Florida Bar Exam - Official Thread Forum

[lawyer88888]

This thread has been a source of comfort these last few days and hoping someone can provide insight now that my report is in. For context, I have already been admitted in other jurisdictions and recently passed the UBE by a considerable amount. Sat for the FL portion of the exam in Feb and didn't receive good news. Looking at the report, I was at/above the mean for the MC categories and above the mean for Essay #1 but it says I received a score of 18 (out of 100) for both Essays 2 and 3. I know in other jurisdictions it is basically impossible to get a 0 on an essay so wondering if these scores effectively equate to a 0. Seems unlikely they'd both be exactly the same unless that was the explanation. And then my next question is do I have any recourse to figure out how this happened? Could there have been a transmission issue with my upload? Having just been through this process with the UBE, I have a general sense of how bar essays are scored and know for certain I hit most of the issues in both the secured transactions and torts essays. Even if I really did poorly, surely I would have received SOME points if I at least spotted the issues, let alone wrote a 1,200 word response like I did. Any advice/guidance would be much appreciated. Such a frustrating process!

[11523]

The Torts average essay score was only 5 points more than the Article 9 average essay score? No chance that is how the essays actually looked.

Here are the issues I remember spotting in the essays immediately after the exam - honestly I didn’t really spot any other obvious ones after the exam. These issues got me a 136 even after I took a FL MC where I can literally say I guessed at 90/100 MC and not like “got it to 2 answers” but full on just flat out randomly guessed.

Trust
Elements of Formation and Trust type
Trustee Duties and breach
Spendthrift Trust
Revocation of inter vivid trust
Termination

Secured Transactions
Attachment elements
Perfection elements
Accession
Foreclosure
PR

Negligence
Elements
Premise liability
Defense: Pure Comparative Negligence
Defense: Fabre
Damages - No J&S liability
PR

[11523]

If you passed the FL section, can you get your Essay scores? I’m just curious because I know I totally bombed the MC so I’d love to know what parts f the essays I got right that enabled me to pass.

[Hsrascal]

The Torts average essay score was only 5 points more than the Article 9 average essay score? No chance that is how the essays actually looked.

The Trusts essay wasn't difficult but when I saw it on the exam I wondered how many people were prepared for it. It turns out mostly everyone was ready. Yeah I have no idea how the average ST essay was in the same building as Torts.

I wonder how many people actually got the Florida rule on the Torts essay though. I was (stupidly) looking over what I got wrong after the exam and saw " Fla. Stat. 768.0755 Premises liability for transitory foreign substances in a business establishment" as a distinction in the BarBri materials. I realize that's just one rule missed, but on that essay I think the distinction rule would have been the applicable law. Nobody I knew wrote about it specifically on the exam.

[johngotti]

This thread has been a source of comfort these last few days and hoping someone can provide insight now that my report is in. For context, I have already been admitted in other jurisdictions and recently passed the UBE by a considerable amount. Sat for the FL portion of the exam in Feb and didn't receive good news. Looking at the report, I was at/above the mean for the MC categories and above the mean for Essay #1 but it says I received a score of 18 (out of 100) for both Essays 2 and 3. I know in other jurisdictions it is basically impossible to get a 0 on an essay so wondering if these scores effectively equate to a 0. Seems unlikely they'd both be exactly the same unless that was the explanation. And then my next question is do I have any recourse to figure out how this happened? Could there have been a transmission issue with my upload? Having just been through this process with the UBE, I have a general sense of how bar essays are scored and know for certain I hit most of the issues in both the secured transactions and torts essays. Even if I really did poorly, surely I would have received SOME points if I at least spotted the issues, let alone wrote a 1,200 word response like I did. Any advice/guidance would be much appreciated. Such a frustrating process!

You can look back through this thread about complaints regarding the essay scoring. People are somehow able to pass the essays even when "make up the law," whatever that means. I'm suspicious of whether the essay graders even really bother unless your MBE score is close to the passing line.

Based on the range of scores there were people who literally got a 0 on the essays so an 18 is definitely not 0. You can have them send you your essays as they were submitted for like $50 and you could have them checked over but not sent to you for free.

[Jmart082]

The Torts average essay score was only 5 points more than the Article 9 average essay score? No chance that is how the essays actually looked.

The Trusts essay wasn't difficult but when I saw it on the exam I wondered how many people were prepared for it. It turns out mostly everyone was ready. Yeah I have no idea how the average ST essay was in the same building as Torts.

Yeah, it's funny, because I was honestly more ready for that Trusts question than the Torts question at the end. I knew that I failed the exam when I realized after my time had elapsed that I had used a J&S Liability framework to analyze the fact pattern. I was so mentally drained that I could not remember whether FL had abolished J&S and guessed incorrectly. I'm definitely throwing a lot of my resources at Part A going forward. But most of all, I'm wondering what some of you guys found useful for really improving on your contracts, crim, and property scores (in the MBE portion). All three of those subject areas have consistently hurt me (I'm consistently scoring in the 15-25 percentile range there) and nothing I do seems to help me to improve in those subject areas. Maybe I just don't get it and should place energies improving in areas where I'm strong (93rd percentile in Con Law), but those are valuable points, and at least one of those subjects should be places where you can improve. Any advice would help.

[Granite]

But most of all, I'm wondering what some of you guys found useful for really improving on your contracts, crim, and property scores (in the MBE portion). All three of those subject areas have consistently hurt me (I'm consistently scoring in the 15-25 percentile range there) and nothing I do seems to help me to improve in those subject areas. Maybe I just don't get it and should place energies improving in areas where I'm strong (93rd percentile in Con Law), but those are valuable points, and at least one of those subjects should be places where you can improve. Any advice would help.

I referenced this in my earlier post, and again I'll warn anyone reading this that it goes against conventional wisdom, but it worked for me on multiple bar exams. I think it might do well for sprawling subjects like contracts, crim law, and property.

The thrust of my approach was to choose one source of information and memorize all of that; I didn't reference other sources or practice questions until I memorized most everything from that one source. In other words, consider choosing something like Barbri's lecture handouts or the conviser mini review, and then commiting to that one source entirely. Fill in the blanks (in the case of lecture handouts), then read it over again, then read it over again and mark it up with personal notes, then read it over again while quizzing yourself, then distill it down to an attack outline, etc. You'll get to a point where you can visualize the rule statement on the physical page of the book. Even if that source is not comprehensive, i.e. even the MBE tests you on areas your source didn't cover, you will know enough of the law to pass––so long as you are able to apply everything your source did cover.

If you can get to the point where you've memorized most of one source, then it's just a question of applying that knowledge, which most of us can do after three years of law school and more years of standardized testing. I think many people just go into the bar exam not really knowing the law well enough becuase they've studied the same rule by reading four slightly different variations from different sources (i.e. once in the lecture handout, once in the outline, twice as practicre question answers), rather than memorizing one definition cold. For me, the benefit of taking hundreds or thousands of practice questions had diminishing returns compared to memorizing a rule statement and being able to quickly recall it on the test. Also I knew what I didn't know; so if a question was testing an area of law I wasn't familiar with, I recognized this, made my best guess, and moved on to the next question where I actually did know the answer, rather than trying to decide whether I knew the answer or not.

[not guilty]

As far as prep goes, I used Barbri. I read several times that Barbri had the best Florida-specific information. My opinion is that their Florida-specific law isn't perfect, but it's good enough. The lectures alone aren't always enough (although sometimes they are), but the lectures + outlines are pretty comprehensive. Ultimately I would recommend Barbri because I think they have really high quality material. However I wouldn't recommend following their personal study plan and doing all of the busy work they prescribe. I found it more helpful to listen to the lecutres and then just read and re-read my notes from those lectures, filling in whatever was unclear from the lectures with the outlines. I didn't do many practice questions at all. Caution: not doing practice questions goes against all of the conventional wisdom out there, but I drew on my strong understanding of the law, rather than my familiarity with the types of questions asked, and it worked well for me.

Happy to help further.

Thanks for the post, but would mind elaborating on how you studied the material. It appears you mainly just reviewed notes/outlines.

[not guilty]

This thread has been a source of comfort these last few days and hoping someone can provide insight now that my report is in. For context, I have already been admitted in other jurisdictions and recently passed the UBE by a considerable amount. Sat for the FL portion of the exam in Feb and didn't receive good news. Looking at the report, I was at/above the mean for the MC categories and above the mean for Essay #1 but it says I received a score of 18 (out of 100) for both Essays 2 and 3. I know in other jurisdictions it is basically impossible to get a 0 on an essay so wondering if these scores effectively equate to a 0. Seems unlikely they'd both be exactly the same unless that was the explanation. And then my next question is do I have any recourse to figure out how this happened? Could there have been a transmission issue with my upload? Having just been through this process with the UBE, I have a general sense of how bar essays are scored and know for certain I hit most of the issues in both the secured transactions and torts essays. Even if I really did poorly, surely I would have received SOME points if I at least spotted the issues, let alone wrote a 1,200 word response like I did. Any advice/guidance would be much appreciated. Such a frustrating process!

What were your actual scores?

[johngotti]

But most of all, I'm wondering what some of you guys found useful for really improving on your contracts, crim, and property scores (in the MBE portion). All three of those subject areas have consistently hurt me (I'm consistently scoring in the 15-25 percentile range there) and nothing I do seems to help me to improve in those subject areas. Maybe I just don't get it and should place energies improving in areas where I'm strong (93rd percentile in Con Law), but those are valuable points, and at least one of those subjects should be places where you can improve. Any advice would help.

I referenced this in my earlier post, and again I'll warn anyone reading this that it goes against conventional wisdom, but it worked for me on multiple bar exams. I think it might do well for sprawling subjects like contracts, crim law, and property.

The thrust of my approach was to choose one source of information and memorize all of that; I didn't reference other sources or practice questions until I memorized most everything from that one source. In other words, consider choosing something like Barbri's lecture handouts or the conviser mini review, and then commiting to that one source entirely. Fill in the blanks (in the case of lecture handouts), then read it over again, then read it over again and mark it up with personal notes, then read it over again while quizzing yourself, then distill it down to an attack outline, etc. You'll get to a point where you can visualize the rule statement on the physical page of the book. Even if that source is not comprehensive, i.e. even the MBE tests you on areas your source didn't cover, you will know enough of the law to pass––so long as you are able to apply everything your source did cover.

If you can get to the point where you've memorized most of one source, then it's just a question of applying that knowledge, which most of us can do after three years of law school and more years of standardized testing. I think many people just go into the bar exam not really knowing the law well enough becuase they've studied the same rule by reading four slightly different variations from different sources (i.e. once in the lecture handout, once in the outline, twice as practicre question answers), rather than memorizing one definition cold. For me, the benefit of taking hundreds or thousands of practice questions had diminishing returns compared to memorizing a rule statement and being able to quickly recall it on the test. Also I knew what I didn't know; so if a question was testing an area of law I wasn't familiar with, I recognized this, made my best guess, and moved on to the next question where I actually did know the answer, rather than trying to decide whether I knew the answer or not.

Thank you for this post, this has been a lot of what I've been thinking about since I got my score. By the end of barbri I could usually get 9-10 out of 14 on those question sets because I'd seen so many of them but it's clear I didn't really know the law. The combination of the difference in barbri/actual mbe questions plus spending a day of Florida essays and multiple choice can mess up your whole thinking process you had throughout studying. You also have to make each practice question really count and that doesn't happen if you're just trying to do as many as possible.

[Allegedly88]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

[Jmart082]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

I'm sorry to hear this. It's hard when this exam starts to cost you your livelihood. I myself feel immense pressure to get it done on this attempt since my parents are not in great health of late, and I want to be able to be independent and hopefully provide for them the way that they have provided for during this long slog toward practicing law. I'm strongly considering looking for work elsewhere because of the difficulty of the Florida exam, especially for people who attended school out of state.

[Allegedly88]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

I'm sorry to hear this. It's hard when this exam starts to cost you your livelihood. I myself feel immense pressure to get it done on this attempt since my parents are not in great health of late, and I want to be able to be independent and hopefully provide for them the way that they have provided for during this long slog toward practicing law. I'm strongly considering looking for work elsewhere because of the difficulty of the Florida exam, especially for people who attended school out of state.

I am sorry to hear about your parents health - I can understand the pressure you have as well. This is the hardest things some people have experienced. What bar prep program are you going to use this time around? I am guessing July will be insane with the new takers and repeaters - I wonder how much they will mess will the curve then.

[Jmart082]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

I'm sorry to hear this. It's hard when this exam starts to cost you your livelihood. I myself feel immense pressure to get it done on this attempt since my parents are not in great health of late, and I want to be able to be independent and hopefully provide for them the way that they have provided for during this long slog toward practicing law. I'm strongly considering looking for work elsewhere because of the difficulty of the Florida exam, especially for people who attended school out of state.

I am sorry to hear about your parents health - I can understand the pressure you have as well. This is the hardest things some people have experienced. What bar prep program are you going to use this time around? I am guessing July will be insane with the new takers and repeaters - I wonder how much they will mess will the curve then.

It's OK, hopefully this time things change. I'm using BarBri again, only because it is free since I failed. But this time, I do think that I'll pare down a lot of the work from the schedule that they tell me to do, because it is overwhelming, and a big part of what I think caused me trouble last time around was working hard and not working smart. I'll also be adding Adaptibar so that I can drill MBE until I'm blue in the face. Regardless of what happens though, if I fail again, I won't be trying again in February. I already scored well enough on the MBE to just have to take the MEE in many other jurisdictions and become a lawyer by just passing that section of the UBE. I'm only doing Florida because my family lives here and because I want to look after my parents.

[florida2015]

Failed for a second time - taking it again in July.

Score: 119 overall, up from 111.5. FL 143 scaled down to a 124. 114 on MBE.

- I've predicted the essays correctly twice now so I'm hoping I'll be able to do that again in July. I made a list of each essay topic tested from 2003 until Feb 2019 and ranked them by how many times they've been tested. Bolded and put at least 10 rules in each essay, and had a section for other rules at the bottom of each essay. Going through highly tested topics and trying to commit certain rules to memory really helped. I was happy with Wills MC but I wasn't fully prepared for Biz Org MC - thought (and prayed) that it was going to be Evidence.

- 1300 Adaptibar questions vs. 258 in July. Saw an improvement but not in the 60's to 80's where Adaptibar says you should be. I felt like I failed after the exam and I had a mini meltdown during the second half of MBE. Had to pull myself together and finish it. My issue is going too fast and then getting too into my head. I'm learning that mindset is everything but I need to figure out how to calm myself down and tell myself that I can do this. We all can!

Any study and/or mindset tips for a third timer? Thanks in advance. Also, if anyone knows of an Adaptibar promo code, that'd be awesome .

[cmarin16]

I'm really disappointed with the FL Bar exam. I failed in February 2019 for the second time. It's hard for me because I've been in the practice of Law in Puerto Rico for more than 10 years and dedicated two whole months out of work (January and February 2019). I studied really hard in those two months for more than 10 straight hours daily. The problem is that I'm running out of money and only been able to work in FL as a paralegal but wanna keep living here for the best of my family.

What most bothers me is that I failed FL part for 2 points. I don't understand how the scores are measured or scaled. I think my essays were not that bad except for Secure Transactions and Commercial Paper (Essay 2). My scores were 53 in Trusts, 20.5 in ST and Commercial Paper and 41.5 in Torts. My Raw Score was 164 but then my Scaled Score was 134. How the heck did I get down to a 134 Scaled Score on FL part???? My MBE was 127 so my overall was 130.5.

Does anyone think that I can make it next time??? I'm really afraid not to pass or do worst in July 2019. I'm starting next week to study part-time because I need to make some money.

Any thoughts?? Any recommendations???

[Jmart082]

Failed for a second time - taking it again in July.

Score: 119 overall, up from 111.5. FL 143 scaled down to a 124. 114 on MBE.

- I've predicted the essays correctly twice now so I'm hoping I'll be able to do that again in July. I made a list of each essay topic tested from 2003 until Feb 2019 and ranked them by how many times they've been tested. Bolded and put at least 10 rules in each essay, and had a section for other rules at the bottom of each essay. Going through highly tested topics and trying to commit certain rules to memory really helped. I was happy with Wills MC but I wasn't fully prepared for Biz Org MC - thought (and prayed) that it was going to be Evidence.

- 1300 Adaptibar questions vs. 258 in July. Saw an improvement but not in the 60's to 80's where Adaptibar says you should be. I felt like I failed after the exam and I had a mini meltdown during the second half of MBE. Had to pull myself together and finish it. My issue is going too fast and then getting too into my head. I'm learning that mindset is everything but I need to figure out how to calm myself down and tell myself that I can do this. We all can!

Any study and/or mindset tips for a third timer? Thanks in advance. Also, if anyone knows of an Adaptibar promo code, that'd be awesome .

Ditto for me on adaptibar codes. Looking to add this to my prep this time around.

[johngotti]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me at all if essays were just kinda passed over then given some scaled down failing score if you're not close on the MBE. I'd also love to see the data that supports the BE mean being 18. With how many people took/failed the exam there's no way the average was 60% on those questions unless a ton of people had a lot of lucky guesses.

[not guilty]

I'm really disappointed with the FL Bar exam. I failed in February 2019 for the second time. It's hard for me because I've been in the practice of Law in Puerto Rico for more than 10 years and dedicated two whole months out of work (January and February 2019). I studied really hard in those two months for more than 10 straight hours daily. The problem is that I'm running out of money and only been able to work in FL as a paralegal but wanna keep living here for the best of my family.

What most bothers me is that I failed FL part for 2 points. I don't understand how the scores are measured or scaled. I think my essays were not that bad except for Secure Transactions and Commercial Paper (Essay 2). My scores were 53 in Trusts, 20.5 in ST and Commercial Paper and 41.5 in Torts. My Raw Score was 164 but then my Scaled Score was 134. How the heck did I get down to a 134 Scaled Score on FL part???? My MBE was 127 so my overall was 130.5.

Does anyone think that I can make it next time??? I'm really afraid not to pass or do worst in July 2019. I'm starting next week to study part-time because I need to make some money.

Any thoughts?? Any recommendations???

What were your three MC scores?

Also, your essay scores were 53, 20.5, and 41.5..... Did anyone else get essay scores with fractions/half points (decimal points)? Glancing at a few pages it is always whole #’s, ie 40, 48, 55.

[not guilty]

Failed for a second time - taking it again in July.

Score: 119 overall, up from 111.5. FL 143 scaled down to a 124. 114 on MBE.

- I've predicted the essays correctly twice now so I'm hoping I'll be able to do that again in July. I made a list of each essay topic tested from 2003 until Feb 2019 and ranked them by how many times they've been tested. Bolded and put at least 10 rules in each essay, and had a section for other rules at the bottom of each essay. Going through highly tested topics and trying to commit certain rules to memory really helped. I was happy with Wills MC but I wasn't fully prepared for Biz Org MC - thought (and prayed) that it was going to be Evidence.

- 1300 Adaptibar questions vs. 258 in July. Saw an improvement but not in the 60's to 80's where Adaptibar says you should be. I felt like I failed after the exam and I had a mini meltdown during the second half of MBE. Had to pull myself together and finish it. My issue is going too fast and then getting too into my head. I'm learning that mindset is everything but I need to figure out how to calm myself down and tell myself that I can do this. We all can!

Any study and/or mindset tips for a third timer? Thanks in advance. Also, if anyone knows of an Adaptibar promo code, that'd be awesome .

124 on Part A.....if you don’t mind, what were your 6 scores for Part A?

[cmarin16]

[quote="not guilty"][quote="cmarin16"]I'm really disappointed with the FL Bar exam. I failed in February 2019 for the second time. It's hard for me because I've been in the practice of Law in Puerto Rico for more than 10 years and dedicated two whole months out of work (January and February 2019). I studied really hard in those two months for more than 10 straight hours daily. The problem is that I'm running out of money and only been able to work in FL as a paralegal but wanna keep living here for the best of my family.

What most bothers me is that I failed FL part for 2 points. I don't understand how the scores are measured or scaled. I think my essays were not that bad except for Secure Transactions and Commercial Paper (Essay 2). My scores were 53 in Trusts, 20.5 in ST and Commercial Paper and 41.5 in Torts. My Raw Score was 164 but then my Scaled Score was 134. How the heck did I get down to a 134 Scaled Score on FL part???? My MBE was 127 so my overall was 130.5.

Does anyone think that I can make it next time??? I'm really afraid not to pass or do worst in July 2019. I'm starting next week to study part-time because I need to make some money.

Any thoughts?? Any recommendations???[/quote]
What were your three MC scores?

Also, your essay scores were 53, 20.5, and 41.5..... Did anyone else get essay scores with fractions/half points (decimal points)? Glancing at a few pages it is always whole #’s, ie 40, 48, 55.[/quote]



Thanks for your response...My MC scores were 17 in Civil and Criminal, 14 in Business Entities and 18 in Wills. Actually, those were my essays scores, 53 in Trusts, 20.5 in Secured Transactions and 41.5 in Torts...That's kind of strange actually, that they gave me scores with half points on two essays. It's so frustrating to think that I was so close to pass at least the FL part.... but I cannot think in that BS and keep concentrated in studying hard again for the July exam and see what happens!!

[Allegedly88]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

I'm sorry to hear this. It's hard when this exam starts to cost you your livelihood. I myself feel immense pressure to get it done on this attempt since my parents are not in great health of late, and I want to be able to be independent and hopefully provide for them the way that they have provided for during this long slog toward practicing law. I'm strongly considering looking for work elsewhere because of the difficulty of the Florida exam, especially for people who attended school out of state.

I am sorry to hear about your parents health - I can understand the pressure you have as well. This is the hardest things some people have experienced. What bar prep program are you going to use this time around? I am guessing July will be insane with the new takers and repeaters - I wonder how much they will mess will the curve then.

It's OK, hopefully this time things change. I'm using BarBri again, only because it is free since I failed. But this time, I do think that I'll pare down a lot of the work from the schedule that they tell me to do, because it is overwhelming, and a big part of what I think caused me trouble last time around was working hard and not working smart. I'll also be adding Adaptibar so that I can drill MBE until I'm blue in the face. Regardless of what happens though, if I fail again, I won't be trying again in February. I already scored well enough on the MBE to just have to take the MEE in many other jurisdictions and become a lawyer by just passing that section of the UBE. I'm only doing Florida because my family lives here and because I want to look after my parents.

I agree that Barbri was very overwhelming and their questions seem very hard - almost harder than the bar exam. Adaptibar was more accurate I thought. Do you know what states accept certain MBE scores? How does transferring the MBE score work? We would only have to take the UBE part of another state, correct? I was looking into this but I was not able to find a list scores each state accepts.

[Allegedly88]

Failed for a second time - taking it again in July.

Score: 119 overall, up from 111.5. FL 143 scaled down to a 124. 114 on MBE.

- I've predicted the essays correctly twice now so I'm hoping I'll be able to do that again in July. I made a list of each essay topic tested from 2003 until Feb 2019 and ranked them by how many times they've been tested. Bolded and put at least 10 rules in each essay, and had a section for other rules at the bottom of each essay. Going through highly tested topics and trying to commit certain rules to memory really helped. I was happy with Wills MC but I wasn't fully prepared for Biz Org MC - thought (and prayed) that it was going to be Evidence.

- 1300 Adaptibar questions vs. 258 in July. Saw an improvement but not in the 60's to 80's where Adaptibar says you should be. I felt like I failed after the exam and I had a mini meltdown during the second half of MBE. Had to pull myself together and finish it. My issue is going too fast and then getting too into my head. I'm learning that mindset is everything but I need to figure out how to calm myself down and tell myself that I can do this. We all can!

Any study and/or mindset tips for a third timer? Thanks in advance. Also, if anyone knows of an Adaptibar promo code, that'd be awesome .

Seems like we might have been in the same boat - i had a mini meltdown during the second half as well. Someone close to me who is a lawyer had made a rude comment about passing and not passing and it ran through my head the entire second half then i ran out of time and had to guess on the last 10 questions. So that is an example of how mindset is everything. If anyone has mindset tips I would love to hear them as well.

In July my MBE was 111 - I had not studied much as I was going through some shit and it fucked me. I should have withdrawn from the exam but I thought maybe I would get lucky, but it only destroyed me when I failed and I knew I did.
In February my MBE was 127 so I am hoping I can bring it up - I have to because I have to pass this round.
I think you can absolutely bring up your score you even did in February. Just keep pushing - we got this!!!

[not guilty]

Thanks for your response...My MC scores were 17 in Civil and Criminal, 14 in Business Entities and 18 in Wills. Actually, those were my essays scores, 53 in Trusts, 20.5 in Secured Transactions and 41.5 in Torts...That's kind of strange actually, that they gave me scores with half points on two essays. It's so frustrating to think that I was so close to pass at least the FL part.... but I cannot think in that BS and keep concentrated in studying hard again for the July exam and see what happens!!

53
20.5
41.5
17
14
18
= 164 (out of 390, I guess) scaled to 134 you said.

Those are not bad scores at all... You would have probably passed with just a few more MC points (I'm assuming), which kind of defies the logic that you can't bomb any of the essays.


You could try out the "points formula" I posted on the last page and see if it checks out.

[Jmart082]

well I will be repeating this stupid exam for the third time in July. I sat for it last July and failed both parts and then in February I passed only Florida part. Now I have to take the MBE and I have no motivation to study or where to start again.
Not only that, since I failed twice my CLI got revoked so I no longer can work my job in court, doing trials, representing clients. My job even gave me 8 weeks off to study for February and I still did not pass.
This has ruined my life. I do not know what to do from here.

I'm sorry to hear this. It's hard when this exam starts to cost you your livelihood. I myself feel immense pressure to get it done on this attempt since my parents are not in great health of late, and I want to be able to be independent and hopefully provide for them the way that they have provided for during this long slog toward practicing law. I'm strongly considering looking for work elsewhere because of the difficulty of the Florida exam, especially for people who attended school out of state.

I am sorry to hear about your parents health - I can understand the pressure you have as well. This is the hardest things some people have experienced. What bar prep program are you going to use this time around? I am guessing July will be insane with the new takers and repeaters - I wonder how much they will mess will the curve then.

It's OK, hopefully this time things change. I'm using BarBri again, only because it is free since I failed. But this time, I do think that I'll pare down a lot of the work from the schedule that they tell me to do, because it is overwhelming, and a big part of what I think caused me trouble last time around was working hard and not working smart. I'll also be adding Adaptibar so that I can drill MBE until I'm blue in the face. Regardless of what happens though, if I fail again, I won't be trying again in February. I already scored well enough on the MBE to just have to take the MEE in many other jurisdictions and become a lawyer by just passing that section of the UBE. I'm only doing Florida because my family lives here and because I want to look after my parents.

I agree that Barbri was very overwhelming and their questions seem very hard - almost harder than the bar exam. Adaptibar was more accurate I thought. Do you know what states accept certain MBE scores? How does transferring the MBE score work? We would only have to take the UBE part of another state, correct? I was looking into this but I was not able to find a list scores each state accepts.

My suggestion is to look at the NCBE website. They have all of the various scores accepted by every jurisdiction out there. The way that it would work is that you would report your MBE score to the particular jurisdiction using the reporting service that they offer and then register and sit for the written component of that jurisdiction's bar exam. For me specifically, my plan was to get admitted in Missouri (the required MBE score is a 130 and the total required score is a 260). The catch is that if you do it this way, the admission that you get from this transferred score is only good for the state that you end up selecting to take the written portion of the bar exam, and I don't think you can get in elsewhere via reciprocity. In any event, consult the NCBE site for details on scores.