M.J.’s Story: How He Turned a Bar Exam Failure into a Success
Said Henry Ford, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more wisely.” Past AdaptiBar user M.J. is the perfect example of how learning from your mistakes brings reward, and we are thrilled that he chose to share his secret to bar exam success with us! So, whether you’re preparing to take the bar exam for the first time or a repeat taker like M.J., be sure to read and learn from his story below:
“After experiencing success during my academic career, including all three years of law school, I was introduced to a word I hadn’t seen in all my academic ventures prior: “FAIL.”
When I graduated law school, I did what the majority of my classmates did and I signed up for BarBri in order to prepare myself for the Bar exam. I did my best to follow their instructions and guidelines, which generally consisted of watching around 4 hours of video lectures per day, and what seemed like hundreds of practice problems after. The BarBri schedule had me working from sunup to sundown, and gave me a false sense of security in thinking that I was actually being productive; I wasn’t.
Granted, this approach worked for many of my friends who took BarBri and passed the Bar on their first try. But for me, the approach seemed to value quantity over quality, sacrificing analysis and clarity for an arbitrary amount of problem sets. I felt as though I was learning tips and tricks for exam taking, and had little to no actual knowledge of the law in my head. Then, before I knew it, it was time to take the Bar. I felt so unbelievably prepared by this approach that, in retrospect, I should not have taken the exam. But I did, and I failed. Miserably.
This is where AdaptiBar and their Online Video Lectures by Jonathan Grossman saved the day. Jonathan Grossman was highly recommended by a friend, and I jumped at the chance for a fresh start. From day 1, under Jonathan’s guidance, I began re-wiring my brain and unlearning all the “tips” and “tricks” I had been told would ensure my passing the exam. The hardest thing I had to learn was that, in order to succeed on this beast of a test, I had to do something that I hadn’t properly done before during my Bar prep: I had to actually read the question.
AdaptiBar has a program that values quality over quantity, and rather than filling my head full of “tricks”, Jonathan has a simple, yet effective approach to each question. For each question, you are simply urged to read the question and then ask yourself, “What are they asking me here?”. It sounds simple enough, but if you’re like me and you did one of any number of test prep courses, you know that you are urged to jump to the call of the question/read answer choices/read the question backwards before ever figuring out what the examiners are asking.
Simply put, Jonathan made studying for the bar manageable, and he taught me how to study smart. There are no magical tricks or patterns. The most important thing I learned was to have confidence in myself and what I know, and to “shut up and pick it.”
I give this program my highest recommendation.”
Learn more about the AdaptiBar MBE Simulator for Retakers and read more AdaptiBar reviews now!
