Sunday, May 20, 2007

PMBR Day #6

Each day of PMBR I've adjusted more and more to the whole concept of studying all summer (this might be because my scores improved with each subject-despite being sure I'd do horribly later in the week).

I know a lot of people who did not take the 6 Day, largely since they didn't feel they (or anyone else) needed it and it was just a scare tactic created by the evil corporation that is Kaplan. For them that is fine, but I knew it was going to be hard for me to get adjusted to studying all summer and that I was going to need a frame of reference as to what I needed to study most. Plus I knew reality kicking me in the ass would help tremendously as well.

Today was the first day I didn't go in and take my test at the center in the morning. I learned during Kaplan for the LSAT that I am very coach-able (read: brain-washable), I stuck to the "Kaplan Method" religiously, I did all the reading, practice problems, and took as many practice tests in the center as I could. In the end it paid off when my score improved 14 points. Thinking about the LSAT just made me realize how much more I'd like it if the Multistate was divided into sections so you knew which one you needed to be thinking about for that hour.

I had a point to this post, but it was lost long ago. Basically I'm annoyed with my friends who have been telling me I didn't need the 6 day. One of them (after going on about how it's stupid) said to me "if I don't pass the bar I'm not going to look back and say, I wish I would have taken the 6 day", my response was "well I would." For me, it was what I needed. I'm not going around telling people who didn't take it they made a mistake, or that they really needed it, yet I am getting judgment about my choice.

7 comments:

Viva said...

Kaplan only acquired PMBR within the past year.

I took the 6 Day last year and found it useful, mainly because I felt it gave me a way to wrap my head around things. I heard tons of bad things about the 3 Day, though, and was so glad that I didn't take a fake MBE completely made up of ridiculously hard and obscure questions. There's just no point in that so close to the actual bar when your time is best spent on polishing your weak spots -- even if your weak spot ends up being the MBE or one of its subjects, the 3 Day test is just going to freak you out.

some guy said...

This is a response to a previous post, not this one. The MBE is curved. According to the BarBri introductory lecture the national council takes your raw score, curves it, then sends that curved score to your state's bar. I don't know if this is good or bad that it's curved. I tend to think it's good because we all know there are a lot of idiots out there who have to make up the tail end of the curve.

Elle Woods said...

I haven't started BarBri and PMBR was ambiguous about it.

The reality is, being that our state bar is a point system which allows for multistating out it doesn't really seem curved to me. You need 150 points, which you can get by getting about 75% on the Multistate according to PMBR (you still need to make a good faith effort at the essays). Plus do the math, 75% on the multistate is 150 questions-which are a point a piece, so it's not really curved.

A curve to me, after law school is a certain percentage get A's, B's, and so forth-or in this case, pass. That isn't how it works.

Another Asian Law Student said...

gluck with it :]

some guy said...

Ok, Elle, I'm not arguing with you or trying to be a dick.

I just like thinking that all the test takers are placed along a continuum before they scale our scores (they told us 125 raw score on the MBE is enough to pass in Florida...still have to pass the state portion separately) and now I know someone will be in back of me.

So if they're not bright enough to bring paper to a lecture, I'm fairly sure I'm smarter (even though I know this test isn't about how smart you are I somehow get the impression that a person without paper probably doesn't know how to study) and I'll get more answers right than she will, which means she'll be behind me on the curve or whatever you want to call it.

Liz said...

Um, monitoring your classmates for signs of weakness, in the hopes that their loss will be your gain, is pretty much what makes law school the little shop o' social horrors that it is. Whatever happened to, "Keep your eyes on your own paper?"

Elle Woods said...

Ehh, in fairness, I'm just hearing them talk about it, I'm not actively looking.