Study Schedule --full time in Bar Review

If your full-time job this summer IS studying for the Bar Exam, here are some ideas for you on how to plan your days. 

     Choose location and know where you will be studying which substantive area of law on each day.

     Wake up however long in advance of 9am you need for breakfast, reading paper, exercise, and getting to your study location.

     9am every day, be at your study spot, and complete 33 MBEs in one hour. (Use PMBR or other practice testing materials.) Spend 1.5 hours reviewing explanatory answers, then write flashcards for rules you missed.

     Study outlines for rules you do not know or understand. Better use of your time is working with bar review materials and doing practice tests, than simply reading long outlines. (No "mindless flipping" through outlines, ever.  Do not even "read" outlines.  Study them.  Review them quickly before every lecture so you'll get more out of the lecture to follow. Then, use them as reference guides to look things up you do not understand. Remember, law outlines are not magazines; they're not supposed to be fun!) 

     Stretch and continue work until 1pm. (You want to get used to working in 4 hour blocks so that focusing for 3 hours in bar exams blocks becomes "easy" and comfortable. The more each practice day looks like a "bar day," the easier time you will have on the exam.

     Outline or write out one essay; study model answer, do flashcards for rules you missed, (look up rules you don’t understand as needed.).

     1-1:30 Workout or take a walk outside. (Remember why you live in California!  It's nice to be out of doors occasionally!!!) If you need to, if you feel like you can't be away from studying, listen to law tapes on the walk. You can even make your own tapes, record your own voice reading rules of law.

     1:30 Relax and Lunch  (eat a good, healthy lunch!)

     2:30-6:30. Listen to or go over bar review materials and lectures and complete workshop hypotheticals and/or assigned practice exams along with lectures, in the subject you are working on that day. Focus on one substantive subject per day or for a couple of days if it’s an area you are weak in. Only as you near the exam, work on mixing subjects up together.

     Write out one practice essay in full, and review and study model answer.

     On weekends, continue working through PASS workshops including performance test workshops and completing practice tests as time permits. Do one performance test each Sunday afternoon. Study topics you did not understand that you identified as problem areas during your practice testing, looking up rules as needed.

     Stop by 7pm each night for dinner and R & R each evening. Go to sleep early so body clock is on "bar time."  (Remember if you're used to studying until 2 am and waking at noon every day, it will be rough to get in high gear when that exam starts rolling at 9am).

Comments

[VICTORIA44]

I failed the bar and did not find Barbri or PMBR helpful. I hired a tutor, Drew Novins, and was able to pass the NJ and NY bar. He walks you through the MBE with tricks to answer the questions correctly and helps you with your essays. He also helps you when you are not being tutored by asking you questions and/or fears about the bar, like timing yourself, how much time you should take to study, when to take a break etc. He helped me. He can help you. Good luck to you all taking the bar

[Kenneth A. Brown]

This sounds like a solid plan. I'm taking the CA Bar for the 1st time this July & was concernced about how to divy up my time between essay question study & MBE study. I like the fact that the goal of your plan is to mimic an actual examination day. Thanks! Wish me luck.