One Week to Go: Conquer the Bar

You have one week to go. It’s super tense right now, I know–this was me, one week before the bar:

Don’t panic. That is what I keep telling myself.  don’t panic b/c it distracts you.  just focus.

not easily done.

I have been in my apartment for five days.  I have not stepped foot outside my home in five days…and I probably won’t until Saturday.  study study study.

But sadly today I reviewed subjects that are not my friends:

Commercial Paper, Secured Transaction, and Corporations…basically all business related shit.

After reviewing I about freaked out when I tried to do an essay because I could not answer it! I was still confused about it.  FML.

But I kept telling myself that there are 15 other topics that they can grade me on and I am doing pretty well on those other subjects so it may not be so bad…

don’t panic.

wowza–I can feel my anxiety from here.  It was tense, but trust me that after Day One things were much more chill. Not that that means much to you right now.  But you have one week left to give it your all, and you’ve been working hard for so long so I know you have the willpower to get through this next week.

What can you do in your last week to be prepared for the exam?

One. Come to terms with the fact that you won’t know everything.  You just won’t. It’s impossible. Your goal  right now shouldn’t be to master every topic but to master the exam, which means…

Two. Keep memorizing.  Memorize those tests, those standards, those elements. Come up with crazy mnemonic devices that don’t make sense to anyone but you–remember these things will be your best bet in answering the essays in the format that’s expected.

Three. Practice the format.  Keep answering essay questions, under timed conditions. Practice how you outline your answers, keep practicing. It’s not enough to know what you would say–you need to put pen to paper and answer it fully so you can see what your fleshed out answers look like and ensure that you’re mastering IRAC.

Four. Take a break. Not a real break, but two or three days before the exam, take a brief break to figure out some things you need to have organized for the day of the exam, mainly:

• What/where are you eating breakfast/lunch?  You don’t want to waste half of your lunch  break trying to find something to eat. I took the exam near Michigan Ave in a somewhat- dead space so having to wait in line with 30+ Bar Takers as we rushed to order and eat our food was no fun.
• Figure out transportation. Again, the days I took the Bar they were filming Batman, which caused major delays in the buses. I got a ride the first day, but took a taxi (pre-Uber days lol) the second day.