besides suggest trying to go to a test eye where you won't know anyone who is less than your clique groupies (even then, I'd avoid until the last solar day). Confinement will help you focus instead of existence conscious of classmates or relatives. Also, bring earplugs because you never know if yous will be subject to noises from a garbage truck in the next building banging on metal from 3 to five AM hoping the dissonance volition finish soon. Oddly specific? It literally happened.

If all else fails, rely on adrenaline and the fear of becoming a social pariah unable to join your classmates in getting your golden handcuffs.

So what are the 5 things I did differently to laissez passer the bar exam the second time in February? [ Click to Tweet ]

1. I got into a habit of consistent study.
2. I practiced real MBE questions and targeted my weaknesses.
3. I eschewed lectures in favor of practice.
4. I realized there is a finite set up of bug to know within the bar universe. Instead of creating and spotting problems, I checked for issues.
5. I stayed at a hotel during the bar.

Now I want to ask you: Which of these resonated with you the most, and why? Allow me know.

—

Brian Hahn is a second-time passer of the California bar examination who thinks prospective candidates and repeaters should mind to him over people who happened to laissez passer the first time. VisitMake This Your Concluding Fourth dimension for more actionable and real discussion of bar prep and other gratis goodies.

Thank you, Brian!

—

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Did you discover this post helpful? Check out some other great manufactures:

• Y'all Failed the Bar Exam! 5 Tips to Get Gear up to Report Once more
• Coming Back After a Bar Exam Failure — Gearing Upward to Written report Again
• If At Commencement You lot Don't Succeed … Cry, Whine, and Then TRY AGAIN!
• Yikes! I Failed the Bar Exam. Should I Take Information technology Over again?

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