This post is long overdue. I apologize. Much has been happening in my life. I'll get to all of that in another post within a few days. For now though, the bar exam:
Day 1:
This day was a whole bunch easier than I had anticipated. In fact, I thought that this day would be the most trouble of the three and it turned out to be the least. The procedure and evidence questions were similar to the ones I had studied and although I did not know a few of the answers, there were enough that I did know to make me feel like I got the necessary points. On some of the more obscure questions I made up a rule and rolled with it. That in fact was my mantra throughout the test. If I didn't know a rule, I made one up and rolled with it. I figure my odds were about 1 in 2 that my made up rule was close enough to the actual rule to get some major points.
The practice MPT I took was tough. The one on the test seemed not as tough. I managed to finish writing it (which I heard was the most important thing) and in fact I wrote my conclusion when I had 5 minutes left and then went back to continue where I left off with the analysis. They emphasized headings on the test so I made sure my headings were sweet. That's got to count for something.
At the end of day 1, I got in my car and headed home. I didn't talk to anyone after the test to compare answers, but just got in my car and drove away. That was probably smart. I drove right to Payless shoes and bought two pairs of shoes. It was more about relieving stress than needing shoes, but give me a break - stress levels were high and shopping relieves stress. After Payless I drove the rest of the way home, did a few MBE questions and went over my PMBR notes and the BarBri multistate workshop notes. I probably didn't study more than 1.5 hrs all together that night, but it was soothing to know that my notes were in hand all night.
Day 2:
The MBE questions were nothing like the ones BarBri or PMBR gave us for practice. That pissed me off. More about this later.
For some reason the morning session of the MBE was my worst of the 5 sessions. I kept falling asleep. I must have fallen asleep 7 times during that 3 hour test. I had no adrenaline. None! There was no drive and no motivation to finish or to do well. The questions seemed easier than the ones I had practiced and therefore I didn't fell stressed. I wish they had been harder. I wish I'd had some adrenaline. I wish that I hadn't fallen asleep 7 times. But twas not the case.
During lunch I knew that something had to be different during the afternoon session. I, at the very least, had to stay awake. I went to a wings place for lunch and ordered a hamburger and 4 chicken legs. I was needing protein. I ate so much. My lunch buddy kept staring at me like I was insane. I had no idea whether or not the food would put me to sleep, but I figured I'd avoid carbs, load up on protein, and hope for the best. Oh, and I got an ice cream on the way back to the testing site. The meal was probably 2000 calories all together.
I managed to stay awake during the afternoon session and that was already magnitudes better than the morning. However, since I was more awake and alert, I started to notice that the questions were not the same as the practice questions. There were no future interest questions (okay, one EASY one). There were no questions with multiple answer choices (roman numerals and then the answer choices being combinations of the roman numerals) and I realized that they were testing things very differently from how they had tested them in the past. Here is an example: All of the nuisance questions that I had practiced (and I probably did a half dozen at least just on nuisance) were about coming to the nuisance and the elements of nuisance. However, on the actual test, they tested on the difference between public and private nuisance. I didn't review that. I did look it up later and checked out that the answer I chose was right, but that isn't the point. The point is that almost all of the questions were like that. They tested different things and things differently from past exams. Barbri and PMBR totally screwed me over for the MBE (hopefully not, but that is how it felt). I realize that is not their faults, but this copyright squabble between the board of law examiners and BarBri and PMBR is inane an I was so fucking pissed that it had to be brought to fruition during my freaking bar exam. Okay, everyone else who took it when I took it had to face the same situation, but I still felt that it was unfair.
I went home that night pissed and did not want to come back the next day. The thing that kept me from giving up right then was knowing that the national MBE people did not write day 3 of the bar exam and that I would most likely not have to deal with this situation again. I was upset. I cried. My parents tried to make me feel better, but they did not succeed. In fact, it was just about the worst evening I'd had in a very long time. I got rejection letters from 2 graduate schools that evening. My parents had a fight - a stupid fight. I was pissed at them, pissed at the MBE writers, pissed at the grad schools that rejected me, and pissed at the whole damn world. I just wanted the freaking test to be over, crawl into a hole far underground, and not come out for many months, and only if I passed the exam. It was not a good day. I was in bed by 8pm. I did not touch my notes.
Day 3:
I felt bad about not studying the night before. I used the hour before the exam started (7-8am) to cram. I read all of the morning essay questions from the last 2 bar exam administrations. They turned out to be all the wrong subjects, but it made me feel tons better. I crammed for wills and family law which turned out to be in the afternoon but got lucky with the partnerships question and the consumer rights question because I crammed for those and they were in the morning. The essay questions were hard, but not harder than I expected. I know I got some points and I know I missed some points. All in all, it wasn't too bad.
For lunch I went to a burrito place and had a yummy burrito. I also crammed for the afternoon session during lunch since I knew that wills, family law, property, and oil and gas were the only things left to study. I figure I got at least 20 points that I would not have gotten had I not crammed.
The afternoon session went well. I finished with over 1/2 hour to go. Although I was not alone. Over 1/2 of the people had left when they called 15 minutes. I was pleased with what I wrote and could not think of too many things to add as I went through the questions and answers again. I sat for 10 minutes with nothing to do. I had checked out my answers twice and could not bring myself to do it a third time. So I thought about visiting my boyfriend. I thought about getting laid. I thought about what I was going to wear when I saw him. I thought about packing for my trip. I thought about sex. I did a little "I'm going to get laid tomorrow" dance in my head and smiled. I had essentially checked out of the exam at that point. They called time, and I went home.
