By Mike Sims, BARBRI President

 

With the bar exam behind us, barpreppers across the country are discovering that while it was unpleasant to study for the bar, and exhausting to take the bar, now the truly difficult part has begun – waiting for results from the bar.

It’s almost impossible not to replay essay questions in your mind or to second guess your answer choice on a difficult MBE question. It’s even harder to quiet the voice in your head that keeps asking, “But what if I failed?” The good news is that if you are experiencing any of the stresses, you’re not alone and it’s completely normal.

After every exam I receive panicked emails and phone calls about the exam. I hear stories about essay questions that tested completely unknown rules of law. I have students tell me the MBE questions on the exam looked nothing like the questions they had seen in practice before the exam. In my experience the more someone is worried after the exam, the better they end up scoring on the exam.

On the essays, remember this one simple truth: If you did not know a rule of law, odds are no one else did either since the majority of students prepare with BARBRI. For the MBE, the practice questions you worked and the BARBRI simulated MBE that you took have helped hundreds of thousands of successful bar exam takers. That said, the one thing we can’t simulate in BARBRI is the pressure of the real exam. Think about it. How many times in practice did you skip over or guess on a hard practice MBE question, figuring you’d just learn it from the answer? On the real exam, you don’t have that luxury, but you do have the pressure of feeling like you need to get every question correct. You don’t. In fact, historically the average exam taker misses 70-80 questions and still passes the exam!

There’s no question waiting for results can be stressful. Between now and results day, do your best to relax, enjoy the rest of your summer and remember that the odds are VERY strongly in your favor.