Quoted bow is what I did to pass. I'll go ahead and put the steps into a one page guide for anyone who wants my materials. Also willing to discuss my approach if I can hand you my materials. Anyone who is interested in these materials let me know. Can also give the $35 Adaptibar discount to anyone who needs it too. Willing to personally hand them off to anyone in the San Diego, Riverside, or Orange County/LA area.
All the best.
Bla Bla Bla Blah wrote:Perhaps this will help, for anyone who has work, kids, other obligations and needs a quick way to study. I was given a little over 2 and 1/2 weeks to wrap up my arguments against HP and Roku for my firm and prep for this test. Realized that "I ain't got time" pretty fast. Luckily, I have a background in criminal law, and deal with Federal practice (we're talking summary judgement and dismissal issues on a regular basis in patent arguments), and so crim pro, crim law, and quite a bit of evidence and civ pro were confident areas for me (didn't even really touch my material on criminal issues).
Overall, the goal with limited time is to get straight into the meat. By seeing the rule statements so much, I recalled them really well during the bar. Let's face it, on most of these rules (contract formation) we simply need to remember how to state them. We don't need to waste a ton of time having a lecturer tell us what consideration is, or what the mailbox rule is, while we write this into a giant lecture outline (which we are then responsible for breaking down into leansheet format) because we all went to law school. It was way more helpful to see it in simple rule statement form again and again on a flashcard, read the explanation, and speed past the basic rules (focusing more on the tricky ones) while I flicked it into a box. The lectures were helpful only to fill times where I could not actively study with passive learning. I outlined essay subjects (with rule statements, and follow up review of these rule statements, and an idea of how I would analyze) on all CA subjects--and gave special attention to PR.
I honestly would have done exactly what I did with my 2 and 1/2 weeks if I had more time too. Beats wasting time sitting down through slow lectures/all the time spent reinventing the wheel and developing your own outlines with time that should be spent in active learning, MBE testing being the most important to understanding Fed rules and building confidence, in my opinion. Adaptibar almost taught me exactly how to analyze when I studied all their follow up explanations. I also had the advantageof knowing that what I was reading was, at all times, the correct statement of the law and not wasting all that time breaking down my own outlines into 3-6 page leansheet formats--who has time to waste on learning how to break material down when the focus should be on finding the quickest way to digest the rules and giving it back to examiners the way they want ot by testing yourself on them over, and over again?
Felt very good in practice since I was where I needed to be in MBE, and Adaptibar told me how I was being most effective and when. Also knew that I was spotting all the key issues in my essay outlines as my issue spotting was right along with the model answers. I also left no guess work to how I would write and organize my essays--a book on that was helpful. Felt pretty good about it all, but remember, take this with a grain of salt. I still don't know if I passed!
Edit: Forgot to mention this, and honestly I decided on this route during the exam... but tackling the PT first was immensely helpful to my approach. I didn't practice the PT's prior to the exam, but wrote it exactly as I would have in practice. Because I hit the PT first, mental fatigue and the mental stress that comes with being immediately up against the clock did not affect me. I figured that if anything affected my performance, it would be better that this occur on an essay question that was worth 1 point for every 2 points that I could gain on the PT. I probably took an extra 15 to 20 minutes on this question making sure it all looked nice, and doing a quick proof. And while I was about 10-15 minutes short on the wills essay, and faced mental fatigue/time stress on the question, it wasn't enough to affect my approach and I finished with 5 minutes left. If I lost a few points on wills because of the strategy, it definitely beat having a sloppy PT because all of the stress that kicks in when I look at my watch or when the proctor yells "5 minutes left!"
So here's what I did, from most utilized material to least.
Adaptibar ($360): Jumped right in and pushed through as many as I could per day. When you get those wrong, they tend to stick in your head and teach you nuanced issues of the law much better. Always reviewed explanations for each answer, which included full rule statements. Downloaded the app and could test everywhere. Adaptibar even told me my timing for each question, as well as the optimal time for my answers (i.e., at what time I got the most right). This helped me because I knew that if it took me anywhere longer than 1min 15sec to answer, I was probably going to trip myself up and not ger it right--so answer and move on! Obviously because I started on these questions cold, I worked my way up and was hitting 73 percent during my last week (close to 66 percent overall).
Critical pass flashcards ($150): No way in hell I would have had time to create an outline and flashcards through a full course. And I found the Kaplan books my friend sold to me, and commercial outlines were inferior to these cards. I'd grab a topic, and when I was exhausted from everything else I had done, I'd lay there flick through all the cards for the topic (usually right before I was ready to shut it down for the night), flicking them into the lid for the box. Very nice, and full, and well broken down explanations. I would make myself recite the rules outloud, until I could do it from memory, on some of the trickier rules (covenants of title, lemon test, obscenity test, Daubert, etc.). But most importantly, it was a great way to constantly cycle through the subjects.
($45 used) I bought a book, and don't recall the name of it, on how to write for the CA Bar. It had good reviews on Amazon, and gave me a good idea of how to save time in the essays by keeping titles succinct (one to two words if possible), only using bold (too many things to worry about turning on/off when you're capped, Ital, Underline, etc.), and creating a quick outline. Really helpful on the CA subjects, and discussed the most important topics to bring up in each. Incuded questions, model answers, and a breakdown of why.
MP3 Lectures (Free): My friend had MP3 lectures of all the federal subjects. Had those lectures going at all times that I couldn't actively study (in my car, while I was going to sleep, and until I woke up in the morning and got started on active review). Helpful AF!
Leansheets ($30): Not sure that these had the best statements of law, and found myself digging through the box of Kaplan books I purchased for better explanations, but reviewed these over and over again, mostly on CA subjects that were not part of critical pass, was huge in beating CA rules into my head in a way that let me recall them much easier. The book on essays for CA bar were also instructive, by breaking down the areas of CA law to general theme based outlines (which was based on what was most tested on the essays). So I had a theme based overview (helpful to writing) and a full overview because these 3 to 6 page outlines covered everything, and distinguished Fed/ABA from CA very well. It was also nice to have confidence that, even though I didn't write these, they were correct.
Kaplan books ($50): very rarely did I need these, but where a lean sheet rule was not ringing any bells, I'd refer to the outlines in these for clarifications. Again, as with lean sheets, this is pretty much limited to CA law.
