How to Prepare for the Bar Exam

You made it through law school--and that was hard enough. Now
comes the bar exam. You want to pass this the first time. If you fail,
you can take it again, but statistically, your chances of passing go
down each subsequent time you try.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

1. Get the rules and application form from your state's board of bar examiners long before you plan to take the exam. In almost every state, the exam is two days: the one-day multistate bar exam (MBE) portion--200 mind-numbing multiple-choice questions-- and a day of essays.

2. Seriously--very seriously--consider taking a bar review course. So many people take bar review courses that the model answer exam reviewers are looking for is invariably in the style taught by these courses. Ask around for the best course in your area. It will be expensive, but now is not the time to pinch pennies.

3. Know what areas you'll be tested on. Your state's bar examiner will tell you which areas of the law you are responsible for knowing for in the essay portion.

4. Start studying the day after graduation. At a minimum, allow eight weeks. Shun your friends, let your personal appearance go and do nothing else but study during this period--consider it your job. Make a timeline listing the subjects you will study each day: constitutional law one day, torts the next and so on. In the beginning, devote a day or more to a single subject. By the end, you should be hitting four to six subjects a day.

Tips & Warnings

• Contact the National Conference of Bar Examiners (ncbex.org) to find out what subjects are on the multistate portion.
• See 151 Ace the College Admissions Tests for more exam-taking tips.
• The bar exam is given in July and February and is different in each state.
• Download old exams from your state bar's Web site. Study them. If you are not taking a bar review course, you will have to buy sample MBE exams (and answers) from NCBE. Practice on as many tests as you can get your hands on.

on 2/7/2006 Starting with your first practice question (you should be doing lots of practice questions all along), anytime you get an answer wrong, stop. Look up the correct answer. Then write that down under the appropriate topic (i.e. Torts) and subheading (i.e. Negligence--Proximate Cause). In this way, gradually build up an outline of all of the things that you'll need to review. Starting about two weeks before the bar exam, start going over just those things. Do lots more practice questions that emphasize the review areas. Reviewing anything else is a waste of time, you know it already.