267: Quick Tips -- Using Past Bar Essay Questions for Practice

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And with that, let's get started. Today, we are going to talk about using past bar exam essay questions as part of your bar exam study process. In particular, we will talk about when to start practicing, how to practice, how much of your study time to spend practicing, and how to self-evaluate your practice essay answers.

We will also talk about some resources for finding past bar exam questions, as well as how to receive outside feedback on your practice essays, and additional options for where to turn if you are particularly struggling with the essay question portion of the bar exam. But before we jump into the specifics of using past bar exam questions to practice for the exam, let's clarify the scope of these tips.

Obviously, some of the specifics we will discuss, such as exactly how much time to spend using past essay questions for practice, will depend on several circumstances. These circumstances include which bar exam you are taking, and whether you are taking the exam with or without accommodations. Without accommodations, you have 30 minutes to answer each essay question for the UBE. However, if you receive time and a half for accommodations, you have 45 minutes per question.

And on the California bar exam, you have one hour per essay question without accommodations, and an hour and a half with time and a half accommodations. So, if you receive accommodations for the exam, each practice essay you complete will take longer than if you do not receive accommodations, which impacts the total time you may want to spend practicing.

Additionally, you may need to adjust the specifics of your practice time or conditions, depending on how comfortable you are with the essay question portion of the exam, compared to the multiple choice and performance test sections. As we always say, there is no one-size-fits-all study solution for the bar exam. That is why Bar Exam Toolbox students receive a custom schedule that is specifically tailored to their needs.

Nevertheless, the tips that we discuss today can be applied to, and/or adjusted for any bar study situation. So, as you listen to these best practices for using past bar exam essay questions, think about how you can apply these tips to your specific bar study program and strategy. And of course after listening, if you have any questions about how to apply these tips to your specific situation, we are here to help.

With that, let's jump into our tips for bar exam essay practice, starting with when to start practicing. We recommend that you start practicing for the essay portion of the bar exam as soon as possible during your study period. This usually means that you should complete your first practice essay question within your first week or few days of studying.

If right now you're thinking that doing practice essay questions during your first study week sounds over-ambitious or premature, you are probably not the only one. Many students resist completing full practice essays during their first several weeks, or even their first month of studying. But putting off practice does not serve you in the long run.

In fact, if you fail to incorporate essay practice into your initial review of each subject, you miss an important opportunity to familiarize yourself with the essay portion of the bar exam early in your study process. As you will notice when you start doing practice essays, there is a skill to writing a passing bar exam essay answer.

In particular, bar examiners are looking for answers that are well-organized, follow a specific IRAC or CRAC structure, use key legal buzzwords in rule statements, and include a meaningful analysis section that uses linking words to explain how specific facts in the question satisfy or fail to satisfy elements of the rule. If that sounds like a lot to accomplish in 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour, depending on your situation - that's because it is. Hence, the importance of early practice.

By the end of your bar study period, you must be able to write passing bar exam essay answers so naturally that you can write up to six in a row under the time crunch and pressure of real exam conditions. The best way to get to that place by the exam date is to start practicing early. But honing the scale of writing a bar exam essay answer is not the only benefit of early practice.

Another advantage is that the practice essays give you an opportunity to apply the rules that you studied during your substantive review. Seeing the rules applied often makes them easier to remember than attempting to memorize them in the abstract. Additionally, these practice essays test your understanding of the rules. That way, you do not end up memorizing a lot of black-letter law with no idea what it means or how it applies to questions on the exam.

Now that you are hopefully convinced that there are benefits to early practice, you may still have some lingering questions. For example, what if you can't remember the rules well enough to apply them in essay questions during your initial review of each subject? This leads us to our next tip regarding how to use past bar exam questions for practice and how to adjust this process through your study period.

We recommend that all students start doing practice essay questions open-book or open-outline. That way you can look up and apply the correct rules in your practice answers. Using this open-book approach for early essay practice reinforces the benefits we have discussed above. Specifically, it gives you an opportunity to practice the skill of writing a passing essay answer, including a precise and complete rule statement and thorough analysis section.

Additionally, it allows you to test your understanding of the rules. Doing early practice essays open-book also reinforces your substantive review of the rules. In fact, many students find it easier to remember rules that they have looked up and applied in practice essays than those they have not. And hopefully, encouraging you to do open-book essay questions during your initial review of the subjects makes the idea of early practice less daunting.

This brings us to our next tip for how to practice during the first part of your bar study period - how much time to spend on each practice essay. Since you are taking time to look up rules, you will likely not be able to write meaningful essay answers during the 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes you may have on the actual exam. And that is okay. Another benefit of practicing early is that you have time to gradually speed up your essay writing process each week.

We recommend starting with anywhere from 15 to 30% additional time on your practice essays. For example, if you are taking the UBE without accommodations, give yourself an extra five to 10 minutes to look up rules and organize your thoughts before you start writing. If you find that five to 10 minutes is not enough, add five more minutes. Just remember your end goal of gradually speeding up your process to fit within the time crunch on the exam.

For example, if you are taking the UBE without accommodations, you have 30 minutes per question on the exam. However, in your early practice, you may add 10 minutes to your pre-writing period, which means you spend five minutes reading the question prompt and fact pattern, 10 minutes looking up the rules and outlining your answer, and 25 minutes writing. Eventually your goal is to squeeze the 10 minutes down to about two, and the 25 minutes of writing to about 23.

Some of the time - in particular, the time spent looking up rules, may be easy to cut once you are doing closed-book essay questions. But there will likely still be a period of adjustment during which you start with completing questions in the 35 to 30 minutes, and cut two to three minutes with every practice question you do. This brings us to our next tip regarding how to practice - when to transition from closed-book practice and exam conditions.

Ideally, we recommend that you start transitioning to closed-book essay practice anywhere between six to four weeks before the bar exam. Of course, this timing may vary based on how long you have to study and how drastically you are willing to transition. For example, some students prefer to transition slowly. These students may want to spend a week or two doing essay questions using only skinny outlines or attack plans instead of a longer outline before moving to completely closed-book essays.

Similarly, when you should start shaving time off your practice essays depends on how much faster you must become. But generally, start thinking about this transition six to four weeks before the exam. That way you can spend the three weeks before the bar exam doing nothing but closed-book practice under exam time conditions.

Now that we have talked about when to start practicing and how to practice, as well as how to adjust your practice strategy through the study period, let's talk about how much of your study time to spend doing practice essay questions. As with your practice strategy, you will likely want to adjust the percentage of time you spend on practice essay questions throughout your study period.

For example, we recommend that you start with spending 10 to 15% of your study time doing practice essay questions. This will leave you extra time for initial substantive review, as well as practicing multiple-choice questions, and for the skills part of the exam. As you move closer to the exam, gradually decrease the time that you spend on substantive review and increase the time you spend practicing all aspects of the exam.

Ideally during your last three to four weeks of studying, you can devote 90 to 95% of your time to practice questions, splitting that time between essay question practice, multiple-choice practice, and skills test practice. Generally, splitting your practice time 50/50 between writing and multiple-choice, with 80% of your writing time spent on practice essay questions, is a good place to start.

You can then adjust this time based on your specific strengths and weaknesses as you review your practice exams. That leads us to our next tip regarding essay practice - how to evaluate your answers using model or sample answers. First, if you're using model answers, remember that these are model answers given to bar exam graders; not answers written by students under timed conditions, unless you are in California.

Alternatively, if you are using the sample answers from past exam takers, remember that those answers were written by students under timed conditions, and therefore are not necessarily error-free. With those guidelines in mind, we recommend that you use the following questions to self-evaluate your practice essay answers: 1. How much total time did you spend on this essay? 2. Did you read the fact pattern off a printed copy or off your screen?

3. Did you do this question closed-book or open-book? 4. Did you outline on scratch paper or on your screen? 5. Were there any issues raised in the sample answer that you missed in your answer? What were those issues? 6. If your essay took longer than the allotted time, why? 7. How much of that time did you spend just planning? 8. What worked and didn't work about how you planned your answer?

And then, when you are comparing your essays to the sample answers, think about what issues did you miss? How was your IRAC? Was your essay easy to read? Was your essay organized? Did you learn anything from reviewing the sample answer that you will incorporate into your next essay practice? If you find that you missed several issues or had a particularly disorganized answer, consider whether you would benefit from re-writing your answer, considering what you learned from your self-evaluation.

Additionally, we recommend taking note of what you want to work on for your next practice essay, based on how this practice essay went. Try to focus on one thing at a time. To do that, ask yourself: What is the most important thing I could do on my next practice essay to earn more points? When you have the answer, you can even write it on a Post-it and put it near your computer to look at before you do your next practice essay.

Now that we have talked about when to practice, how to practice, how much to practice, and how to self-evaluate, let's talk about some resources for finding past bar exam questions to use for practice, as well as ways to get outside feedback on your practice essay answers. Regarding resources for past bar exam essay questions, through Bar Exam Toolbox, you are able to receive access to what we call our UBE and/or California Brainy Bar Banks.

These banks contain all of the past bar exam essay questions and model answers from the UBE for the last 18 years, as well as all of the California bar exam questions and sample answers for the last 22 years. So with access to the Brainy Bar Bank, you are able to do hundreds of practice essay questions, without ever facing the problem of running out of questions.

In addition to the Brainy Bar Bank, the State of California releases its past exam questions publicly, and the NCBE releases select UBE questions for a small fee. Regardless of which resource you choose, the important thing is that you are using real past exam questions in your essay practice. That way your practice directly translates to helping you answer the question encountered on the exam. Regarding outside feedback on your practice essays, this is another area where we can help.

In particular, our bar exam tutors regularly offer students detailed substantive feedback on their practice essay answers. If you'd like to learn more about the Brainy Bar Bank, receiving outside feedback from a Bar Exam Toolbox tutor, or have any other questions about doing practice essays for the bar exam, please reach out to us via the contact form on BarExamToolbox.com. We would love to help you find additional resources or put you in touch with one of our excellent bar exam tutors.

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