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dtjustice wrote:I'm looking at Wills/Estates essay information. It looks like there is no limit to finding a living heir, so in essence, Texas does not ever have an escheat situation....correct?

Well, if someone dies without heirs they do. There's even a statute.

Hi everyone!

I am a little late to this forum, am sitting for the July 17 Bar exam for the first time. I'm taking the Kaplan Bar review course and struggling to stay on course of their syllabus and prescribed time table since I am a foreign lawyer and this is pretty much my introduction to US law! Any tips would be appreciated!

Is it sufficient to just complete the assignments and practice MBE questions and essays in Kaplan or should i also go for AdaptiBar/ Critical Pass? Right now I am hoping to finish Kaplan fully in the next 2 months so I really don't want to purchase and put myself under the pressure of completing another Bar prep course unless it is really really necessary.

Feb17TBE wrote:You guys, I have Critical Pass that I'm not gonna use this time. If interested, PM me.
And for those of you wondering if you should try AdaptiBar, DO IT. The other one I would suggest for the MBE is Emanuel Law in a Flash. It's Q&A type flash cards that is very good for hitting the black letter law. It's organized by subject and topic and it's very good for testing yourself on the law. The ones I have are old and don't have civil procedure but I'm sure they sell one now which includes it.

Hi Feb17TBE

Do you think its sufficient to do the MBE practice questions on Kaplan or should we really supplement them with Critical Pass/ Adaptibar?

BVest wrote:

dtjustice wrote:I'm looking at Wills/Estates essay information. It looks like there is no limit to finding a living heir, so in essence, Texas does not ever have an escheat situation....correct?

Well, if someone dies without heirs they do. There's even a statute.

There's no such thing as no heirs of there's no limit to degrees... I'm a genealogist and everyone has heirs if you keep digging.

dtjustice wrote:

BVest wrote:

dtjustice wrote:I'm looking at Wills/Estates essay information. It looks like there is no limit to finding a living heir, so in essence, Texas does not ever have an escheat situation....correct?

Well, if someone dies without heirs they do. There's even a statute.

There's no such thing as no heirs of there's no limit to degrees... I'm a genealogist and everyone has heirs if you keep digging.

Technically you're right. Legally, the actual answer is unlikely to appear on a bar exam, and is therefore spoilered below, but you can clog your mind with it if you want.

[+] Spoiler

If heirs remain undiscovered after 7 years, you're presumed to have no heirs. See http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/D ... /PR.71.htm

BVest wrote:

dtjustice wrote:

BVest wrote:

dtjustice wrote:I'm looking at Wills/Estates essay information. It looks like there is no limit to finding a living heir, so in essence, Texas does not ever have an escheat situation....correct?

Well, if someone dies without heirs they do. There's even a statute.

There's no such thing as no heirs of there's no limit to degrees... I'm a genealogist and everyone has heirs if you keep digging.

Technically you're right. Legally, the actual answer is unlikely to appear on a bar exam, and is therefore spoilered below, but you can clog your mind with it if you want.

[+] Spoiler

If heirs remain undiscovered after 7 years, you're presumed to have no heirs. See http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/D ... /PR.71.htm

Oh sweet, it was on the past exam I was reviewing last week. I take February exam so I have time to look at a gazillion exams....more points for me!

Hi everyone, I just got on the adaptibar bandwagon to use in conjunction with Barbri. So far Im feeling more comfortable with the adaptibar MBE questions as theyre previous NCBE questions, hopefully it increases my score as I am a retaker. If anyone is interested in enrolling with Adaptibar PM me for a discount!

Has anyone taken the Procedure & Evidence course that Barbri offers? Thinking of enrolling but I'm not sure if its worth it.

Thanks!

_cant_deal wrote:Has anyone taken the Procedure & Evidence course that Barbri offers? Thinking of enrolling but I'm not sure if its worth it.

Thanks!

Also interested in this.

_cant_deal wrote:Has anyone taken the Procedure & Evidence course that Barbri offers? Thinking of enrolling but I'm not sure if its worth it.

Thanks!

I took it, and it is worth every penny in my opinion, I highly recommend it.

Anyone know what grade we should be shooting for on the barbri essays? It's apparently out of 25 but they don't specify the minimum (lol) likely needed to be passing.

Thrive wrote:Anyone know what grade we should be shooting for on the barbri essays? It's apparently out of 25 but they don't specify the minimum (lol) likely needed to be passing.

I think I read on barbri that a passing grade is 17, so I guess that's the minimum

peaches17 wrote:

Thrive wrote:Anyone know what grade we should be shooting for on the barbri essays? It's apparently out of 25 but they don't specify the minimum (lol) likely needed to be passing.

I think I read on barbri that a passing grade is 17, so I guess that's the minimum

That's probably a little high, but since essay raw scores (like all other non-MBE portions of the exam) are scaled to the MBE scale, no one can give you a definitive number.

Essays are actually double-scaled because the individual essays are first scaled against each other to avoid any grading inconsistencies (so that, for example, if the property graders are on average more generous than the UCC graders, you don't get penalized for being better at UCC than property). Once the individual essays are scaled against each other, the total essay scores are scaled to the MBE. I don't know if I said that clearly, so here's what the Bar Examiners say:

The raw scores on each essay question are
converted to a common score distribution that
weights the questions equally and allows for direct
comparison of scores across the twelve questions.

The sum of the converted Essay scores is
scaled to a score distribution that has the
same mean and standard deviation as the
MBE scaled scores

The result is that, in my example where property is graded more generously than UCC, you could have a 15 raw on UCC and 17 raw on property and still score the mean on both (realistically the gap in means will not likely be that big... probably more like 15.6 and 16.4). As a result, both would push you toward the mean scaled essay score (about 140 for July exams).

(And of course there are some essays where you're going to score high enough to make up for deficiencies in others).

I am finding the questions on Adaptibar considerably easier than the ones on Barbri.... has anyone else thought this too?

lovesthelaw wrote:I am finding the questions on Adaptibar considerably easier than the ones on Barbri.... has anyone else thought this too?

I agree with you. I guess its because Barbri's questions compared to adapitbar's are full of fluff making it harder to answer.

peaches17 wrote:

lovesthelaw wrote:I am finding the questions on Adaptibar considerably easier than the ones on Barbri.... has anyone else thought this too?

I agree with you. I guess its because Barbri's questions compared to adapitbar's are full of fluff making it harder to answer.

Barbri questions are notoriously harder than the actual exam. I have heard many complain that it was nothing like the actual MBE. Adaptibar uses previously tested material along with simulated ones. I've done both. Definitely prefer Adaptibar.

sam_tx wrote:

Feb17TBE wrote:You guys, I have Critical Pass that I'm not gonna use this time. If interested, PM me.
And for those of you wondering if you should try AdaptiBar, DO IT. The other one I would suggest for the MBE is Emanuel Law in a Flash. It's Q&A type flash cards that is very good for hitting the black letter law. It's organized by subject and topic and it's very good for testing yourself on the law. The ones I have are old and don't have civil procedure but I'm sure they sell one now which includes it.

Hi Feb17TBE

Do you think its sufficient to do the MBE practice questions on Kaplan or should we really supplement them with Critical Pass/ Adaptibar?

I took Kaplan the first time I took the exam too. I quite liked it. It's really not the question of which bar prep program you do. People who pass have taken all kinds of prep programs and passed. And same goes for those who failed. I'd suggest that you focus on practicing the Kaplan questions (do at least 33 q's/day) and REALLY know the black letter law (because there's no way around it). Critical pass is just the flash cards and can be helpful to do quick review by subject matter. If you've already paid for Kaplan, I'd suggest you stick to it. I like the online format and the "adaptability" of Adaptibar better. But the main point is to practice, practice, and more practice. And you can do that with pretty much any kind of bar review course.

I'm also going to add that the P&E and the Essay preps for Kaplan are good for one time review to familiarize yourself with the subject matter. But they're not designed as "how to answer exam question" type way. I've seen Barbri outline book (called Lecture Handouts) and that one is much better in my opinion.

And don't ignore P&E or MPT thinking they "only" count for 10% each. If you think about it, they're worth 6 essay questions - that's half of day 3. I have seen people pass even if they bombed day 3 but did exceptionally well in the P&Es and MPT. Doing the old questions for the P&E is the way to go.

When do we find out our testing location?

I selected "Austin" on the application, but there was a note that said something to the effect of "the administrators cannot guarantee that everyone will get their first-choice location." I assume that's meant to cover the smaller cities, but does anyone know for sure? I want to book lodging.

Pneumonia wrote:When do we find out our testing location?

I selected "Austin" on the application, but there was a note that said something to the effect of "the administrators cannot guarantee that everyone will get their first-choice location." I assume that's meant to cover the smaller cities, but does anyone know for sure? I want to book lodging.

Book lodging, but not unrefundably.

So apparently some Texas family law has just changed. The rule was that parents could consent to marriage for children who were 16-18, and there was no age floor to marry if a judge consented.

Governor Abbott just signed a law that requires a judge's consent for 16-18 year olds to marry and forbids marriage of a person younger than 16. So go Gov. Abbott! But how does this affect the answers on the bar exam? If there are any questions that cover this, are we supposed to think of the new rule or the old rule?

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/16 ... ild-brides

Hi guys!! I took the July 2016 bar and failed by a few points, and then I took the February 2017 bar and passed with 30 points to spare. I have been a long-time lurker on this site but I wanted to post to offer some encouragement to all of you, especially you re-takers, because YOU CAN DO IT! All of us are different, but here's what I did differently the second time to pass this exam and I truly believe it made all the difference for me.

1. I changed my bar prep course from a very well known big box course to Reed Bar Review. PM me if you have specific questions about Reed Bar Review and you are thinking of signing up for it in any capacity. Basically, I loved Reed's MBE prep and strategy to memorize information for the Texas Essays.

2. I stopped working. DO NOT WORK WHILE STUDYING FOR THE BAR IF YOU CAN HELP IT.

3. I added Adaptibar to my preparation method. PM me your email if you need a discount code to sign up for it.

4. I added Critical Pass flashcards to my prep. PM me if you need a discount code to sign up for it.

5. I made sure to complete at least 2,000 MBE questions, and I did some MBE questions every day. I always reviewed the questions I got wrong, and even the ones I got right to understand WHY an answer choice was correct and why the others were wrong. After all, sometimes I just guessed correctly and got the right answer, but I couldn't rely on this for the real bar exam.

6. I took lots of full-length MBE exams and reviewed my mistakes. If I didn't know a rule of law or misunderstood it, I wrote it out in a notebook by subject (i.e. torts, contracts, etc.) and then reviewed those rules of law periodically.

7. I actually wrote out essays in full format while studying (and then I graded them). I didn't do this 100% of the time, but I did it at least 50% of the time. It was an uncomfortable process but it was ultimately VERY helpful to actually learning the information and memorizing it. Even when I didn't write out the essay in full format though, I outlined my answer at the very least and then graded that.

8. I used the model answers from the Texas BLE site to grade the essays I wrote in practice.

9. I focused heavily on the MBE as well as memorizing information for the Texas Essays (80% of your grade), and I didn't worry too much about the MPT/P&E until a few days before the test. That being said, do at least one or two practice MPTs at the beginning of your prep to make sure you can complete your task in the time allotted!

10. To study for the P&E portion, I exclusively did 10 recent practice exams and studied the difference between the Texas rules v. federal rules.

I truly wish each of you the very best!! GO KICK BUTT!

Checking in

nothingtosee wrote:Checking in

welcome

I've got the adaptibar discount code as well if anyone needs it. Feel free to pm me.

Have you guys received your testing locations and etc? I graduated in 2015 and was approved back then but deferred taking the bar, so I did the "reapplication" this time around instead of the full application. They still haven't approved me. I don't remember when they told me which location I would get last time around.