If you would have told me a year ago that I would be creating content about the bar exam or law school even I would have said no way. But as a natural born sharer, reflecting on my bar prep experience and my time in law school over the last year I have realized that the lessons I learned are really transformative and I should share them to help others because maybe if I had seen the videos I am creating back then, it would have been a little easier.
And thats exactly why I started my blog 3 years ago! So here is a list of common mistakes I made while preparing for the Florida Bar Exam last summer and I hope that if you’re sitting for any bar exam this summer, these help you feel more confident and in control of your exam.
My Bar Exam Mistakes and Tips:
- Putting In The Hours, Blindly
- It is so so important to put in the study hours. On average you’re probably going to study for about 8-10 hours at peak (mid June-July)
- But you can and should study in blocks of time, as close to the exam day schedule as possible to train your body to be used to working for 3 hour blocks of time – try 9-12, an hour lunch break and 1-4 or as close to that as possible!
- If you have energy and brain capacity to keep going after about 5pm, keep going until you need food or a brain break but if you’re no longer retaining info, call it a day and give yourself some grace
- I tended to study from around 10-10:30 to about 8pm with an hour lunch and a few walk breaks in between to break it up and stretch my body and this worked really well for me
- Blindly Following A Prep Course
- Similar to tip 1, be sure to adjust your studying accordingly. If a prep course’s program isn’t conducive to your learning style or you feel you need more or a different type of practice, find supplemental study materials
- I did Barbri and by the first week of June I felt like I was just chugging along but wasn’t confident in how much information I was retaining. I decided to purchase AdaptiBar at that time and I found their questions and software to be a really great supplement for me
- AdaptiBar uses real NCBE questions that have been released so I liked getting that extra practice in addition to Barbri’s learning questions
- It doesn’t have to be this, but find what resources work for you, Critical Pass and others are out there to assist you! Just be sure to check in and see if how you’re studying is actually effective for you and make changes to your study plan as you go
- Too Much Caffeine
- Being energized is important and having your morning cup of coffee is totally ok but you also don’t want to over consume because come test day, you have no time to go to the bathroom besides lunch and you also don’t want to crash mid way through the afternoon sessions or take away from exam time to run to the bathroom line
- I trained myself to have an afternoon tea or espresso shot on the days I needed it around 2 pm so I could make it to 5:30 on test day but I didn’t let myself have more than 2 a day and made sure to hydrate constantly to make up for it
- Also helps with blood sugar crashes and headaches, at least for me!
- Not Taking Breaks
- As much as you want to train your body to be butt in chair for 4, 3 hour sessions two days in a row, it is crucial that while studying you give your body rest
- MOVE YOUR BODY
- Go for walks, do yoga and stretch your legs and arms in between long sessions to keep the blood flowing and give your brain a little rest
- SUNSHINE is your BFF, I was a big fan of grounding every morning and meditating in the sun for a few minutes in the afternoon to give myself an energy boost
- Also its OK to take a few hours or even a day off if you need it
- One of my professors told us that we would regret the events we missed due to bar prep so to make time for them and that advice stuck with me
- Go to happy hour, go to dinner, have date night, be there for the wedding or baby shower or whatever it is! Just make the time up before and after or do a half day so you don’t feel like it was a total wash
- But be there for your friends and family during this time too, they are your support system and you’re gonna need it
- AND be there for yourself, take a mental health day, read a book for fun, watch an hour of TV to decompress before bed, you deserve it!
- Don’t Try to Memorize Everything
- It’s a marathon not a sprint! You just need to know enough about a lot of different subjects to articulate a rule statement and then apply it to the facts
- Work on really knowing the basic rules and exceptions for each sub topic in a subject and drill those rules
- I highly recommend having a notebook where you handwrite the rules you continuously miss and make note of why you’re missing them. Review those rules and the answer explanations each time so you can get really familiar with how its tested
- Overtime you’ll see that you miss them less and less and can recall them a lot quicker, especially on essays
- Do extra practice on the subjects you’re struggling with but don’t neglect your best subjects, modify your study plan how you see fit!
I think the biggest tip I can give though is that this exam is more mental than it is anything else, it is a stamina test, a battle of who really has what it takes. So while you are training your brain and body, don’t forget to train your spirit too. Confidence and believing that you will succeed is essential. Have a mantra that you reach for when you need to push just a little longer, mine was “confidence is a strategy,” take it if it works for you, create your own if you need to.
Don’t let the doubt creep in, you have put in the work to get this far, it’s just one more hurdle to go! Visualize yourself opening your results in the fall like I am here and being sworn in to the Bar. Just a few more weeks and it’ll be your reality, keep your chin up and GOOD LUCK!
See you at the Bar,
xo Kayla
PS: I am always open for calls to discuss law school, from whether its the right path for you, navigating those 3 years, networking and of course the bar exam if you’re a 3L or recent grad. Please email me or book a call with me here and let’s chat!