First, I am glad it's over, and no, it hasn't sunk in yet. It is nice that this cloud that is the bar is finally pushed away. More thoughts on this whole bar process later. The waiting game will definitely suck. I'm heading to a bbq and then perhaps the Simpsons movie and the golf course for a well deserved break, but I wanted to put down my quick impression of the MBE. Anyone else who has a comment about them, please feel free to post.
As far as MBE, I got done the morning session and thought, "well, I wasted a ton of time doing these PMBR questions." They were nothing like the real thing - and the blue book PMBR test is certainly unrepresentative given that every MBE question had a single, relatively short fact pattern. For that matter, the Barbri questions aren't any more representative, since I did a lot of them also, but I say they are better only because their answers are more clear and useful. So, would I recommend PMBR? Absolutely not.
Would I recommend doing 2000 multiple choice problems to prep? I will have a better answer to that when the results come out. I am inclined to say that if you read the Convisor mini-review a hundred times, that would probably be just as, if not more useful. There are a thousand ways I could have studied differently, and hopefully I won't have to deal with this again in any capacity other than if I decide to take another bar (meaning that I certainly hope I passed, but I honestly have no idea how I did on the MBE).
I do recall PMBR telling us in the beginning of the six day that you will walk out of the MBE feeling like you guessed at 150 of the 200 questions. Other than that solitary comment, nothing else PMBR told me was worth the $800 it costs. I wonder if I would have listened had someone told me this or had I read it back in March. Maybe, probably not though. But I think your study time may be more worthwhile simply reading the convisor outlines than doing hundreds of multiple choice problems and stressing over it.
What is worse is when I saw a fact pattern that was remotely familiar and thought, well, at least I'll get this one. And then in looking at the answers, could not find the same choices that were in the book. Still don't believe me? Reread the PMBR opinion and make an informed decision to spend your time and money more productively.
Did anyone else think this same way? Please, post a comment to benefit the whole.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
PMBR is nothing like the MBE - don't waste your money
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17 comments:
I think your comments on the MBE are absolutely accurate. I didn't do very many PMBR questions because I mostly stuck to Bar Bri. I felt the Bar Bri questions were similarly unrepresentative of the MBE questions, but did have excellent explanations. I'm glad I didn't waste my time toiling through the PMBR books...
Agreed.
The fact patterns were much shorter on the MBE. The MBE wasn't necessarily harder than the BarBri or PMBR questions; they were out-of-scope, which is cruel - but at least, then, we are all in the same boat.
and what was the deal with the writing sample? did they want us to give a writing sample or did they want us to write in cursive? for me, those are two different things.
I did quite a number of questions from various sources, but absolutely nothing prepared me for the MBE. If i fail, i don't know what I'd do differently in February.
PMBR was a waste of money in my opinion. Barbri practice questions were enough.
I got the e-mail from kaplan asking for comments a couple days after the exam and let 'em have it. What a scam. And some areas barbri said would have questions covering them weren't there as far as I could tell. I went up to my hotel room at the lunch break and studied up on what I thought hadn't been tested yet and a lot never came up. Craziness. Only about 70 days until NV results and some more days after that until we get a letter saying what we scored on the MBE. Eep!
I got that same email. 70 days... pretty quick... I know a couple of my friends have results due out in mid-to-late October, but most of the rest of the states are due to come out right before Thanksgiving or thereabouts. Probably a small state like Rhode Island or Delaware will get their results next week.
I'm sure there were a ton of people that went back during the lunch break and did the same thing as you. Myself, I sat eating my sandwich and thought about what I was going to get at the bar later that night, and how the kid in the next row over was done in less than two hours.
PMBR is 10 times better for MBE than Barbri. Most Barbri stuff is way too easy or way too hard...PMBR, IMO was reprsentative of the actual MBE.
That is an interesting comment that differs from 100% of people I have spoken to about it. I am curious as to whether you took the MBE in one of the last two settings or before, since the lawsuit was settled in August 2006, and it appears the questions of changed significantly since then. Please elaborate on your comments.
I do agree that Barbri was not any more representative, but at least they had better explanations of the law as compared to PMBR's doofy, if not non-existent ones.
i did many barbri and pmbr questions and was routinely scoring in the mid 70% to mid 80% range. in the barbri sumulated exam, i was in the 99th percentile with 150 correct and i did another whole exam and got the same # correct.
during the morning session of the actual mbe i was freakin' out over how unfamiliar the questions/answers seemed; i had grown accustomed to zeroing in on both the obviously wrong answers and - a bit less frequently - the correct answer. at the end of the morning session, i was trippin'.
the afternoon was no better. i figured that ncbe had worked overtime to ensure that both barbri and pmbr's materials would prove to have been of almost no value and that those of us who paid barbri and pmbr would be pissed off and warn others away.
if that was their objective, they succeeded. the prep questions were of negligible value - other than as a mechanism for reviewing black letter law - but not for purposes of familiarizing oneself with mbe type questions.
presumably, however, we're all in the same boat. here's hoping for a ridiculously low average score!
stunned in ca
I did every PMBR question and almost every Barbri question (nearly 4500 all together from May until July), which I know was a big waste of time (and even a bigger waste of time in hindsight).
On the PMBR 3-day, I got 124 right (raw), and improved to 143 right (raw) on the Barbri 3-day. On the second PMBR, I got 144 right (raw), and on the second Barbri MBE (which I thought was the easiest of all of the ones I took), I got 164 or 166 right. So I was feeling pretty confident going into the real thing. Neither PMBR nor Barbri are representative of the real thing, although I agree with your comment that each question was just one fact pattern, and they were much shorter than PMBR had threatened they would be.
From looking around on the internet and other blogs like yours, it looks like everyone has the same consensus that the real thing was nothing like PMBR or Barbri's prep and you are better off doing some practice and just getting used to being able to finish the test. I am anxious to find out what the curve for the MBE actually is. Luckily for us in NC, we don't have to wait much longer.
I am glad that everyone that they were way out of touch with either the PMBR or the Barbri. During both the Barbri and the PMBR courses I saw people scoring consistently high. Only later did I find out that most of the questions given in both were repeats. So, if people were doing all the questions in both the pmbr and the barbri, of course they would be scoring in the 160s as they had already seen the answers. That said, I was glad that the MBE tested different items and that's why everyone felt that the MBE was so difficult. I was lucky enough to recall a lot of different points of law that neither the PMBR or barbri course had taught.
I agree with these latter comments that all of the simulated MBEs had a disproportionate number of repeated questions, which obviously had an artificial inflation on the number of correct answers. True to PMBR and Barbri's business model, you would do better as the summer went on, in part because of the similarity of the fact patterns and question choices.
The real thing, as many seem to agree, was nothing like the real thing. And as the above 3:56 PM comment emphasizes, if you remembered various points of the law, you probably did better than the 3:38 PM comment bragging about how well he or she did on the simulated tests. I'm curious as to how the curve is - hopefully someone from one of the earlier reporting jurisdictions will chime in.
I doubt I'm going to say anything else about this topic until the results come in, but I think my position on this subject is pretty clear. I welcome more perspectives though; post away.
I seriously freaked out during the morning session when I realized I was running out of time. During the simulated exams I got used to a number of question based on the same single pattern, which saves you a lot of time. The real thing did not have a single one of those. I also noticed quite a few questions were all 4 possible answers seemed to be wrong. I guessed a lot of questions. We'll see in November...
I just wish I had $10 for everytime someone asked me "Have you heard back about the bar yet?" It is so annoying- the people who ask are usually non-lawyers.
I took both BarBri and PMBR and agree that the real VA questions were very different from either. When I was studying, I liked PMBR's questions better. Neither was really representative however. If I pass, I'll be glad I took both courses. If I fail, I'm not sure what I'd need to do to pass.
Anyways, as the time gets closer I get more anxious about the results. I had a false alarm a while back when I heard "bar results are out" and then learned it was another state. I actually started crying- which surprised me.
I have a great job that I enjoy, and it pays the bills and I live comfortably. I also work around 40ish hours most weeks, and my work is genuinely exciting. While my job title isn't attorney, the credential is an advantage in my field and I work with a lot of lawyers. This job also would set me up for jobs where my title would be attorney. So, bar passage isn't even essential for my job- but I still feel like I would be embarrassed to fail, and I have been sort of dreading finding out about the bar, yet sort of ready to get it over with already.
The one thing I will say is- after this experience, I certainly wouldn't look down upon anyone who didn't pass. There are so many obnoxious people who just seem eager to hear if someone "failed" and to whisper about it behind their backs.
My final thoughts on the July 2007 MBE can be found here. Basically my score (after a 16 point curve) was in one case the same (as the Barbri 3-day), close to being the same (PMBR blue book exam) or slightly lower (final Barbri simulated MBE from book). The above linked entry should explain why I still wouldn't recommend PMBR.
Wow.. I used Barbri, Study Group and was recommended the 3 day PMBR at the last minute by a friend. I dunno what you guys were dealing with in 2006-07 but as of 2010 those three days with PMBR (taking the 200 question sample and then two days of going over the questions) was by far the BEST use of my time and money.
I don't think studying the material 1000 times would do that much for being able to zero in on concepts and approaches and patterns that the MBE people use in framing questions.
As it is, I think it takes quite a bit of hubris to post about something being worthless before you even took the exam or before you have the results for that matter. Perhaps you already knew everything you needed to know to pass the exam and as such, there wasn't a Bar prep that could have taught you that much. Remember the goal isn't to get you the highest score possible but a passing score... so if you think the prep programs suck because you didn't learn anything I suppose it could be because you already knew it all.
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