If you’ve taken the bar exam before, this is not the first time you have encountered most of the material so your starting point is not to re-read outlines or re-watch the lectures. We tell ourselves we need to do this because we don’t remember anything or we need to review before we get started. This repetitive recycling of information makes us feel good and creates the illusion of learning. It is not learning. Instead of creating connections between concepts and building memory strength, it reinforces isolated static knowledge and your brain gets lazy because it’s not doing the hard work.
Instead, start by testing yourself and practice retrieving information. Take a pre-test: do a set of 50 mixed subject MBE, randomly pull 3 essay questions and answer them. If your first reaction is, “but I won’t do well!” that is exactly the point. You might need to read a few concepts from an outline or watch a section of a lecture and you can only determine that by testing what you actually know and establishing the limit of your knowledge.
Just as re-reading outlines, flashcards, and notes is not helpful, neither is doing massive amounts of practice. Studying is a combination of practice & assessing your process. What do you know for sure and what inferences are you able to make from that foundation? Where is the gap that leads to the mistake? What type of mistake did you make? Where did you take a mis-step in reasoning, why did you make it?
Here are a few study strategies to try:
- Work through practice questions with notes and verify accuracy of reasoning skills as you’re doing it.
- Work through practice questions without notes and use reasoning skills to eliminate answer choices (MBE) and explain relevance of facts (MEE). Then assess accuracy of reasoning ability.
- Quiz ability to recall information- answer the knowledge check questions after subject matter lectures, do blank sheet test (give yourself 10 minutes to write everything you know about a subject, compare to outline and fill in knowledge gaps).
Re-studying for the bar exam shouldn’t be a repeat of what you did before. Starting over is challenging but finding your starting point will help you establish a strong foundation that you can build on.
-KSK
Bar Exam Wizard 
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