by Mike Sims,
BARBRI President
Now repeat that mantra: “Watch one, do one, teach one” and then go find a study partner to use it on during your bar exam prep. If you’re by yourself, on a computer or tablet or smartphone, sitting at the local coffee shop or in your room toiling away, working through the vast amount of bar review questions – I encourage you to try this interactive education model.
“Watch one, do one, teach one” originated in medical school and can effectively be applied to law school and bar exam studies. The idea is that seeing someone do something, then doing it yourself and being able to show someone else how it’s done leads to greater understanding and confidence. You just need to partner up with a fellow law student or someone to listen as you explain the rules and elements of the law.
Inherently, bar review starts out as an individualized experience. It’s you one-on-one with the BARBRI Personal Study Plan that guides you through the daily assignments and recommended homework. What you need to be keenly aware of is that you may, at first, be alone to focus on your studies but that can morph into being lonely. A study partner will keep you energized and motivated and, most of all, provide the dialogue and discussion necessary to comprehend the law.
If you have a bar exam study partner (and you really should at some point), learn a rule and teach it to that person. If you know a rule well enough to teach it to someone else, you know it well enough to pass the bar exam.
Plus it goes both ways. Your study partner can explain legal components to you, as well. Listen closely. There may be a nuance or even broader topic of the law you are grasping for the first time – after all, you’re taking three years of law school subjects and condensing it all into about 10 weeks of bar prep. Meet daily or weekly, at least, and discuss aloud – this will help with your understanding, retention and, ultimately, application when answering those multiple-choice MBE questions and essays.
Say it one more time: “Watch one, do one, teach one!”
ABOUT BARBRI BAR REVIEW
BARBRI pioneered bar review and proudly celebrates 50-plus years of helping more than 1.3 million students pass the bar exam. BARBRI’s constant innovation, leadership and depth of experience based on 100-plus bar exams going back to 1967 influences all aspects of bar review – where it’s been, where it is today and the vast possibilities of where BARBRI will lead it next. Every year, the overwhelming majority of law students across the nation choose BARBRI Bar Review to prepare for the bar exam – and pass it the first time. Learn more about the nation’s #1 bar review.