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BARBRI - Introduction (Transcription and Captioning by www.CaptionCrew.com)

Good morning, and welcome to the Florida BARBRI bar review course. For those of you who

have never met me, my name is Karen Hundley and I'm the vice president of the southern region of

BARBRI. I'm also a Florida attorney and have been helping students pass the Florida bar for almost 20

years.

So my job today is to basically give you an overall introduction to basically three main topics.

We're going to go over the Florida bar, an intro to the bar exam. What's on it, what to expect, how it's

graded, all that fun stuff.

Next, we're going to get into an intro to essay writing for the Florida bar. How you should answer the essay questions that you're given by the bar examiners. The format or the structure, how to

organize the answers, and I'll talk about what the examiners are looking for.

And then we're going to end with an overall introduction to the BARBRI course. We're going to

go over what's in every single one of those books that you received in that big box earlier this month.

For the first two parts of my intro, the intro to the bar exam and essay writing, for those of you

who go to a school or went to a school that had a full-blown bar prep program inside the school,

Academic Success, this is going to kind of be an overview for you all.

So just bear with me. It doesn't hurt to review this information, and everybody needs an intro to

the BARBRI course and we're going to get to that at the end. So you got to stick around and hang with

me for a while.

If we're all ready, let's get started. Everyone should have in front of them a handout. You're

going to have to fill in the handout as we go. So the handout's titled Introduction and Florida Essay

Writing Workshop. So pull this out, get your pens out, and let's get started.

We start off with the intro to the Florida bar exam. What are the dates? When's the Florida bar

exam is given always the last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and the last Tuesday and Wednesday

of July.

For you all who are sitting for the February 2012 bar exam, those dates are February 28th, which

is a Tuesday, and February 29th, which is a Wednesday. It's a leap year. So you guys get the very last

two days of the month, the 28th and 29th.

If anybody decides that they want to postpone and not take the exam until July, the July 2012

bar exam dates will be Tuesday, July 24th and Wednesday, July 25th.

Florida bar exam's always given in the same location. Once in a while they'll change it; but for

the most part, it will be held in downtown Tampa at the Tampa Convention Center. Really nice facility.

It's on the water, not that you'll be able to enjoy that. But maybe after the bar exam's over, you can

spend some time down there.

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Okay. Let's get into the actual format of what's on the exam and what days are what. The

Florida bar exam is composed of three separate parts. You have the Florida day of the exam, which is

Tuesday, first day. You have the multistate bar exam or, as people know it, the MBE, which is

Wednesday.

And then the MPRE, Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, you have to take and pass that

to be admitted to the Florida bar. And hopefully, most of you have already done that. Most people take

it in their second or third year of law school. So the Florida bar exam, the Florida day, the multistate

day, and then you have to get through the MPRE.

The first day, Tuesday, is the Florida bar exam, the Florida day of the exam, and that's also

known as Part A. On Part A, you will be tested in six segments. Six parts. Usual format is three parts in

the morning, consisting of three essay questions, and three hours to complete those three parts. So one

hour per each essay question.

Three essays, one hour to complete each essay question. So three hours, three essays, three

questions.

And then the afternoon section, you're given the next three segments, which consists of 100

multiple choice questions with three hours to complete those questions. Each segment consists of about

33 or 34 multiple choice questions. You won't know what the segments are. You're just given all 100

multiple choice questions and they tell you, complete them in three hours.

For those of you not good with math, we already said it's one hour per each essay question. In

the afternoon, that one hour per each 33, 34 multiple choice questions breaks down to about 1.8 minutes

per multiple choice question. Ample time to complete Florida multiple choice questions not very long.

We're at the top of page 2. The Florida essay questions, what do they look like? For the most

part, the Florida essay questions are straightforward. They kind of look like a normal law school essay

exam. You should find no red herrings in these questions. For the most part, they're about a page long,

sometimes they go a little over a page, but they're not extraordinarily long.

No red herrings, pretty straightforward. However, they are extremely Florida law specific. You

need to write that down. They are extremely Florida law specific. You just can't answer these questions

based on generic multistate law. You need to know how Florida differs from the multistate.

So if you get a contracts question, you're answering that question as if you're an attorney in

Florida. So if Florida has a different rule than the rest of the country, you need to write that in there.

Okay. The multiple choice questions in Florida. Not much like the essay questions. They are not

consistently straightforward. The Florida multiple choice questions are not consistently straightforward.

Their coverage can be spotty or repetitious. They may overwork a particular rule. They are

short, however. So you should have no timing problem. But they're very, very nit-picky. Very, very

nit-picky.

Some of these hundred multiple choice questions will include a performance component. If you

read anything the Florida bar sent you, they'll say some of our questions will include a performance

component.

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What does that mean? Well, it's kind of basic. What it means is that they give you an actual

portion of a Florida statute, Florida case holding, a Florida rule of procedure, and then they ask you

questions that pertain to that rule.

However, those performance component questions are not closed universe questions. What

does that mean? Well, it means that you cannot answer the multiple choice questions just based on the

rule or the case holding that they gave you in the question. You'll need to bring some inside -- or outside

information in. So you'll need to know something about other parts of the rule to answer the question.

I basically tell students to approach these performance component questions as just longer

multiple choice questions. Don't assume that the rule they gave you actually is the rule that the question

turns on, because most of the time, it's not. They just throw them in to make some longer questions,

and they make them more difficult.

So we have a hundred questions. They're nit-picky, and then they throw in some of these

performance component questions, which just means that they're longer multiple choice questions.

Generally, students think the Florida multiple choice section of the exam is the most difficult,

because they are so nit-picky.

All right. So we talked about being nit-picky. Well, next question people want to know is, well,

what subjects do I need to know all these little nit-picky details in? So the big question students have is

what subjects are tested on the Florida day of the exam.

Well, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners tell us that the rules of procedure will be tested on

every exam. And what are the rules of procedure? Well, they're the rules of criminal and civil procedure,

Florida criminal and civil procedure, and the rules of judicial administration.

Which if you're trying to find the rules of judicial administration in your BARBRI material, they're

included in your Florida civil procedure outline. Okay? So you'll find the rules of judicial administration

mixed into your Florida civil procedure outline, and you'll need to know really well the Florida rules of

criminal pro and the Florida rules of civil procedure.

Okay. So we said that there were six segments on the bar exam. The examiners tell us that the

rules of procedure will be on every exam, and they will make up one of those six segments. Well, you're

left with five optional sections.

And so in those five extra sections on your exam, what are the subjects you're going to be tested

on there? Well, the examiners don't tell you exactly what subjects will be on your exam, but what they

do say is they give you a long list of subjects, and they say we will pull from this list of subjects and test

you on some of those in those five additional sections.

So what are those extra or optional subjects called? If you look down towards the bottom of

page 2 and the top of page 3, you'll find them. They tell you that you can be tested on constitutional

law, contracts and sales, criminal law and criminal procedure multistate. Multistate evidence with the

Florida distinctions. Florida business associations, which includes corporations and partnerships.

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Florida constitutional law. Florida family law. You have Florida rules of professional conduct,

which is going to be different than what you studied for the MPRE exam last year or this year. Florida

trusts, Florida wills and administration of estates, Florida property, and Florida torts.

You want to remember, when looking at that list of subjects, when you see the subjects that are

tested on the multistate, like contracts, torts, real property, that if you're tested on any of those subjects,

you'll need to know what the Florida differences are.

And that's because Florida is a state that double tests, which means any subject that you might

see on the multistate, you might also see on the Florida day, but with the Florida distinctions. All right?

For each of the additional sections where the examiners are choosing from that list of topics to

pull from, they can pull and test you on each section, either one subject, two subjects or three subjects.

So between one and three subjects will appear in each of those five optional sections. So on

your exam, in addition to the rules of procedure that will appear on everyone's exam every year, you will

be tested on, from that list, a minimum of five extra subjects to a maximum of 15 extra subjects.

Because they can test you on one to three subjects in each section.

So what does that mean for you all? Every subject that's listed on that page, you basically have

to know. All right?

Now, how have they tested these subjects in the past? A lot of people want to guess at what

might be on your exam. And because people are interested in the history of what's been tested, we

provide you with a grid that lays out for you what subjects have been tested over the past ten years and

how they've appeared.

Have they appeared in multiple choice format, or have they appeared in essay format? And the

reason why we give that to you is so you can kind of gear your studying for each of the subjects in the

manner that it might appear on your exam.

Because you're going to study a little differently for the multiple choice subjects than you would

for the essay topics. Multiple choice subjects are going to be really, really nit-picky. You're going to have

to know little tiny details. Where the essay subjects, you're going to kind of want to look at the big

picture and know kind of like what sub-areas generally appear in essay form.

So if you want to look at that chart, everyone should have gotten this pamphlet, titled The

Florida Survival Guide. If you turn to page 28, that's the page it's on. Let's take a look here. Page 28, I

don't know if you all can see this. Open up your book. You'll see this grid. And it lays out on top all the

subjects that can be tested.

You'll notice the first column is Florida procedure. That stands for Florida civil procedure, Florida

criminal procedure, and the rules of judicial administration.

And then it lists MC if it's been tested in multiple choice format and essay if it's been tested in

essay format.

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What you want to pull out of that chart is what subjects are appearing in what form. And what

you'll notice is that on past exams, there are only a few subjects that ever appear in multiple choice

format.

What are those subjects? Let's write them down. You'll notice that the rules of procedure, they

have to be on the exam. They're going to be on your exam, and they always appear in multiple choice

format.

So one of the subjects that you're going to need to know nit-picky rules about is the Florida rules

of procedure.

The other subjects that are always tested in multiple choice format are business entities, which is

corporations and partnerships. Need to make sure you know those rules well.

You'll see Florida evidence on there. Need to know all of the little nit-picky Florida evidence

rules. And Florida wills, you'll need to know Florida wills very, very well.

So those are the only subjects that have ever appeared in multiple choice format so you're going

to make sure you do lots of multiple choice questions in those areas.

You'll also note from looking at that grid that Florida con law, hot topic for essays. What are

some of our other hot topics for essays on this exam? You have Florida con law. You also have, they

love to test Florida real property, Florida torts and Florida contracts.

Again, those subjects, in their multistate form, appear on the multistate exam. But we double

test so you'll need to know them for the Florida day. They're essay subjects and you'll need to know the

Florida distinctions, where Florida differs, because you're going to write your essay answers as a Florida

lawyer. So you're going to use Florida law.

Okay. Let's move on to E. Who grades the exams? And this is important, because when you're

writing an essay, you want to write for your reader or write for your grader. So that's how it comes in

handy.

Well, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners is responsible for grading the Florida bar exam. The

multiple choice questions are graded by a computer. You'll get a bubble sheet or Scantron and you'll fill

it in. So the multiple choice questions are computer graded. And what you want to note about that is

that only correct answers are scored. There's no penalty for guessing.

So you just add points on. They don't take away points. What does that mean for you? Is that

you never leave a question blank. You fill in, you take a guess and you bubble in an answer. Okay?

So only correct answers are scored. No penalty for guessing.

Now, the essay questions. How are they graded? Well, they're graded on a scale of 1 to 100,

and they use a system of grading called multiple calibrated readers. Multiple calibrated readers.

And this real -- this system really does affect how you're going to write your answers. Because

this system of multiple calibrated readers means that they get everybody together. They're using one

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grading key, and the examiner tells them exactly how they should be assigning points using the grading

key.

They meet in a group. They go over a sample question, use their key, make sure everybody

understands the key. And then they send the graders off to grade separately with about 35 questions.

Planted in each grader's stack of 35 questions is a planted paper or sample paper, and they don't

know which one's the sample. When they're done grading their stack of 35, those examiners, who are

just attorneys in the community who have done well on past bar exams, they get back with the bar

examiner responsible for that essay question, and the bar examiner at that time tells them which paper

to pull out. Which paper was the planted paper.

The examiner then goes around the room and finds out what everybody has given that paper as

a grade. If not everyone has given that paper the exact same grade, the examiner then makes them pull

out the grading key again, makes sure they work through what's the problem -- what the problem is, and

they do these verification checks where they're kind of making sure everybody's grading the same.

They're basically calibrating the readers to the point where they're grading identically. Because if

they get a point, a check where not everybody gave that planted paper the exact same score, they then

send the graders back to regrade the papers that they just did, basing it on what the examiner told them

to do with the grading key.

This system of multiple calibrated readers rewards -- and underline this on your form -- concise

answers. It puts a premium on issue recognition and doctrine statement. Okay? It rewards concise,

straightforward questions -- or answers, excuse me, and puts a premium on issue recognition and

doctrine statement.

Kind of sounds like IRAC, doesn't it? What is not noted on the grader's key? Philosophical

discourse. Philosophical discourse will not be noted on that grader's key and, therefore, will not be

granted points.

So no points for philosophical discourse. What does that mean to you? You're going to stick to

IRAC, and you're going to avoid rambling like some of you have done and your professors have wanted

you to do on exams in law school.

And we'll talk about essay writing in a bit when we get to the essay intro.

Right now, let's move on and let's do a brief introduction and talk a little bit about the multistate

exam, which is the second day of the bar exam.

For those of you who actually did do the BARBRI five-day preview, which was sometime towards

the end of December, it was online and in most locations, we had a classroom setting. You already got

an introduction to the MBE, but we're going to quickly skim over it for those of you who weren't able to

make the BARBRI preview.

The multistate exam is given on the exact same day all across the country, and that's the

Wednesday, the last Wednesday of February or the last Wednesday of July. Everybody takes it on the

same day.

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There are 100 multiple choice questions given in the morning on the MBE, and there's a hundred

multiple choice questions given in the afternoon.

That basically breaks down to, what, 100 questions in the morning, three hours to complete,

about 1.8 minutes per question. Hundred questions in the afternoon, three hours to complete, one hour,

33, 34 questions, 1.8 minutes per question.

The questions on the MBE do appear in random order, but the examiners, the National

Conference of Bar Examiners are a lot nicer than the Florida bar examiners, because they tell you exactly

how many questions you'll see in what subjects.

So let's write that down so we know exactly what we're expecting to see on our MBE this winter.

They test you on multistate constitutional law, and you will see 33 questions. So con law, 33 questions.

Multistate contracts and sales questions, you will see 34 questions. Criminal law and criminal procedure,

multistate, 33 questions. Evidence, 33. Real property, 33. And torts, 34, for a total of 200 questions.

Again, 100 in the morning, 100 in the afternoon, 200 total.

The MBE includes, out of those 200 questions, 190 live questions and ten pretest questions. So

190 are live questions, and 10 are pretest questions. What does that mean? Ten of the questions don't

count. They're throwing them in there to see how students do on them to maybe use them in future

exams.

So, but the problem is, is when you're going through your exam, they don't tell you, hey, this is a

pretest question. It doesn't count. You won't know the difference between the real questions and the

ten questions that they just threw in there. So you need to approach this exam as if all 200 questions

count. It's usually not a problem.

Okay. Top of page 5. The approximate schedule for the MBE. You start the exam. You get

there early around 8:40 in the morning. The exam starts promptly at 9:00. You do questions straight

through until noon, 100 questions. Again, three hours, 1.8 minutes per question.

You'll need to make sure you practice timing. A lot of students, when they start off doing

practice questions, have difficulty getting their timing right with the multistate questions. So make sure

when you're practicing, you're practicing using the same timing as you're going to be exposed to on the

bar exam. Which is 1.8 minutes per question, an hour per 33; in three hours, 100 questions.

You'll get a lunch break from 12:00 to 1:30. 1:30 exactly, the exam starts again, and you'll go 'til

4:30. You'll get the second set of 100.

For anyone out there who has a crazy idea that you're going to cheat and bubble in exactly what

your neighbor is doing, which is very unethical and you get caught, you'll never be admitted to the bar,

you can't do it. Because they mix up the portions. So you might have one set of 100, and your neighbor

might have the other section. And then when you go in the afternoon, you'll get the opposite set.

So even though you shouldn't cheat, because we're all ethical, it doesn't work, because the

examiners kind of mix up which sections you get.

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I also tell you that because on the lunch break, some people have the crazy notion that they're

going to talk about what questions they've seen. So if you hear somebody talking about, hey, did you

see that mortgage question and it involved this and that and you're trying to think back, I don't

remember seeing that question. Well, you're not going crazy. Maybe they had the other section of the

exam and you might see it on the next set.

All right. So go down to A. Want to chat a little bit about raw score versus scaled score. We

hear a lot of these terms going around when people are talking about the MBE. You probably heard a lot

about it when you were in law school.

What does that mean? Well, raw score, for those of you who don't know, is just exactly how

many you got right. So someone said I had a 145 on the MBE raw score. That was my raw score.

Well, they actually got 145 questions right out of the possible 190 live questions. What is a

scaled score? And that's what really matters. A scaled score is after everybody's exam's graded, the

examiners then go back in and they make adjustments because of bad questions, statistical imbalances in

the distribution of the exam, and they kind of adjust everybody's score.

They either add on or subtract from your raw score. Most bar MBE exams, so over the past ten

years or so, most MBEs have been scaled up approximately 10 to 15 points. And so for your exam,

you're aiming at, basically, a 10 -- I wouldn't count on more than a ten-point curve, even though you

probably will get more than that. But you can aim or count on probably around a ten-point curve going

up.

So if passing in Florida is a 136 scaled score, you all need to aim to get about 126 questions

correct. Okay? So you're aiming to get 126 questions correct on your MBE exam raw score. And if they

add those ten points on, you get a 136.

Now, that being said, we're all going to really aim to pass this exam without the curve. So, you

know, your main goal is to get 136 correct raw, and then that scale is just icing on the cake.

MBE questions are drafted by law school professors who are on committees appointed by the

National Conference of Bar Examiners. There are six separate committees, one committee for each

subject. And each committee has about five or six law school professors or deans or professionals in the

community, and they draft the questions.

And they usually send them through some pretest process before they appear where they

actually count on your exam. The questions range from really easy to extremely difficult. With the

majority of the questions being right down the middle.

And they're all jumbled up together by subject and then by difficultly level. So when you're

practicing, you're going to make sure that you do practice questions that are really easy and you'll do

some that are really difficult. But for the most part, you're going to do questions that are right down the

middle so you're prepared for all different types of questions.

Just like the Florida multiple choice questions, the MBE multiple choice questions, which is the

entire exam, will be computer graded, with no penalty for guessing. Only correct answers are scored.

You don't leave anything blank.

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The examiners, when they're drafting the questions, they're basically looking to make sure you

know how to apply law to the facts and come up with -- you know, analyze them and come up with an

answer.

They tend not to test you on areas that are still in flux. So you will not see a question on the

MBE on an area of law that is sitting in front of the Supreme Court.

They'll test you on well-settled points of law so that it should be black or white what the answer

is. Maybe not to you, but to the examiners.

All right. We're at the top of page 6. The last part of the exam is the MPRE, Multistate

Professional Responsibility Exam. And most of you have already taken it, which is great. If you have not

and you're taking the February bar exam, you want to make sure you register for the MPRE that is

coming up in March.

If you take the March MPRE and the February exam, your results will come out roughly around

the same time and your admission to the bar will not be delayed.

So what's the MPRE? Sixty questions, 50 of them count. It's a two-hour exam. It's administered

March, August and November. If you need to register for that, I've listed on your sheet the e-mail or --

sorry, the website for the National Conference of Bar Examiners, and that is www.ncbex.org.

Okay. Scoring of the Florida bar. We talked about raw score and scaled score. We talked about

how the National Conference of Bar Examiners generally scales up the MBE about 10 to 15 points every

year. Well, what about the Florida bar examiners? What do they do and how do they come up with your

overall number to see if you get admitted.

Well, the weight of each section of the bar exam is worth half. So the Florida day's worth 50%

of your score and the multistate day is worth 50% of your score. So the Florida day and the multistate

day each have equal weight.

To pass the Florida bar exam, we already said the magic number is a scaled score of 136. So

you need to hit that scaled score of 136. We know how to do it on the MBE. How do we do it on

Florida?

Well, Florida bar examiners what they tell us is that each of the six segments that we talked

about earlier is scored separately and each has equal weight.

So the Florida bar examiners tell us on the Florida portion of the exam that each of those six

segments is scored separately and each has equal weight. Therefore, one set of 33 multiple choice

questions is worth exactly the same weight as one essay question.

You need to study multiple choice as much as you study the essay part of this exam.

The examiners also tell us that after they've graded each of these sections separately, you know,

you have the essay graders over there doing their multiple calibrated reading thing, and then you have

the multiple choice questions being run through a machine.

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Well, they look at the scores and they wait to figure out if they're going to scale up and scale

down until the National Conference of Bar Examiners send them back the Florida students' MBE scores,

because the National Conference of Bar Examiners are the ones computer grading your MBE.

When the Florida bar examiners get the Florida students' MBE scores, they then look at the

distribution curve those scores form.

This is when we get into some kind of math. So they look at where all the scores are plotted out

on that curve. And hopefully, Florida students, because you're a pretty large group and you have a good

sampling, it's a pretty decent curve.

Then the Florida examiners will take their scores and then adjust their scores to match that same

distribution curve.

Now, they don't release the formula they used because it's going to change, because the Florida

students' multistate scores are changing.

So because they don't give you much concrete information, how do you know what you're aiming

for on each essay question and on each multiple choice section?

Well, you know because prior test takers have gone through, and we can see what the mean or

average score is, roughly, on every past essay exam and every past multiple choice section.

And what does that come out to? Well, the average or mean score on most essay exams or

essay questions seems to be around 50. Either a little bit below 50 or a little bit above 50. Except for

when family law is tested. Family law essays seem to have a mean or average score of 60 to 65.

Students seem to do really well on those family law essays. So the mean for that's a little higher.

The mean for the multiple choice questions varies quite a bit. But what you can generally count

on is seeing a mean roughly between 18 and 21 on each set of 33 multiple choice questions.

And if you aim for the mean, you're going to aim a little bit above passing.

So we tell students, when you're doing your practice essays or multiple choice questions, you

want to aim to get about 50 to 55 points out of a total of a hundred on each essay question. And for the

multiple choice sections, you want to, just to make it easy, aim to get about 20 multiple choice questions

correct out of a possible 33.

And if you do that, you should be fine. And again, you know, you're aiming for that scaled score

of a 136. So we said earlier that 50% of your score is Florida, 50% is multistate. If you're aiming for a

136 scaled score on each part, what do they do with each of the parts?

Well, the Florida bar examiners gives you two ways to pass this exam and get admitted to the

bar. You can either get a 136 separately on each day. So you get the scaled score of 136 on multistate,

scaled score of 136 on Florida, you pass the overall exam.

What happens if one of your days may not hit that 136? On one day, you get a 134. You get a

134 on the multistate. But on Florida, you did really well and you get a 142.

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Well, the examiners will, for people who don't pass each one individually, they'll take the average

of the two days. And if your average comes to 136 or higher, you pass the overall exam.

So what does that mean? They'll add your multistate scaled score and your Florida scaled score.

They'll put them together and divide by two. If your average comes to 136, regardless of if you did

poorly on one part, you pass the entire exam.

So we're looking at that 136. Say it to yourself every day. That's your goal.

Results for the Florida bar exam are in relatively quick for bar exams. You should get the

February bar exam results sometime around the second or third week in April. And that's largely due to

the fact that they have these multiple calibrated readers and different sets of graders for each essay

question. So they're able to get out the results really quickly, which is great for you.

And hopefully, middle of April, you'll all be celebrating.

All right. Let's move on. We're at the top of page 7. And now we're going to get into the meat

of the course. How do you write an answer to an essay question on the Florida bar? What are they

looking for?

All right. So what are the examiners looking for? They are looking for your ability to issue spot,

cite appropriate law and analyze. So issue spot, cite appropriate law, and analyze.

You'll sit in there probably thinking that this is pretty easy, and I don't really need to know that.

But you will be surprised at how poorly students do when they first start off practicing writing essays,

because you're basically up here at a higher level of writing by the time you get to your third year of law

school.

I guarantee, if we had first year law students writing and turning in practice essay questions,

they would do really well, because they're new. They're learning, and they're following the exact format

that their teachers tell them, where you guys are writing law review articles or journal articles and you've

thrown in a lot of that philosophical discourse. Which way the law should be going. What do you think's

going to happen in the future.

That kind of stuff doesn't get you points, remember? No philosophical discourse. It doesn't

matter. It's not going to get you points.

So we need to bring you all back down to basics, first year of law school basics. And again, if

you think about it, issue spot, cite appropriate law and analyze, what is that? Basically, they want you to

follow IRAC, all right?

You need to say it to yourself every single day, IRAC, IRAC, IRAC. Please follow IRAC. You will

do fabulous if you do.

Let's look. Five things that the examiners are looking for. Number one, your analytical ability.

Your analytical ability. They want you to read the fact pattern, analyze the facts, and pull out the issues.

Cite those issues. Analytical ability.

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Number two, they're looking for substantive legal knowledge, and this is a no-brainer.

Substantive legal knowledge. They want to know that you know the laws in the state of Florida. You'll

need to be able to cite black letter law, Florida black letter law.

Number three, application and reasoning, the A in IRAC. Application and reasoning. Once you

got the rule and you know the issue and the fact pattern gives you the facts, you're going to apply the

law to the facts.

And for some -- to me, at least, this is the easiest part, because it's just plugging stuff in. But for

a lot of students, I don't understand why, but you all just skip right over that A, and you come up with an

answer.

And I know you're all doing it in your heads and you're coming up with an answer, because you're giving

the right answer, but you have to write it down to get points. So really important, you need to write

down the analysis or the application and reasoning.

Number four, style. And that's kind of odd. They're looking at style? Well, you need to be able

to organize your ideas and express them clearly and precisely. Right? Basically, first year of law school

legal writing. Okay? So style. They're looking at style.

And then lastly, really easy, you got to give them a conclusion. Come up with an answer,

conclusion. Some things you must do when you're writing an answer. You want to avoid panic. And I

know this sounds silly, but let me tell you all study -- a story about when I was studying for the bar.

I was a good student in school. I did really well. Studied for the bar, had no problem with essay

writing. Well, I opened up my packet, and they give you all three essay questions at the same time. It's

up to you to spend an hour on each essay question.

Opened up my blue book. Back then, we didn't have a laptop so I had my blue book ready and

my pen ready. I was ready to go. I read the first question and I had no idea what they were asking. I

had studied. No idea.

And it was a bailment question. And for some reason, I just did not study bailment. And when I

was in law school, my torts teacher did not teach us bailment.

So I read it. I had no idea. And for a moment, I panicked a bit. Like oh, my goodness. How

am I going to get through this exam?

Now, I could have sat there for the entire hour and stared at that question. But I didn't. I then

skipped over it. Doesn't tell you what order you need to do. You can do them in any order you want, as

long as you get all three done.

So I put that question down, read the next question. Knew it, wrote for an hour, got an answer

out. It was Florida con law question.

Looked at the next question, family law question. Again, everybody knows family law. Who

hasn't experienced a family law issue in their life or had a friend who has?

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Read that family law question, wrote for an hour. I built up my confidence. And I went back to

the first question, and I still didn't know it was bailment. But you know what? I was able to write down

something, and I wrote for an hour.

And then I turned in my exam and I did extremely well. I probably didn't do very well on that

one question, but I know I didn't get a zero on that question.

And each of the questions are weighted equally. So you have to have confidence in the fact that

you all have studied, and you can come up with an answer. You all graduated from law school.

Everyone in this room has the ability to pass this exam.

So you just need to stay calm and avoid panicking.

Okay. Number two. Outline your answer before writing. Really important. We'll get into that in

a second. If you are writing -- how many people in the room are still hand writing your exam? Okay.

We have one or two people. That's fine.

Well, for you people who are hand writing your exams, make sure you're writing legibly.

Obviously, if you're typing your answers, not a problem.

Use proper grammar. Not that you're going to be given points for it or points are going to be

taken away. But y'all are going to be attorneys, and you want to write this exam as if you were a

practicing attorney. It just looks better. So please use proper grammar.

If you use terms of art, and I have written down here "consideration," which is a very common,

easy term for everyone to understand. But it's when people start throwing into their essays some Latin

terms. If you're using Latin terms or anything that's kind of odd, make sure you use them properly and

that you know what they mean when you're throwing them in a sentence, because it just does not look

good when you throw in a term and it does not make any sense.

So let's all act like professionals.

And number six, if you use symbols or abbreviations, define them first at the top of the essay.

And that's to make sure that the examiner knows what you're talking about. What you might think is a

common abbreviation may not be.

But I also tell you that because in all of my years working for BARBRI, when students turn in

essay answers to get them graded, a lot of times they'll use abbreviations or symbols, and then they get

confused themselves, and they start switching what person applies to what abbreviation.

There's an essay in the book that involves a daughter and a drunk driver. Those are two of the

characters in the fact pattern. Daughter and drunk driver. And consistently, over and over again, I'll see

students start off calling the daughter D. And then midway through, they'll call the drunk driver D. And

you don't know what they're talking about. And if the examiners can't figure out what you're talking

about, you're not going to get points.

So it will help you keep things straight if you define your abbreviations at the top of the page,

really important, or your symbols.

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All right. C. How do we write a well-written bar exam essay answer? What's the method? What

process do we go through?

Well, first, we're going to read the call of the question. First, you read the call of the question.

Do that in your multiple choice questions as well. You read the call of the question, because then it tells

you what you should be looking for when you read through the fact pattern. It just makes sense.

Number two, after you're done reading the call of the question, you're going to outline or

diagram the call of the question. Outline or diagram the call of the question.

Now, you all may be sitting there and saying, oh, yeah, we're going to outline or diagram

"discuss the issues in this case"? No. If it's something that says discuss all the issues, or write a memo

discussing the issues, there's nothing to diagram.

What we're talking about is when you have complicated fact patterns, such as a torts case -- a

torts scenario, and you have multiple defendants, and the call of the question says discuss the issues

raised by Defendant ABC. Don't discuss the issues raised by the mishandling of the patient by Person D.

And then tell me about the PR issues involved.

That's a pretty complicated fact pattern. You want to outline that. Outline that call. So that as

you're reading through the question later, you can jot down notes under each section where those facts

apply.

All right. Number three. So you've read the question, you're outlining the question if you need

to. And number three, you finally then go back and you read the question.

So read through the question, paying particular attention to the facts that apply to the call. And

you can jot down some stuff as you're reading through it the first time.

Okay. Number four, once we're done reading the question, you're going to start working on your

outline. You're going to create an outline or a diagram. And you should spend approximately five to ten

minutes outlining your answer.

So you have an hour for each essay question. Five to ten minutes of that should go toward

outlining. And that's going to help you with your style. That's going to help you stay within the IRAC

format that you need to to get maximum points. Somewhere at the top of page 9.

Okay. Number 5, after you've outlined your answer, you're going to answer the question asked

in the manner that it was asked. Answer the question asked in the manner that the question was asked.

What does that mean? Well, if you're given a question with multiple parts, you want to order --

answer them in the order that the question was asked and keep the answer clearly labeled. So if you

have a question with multiple parts, you want to answer the question in the order that the questions

were asked and keep the answer clearly labeled.

What's an example of this? Again, you're talking about that torts scenario. You have a tort that's

been committed. You have one plaintiff, and you have multiple defendants. Sometimes you might have

two plaintiffs and multiple defendants.

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Well, you're going to label, create labels, plaintiff versus daughter, plaintiff versus drunk driver.

And answer that question in the order that the fact pattern -- the call of the question laid it out and list

how -- you know, IRAC underneath there. But if you label it and keep it in order, it will help you in

writing your answer and helps the grader award you points more easily.

All right, B. If you're given numbered questions to answer, lots of times they'll have numbers.

One, what this is. Two, what's that. Two years ago, in February, there was one question that had

sub-parts A through F. So you had a lot of little numbered or alphabetically ordered questions.

What do you do there? Well, you answer the questions in numerical or alphabetical order. So

you answer the questions in numerical or alphabetical order.

The examiners are making it easy for you. They're giving you, laying out exactly what they want

to know. That's easy. They're helping you with your outline. You so use that. Answer the questions in

numerical or numbered order.

And this is really important. Everybody needs to write this down. Never, ever answer a question

yes or no and then move on. What does that mean? What's an example? Family law. Easy subject.

Everyone should get a great grade on it.

Well, a lot of times, family law questions will ask you specific questions, sub-questions. They'll

say, please discuss was the prenup valid. Discuss equitable distribution. Discuss custody. Discuss

alimony.

What's that first question they ask? Was the prenup valid. So you're going to answer that

first, because that was the first sub-question they asked. Do you just write yes or no? Yes, the prenup

was valid. Great. Move on to custody or distribution of assets.

No. We talked about what the examiners want to see in your answer. They want you to IRAC.

They want the rule. They want to know what the issue is. That was easy. The issue is, is the prenup

valid or was the prenup valid. But you're going have to, before you come up with an answer, what's the

law? What's the rule? What do you need to have a valid prenup.

And then again, we get back to that application and reasoning. Let's apply -- here's the rule for

prenup. Let's apply the facts in the scenario. And then at the end, you do your conclusion. And your

conclusion would be yes, the prenup was valid. But if you just write yes, there you go, you just lost a

bunch of points because you didn't analyze the question. You didn't give them what they want. They

want to see IRAC.

Okay. Number six, clearly and concisely explain the rule and your basis for citing it. And this

isn't going to be a brain dump. We're not going to walk in and just throw down -- you have a torts

question, we're going to throw down all the rules that apply to torts.

If a rule doesn't apply to your facts, then you're not going to put it in because you're not going to

get points. It's not going to be on that grader's key.

So if you follow the IRAC format, you're going to have the issue and then you're going to cite the

rule. And basically, you're citing the rule because it applies to that issue.

So clearly and concisely explain the rule or cite the rule and your basis for citing it.

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Never assume the examiner knows the law. You always want to put that in. And if it makes it

easier for you, if you have a rule that has lots of little sub-parts, if it makes it easier for you to use bullets

in listing those sub-parts for that rule, then do that. Whatever is easiest for you to stay organized, you

should do.

Okay. Number seven, concisely apply the law to the facts. Again, that's the application.

Concisely apply the law to the facts. Set out every step of your analysis. Never just jump to a

conclusion.

And number eight, easy. You're going to conclude. Give them an answer. Conclude.

Top of page 10. How do we format our answer? Format and organization are important because

they're going to help you maximize your points on this exam or achieve maximum points. You're going

to make your answer as clear as possible. A, you're going to use short paragraphs. Generally, I suggest

one paragraph for each issue.

It's amazing in how many sample essays students send in to get graded that consist of one

gigantic paragraph. You know how hard it is to grade one gigantic paragraph? Let's make it easier.

These readers or graders are reading tons of exams in a very short period of time. You want to make it

easy for them to find the points, where to give you points.

You do that by using proper grammar and organization and, you know, paragraphs. Basic. I

have a fourth grade son. They know a paragraph. Everybody here should know what a paragraph is.

B, you want to be formal. For some reason, people think that the bar exam is funny and they're

going to joke and they're going to throw in some jokes in their essay answer, and they're going to cheer

up the graders.

Well, nobody is going to cheer up or think it's funny when you're joking. This is serious. It's the

bar exam. Let's all be professional and not write jokes into your answer.

C, you're going to use headlines or titles. Headings or titles to separate issues. It makes it

easier for the examiners to grade your essay, and it makes it easier for you to stay organized and not

repeat yourself and waste valuable time.

Number two, again, you're going to format the overall essay and each issue according to IRAC.

We're going to say it again, everybody together. Issue, rule, analysis, conclusion. Really important.

Please stick to it.

Each paragraph should start with a statement of the issue, what you're looking for. And then

you're going to set out the rule of law.

You're going to use black letter law, which means the precise legal definition. You're going to

use black letter law. And then B, you're going to define all key legal terms. So if you throw out a term

like promissory estoppel, you're going to give the rule or define what promissory estoppel is.

You're writing your answer to show the bar examiners that you know what the law is in Florida.

And the only way they know that is if you write it down. So you're going to define key legal terms.

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Okay. Let's look under B. And I give you an example of how not to write a law or a black letter

rule, put that down, and how to define a rule and why it's important.

Okay. So if your answer involved an option contract or your issue involved was is there an

option contract. So your question has something involving an option contract. The issue would be is

there a valid, enforceable option contract.

Well, we throw the word option contract. We're going to have to give the rule for an option

contract, right? Because we're following IRAC. We gave the issue. Now we're going to give the rule.

Off the top of my head, you know, if I hadn't studied, you can make up some rule. You kind of

know what an option contract is. So I wrote down, basically, what would not be a precise legal

definition.

So let's look here. I wrote down, under B1, an option contract is when you're given an option to

purchase something, but only for a noted time.

Now, that may not be the best statement of the rule that you've heard, but if I hadn't studied, I

might put something like that down.

Okay. Let's look at how many elements I have included in that definition or that rule. You have

an option contract when is you're given an option to purchase or an option. So that's the first element is

an option. But only for a noted time. So there's a time element. So you have an option element and a

time element, all right? So there are two prongs to that rule.

And when you're doing IRAC, you're going to have to IRAC each element under a rule to make

sure you've met all those elements included in that rule.

Well, let's look down at B and look at what the precise legal definition or rule is for an option

contract. Okay. So the precise legal rule or legal definition is, what you should have wrote, this is an

option contract. An option is an irrevocable offer in effect for a specified period of time. The option must

be supported by consideration, must specify a time within which the option may be exercised, and must

identify the particularity of the property and the price to be paid.

So let's look back at that. I've counted six elements. You have the first element. In effect, an

irrevocable offer. Irrevocable offer, first element. In effect for a specified period of time. Second

element. The option must be supported by consideration, that's the third element. Must specify a time

within which the option may be exercised. That's the fourth element. And must identify with

particularity -- there we go, fifth element, identify with particularity the property. And the price to be

paid, sixth element.

Okay? If we have to IRAC each element separately to make sure we've met all of the

requirements under an option contract to see if it was valid, that gave me six elements to IRAC, six

analyses to do, six conclusions to make before I made my overall conclusion as to whether it's a valid,

enforceable option contract.

If I did my not precise legal definition, I only had two elements to meet. Can you see, when

you're talking about an exam, where it's your job to accumulate as many points as possible, how much

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more beneficial it is to you to write precise legal definitions, rather than giving an overall kind of

half-done definition.

So really important to make sure you memorize precise legal definitions, or close to them as

possible.

All right. On top of page 11, C, after you've written the legal definition, you want to make sure

that you define all applicable exceptions. Apply all applicable exceptions. If you're citing a rule, list the

exceptions as well.

And D, once again, never assume that the reader or the grader knows the law. Never assume

that the reader or grader knows the law. It is your job as a person sitting for the bar exam to show the

reader or the grader that you know the rules, and the only way you can do that is to write them down.

And number five, after we're done writing the law, again, you're going to set out your analysis.

Under A, you're going to apply the facts to the law or apply the rule to the facts. Apply the facts to the

law.

Please don't skip this set. This is how they know that you know how to think like a lawyer.

Analyzing the problem, apply the facts to the law.

Number six, basic. After you've done all that, all you've got to do is come up with a conclusion

and that should be easy. And if you follow the rules, you outline, you study your notes, everyone in here

can do well on the essay portion.

Some things to remember before we leave essay writing, when you're writing an answer on the

bar exam, number one, avoid rambling. Avoid rambling. Get to the point, don't repeat the same thing

over and over again. You're only going to get points one time for it. So don't ramble. Get to the point.

Follow IRAC.

Number two, again, define key legal terms. Define all key legal terms. You need to let them

know you know the law.

Number three, avoid wasting time doing a brain dump, discussing irrelevant facts or throwing in

irrelevant rules of law. So no irrelevant rules of law in there. Avoid wasting time by doing a brain dump.

Number four, make sure you set out your analysis. Don't forget to apply the law to the facts or

the facts to the law.

Number five, don't assume that the reader knows the law. That's basically never just write a

conclusion. Don't assume the reader knows the law.

And number six, even though I've been redundant, repeating IRAC over and over again, which

you should, on the bar exam, don't be redundant. You're only going to get points for stuff once. You

need to move on. A lot of stuff to talk about in these questions. So write it down and move on to the

next issue.

If we can all please take a ten-minute break. When we come back, we're going to go over

what's in every one of these big pile of books sitting next to me. See you in a few minutes.

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[BREAK]

Welcome back. Are we all ready? We're going to talk about the most exciting part of why we're

here, the BARBRI course. And everybody needs to pay attention. Whether or not you had a school that

had an Academic Success group because nobody went over all of the stuff that we're going to go over

today.

So let's talk about it. The BARBRI course consists of several different parts. Let's write them

down. The first part is the Florida survival guide. The Florida survival guide.

The second part is the paced program, which is the study schedule, the interactive pace

program.

Third part, part I'm really excited about and hopefully you all were when you did it, is BARBRI

AMP. BARBRI AMP, A-m-p. Hopefully everyone did that in December.

The fourth part are the substantive outlines. The substantive outlines.

Fifth part, testing material. The testing material, which includes the workshops, the study smart

software.

And then finally, the lectures. So you have the survival guide, the pace program, BARBRI AMP,

the substantive outlines, the testing material and the lectures.

So let's talk about each of those parts and where you'll find them. Well, the Florida Survival

Guide, everyone should have received today. That's what this looks like. We went through this earlier in

the lecture. This is where we found that grid.

What is this? Well, this publication is put out every year by Florida BARBRI, and it contains

answers to most of the questions you have, either about the bar exam or about the course. So if you

ever have a question, open this book up and look for the answer in here.

This is actually assigned as a reading assignment tonight for homework. So please try to read

this. And again, consult with it if you have any questions.

Number two, the pace program or study schedule. Well, to guide you on your daily practicing or

preparing for the bar, BARBRI has come up with our interactive pace program, and it's an online tool that

lays out for you every day what you should do before class, what you're going to be doing during class,

and then what homework you should do when you go home.

It's really important while you're studying for the bar, because it is a lot of material to get in

long-term memory in a very short period of time. And if you're not organized, I don't know how you do

it.

Well, the BARBRI pace program helps you stay organized. I promise you, if you do what you're

supposed to do on the pace program, you will pass.

What's really neat about the pace program also is that you check off assignments as you go, and

it keeps a running progress chart or a tally of how far you've come and how far you have to go. You can

20

also go, if you miss a lecture and want to make up a lecture, you go into the pace program and you can

click on, there's a little picture of a video camera next to every lecture. You click on it and you can watch

the lecture right through the pace program.

You can also do that with questions. You click on them and it brings you to the questions. So I

think it's really important for you to have a study schedule, and we've come up with that for you. If

you're not going to follow the pace program, please come up with your own study schedule.

Again, organization is the key to passing this exam. One little note about the progress charts.

Early in December, we sent you a list of what you're supposed to be doing, doing BARBRI AMP and

maybe the preview.

Well, since December, now the interactive pace program, the one that's online, is up and

running. You'll all need, the people who have done BARBRI AMP, to go into the pace program and check

off those assignments. And it will be pretty cool when you get to it, because you'll see how far you've

already progressed.

So it's cool. Again, really important, time is limited. Whether or not you follow our pace

program, it's important to have a study schedule and stick to it. Really, really important.

Golden rule in BARBRI is memorizing the outlines is not enough to pass the Florida bar.

You need to go through all of the BARBRI materials, essay questions, multiple choice questions,

the BARBRI AMP stuff. Everything is put into the program for a reason.

So if you follow our pace program, you will go through all of these materials. Again, don't wait

until the last minute. Pace yourself. Think of the bar exam like a marathon and you're training. You

wouldn't go out and run a marathon without training. You wouldn't go and sit for the bar exam without

training for these two months through the BARBRI course.

Okay. Top of page 14. BARBRI AMP. This is what I'm really excited about. And hopefully,

those of you who have done it are really excited about it too. It is -- AMP stands for Accelerated Memory

and Performance.

It's an online application. And BARBRI AMP includes about a thousand questions that are

devoted to help you memorize the black letter law rules in the multistate. Okay? So it's helping you

memorize multistate black letter law rules.

Those of you who did the assignments in December, you will be prompted to redo them in

refresher mode to kind of refresh yourselves on that material the last week before the bar exam. If you

haven't done it, you can always go back on your free time and do the BARBRI AMP questions.

Now, but you will be assigned the AMP refresher mode the last week before the bar exam.

BARBRI AMP helps you learn faster, helps you improve your information recall. So basically, put that

information into long-term memory and be able to recite it later. And it really does help you perform at a

higher level.

It's a really neat tool. If you have not used it, please go in and check it out. And again, if you

have used it, go into the pace program and check off your assignments. Real important.

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Let's move on to the substantive outlines. What do we have in terms of substantive outlines?

Where are the black letter law rules? Well, BARBRI provides you with a book for your multistate rules

and a book for your Florida rules. So everyone should have two substantive outlines, one Florida and

one multistate. Just so that you can note, in the back of the Florida outline, you will find the Florida

distinctions to the multistate subjects.

We said earlier when we talked about the Florida bar, that Florida's a state that double tests,

which means you might see those multistate subjects on the Florida day of your exam, but if you see

them, you'll be responsible for knowing how Florida differs.

And those distinctions are contained in the back of the Florida law outline book, and you also

have a side-by-side chart of -- in a pamphlet that's called the Convisor supplement that lays out for you

in one column, the multistate rule; in the other column, how Florida differs for those multistate subjects

where Florida is double testing.

Those two books contain every bit of law that you might be tested on or could be tested on on

your exam. Okay? You're going to read those before you go to the lecture. And the lecture is going to

break it down into what is more likely going to appear on your exam.

So we have those two books and then we also have for you this book called the Convisor Mini

Review.

What's the Convisor Mini Review? Well, it's basically a condensed version of those two big

outline books. It contains really neat flow charts, graphs, diagrams, stop signs to tell you what's more

important, some hot testable topics.

Great book. It's a favorite among students. However, in the state of Florida, especially for the

Florida multiple choice subjects, if you just read that Convisor Mini Review, you would be doing yourself a

huge disservice. It is meant as a final review, when everything's coming together. It's assigned the

week before the bar exam, at the end.

If you do that in place of the big outlines, you'll be missing a lot of important information. And

especially for the multiple choice subjects that are tested on Florida multiple choice format, remember we

talked about knowing those nit-picky rules? Well, you're not going to have every single nit-picky rule in

the mini review. It's meant as a mini review at the end. So save it for the end. It's a great book. Most

students love it, but read the big outlines first, please.

All right. Let's move on. Testing material and workshops. Well, there's a lot of scuttlebutt that

goes around when people are studying for the exam or prior to the exam. Everybody talks about how

many multistate questions did you do? How many essay questions did you do?

Why do they do that? Because remember, memorizing the outlines is not enough. You need to

do practice questions. You need to know for the bar exam how to apply the rules that you've learned in

class in a fact pattern, whether that be essay or multiple choice. You need to know how to apply the

law. That's what they're testing you on.

Which means you're going to have to do tons of multiple choice questions in both Florida and

essay -- sorry. In both Florida and multistate, and you'll have to do tons of essay questions.

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If you want to know how many multiple choice questions you need to do for MBE, you want to

do at least a minimum of a thousand multiple choice questions. And you're probably going to do more

like 2,000. Especially those people who have done AMP questions and have gone to the preview, you've

already done a thousand questions.

If you've completed AMP and completed the preview, you've done a thousand questions already.

And you'll be assigned well over a thousand questions in the two books we're going to go through in a

moment during this two-month period. So you will do more than enough MBE type questions.

What about the Florida multiple choice questions? Well, if you follow the pace program, you will

be assigned every single one of the Florida multiple choice questions we have. And that's over 1,500

Florida multiple choice questions. So following the pace program will actually help you, you know, do lots

and lots of multiple choice questions.

Okay. Essay questions, you're going to do a lot of those too. When you're practicing doing

questions, whether it be multiple choice or essay, you want to practice those questions under time

constraints similar to that of the bar exam.

So when you're writing an essay question, you're going to spend an hour for each essay

question. When you're doing multiple choice questions, you're going to spend an hour per each 33

multiple choice questions or half an hour for about 17, 18 questions.

So half an hour, you can complete 17, 18 questions. In an hour, 33 or 34. All right?

What books do we -- what books do we have where you find these multiple choice questions?

Well, let's look at the books that everyone should have in front of them or have at home.

We give you two big multistate practice testing volumes. When you go home, make sure you

have one practice volume that says volume one and one that says volume two. And this is where you'll

find all of your multistate practice questions.

Well, what do we have? Well, the first multiple choice multistate questions you're assigned after

you complete a lecture, you're assigned to do what we call our multistate drills workshop questions. And

you can find those multistate drills workshop questions in practice question volume number one.

If you look, let's hold this up, volume one has pages that have gray borders on them. That's

where the drills questions will be.

So if you're following the pace program, you open up your volume one book, you turn to the gray

bordered pages. If you just completed doing contracts, you'll find the contracts questions. You'll find 17

multistate drills contracts questions.

And you'll do those 17 questions in what? A half an hour. So that's under time constraints

similar to that of the bar exam. Once you're done doing those 17 practice questions for contracts, you're

going to go on to the BARBRI website, under the enrolled student center, and find the multistate

workshop drills lecture for contracts.

And those drills workshop lectures are devoted solely to test taking tips and techniques for the

subject that you're listening to it for.

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So if it's contracts, you do the questions. You go online, you find the drills workshop for

contracts. The lecture will go over the 17 questions you just did, and each question is going to represent

a different trick or skill that you'll need to know to answer contracts questions going forward.

And we have these drills workshop lectures for each of the multistate subjects.

They basically lay the ground work and give you guidance on how to approach questions in each

of the multistate subjects. So it's really important to do these lectures and do these questions so that

you're not wasting multiple choice questions by approaching them improperly.

If you're not using our pace program, make sure you note on your study schedule where you

need to complete those questions.

Okay. So we're in volume one of MPQ and that's what that multistate practice question volume is

called. This is MPQ-1. After you've done your drills workshops, you're going to go forward and do the

rest of the questions in the book.

This book, after the gray bordered pages, is broken down into sets. You have six sets of

questions for each multistate topic.

The sets range from one to six with one being the most -- the easiest type question, and set six

being the most difficult type question.

So if you follow along with the pace program, you will do all six sets of questions, and you will be

exposed to every different level of difficulty type of question on the MBE.

So we talked about earlier about how the actual MBE consists of some easy questions, some

really difficult questions and most middle of the road questions and how you need to practice varying

difficulty levels of all different types of questions.

Well, if you follow along in MPQ-1 and the pace program, you will go through all different

difficulty level type questions.

And that's important, because you want to be able to go from an easy question to a difficult

question and not have it throw you off.

If all you did was study really difficult questions, then you would approach every question as if it

had a trick in it. And some of the questions just don't have tricks in it.

And it's a sad day when students score poorly on the exam because they blew most of the easy

questions because they weren't able to switch back and forth. And that's what this book helps you do.

In the very front of the book, you'll find a goal sheet, which I think is really nice. It lays out for

you where you should basically be performing or scoring on each of those sets.

So when you're doing your practice questions, you'll know how you're doing compared to all the

other students across the country who are taking BARBRI. And that's important, because the MBE is

scored nationally. So you are going to, in the end, be judged or compared against the other students

across the country who are taking the multistate bar.

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And that goal sheet has been developed based on the 40-plus years that BARBRI's been doing

the MBE. So follow along. If you don't know how you're doing, you know, consult with that goal sheet.

For those of you who like doing questions online, you love technology, almost all of the questions

in this book are included through or available through our study smart software. And what makes study

smart so cool is that it's an exam simulator, and it keeps track of your time. So you can do all of the

questions in this book, except for set one, and we'll talk about set one in a sec, through the study smart

software.

My advice to you, however, is for the first few weeks of doing practice questions, start off doing

them in pencil and paper format. The reason being is that the multistate bar exam is still given with a

pencil and a Scantron sheet.

So you're not going to be able to go on to a computer and take the MBE. And so initially, when

you start off doing these simulated exams, you want to have a pencil and be able to underline and circle

and learn how to bubble in those Scantron sheets.

Then midway through the course, after one of the simulated exams, and we'll talk about that in a

sec, then you can switch to study smart, because then you'll be able to create your own exam and focus

on areas where you're weak. But start off with, generally, pencil and paper format.

Now, I said almost all of the questions in this book are included or available through study smart

software. The one set in each subject that's not available through study smart software is set one.

And the reason that is, is because set one questions are available through the BARBRI AMP

platform. And you'll notice, if anybody has used the pace program, the interactive pace program, that

the BARBRI AMP set one questions are assigned prior to doing the in-class lecture.

Where almost every other questions that you get is assigned after you've completed the lecture

series for a particular subject.

The reason being is BARBRI AMP's focus is helping you memorize black letter law. Study smart

and the books' focus is simulating the MBE. Two totally different things. BARBRI AMP is a memory tool.

So you will be assigned set one questions through BARBRI AMP. Those of you who are not

following the BARBRI pace program will need to go into the interactive pace program to access the set

one questions. Okay?

So you'll have to open up the interactive pace program, click on BARBRI AMP set one, which will

lead you right to those questions. And that's really the only way to access set one questions through

BARBRI AMP.

A little confusing. I apologize. If you have questions, you can talk to your course administrator

or call the BARBRI office. But again, love BARBRI AMP. For those of you who have done it, I'm sure you

love it too. Really important. It will help with memorization.

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So we talked about this big book here, volume one. Well, there's a second volume. Multistate

testing practice questions, volume two. And that's what that looks like. What's included this book? Well,

in this book, you have half day practice exam, all day practice exam and you have mixed question sets.

So this is where you'll find your mixed questions. And most of the questions in this book are

assigned through the BARBRI pace program as well. Also included in this book are actual released bar

exam questions, questions that the National Conference of Bar Examiners have decided we're not going

to use them anymore. We've moved on. We have enough new questions we're going to replace them

with.

So there are release questions in there. We do not assign the release questions through the

BARBRI pace program. And the reason being is that they were released for a reason. The examiners

aren't going to use them anymore. And it's our opinion that our questions look more like the current bar

exam questions than even their release questions do.

Because the bar exam has gradually changed through the years, and a few years ago, they

actually did a big overhaul of the types of questions they've used. So some of their release questions

don't really apply anymore. But they're in there for you to take a look at if you want. They are actual

bar exam questions. But for the most part, I would stick to the questions we assign in the pace program.

If you notice -- well, actually, let's go on to the next book and we'll get back to MPQ-2 later.

Everyone should have gotten a real skinny simulated MBE book. And on top of it, it's labeled Step 4

Simulated MBE.

This book contains a simulated exam that is part of BARBRI's three-day multistate workshop.

You do not open this book and do questions in it until it is assigned on the study schedule.

What's in here? Well, in this book is a 200-question, full simulated multistate exam. And we

assign it about halfway through the BARBRI course. You'll all have to come into an exam center, your

classroom, which will be set up like an exam center.

You bring this book. Everyone should have received in their box of books an envelope that also

says Step 4 Simulated MBE. And inside this envelope is a Scantron sheet. Let's open this up so you can

see.

You're going to bring your Scantron with the simulated exam to the three-day workshop.

Purpose for that is you're going to sit here in the classroom. We're going to start just like the bar exam,

9:00. Tell you open up your book. You'll have your Scantron there and a number two pencil, just like

the real bar exam. You go through 100 multistate multiple choice questions. Three hours. You write

answers. You bubble in your answers.

We call time at noon. Put your pens, pencils down, close your book. You go to lunch. You take

your lunch break. You get back after lunch, just like the real bar exam, time's called. At 1:30, you open

up your book again and you do the next set of 100 questions.

And you're under the time pressure of the real bar exam. You're doing bar exam questions.

You're using a bubble sheet like you would on the real MBE. So we are simulating what it would be like if

you were to take the actual MBE midway through the BARBRI course.

26

At the end of that day, when you're done with that exam, time is called. Everybody turns in their

Scantron sheets. And then we take everyone's Scantron sheet and we send them up to our main office

in Chicago.

And there, they're computer graded with a machine, just like the actual MBE is. And within a few

days of you taking that exam, you will be able to access how well you did on that exam raw score, scaled

score, because the machine will judge you against everybody else who's taking BARBRI from across the

country.

So you'll know how well you did raw, scaled, and then the exam analysis will actually break it

down for you and how well you did on each -- not only each subject, raw and scaled, but each sub-topic

within each subject. So after taking this simulated exam midway through the course in class, you will

know exactly where you stand compared to your peers.

And you will know exactly where your weaknesses are and where your strengths are. And so

after taking this exam, you will be able to pinpoint your problem areas and have more of a directed focus

on what you need to study from that point on.

And when we talked about earlier the study smart software, at this point, after you get your

breakdown analysis from the simulated exam, you will be able to go back into study smart, and the study

smart exam simulator allows you to create your own exam.

And so you can go in and create, if you did poorly on the simulation; on, say, contracts,

consideration and remedies. So I was poor in consideration, and I was poor in remedies. So you can ask

the exam simulator, the study smart, to create you a contracts test that only includes questions involving

consideration and remedies.

So it will allow you to fine tune what questions you're focusing on from that point on and really

help increase your score midway through the course so that you will peak at the actual bar exam.

Okay. So that's the first day of this three-day workshop, which is step four. You get the exam.

Save that book. You bring it in, you take the exam.

Well, if it's three days what do you do for the other two days? Well, after you take the exam and

you submit your Scantron, you're waiting on your scores to come back. Well, we spend the next two full

days going over every single question that you saw on the exam. Now, we don't just go over them one,

two, three, four. You can do that because you have the answers in the back of the book.

What we do is we turn this exam review into an overall review of all six multistate subjects.

So the first hour, all of the contracts questions will be pulled out, or the first two hours. So a

professor will get up and go over all of the contracts questions that you had on your exam.

And while he's going over every single contracts question, he will also be reiterating to you some

of the tips and strategies you should have applied while you were answering those contracts questions.

So it then becomes a full-blown review on contracts.

27

And then next, you might see the con law professor coming up there. And the con law professor

will pull out all the con law questions that you saw on your exam and go over each and every one of

them. And again, go over the strategies that you should have used or the tricks that were in these

questions, again creating an overall review.

So this MBE three-day simulated exam is a wonderful tool to use in helping you focus on the MBE

and direct your studying from that point on. So, you know, it's three full days. For those of us who

work, it may be difficult to go. If I were you, I would attempt to be there all three days.

If you are unable to make it to either of the exam or the workshop, the analysis part, you can

always -- we will give you instructions for submitting your Scantron sheet, sending it up yourself, and you

can do the analysis online.

But again, I think it's vital and a wonderful tool to be able to come in to a classroom simulated

experience and be able to experience what it would be like had you taken the bar exam that exact day.

Okay. Now we're heading back again to MPQ-2 for the simulated, MBE simulated final exam.

We have the step three, which is the MBE simulated exam that you do midway through the

course. Well, included in practice question MPQ volume two, you'll notice on the bottom of the book, it

says include step five, simulated final exam.

At the end of the BARBRI course, we bring you in and we give you another simulated final --

simulated MBE. So you take the one simulated MBE in class midway through the course. You have

another few weeks to work on your MBE subjects, and then we give you a simulated final exam in class

again. And for that exam, you will need to bring your MPQ-2 book, because that's where that exam's

included in.

You bring it and you'll answer it. You'll fill in, circle your answers. And then there will be a

review just like you had for the simulated exam midway through the course, going over each and every

question broken down by subject.

So you will have a total overall, all inclusive review of all six multistate subjects. And hopefully,

when you take this simulated final exam, you will see lots of improvement from how you did on the

mid-point exam.

Okay. So we talked about all of this stuff we had for MBE. You had the preview. You had AMP.

You have MPQ-1. You have MPQ-2. You have the simulated midterm. You have the simulated final,

tons of questions.

You know, half the bar exam is Florida, so what do we have for your Florida preparation? Well,

everyone should have received two Florida testing volumes, Florida testing one and Florida testing two.

Hopefully, you will go home and you will look and make sure you have one of one and one of

two, because they each include different subjects in them.

What's in these testing volumes? Well, Florida's a state that tests in both multiple choice format

and essay format. So the books are broken down just like that.

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You have, in each book, in the front for the subjects included in that book are multiple choice

questions. And in the back for the subjects included in that book are essay questions.

The Florida multiple choice questions were questions developed by our attorneys after getting

information back from people who have taken the bar, from us taking the bar and they are very

exam-like. They focus on nit-picky things. They're shorter in form.

However, on the actual exam, the Florida multiple choice questions may be a little more poorly

worded or confusing, and our questions seem to be a little more straightforward.

So when you're doing the questions, keep in mind that the actual Florida multiple choice

questions may be a little more poorly worded or confusing, but they do cover everything, and they are

the most exam-like that you can get.

In the back of the Florida book are actual prior bar exam essay questions. So every essay

question that you find in the BARBRI testing volumes, either one or two, have actually appeared on an

older, prior Florida bar exam.

However, the answers to those questions are model answers written by our attorneys. When I

say model answers, means that they include everything that you can discuss in that question. It would

be a perfect 100-point question.

If you were given 100 points for a perfect question, those answers would be 100-point questions.

Now, would you ever be able to write a 100-point answer within an hour period? Probably not.

And remember what we said earlier? To pass, you only need about 50 points out of this total of

100 points. So when you're looking at these answers, do not get overwhelmed. Don't feel like I'll never

be able to get to that point. You don't need to. But for purposes of studying, we need to provide you

with perfect answers so that you see the overall picture.

Okay? Now, when you're turning in essays to be graded in the essay grading program, that's

when you're going to get a feel of how you're doing, but the answers in those books are perfect answers.

In the back of each of those testing volumes, you will also find a simulated Florida exam. You

will get -- they're both take-homes. So in the back of the book, there are exams that include three essay

questions with model answers and 100 multiple choice questions. And both simulated exams will be

assigned as homework assignments to be done at home in the interactive pace program.

So you get that experience of sitting through six hours of test taking for Florida. Also, in the

books, the essay questions that are in there, those are where you find the essays to turn in for BARBRI's

essay grading program.

We talked about doing practice multiple choice questions and where you're supposed to be

scoring, and we talked about how you should be scoring to pass on the essays for the actual bar exam.

Well, how do you know if you're scoring that? Well, BARBRI has an essay grading program. If

you follow along with the pace program, you'll note that we have some essays assigned, and we'll say

turn in or submit on this date. You send in your essay. If you're handwriting, you turn it in in class. If

you're typing, you just submit it online.

29

We have people who have graded for the bar examiners in the past and some of our attorneys.

We grade and critique them, and then we send them back to you. We as assign them as you go along so

you can build upon that information. So we don't assign everything at once, because you want to wait to

get the feedback back first before you go on and do another question. Because you want to make sure

that your format is correct.

And then you build on the mistakes that you've done before. You make the corrections and you

build on that. The only way you learn is from mistakes and from correcting those mistakes.

So we have the essays for submission set out periodically throughout the course, and then you'll

get a grade and some comments, and you want to work with what we sent you.

If you have any questions about essay writing after you get your grades back, you can call the

BARBRI office, and we'll have one of our graders or attorneys contact you, and we'll work you through it.

If you turn in all of the submitted essays that are in there and you feel like I really need more

help, you give us a call and we'll assign you more essays. So we want to make sure you work through

your problems with essay writing, and everybody in the room should at least turn in the essays that are

assigned in the pace program.

Now, with the BARBRI course, in addition to the essay grading program, we also have a Florida

essay writing and strategies course, where you will have a live professor come to your location. You'll do

three essay questions, bring the answers with you. And then there will be open dialogue in the

classroom in regards to how you should have answered each of those questions.

So you'll be able to ask questions regarding essay writing and structure to an instructor in front

of the rooms during that strategies and workshop lecture.

So that's also very vital part to preparing for essay writing, in addition to the essay grading

program that's included in that book and the pace program.

Okay. So we talked about what's in the books and we talked about, you know, the simulated

multistate and how you have simulated Florida exams in these books that you're going to do at home for

homework assignments.

Well, just like we've brought you into the class to do the simulated MBE, we bring you into the

class to take a Florida simulated exam.

and so everyone will receive, later in the course -- you don't get this now -- a pamphlet or

booklet called the Florida Facts Exam. And this booklet is what you'll need for the simulated Florida exam

that will be given at the end of BARBRI course.

Everyone will come in. You'll have this book. We will time you. We'll start promptly at 9:00.

You'll have three hours to write the answers to the three essays in this book.

You'll go to lunch, you'll come back, and then we give you the 100 multiple choice questions in

the back to do.

30

The next day, you come in, and we have a review of those three essay questions and the

multiple choice questions. So you will actually have a simulated in-class experience of what it would be

like to take the Florida exam at that point in the course.

So really important, make sure you'll look on your calendar, find out when it is. It is all day long.

And if you're working, try to take off and be here for that simulation. I think it's really, really important.

Okay. So that's basically how we're going to prepare you when you're talking about workshops

and testing material.

Well, if you turn to the top of page 17, this is what most students think of as the bulk of the

BARBRI course. The lectures. What you're going to be doing on a daily basis.

You come to class, and you're going to be listening to lectures. What are you going to to be

doing in class while you're listening to those lectures? Well, everyone should have gotten, in their box of

books, this nice black, grayish-black colored book called the Florida Handout Book.

Now, I understand it says Florida lecture handouts, but the lectures or the handouts for the

multistate lectures are also included in this book. This is like your BARBRI Bible, your Torah, your Koran,

whatever religion you are. This is what you carry around day and night.

Okay? You want to bring this book to class every day. And what's in that handout book? Well,

handouts for almost every single one of your lectures. I think the only two lectures that don't have

handouts for them are torts and family law. So for torts and family law, you're going to bring either your

laptop or a legal pad and take notes that way.

But for every other class, you're going to bring that handout book. And it makes it really easy to

follow along with the professor. Because the professor's going to be lecturing and giving you basically

the substantive rules of law. They're going to be telling jokes. They're going to be giving examples.

Acronyms, mnemonics, anything to help you remember the black letter law.

Well, we try to make the classroom experience interactive. And the only way to interactive is if

you're not just passively sitting there listening, but you're interacting with it. You're taking notes. And

it's really hard to scribble down notes of everything the professor's saying. So we have blank spaces

listed throughout the handout so you can listen to the lecture and absorb most of the material and then

write in key terms or key points of law.

So it's really important to have that handout book with it. And if you're following the pace

program, we're going to have you go in and review your lecture notes periodically, because reviewing

and reading over and over again those lecture notes is what's going to help bring those black letter law

rules into long-term memory.

And so you'll be able to recall those rules when you're sitting for the bar exam.

Now, the lecturers will not cover every little nit-picky rule that's covered in the big outlines.

They're going to break it down and tell you basically what 90% of the time is going to be on the exam.

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So you'll still have a little portion of law that you won't get in these lectures. How do you get

that? Well, going back to earlier, you're going to already have read those black letter law outlines, the

big substantive outlines prior to coming to class.

So we kind of whittle it down. You start with the big outline books, you read through that. The

lecturer focuses in on what's the most testable stuff. And they make it fun and exciting so you can

remember it. And then the mini review's at the end. It's kind of recall, you you're starting to recall.

You're just reviewing.

And that's the process you should follow. And if you're following the pace program, that's the

process you're going to follow anyway.

Because you're going to be focusing on the lecture material and that's what you're going to be

memorizing, it's really important that you go to every lecture. So what happens? You're sick.

Something happens in your family. You can't make it. There's a traffic jam.

Well, you want to make up any lecture you miss. And how do you do that? Well, there's two

different ways you can do that. The first way is you can go to any other BARBRI location in Florida.

Wherever else we're offering a Florida BARBRI course, everybody has an ID. You bring your ID, you pop

in that lecture site. As long as there's extra space in the room, and there's a few extra seats in most

places, you can go sit in on somebody else's lecture. Not a big deal.

You do want to check online and make sure the calendar matches up to your calendar. So, you

know, I just graduated. I have an interview in Tampa and I'm from Tallahassee. I go online, I look up

the Tampa schedule. Oh, look, Tampa's playing that same lecture on the same day. I'll pop in after my

interview and I'll go to the Tampa location. Perfect.

Now, if what if you can't do that? I'm too busy. I can't get there when the lecture's being run.

Well, everybody in the room has access to the lectures online. You can watch the lectures online as

many times as you want. You can watch a portion of them. You can bookmark them. You can take

notes on the side. So that's available to everyone in the enrolled student center. You just go online and

you make up a lecture.

Now, if you're at a location and we're refilming a new lecture, it takes a few hours until that

lecture is posted online. So you may have to wait a little bit. But in the wintertime, for almost

everything, it should be online at the very beginning.

Now, I do suggest, even though you can view it online, if you can, come to classroom setting. I

think there's something to be said, especially for new graduates. You've gone the last three years of

sitting in a brick and mortar building, listening to a lecturer. So it makes it that much easier and is more

comfortable for you to sit in a classroom and take notes.

It's a little more difficult when you're at home and you're trying to follow along a lecture. So if

you are an online student, I suggest you go to a library or you go to your office in your house and you

kind of have a routine that you set up.

I wouldn't be sitting in my living room with the TV on in the background and Facebook up where

messages keep popping up. You need to focus, okay? But you can make up lectures online.

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We're at the top of 18. We're coming down the home stretch. Some final housekeeping rules.

General lecture rules. No smoking, please, in the classrooms. You're not allowed to record the

lectures or videotape the lectures. They're online. You can watch them as many times as you want.

They're actually even available if you have an iPhone or a Droid. You can get the BARBRI app and

download the lectures that way or watch the lectures that way as well. No need to record stuff.

The lectures start at 9:00. So the morning classes start at 9 -- or start on time. The morning

classes start at nine. The evening classes start at 6:00. Regardless of if half the class is in a traffic jam,

lectures start on time.

They run about three and a half to four hours a day, except for those simulated exams that are

all day long, because we're trying to simulate.

Every hour, there's a ten-minute break. So you can go run and do whatever business you have

to do.

BARBRI does not cater breakfast, lunch or dinner. For my friends out there that are taking a

course that's held at a hotel, if the hotel has cookies or treats for their guests, those are for their guests

and not for BARBRI members, all right?

We're more than happy if you want to bring food into the classroom, that's fine. But make sure

it's not noisy food, crunchy potato chips, doesn't smell. Even if you love the smell, may make somebody

else sick. People are trying to concentrate. Be polite, be respectful.

And the last thing, which is really important, IDs are checked every day. Please do not give the

course administrator a difficult time. Have your ID ready. Show it even if you go to class every day. It

doesn't matter. Just put your ID in the corner of the desk so that they know that you still have your ID.

If you have questions, questions about the temperature in the room, it's cold, I can't hear the

TV, those kind of basic questions, you can ask the course administrator. Hey, can you turn it up? It's

too low. The TV sounds too low. I can't see. The lights need to go on, things like that. They can help

you with that.

But remember, the course administrator is a student just like you. They're studying for the bar.

They're as stressed out as you are. If you have a real issue, a problem, for some reason you're mad at

us, you're losing your mind, you know, you're not able to keep up, the course administrator is not going

to be able to help you with that.

Those kinds of questions, that's why we're here at the BARBRI office. You give us a call. Our

phone number is 1-800-950-7277. 1-800-950-7277. Leave us a message. If it's after hours, make sure

you give us the area code and you say your name, you know, pronounce it well so we understand. And

we'll call you back.

You can always e-mail us as well. Our e-mail is fl.bar@barbrigroup.com.

Fl.bar@barbrigroup.com. We're open -- the office is open 8:30 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, and we

will call you back, you know, the next morning on a weekday. You know, we'll get back to you. It's not

an emergency. We'll take care of it. We're here to help you.

33

Okay. So that's general types of questions.

Now, substantive legal questions. I don't understand question number 10. I think the answer

should be B, and it says A. Those types of questions.

Well, BARBRI has a substantive legal question form on our website. You just type in your

question, you hit submit, and an attorney will call you back within -- generally within about 24 hours.

Now, if you submit it on Friday night at 11:00, we may not get back to you till Monday because we're

probably not going to get that question until Monday.

But we will call you back. And generally, we call you back a lot quicker. You go into the enrolled

student center. You'll see something that says substantive question student form. It's generally under

study tools section. So you can submit a legal question to us, whether it's multistate or Florida.

Now, what about questions about your pace program? You're falling behind. You're stressed

out. You don't know what to do. You don't submit that on a substantive question form. You call the

office, and one of the attorneys will be more than happy to talk you through it.

So those kinds of questions, calls, that's what we're there for. You need help. You need to

rearrange your pace program and you don't know what to do. We're here as your support. You're not

alone. Nobody in this room is alone. We are here for you. That's our job, to help you get through the

bar successfully the first time.

Okay. What do you do the week before the bar? Well, everything should be falling into place.

The week before the bar is a time to review. And if you're following the pace program, you're going to

do several different things. We're going to assign extra questions, but we're going to have you go back

to BARBRI AMP, and we're going to have you do BARBRI AMP in refresher mode. So week before the bar

is time for BARBRI AMP refresher and time to do reading in your Convisor Mini Review. BARBRI AMP

refresher, Convisor Mini Review.

In addition to those two things, we will have you review every single subject on both the MBE

and the Florida section of the bar. So at this point, everything should be coming together. You should

be seeing the full package. All right?

And it's actually a time to catch up. You'll notice when you're in the course, it feels like subjects

are being thrown at you one day after another day, new subject, new subject.

Finally, you have time to breathe. And it really does. You will all be so amazed at how it kind of

all just falls into place if you paced yourself. And that's the key.

Okay. The day before the bar, I recommend you review areas of law that you need special need

in only. So the day before the bar is just let me kind of skim over -- maybe just skim over the index for

each subject. Skimming over stuff and just reviewing in detail a few areas that you may have problems

with.

But the day before the bar is not the time to realize I need to learn rule against perpetuities. I

don't understand.

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You need to be calm. And I personally recommend you stay away from everybody else who's

taking this bar exam, because you get a few students together who are ready to take the bar exam and

panic breaks out. So I would go into my little hole in my hotel room and just, you know, meditate. You

need to be zen. Just review areas of law.

Okay. Top of page 19. And we're almost there. Bar exam day arrives. Make sure you have lots

of people calling you. You set your alarm. You have the front desk at hotel call you up. You have your

mom or your dad or friends, husband, wife. You don't want to sleep through the bar exam. That would

be really bad. If anyone can actually sleep the night before.

You get up early, you eat a good breakfast. You need energy. It's a long haul, believe me.

And you dress in layered clothing, right? Because you don't know what the temperature's going

to be like in that exam center.

Every once in a while, you know, it will be cold outside and you go in the exam center and it's

like a sauna.

For those of you who went to law school in Florida, you all know what I'm talking about. You're

walking around in 100 degree weather outside in August, and you go into a classroom, and everybody

has sweatshirts on because it's so cold in the room.

That can happen at the exam site. So dress in layers. If it's hot, you can take off layers. If it's

cold, you can put them on.

And just to note, unlike the Virginia bar exam, where you have to dress professionally in a suit, in

Florida you can wear whatever you want.

So it is not a beauty contest. We don't need to be all done up. I would dress in comfortable

clothes. The only thing you should be checking out are the questions on the exam. Nobody, I can

promise you, is getting picked up during the bar exam. Maybe that night, afterwards, at a bar, but not

while it's going on. So dress comfortably, please.

And make sure you bring your admission ticket with you. You'll need that admission ticket that

the bar examiner sent you to get in the door.

You want to arrive at the convention center roughly around 8:00 a.m. They start opening the

doors around 8:40 or so and letting you proceed through to your seat because, remember, the exam

starts at 9:00 a.m. on time.

You are not allowed to bring anything into the exam site. So, you know, my Diet Coke, can't

bring that in. My bottle of water, can't bring that in. My roll of Life Savers, can't bring that in. They

want, basically, you have nothing in there, okay?

So anybody who is staying, especially for the second day, you want to make sure you either

leave your stuff locked up at the hotel or there will be some locations where you can lock stuff up. You'll

have to pay to have it locked up in a private area, but you won't be able to access that material in

between the exam like over lunch time so just better to leave stuff at the hotel.

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You're not allowed to wear baseball caps into the exam. No purses are allowed in. So if you

want to carry money, you need to bring it in a ziplock baggie.

You are allowed to bring ear phones in, but they can't be ear phones that are attached to a

string. It can be just like the little orange earphones. Or, sorry, ear plugs, not ear phones. Ear plugs.

You're not allowed to bring ear plugs that are attached to a string.

The examiners will provide you with pencils, pens and paper so you don't have to bring that stuff

in. If you want, you can bring a pen, but -- and I usually tell students to bring a watch. But the watch

can't be audible. It can't have an alarm on it. It can't be one of those digital things that might be able to

store information. Just a regular watch.

And you're not allowed to bring your cell phone in. So for those of us who are so used to

carrying our cell phone everywhere, you have to leave that locked up either in your car or at the hotel in

your luggage somewhere.

You go in, you're seated. Just so you know, there are restrooms in the front of the convention

center. You are allowed to use the restroom if you need to. However, my advice to you is that you try

not to.

It's a big ordeal to use the restroom. You have to bring all of your stuff. You hand it over to the

examiner. There's a proctor. They -- if you take too long in the restroom, they'll come in looking for

you. Because in the past, shockingly, they've actually found people cheating in the restroom. So they

monitor that stuff pretty well.

During the bar exam, you'll see people, proctors walking up and down the aisle. There is a big

clock in the front of the room that counts down time for you. At least my experience was, because I had

done so many practice questions, I had trained myself just to focus in that I really had no idea what was

going on around me.

But for those of you who are easily distracted, you know, I want you to be aware that there is

movement in the exam center during the exam. So you'll need to get used to that. And again, if you

need ear plugs, bring the ear plugs with you and it cannot have a cord.

Okay. Exam days. Day one, as we said earlier, is the Florida day. Morning, they give you three

essays. If you're handwriting, you're given blue books. If not, you have your laptop there. You go.

Hour per essay question. Not a problem, because you've done a lot of essays with us. You know you're

going to do well.

You don't panic. You don't know the first, you go back to the second, you go back to the first

later.

You go to lunch, you come back, you're given 100 multiple choice questions, three hours to

complete. You look at the question. Oh, my goodness, they're so nit-picky and they're horrible. Most

students hate these.

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But you remember what I said. The exam is curved. If you studied, you're going to be in that

curve. You're going to know just as much as everyone else, and you will do fine. Your confidence level

has to be up.

You go back in, you go home, you try to forget all about Florida law after the first day. You flush

it out. You don't remember anything. Because if you hang on to, oh, I blew that essay question, you're

not going to want to go back that second day. And you have to go back. You have to remember, I put

in too much time. I paced myself. I will do well. And I will pass.

Next day you go back, same thing. You get to the exam center around 8:00 a.m. They lead you

in around 8:40. Exam starts at 9:00. Open up your test booklet. You remember when you took that

simulated exam with BARBRI. So no big surprise. You're used to it. Hundred questions, three hours.

You've got your timing down. You're plugging away at those questions.

You go to lunch, you remember, you don't talk about the test because people might have a

different section than you did. So why get yourself stressed out?

Come back from lunch, next hundred questions, three hours to complete. You're done with that

exam. Now you just have about eight weeks left to think about whether you passed or not. But you

know you did, because you studied, and you did everything in these books.

And everyone in this room has the ability to pass if you put in the time and the effort and just

follow what we tell you. The pace program lays it all out.

Okay. Some things to remember as you embark upon your journey through the BARBRI course

and ultimately the bar exam. The pass rate in Florida is typically high. It's not that low. Everybody here

can pass if they do the work.

Second thing, you got to pace yourself. Paced program or study plan. You need direction. Do

not let your life tumble out of control.

If you fall behind at the end of every week, make sure you catch up. Reassess your pace

program on a weekly basis. Spend the weekend catching up. If you let too much time go forward before

you catch up, you'll run out of time altogether.

And what is it, game over, as the old video games used to say. Pace yourself.

And finally, it will all be over before you know it so use your time wisely. Okay? Use your time

wisely.

Again, if you have any questions whatsoever, please feel free to call me or anyone else at the

BARBRI office. Our number again is 1-800-950-7277.

Thank you all for being here and spending the time with me, and I want to wish you all the very

best of luck. And hopefully, for each and every one of you, this will be the beginning of a very successful

career in law.

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Thank you again. Good luck.

(End.)