So here is what I’ve been up to since the start of January. I have once again been studying for the Bar Exam. I took the same bar review course that I took last time. Mostly because I really felt that it would be a good review of the material getting to listen to the lectures again and because I’m generally not as disciplined as I would like to be so I found it helpful to have a study schedule that I had to keep up with. Last time I took this bar study course I think I only completed about 60-70% of the assigned work, over about 4 hours a day on top of the 4 hours of class a day. I actually don’t think that is much less than what a lot of people who passed the first time did, but I obviously needed to study more or probably mostly I needed to do more practice essays.
So this time around I decided I would do my best to complete all of the assigned work hoping that it would make the difference. I think I was able to complete about 90% of the assignments, but really struggled to keep up with the work. I was getting up in morning and doing about an hour before Eleanor woke up. Then I would start studying when she took a nap at about 12:30pm. My mom would arrive a little after that. I would study until about 5:30pm when I had to leave for class. I decided to take the night class this time around, and I think it was a really good decision. I’m not great studying at night so the evening hours are usually wasted for me, but having to go to class gave me those extra hours of studying the material. After class I would usually get home around 10pm and study until 12.
On Saturday I had class in the morning from 9am until 1pm and then I came home from class, had lunch and then started studying until about 5:30pm and studied some more after Eleanor went to bed from about 9pm until 12am. On Sunday I would try to get in at least 2 hours before lunch and 4 hours after lunch and then at least an hour after Eleanor went to bed.
Basically I was studying about 8 hours on top of the 4 hours of class a day and taking care of Eleanor in the mornings. So in total I was putting in 17 hour days with no real down time.
And, to be honest, I’m not really sure it helped that much.
The Bar Exam was February 24th, 25th, and 26th. Three days, six hours a day. Wednesday is six hours of multiple choice, three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. Tuesday and Thursday are three hours of three essay exams in the morning and something called a Performance Test for three hours in the afternoon. The Performance Test is intended to simulate a real life legal task like writing a legal memo or an affidavit. You receive instructions, a case file, and a library of cases and have three hours to read everything, outline what you will write, and write it.
In all it is an intense three days, and I have a feeling I’ll be doing it all over again in July. I do feel like I killed the Performance Tests and I feel okay about the multiple choice, but I did not feel good at all about at least four of the six essays. So, I guess we’ll see. I get my results mid-May.
This time I went alone, so sorry no Eleanor hotel pictures. Josh and Eleanor had some fun mommy-free time filled with trips to the park and visits with friends and we skyped so Eleanor could talk to computer mommy every night.
Here are some pictures of my hotel in Ontario:
