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First, thanks to anyone who has any advice or suggestions. Feeling a bit desperate now.

I'm really struggling with the Real Property MBE questions. On the 18 question Barbri quizzes, I am scoring anywhere from 6-9 correct and honestly, a couple of those are just usually lucky guesses. My problem is this - there's just way too much information and stuff going on in the problems for me to digest it and process it in any reasonable amount of time. I've sat there and stared at questions for 3-4 minutes and had literally no clue what was happening in the fact pattern. I got an A in Property in law school but the questions weren't this hard and I didn't have such a time crunch (they were also essays versus multiple choice so I could shotgun information and score points). I feel like I am making progress on most of the other topics but Real Property just befuddles me and I feel like things are getting worse, especially when I score wrong answer after wrong answer and the frustration/stress grows.

Does anyone have any strategies for Real Property MBE questions that are useful? Particularly helpful would be a system or some sort of process to go through for each question. Just way too much information and too many different rules to try and put it together in 1.8 minutes.

Any advice whatsoever is welcome. Thanks in advance.

ScurryRay wrote:First, thanks to anyone who has any advice or suggestions. Feeling a bit desperate now.

I'm really struggling with the Real Property MBE questions. On the 18 question Barbri quizzes, I am scoring anywhere from 6-9 correct and honestly, a couple of those are just usually lucky guesses. My problem is this - there's just way too much information and stuff going on in the problems for me to digest it and process it in any reasonable amount of time. I've sat there and stared at questions for 3-4 minutes and had literally no clue what was happening in the fact pattern. I got an A in Property in law school but the questions weren't this hard and I didn't have such a time crunch (they were also essays versus multiple choice so I could shotgun information and score points). I feel like I am making progress on most of the other topics but Real Property just befuddles me and I feel like things are getting worse, especially when I score wrong answer after wrong answer and the frustration/stress grows.

Does anyone have any strategies for Real Property MBE questions that are useful? Particularly helpful would be a system or some sort of process to go through for each question. Just way too much information and too many different rules to try and put it together in 1.8 minutes.

Any advice whatsoever is welcome. Thanks in advance.

I feel your pain. I'm finally where I want to be on Property after a year of studying for this damn test. I would focus only on burdens (covenants, easements), Deeds, Land Sale Ks, and Mortgages. My tutor helped me realize that this is your majority of property questions, so better to know it inside & out, rather than worrying about topics that less frequently appear. I would also look at ?s from sources other than Barbri, just to keep it varied.

ScurryRay wrote:First, thanks to anyone who has any advice or suggestions. Feeling a bit desperate now.

I'm really struggling with the Real Property MBE questions. On the 18 question Barbri quizzes, I am scoring anywhere from 6-9 correct and honestly, a couple of those are just usually lucky guesses. My problem is this - there's just way too much information and stuff going on in the problems for me to digest it and process it in any reasonable amount of time. I've sat there and stared at questions for 3-4 minutes and had literally no clue what was happening in the fact pattern. I got an A in Property in law school but the questions weren't this hard and I didn't have such a time crunch (they were also essays versus multiple choice so I could shotgun information and score points). I feel like I am making progress on most of the other topics but Real Property just befuddles me and I feel like things are getting worse, especially when I score wrong answer after wrong answer and the frustration/stress grows.

Does anyone have any strategies for Real Property MBE questions that are useful? Particularly helpful would be a system or some sort of process to go through for each question. Just way too much information and too many different rules to try and put it together in 1.8 minutes.

Any advice whatsoever is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Problem solved

https://www.amazon.com/MBE-Bootcamp-Pro ... e+property

I feel you. I had the same problem and finally solved it and now I score a minimum of 75% on real property questions on Adaptibar. Just keep doing questions and write down (and review periodically) the rules that you miss. And don’t think about the timing in the beginning. Instead, focus on getting the answers right. With practice you will become faster. Oh and personally, I would use another source of questions instead of barbari. They apparently suck like most of their course.

Thanks all for the advice and encouragement. That's helpful. I ordered the book linked below (only $15, can't hurt) and I like the idea of focusing on those topics as those are the ones that seem to come up over and over again. I have been writing answers down that I miss but the point about going slow to start is well-taken. Appreciate all the tips.

Keep in mind also with the time crunch issue that just because you've got one minute and 48 seconds averaged per question doesn't mean you've can only spend 1 minute and 48 seconds per question.

You're going to pull back some of that time in whatever area is your makes-sense-to-you area. I feel like everyone has their preferred subjects. I free up a lot of time in crim pro, torts, and contracts, for example. On a couple practice question sets I spent 3 and 1/2 minutes or more per property law question and I still finished in plenty of time.

My experience with property is that it's got the most "gotcha fucker!" stuff. I just did a practice question with a life estate, a contingent life estate, a contingent remainder, a reversionary interest, two inter vivos transfers, an intestate succession that passed the reversionary interest to the holder of one of the life estates and made it a fee simple subject to an executory interest, another death that made the contingent remainder a springing executory interest and I got it wrong after all that fucking analysis because I missed the fact that the owner second life estate actually died before the owner of the first life estate.

What I'm getting at with that is it's just the area you're going to have to sink the most time into when it comes to dissecting the question. I also tend to keep stratch paper around specifically for property questions. I know we don't get scratch on the bar but we can at least write in the margins of the exam book.

What particular topic in Property are you struggling with?

Sorry, maybe I was just oblivious - but we don't get scratch paper at the bar? Is that serious? Wow, I missed that somehow.

Tonya - I am struggling in lots of areas, but mainly it feels like (1) questions that deal with mortgages/recording statutes, and (2) easements/covenants. I know the general rules and if you gave me 10-15 minutes and a piece of paper, I could get to the right answer, but getting through it under a time pressure is very difficult. Point well taken above in that I will have extra time based on progress in other questions. I am much quicker on torts, crim law and evidence questions. Things where people shoot each other, run over each other or burn down houses are much more tangible and easier for me to process than deeds, dollar amounts and finance companies. That stuff makes me want to crawl in a hole until it goes away.

ScurryRay wrote:Sorry, maybe I was just oblivious - but we don't get scratch paper at the bar? Is that serious? Wow, I missed that somehow.

Tonya - I am struggling in lots of areas, but mainly it feels like (1) questions that deal with mortgages/recording statutes, and (2) easements/covenants. I know the general rules and if you gave me 10-15 minutes and a piece of paper, I could get to the right answer, but getting through it under a time pressure is very difficult. Point well taken above in that I will have extra time based on progress in other questions. I am much quicker on torts, crim law and evidence questions. Things where people shoot each other, run over each other or burn down houses are much more tangible and easier for me to process than deeds, dollar amounts and finance companies. That stuff makes me want to crawl in a hole until it goes away.

You get scratch for the MEE, just not the MBE. In Oregon at least, I don't know if it's the same everywhere.

kc128 wrote:

ScurryRay wrote:First, thanks to anyone who has any advice or suggestions. Feeling a bit desperate now.

I'm really struggling with the Real Property MBE questions. On the 18 question Barbri quizzes, I am scoring anywhere from 6-9 correct and honestly, a couple of those are just usually lucky guesses. My problem is this - there's just way too much information and stuff going on in the problems for me to digest it and process it in any reasonable amount of time. I've sat there and stared at questions for 3-4 minutes and had literally no clue what was happening in the fact pattern. I got an A in Property in law school but the questions weren't this hard and I didn't have such a time crunch (they were also essays versus multiple choice so I could shotgun information and score points). I feel like I am making progress on most of the other topics but Real Property just befuddles me and I feel like things are getting worse, especially when I score wrong answer after wrong answer and the frustration/stress grows.

Does anyone have any strategies for Real Property MBE questions that are useful? Particularly helpful would be a system or some sort of process to go through for each question. Just way too much information and too many different rules to try and put it together in 1.8 minutes.

Any advice whatsoever is welcome. Thanks in advance.

I feel your pain. I'm finally where I want to be on Property after a year of studying for this damn test. I would focus only on burdens (covenants, easements), Deeds, Land Sale Ks, and Mortgages. My tutor helped me realize that this is your majority of property questions, so better to know it inside & out, rather than worrying about topics that less frequently appear. I would also look at ?s from sources other than Barbri, just to keep it varied.

To add to this, it can be helpful to review the areas likely to be tested - there a few areas per subject that a solid bunch of questions will test (i.e. hearsay accounts for a third of Evidence questions and I think a similar breakdown exists for Torts where a third come from Negligence). It is helpful to remember that not everything is testable so developing a solid base in a few subtopics per subject can give you mental room to not freak out. I went over Real Property pretty closely in December and still am struggling to raise my score to a consistent place.

Write down your areas of weakness and think about why they are not clicking. Sometimes it can really help to break it down. For example, I would get nervous with long fact patterns involving recording acts until I realized I was not picking up on buzz words indicating race notice statutes. I realized that there are two or three words that are usually worded the same way in MBE questions so once I remembred those words, I immediately underline them when I see the statute section, then go to the facts and looks for first recordation and notice. So basic but the long fact patterns were psyching me out.

If you'd like, feel free to e-mail me (my address is listed on the profile here) and I'd be glad to send you the chapter on Real Property as a sample of my book.

--Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I just finished the Barbri Simulated MBE and surprisingly did better on Property than I expected (and also surprisingly worse in some areas I felt strong in). I just got the Property supplement recommended above and will keep plugging away. To the comment two above, I also struggle with the recording act issues. I can state the rules but when it comes time to apply them, no clue. That said, I am going to slowly work out those issues and get it down pat before exam day. I really appreciate all of the input and advice on this forum. Very helpful.

Keep at it. I am in the same boat so a lot of my struggle has been identifying how to systematically apply what I learn. A lot of this is just being smart enough to recognize when you just have to drill something - at least, that is how it works for me. There are no shortcuts with the bar - it really does seem that focused attention to each subtopic yields more results than trying to learn everything at once. I defer to the passers and Sean Silverman but a lot of my gains came from solid blocks of concentration on topics and re-reviewing and drilling. I actually pulled my performance on the BarBri practice MBE up by 20 points compared to summer but it was not easy.