Friday, July 27, 2007

Invitation to July 2007 bar examinees

I know a bunch of you are going to find your way to this blog via google or whatever. I wonder, what did you think about the bar exam? Did you find it overdifficult? Did it seem easy? Somewhere in between? What were you thinking during the various sections? Did you cram during lunch?

I enjoy hearing what other people think. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

5 comments:

Just Wondering said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Well I took the 2007 bar in Houston, and I must say, there were quite a few questions I'd never seen before, and I'd done approx. 1800 questions in review using BarBri and PMBR questions. Having said that, I just tried to buckle down, eliminate mistatements of the law, and look for a correct statement that seemed to apply. I finished each of the sessions with about 30 minutes left in the 3 hour period and went back and started reviewing my answers. I changed a few and then thought that was stupid to second guess myself and left.

I spoke with a few people about the first essay exam, and there seems to be a lot of confusion over whether it was agency or trusts. I did an agency analysis and hoped for the best. The Consumer law question was pretty easy and standard, and the barbri guy pegged what the question might be so I was ready. Wills and Family law were not all that bad. I struggled with the Secured Transaction question as I couldn't remember the proper steps to reposses an item, and just made up a rule, then discussed breach of the peace and how the security interest had never attached.

Commercial paper was also straightforward I thought. Real Property was easier than expected. The only areas I felt unsure of, was secured transactions, and the first question, which everyone seemed stumped on.

Anyway, all I can do now is hope for the best, glad to have found your blog.

Regards and best of luck on your results in November.

Anonymous said...

blah, blah, blah.

I felt good after the first day. The second day kicked my ass. Pure exhaustion set in (not sleeping well). The third day was rough too. The morning was horrible, and the afternoon was a good finish though.

I think that the best thing that I did was stay in a hotel, go home and spend dinner with my husband each night, and had a cider the last night so that I could sleep (wish I would have done that ALL along).

I thought that the mult choice ? were really challenging (and actually some were difficult to understand-- man, woman, defendant, applicant, etc.). I am not surprised that I didn't see ANY that I studied, but I wish that BarBri would have told us that.

Twas hard. Glad I survived. I took every second of time despite finishing several sections early. I just looked at my answers over and over. Reformatted/spell checked my essays etc.

Shailey

red.hot.mamma! said...

I honestly didn't think it was all that bad. The worst part was the splitting headache I had on Thursday, thanks to the elevated mold levels in Austin & the f'ed up weather. I thought the MPT was easy and I wonder why they even bother with it. The procedure & evidence was just about what I expected, with only a few questions that I couldn't remember or had no idea about, so I just put something down in the hopes that I'd get a point or two. I left no question blank. I was surprised to find the MBE wasn't bad at all. There weren't any of those ridiculously long fact patterns that apply to 3-4 questions in a row, which I appreciated. I was calm and focused for the whole thing and spent my lunch break having a nice lunch, then running errands. Thursday I kinda crammed over lunch, but then decided that it wasn't worth it (and it wasn't). I didn't think the essays were too bad. I just tried to be methodical in my approach to them and I finished in plenty of time. I also finished the MBE quickly, possibly because I was actually focused for once. Of course, I feel so good about all of it that it makes me nervous that I f'ed something up! I would say that the absolute worst part of the bar was the 2 weeks of studying beforehand and all the stressing out/freaking out I did. When the test actually came, I was on the verge of losing my sh** on day one, but after a few minutes, I realized that it was just another test, no biggie. And that was it for the nerves for the rest of the time. By the Thursday afternoon, I was just super excited to be almost done. And then I whipped out those damn essays and then got drrrrunk!

Law Daze said...

The week before the exam was far worse than the actual exam, with Sunday and Monday being the worst (nights) of all. During the exam itself, a high level of focus (partially) kept debilitating stress at bay.

Day 1 - manageable, although being a slow, methodical worker, time was crunched at the end. Was worried about the 'objective memo to partner' format, but the actual thing was just analyzing issues and trying to get it organized on paper. Called home after and informed Significan Other that the 'good news' was . . . "I'm pretty sure I can pass this thing . . . the second time." Definitely could have done better with more practice on MPTs.

Handwriting the Proc/Evid was awful, even for answers I had readily at hand. On at least two of the 40 questions I had actually practiced writing out my answers in a concise, orderly, fit-within-the-5-lines way. On Tuesday, however, there was nothing succinct as ink was flying everywhere - with an occasional thought of '?? huh? how did I get here' as I saw words I had written.

Wednesday
About what I expected - and part of what I expected was that part of the MBE would be harder than I was used to, so the afternoon did not throw me (nor did the interesting D pattern which I acually counted afterwards). In the morning I had time to check 2/3 to be sure I had bubbled correctly, and in the afternoon I was able to check them all (and count Ds).

Thursday
Big oops on the alleged trust Q, but apparently I'm in good company there.

Why do they want every bar applicant to know oil & gas? Virtually every other area tested has some relationship to an issue that might come up either professionally or by virtue of people expecting a lawyer to be at least familiar with the area (crim, property, family, wills, basic financial issues), but oil & gas? Objection, relevance!

And then the laptop died in the final 20 minutes.