Bar Exam Prep Study Plan

It`s the magical question everyone is wondering throughout their bar exam prep, Irom day one
until results day. What do I study and how much time should I study it in order to pass the bar
exam? I answered the question How many hours per day should I study? by recommending you
Iocus on accomplishing tasks, not spending hours.
Here, I elaborate more on what tasks you should Iocus on to pass the bar. II you do the Iollowing
and have good sample answers to review, you will probably be all set to go bar exam week. I
took the CaliIornia bar, so the inIo in this post is biased towards CaliIornia takers.
Here we go!
Your Task List
To be ready, you`ll have to accomplish the Iollowing tasks:
1) Do & review practice essays
2) Do & review MBE questions
3) Memorize rules oI law
4) Listen to class lectures
5) Do & review perIormance tests (iI applicable in your jurisdiction)
How Much of Each Task?
So, how much oI each oI these should you do, and how much time will it take? Here`s my best
guess based on the time it took me:
The Iollowing are the subjects that could be tested on your bar exam:
a) Contracts g) Evidence
b) Torts h) Civil Procedure
c) Property i) Criminal Law/Criminal Procedure
d) Constitutional Law j) ProIessional Responsibility
e) Wills/Trust k) Community Property
I) Remedies l) Business Associations/Agency
1) Do & review practice essays:
On average, I did about Iour or Iive practice essays Ior each topic, and I repeated about two or
three oI the essays a second time and sometimes a third time (I Iound this method eIIective in
passing essays). Some topics, I only completed two essays, and some I did completed six.
Again, what I`m giving you is an average approximation. The number oI essays you do per topic
should be based on how comIortable you are Ieeling about those topic areas. The less
comIortable you are, the more time you should spend.
So, completed a total of about seven essays per topic.
Seven is a good number oI essays to complete iI you are doing them right. That is, you are
outlining, timing yourselI, reviewing good (but not perIect) sample answers, and discovering
where you missed key issues, Iacts, and arguments.
On average, spent about an hour and fifteen minutes doing and reviewing each essay.
Some essays I spent IiIteen minutes and some I spent two hours. When I repeated essays, I may
have spent only an hour.
I did not spend only IiIteen minutes reviewing each essay! When I did my Iirst Iew essays, I
might have spent only IiIteen minutes doing the essay and an hour learning the rules Irom the
model. The essays I repeated I may have spent only Iive minutes reviewing the answer.
Stated above, there are twelve topics I studied. So, Iigure (12 topics) X (7 essays per topic) X (1
hour & 15minutes per essay)
105 hours.
Let`s round down. So, it might be a good idea to spend about 100 hours doing practice
essay exams, which will, by Iar, be a majority oI your study time.
2) Do and review MBE questions
These are the six topics covered on the MBE:
a) Contracts d) Constitutional Law
b) Torts e) Evidence
c) Property I) Criminal Law/Criminal Procedure
On average, did about four practice MBE`s per topic, covering about 100 MBE questions
per topic.
A practice exam oI 17 questions takes 35minutes. A 35 question practice exam should take
about 1 hour and 10 minutes. So that is about 3hours and 30 minutes per topic, just doing the
questions.
On average, I spent about another Iorty Iive minutes reviewing each MBE. I Iurther reviewed all
MBE questions or just the ones I missed, depending on intuition and the level oI readiness I Ielt I
had.
That equals about three hours per topic reviewing answers.
Thus 3.5 oI test taking and three hours oI reviewing equals about 6.5 hours per topic. Multiply
that by six topics and I get nearly 40hours (this is 40 Iocused hours, mind you).
Also, I did about six mixed-MBE question sets oI 17 to 35 questions each. That is another 4.5
hours oI test taking and 4.5 hours oI reviewing, totaling nine hours.
Thus, it might be a good idea to spend around 50 hours of MBE studying.
Again to emphasize, iI you do this amount oI questions per topic, that should be enough in
CaliIornia, so long as you are spending a majority oI that time doing timed questions and
reviewing your answers to see where you can improve.
3) Memorizing rules of law & Reviewing class lectures
This is tough to determine. I spent lots oI time doing this in the beginning and not as much in the
end. Also, much oI my rule memorization was incorporated into my essay and MBE
preparation. II I had to shoot Irom the hip, I`d say I spent about 3 to 4 hours of pure rule
memorization per topic. That is time I spent outside oI my essay and MBE studying, doing
strictly rule memorization. Again, some topics I spent much more time and others I barely even
looked at (having Ielt prepared during law school can aIIect the amount oI time you need to
spend here).
So, let`s say about 3.5hours X 12 topics nearly 40 hours
4) Attending class lectures
In barbri we had about seven weeks oI lectures, about Iive to six days per week, averaging about
Iour hours per day. That is about 40 days X 4hrs/day 160 hours
Wowzer! Did I spend that much time?
5) Performance Tests
Many jurisdictions don`t have to worry about these, but CaliIornia does.
I took about Iour Iull perIormance tests and outlined three others.
I spent about three hours Ior each Iull test and an hour and a halI on each partial test. Thus, I
spent about 16 and halI hours taking perIormance tests.
I spent approximately 45 minutes reviewing each perIormance test. Thus, totaled about 20
hours doing performance tests. This might not seem like a lot, but iI you start practicing
perIormance tests aIter you have done a Iew topics oI essays AND you know what you`re doing,
these things actually aren`t too diIIicult to master.
First conclusion
Thus, I spent the Iollowing time:
100 hours on practice essays
50 hours on the MBE
40 hours on rule memorization
20 hours on perIormance tests
This totals 210 hours oI bar prep, outside oI class lectures
Ahh, but wait. I certainly wasn`t that Iocused and eIIicient the entire time, was I?
6) Delay factor
No, I wasn`t. Although I spent about the amount oI time I did on each topic, I was certainly
wasn`t always consistent and Iocused. So, let`s add a little delay Iactor. Let`s say I spent about
ten minutes oI Iacebook` time Ior every hour, on average meaning I wasn`t totally Iocused on
what I was doing.
That means every 70 minutes I spent working, I actually got 60 minutes oI work done.
That is 210 hours * 70minutes/60minutes .
Which means, actually spent about 245 hours studying for bar exam prep outside of my
lectures!
Wow, that is a lot oI time! Certainly, you don`t have enough time do all that right?!?!?
Ahh, but wait. II you start studying six weeks beIore your bar exam, you will have about 45
days to study. How many hours oI studying is that per day?
Wait Ior it..
Only about 5hours and 30 minutes per day of studying! However, that is including weekends.
II you add that with the weekday class lectures, that will be about nine hours per day oI total bar
prep studying to get you ready, including all your class lectures.
Well, you have 24 hours in a day. II you spend 8 hours sleeping and 9 hours studying, you have
seven other hours Ior doing whatever the heck you want! Whew, I bet you can breathe easier
now.
Keep in mind a Iew things about these numbers:
1) Most people will have more than 45 days to study because they will have started sooner. For
you February takers, the second week oI January would be your 45-day mark. For you July
takers, the second week oI June is your mark.
2) Start studying earlier is better because you don`t want to spend 7 days a week studying nine
hours per day! Take some days and some time oII. It`s good Ior you. The bar exam is a
marathon, not a sprint.
Why do I think iI you study the amount I recommend you`ll be Iine? Because it worked Ior me,
and I know it can work Ior you too.
Although, these numbers are about the time I put in, I will say the numbers are slightly inIlated
to show the minimum I think I should have done. My actual time was perhaps 90 oI what I put
here.
II you want to Iollow my model, here is a conclusion:
Practice Essays
5 Per topic
Repeat 3
MBE
4 tests per topic totaling about 100 questions
PerIormance Tests
4 Iull test
3 halI tests
Rule Memorization
3.5hrs per topic