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ToastMalone

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MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by ToastMalone » Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:17 pm

From a strategic perspective, how much time should we be devoting to the MEE only subjects like trusts, wills, etc?

If there are only 6 essays, and some of those are going to be on the UBE subjects anyway, is it really worthwhile to spend much time at all on the MEE subjects? I ask because tomorrow BARBRI has a wills lecture. And I actually didn't mind the lectures for the UBE subjects because I felt they were useful for refreshing my memory of each topic, but I am wondering if it will be a waste of time to listen to a wills lecture, for example, considering it could only be 1/6 of 30% of the Exam at most.

For people who have passed: how much time did you spend on the MEE subjects? And what did you do to study those subjects (read outlines? do a bunch of practice essays throughout the summer? do a few essays right before the exam?)

sarahbeck10

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by sarahbeck10 » Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:35 pm

ToastMalone wrote:From a strategic perspective, how much time should we be devoting to the MEE only subjects like trusts, wills, etc?

If there are only 6 essays, and some of those are going to be on the UBE subjects anyway, is it really worthwhile to spend much time at all on the MEE subjects? I ask because tomorrow BARBRI has a wills lecture. And I actually didn't mind the lectures for the UBE subjects because I felt they were useful for refreshing my memory of each topic, but I am wondering if it will be a waste of time to listen to a wills lecture, for example, considering it could only be 1/6 of 30% of the Exam at most.

For people who have passed: how much time did you spend on the MEE subjects? And what did you do to study those subjects (read outlines? do a bunch of practice essays throughout the summer? do a few essays right before the exam?)

In my opinion, I do think you could realistically spend less time on some MEE subjects than others. But don't ignore them completely. I didn't take the UBE but in Illinois we have a similar situation where some subjects are only tested on the MEE and don't overlap with subjects tested on the Illinois Essay Exam. I didn't listen to any lectures for the whole study period, but I spent more time on some MEE subject outlines than others. Wills and Trusts definitely was one of those. I believe wills and trusts is tested pretty often on the MEE and is easily testable in conjunction with other MBE subjects, so if you're picking and choosing, spend time on it!

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bretby

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by bretby » Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:04 pm

ToastMalone wrote:From a strategic perspective, how much time should we be devoting to the MEE only subjects like trusts, wills, etc?

If there are only 6 essays, and some of those are going to be on the UBE subjects anyway, is it really worthwhile to spend much time at all on the MEE subjects? I ask because tomorrow BARBRI has a wills lecture. And I actually didn't mind the lectures for the UBE subjects because I felt they were useful for refreshing my memory of each topic, but I am wondering if it will be a waste of time to listen to a wills lecture, for example, considering it could only be 1/6 of 30% of the Exam at most.

For people who have passed: how much time did you spend on the MEE subjects? And what did you do to study those subjects (read outlines? do a bunch of practice essays throughout the summer? do a few essays right before the exam?)
I think it's important to listen to the lectures and do the practice essays for the MEE subjects that your bar review course assigns. The lectures are shorter and easier than the UBE topics, and the practice essays drill the three or four areas that would likely appear on the test. Not doing the wills lecture (which is what, 2 hours?) is being penny wise and pound foolish. The two hours you save will seem like nothing if/when you get a wills question that you could have easily aced with a few hours of study. Plus, the MEE subjects are good palate cleansers from the UBE topics, which are easy to overly obsess over because they are both familiar from 1L and very dense.

bballbb02

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by bballbb02 » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:18 pm

There are a lot of sites and blogs that predict the mee topics for the ube..last year they hit 5 of 6 i think...when you get closer to the test and the bar program is winding down you can start zeroing in on the mee topics..in things like wills, secured transactions, family etc there are only so many issues to test on that it shouldn't take you too many days to gain enough knowledge to answer an essay competently in those subjects...as far as doing them all you need to do is outline them

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LegaleZy

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by LegaleZy » Wed Jun 20, 2018 12:13 am

bretby wrote:
ToastMalone wrote:From a strategic perspective, how much time should we be devoting to the MEE only subjects like trusts, wills, etc?

If there are only 6 essays, and some of those are going to be on the UBE subjects anyway, is it really worthwhile to spend much time at all on the MEE subjects? I ask because tomorrow BARBRI has a wills lecture. And I actually didn't mind the lectures for the UBE subjects because I felt they were useful for refreshing my memory of each topic, but I am wondering if it will be a waste of time to listen to a wills lecture, for example, considering it could only be 1/6 of 30% of the Exam at most.

For people who have passed: how much time did you spend on the MEE subjects? And what did you do to study those subjects (read outlines? do a bunch of practice essays throughout the summer? do a few essays right before the exam?)
I think it's important to listen to the lectures and do the practice essays for the MEE subjects that your bar review course assigns. The lectures are shorter and easier than the UBE topics, and the practice essays drill the three or four areas that would likely appear on the test. Not doing the wills lecture (which is what, 2 hours?) is being penny wise and pound foolish. The two hours you save will seem like nothing if/when you get a wills question that you could have easily aced with a few hours of study. Plus, the MEE subjects are good palate cleansers from the UBE topics, which are easy to overly obsess over because they are both familiar from 1L and very dense.

I definitely see the value in doing the assigned essays, but do the MEE lectures add anything beyond what you would get from reading the subject outline?

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pfunkera

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by pfunkera » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:54 am

I listened to all the MEE lectures and thought they were not useful at the time, but they concentrate on the most tested topics in each MEE subject. I used my lecture notes and the conviser mini review to create a 3-5 page outline for each MEE topic. I am positive that the Family Law lecture really influenced my score on the family law question during the Feb 18 exam. I did not do much other than listen to the lectures until the final two weeks. Then, I streamlined my outlines and did a couple essays in each subject. Finally, I outlined a few more the days leading up to the test. Even though I spent 85% of my time trying to crush the MBE, my score on the MEE was within one point of my MBE score.

maroon175

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by maroon175 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 12:50 pm

bballbb02 wrote:There are a lot of sites and blogs that predict the mee topics for the ube..last year they hit 5 of 6 i think...when you get closer to the test and the bar program is winding down you can start zeroing in on the mee topics..in things like wills, secured transactions, family etc there are only so many issues to test on that it shouldn't take you too many days to gain enough knowledge to answer an essay competently in those subjects...as far as doing them all you need to do is outline them
can you recommend a few of these sites and blogs?

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SilvermanBarPrep

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by SilvermanBarPrep » Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:31 pm

You really need to hedge your bets sometimes by studying more the subjects that show up more often. But definitely don't neglect all of the MEE subjects. You are sure to see some of them and studying only the MBE subjects is going to put you into a hole on the MEE that might be tough to climb out of even if you score far above average on the MBE. Keep in mind that you don't need to know the MEE specific subjects to the same extent that you do the MBE subjects since the goal here is to have a big-picture knowledge; in other words you can get away with not knowing all the fine details provided you know enough to analyze the legal issues. So you can take it a bit easier with these subjects but definitely spend some time studying them.

Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)

bballbb02

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by bballbb02 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:37 pm

maroon175 wrote:
bballbb02 wrote:There are a lot of sites and blogs that predict the mee topics for the ube..last year they hit 5 of 6 i think...when you get closer to the test and the bar program is winding down you can start zeroing in on the mee topics..in things like wills, secured transactions, family etc there are only so many issues to test on that it shouldn't take you too many days to gain enough knowledge to answer an essay competently in those subjects...as far as doing them all you need to do is outline them
can you recommend a few of these sites and blogs?

you can google them or google ube/bar exam essay predictions or something of that sort and eventually youll find stuff

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bretby

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Re: MEE subjects study strategy?

Post by bretby » Thu Jun 21, 2018 2:41 pm

LegaleZy wrote:
bretby wrote:
ToastMalone wrote:From a strategic perspective, how much time should we be devoting to the MEE only subjects like trusts, wills, etc?

If there are only 6 essays, and some of those are going to be on the UBE subjects anyway, is it really worthwhile to spend much time at all on the MEE subjects? I ask because tomorrow BARBRI has a wills lecture. And I actually didn't mind the lectures for the UBE subjects because I felt they were useful for refreshing my memory of each topic, but I am wondering if it will be a waste of time to listen to a wills lecture, for example, considering it could only be 1/6 of 30% of the Exam at most.

For people who have passed: how much time did you spend on the MEE subjects? And what did you do to study those subjects (read outlines? do a bunch of practice essays throughout the summer? do a few essays right before the exam?)
I think it's important to listen to the lectures and do the practice essays for the MEE subjects that your bar review course assigns. The lectures are shorter and easier than the UBE topics, and the practice essays drill the three or four areas that would likely appear on the test. Not doing the wills lecture (which is what, 2 hours?) is being penny wise and pound foolish. The two hours you save will seem like nothing if/when you get a wills question that you could have easily aced with a few hours of study. Plus, the MEE subjects are good palate cleansers from the UBE topics, which are easy to overly obsess over because they are both familiar from 1L and very dense.

I definitely see the value in doing the assigned essays, but do the MEE lectures add anything beyond what you would get from reading the subject outline?
I guess it depends on what kind of learner you are. I retain information better when I actively listen than when I read, so listening was more effective for me (even if it took longer to listen initially than it would to read). Plus the lecturers do a better job separating out the really need-to-know info than the outline does, which is particularly helpful for the MEE subjects where, as someone else said, the key is broad knowledge rather than deep knowledge. If I was going to try to gain study time by cutting corners, it would be on the MPT (you just need to figure out timing for that one - the questions themselves are more or less straightforward).

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