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Flotsam and the bar exam

I have made it seven weeks through this move, job transfer, studying, and two days of the bar exam without a meltdown, but I don't think I can make it through tonight. This test is just really difficult, and tomorrow is twelve essays that you can pretty much guarantee will include some issues that I just flat have no idea where to even start on. At least you can get partial credit (I hope!). Who knows if that's enough to pass?

Seriously, I found myself buying conspiracy theories yesterday because the Texas Procedure and Evidence exam included questions that weren't even of the "I recognize this, just can't quite remember the answer" variety, but were of the "I have never seen or heard of anything that would answer this question" type. I went back and verified in our BarBri lectures on a couple - flat out no reference to them at all. And I thought: do the bar examiners get copies of the BarBri books and then deliberately try to write questions that aren't in the study materials or past exams, just to think themselves all clever and to stump us? Like it's not enough material to pull from already - there were three, three-hour lectures and 130 pages of notes on crim pro, two three-hour lectures on civ pro, and two entire days of a review - plus multiple past practice exams, and hours of individual review. And are they happy they came up with some things nobody's ever seen? Well, bully for them. Way to NOT test what people have been studying (it's hard enough to get down the main testable areas in each of a dozen subjects) or what they might actually know. Memorization of stupid little details really are the true measure of a lawyer. I'll be so excited to encounter that tomorrow on the essays. "Hey! They'll never get THIS arcane rule on probate!"

No conspiracy theories necessary for multistate. Those questions are just designed to be obnoxious and test the twists of all the rules -- you read through a fact pattern and think you recognize the rule they're looking to test, and then the question deals with a completely unrelated matter that just throws you for a loop. One thing that kind of surprised me this time around was that the subjects I thought were hardest three years ago - evidence, real property, and criminal law - were actually stronger for me on all the practice tests, where contracts and con law just seemed harder. (Also intentional torts, though negligence seemed fine.) There's just no way to know how you did on this until you see the grade, given the number of questions with hard to distinguish "right" and "also right but slightly better" answers.

One thing I notice during tests is that once my brain starts focusing and being active, all sorts of weird stuff floats to the surface along with (hopefully right) rules of law. So, Kanye West songs were playing in my head all day today (I know: que?) along with dinner options, house flipping TV shows, friends I need to get in touch with, and other things that just raced through along with contract formation, mortgage deed recordations, specific intent crimes, and strict liability theories. But that's all gone now. Time for wills and consumer law and commercial paper and oil and gas. Oh yeah, and my horrendously high electrical bill and house that I haven't had any time to help clean in weeks. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Full post as published by Irish Law on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).