For those of us who were preparing to sit the exams in July 2016, there was a simulated MBE exam booked for Saturday 7th May. I opted to do this at home instead of traveling to London, which those of us doing the home study program could do, as long we set aside undisturbed time, set a timer and sat the Simulated MBE (3 hours for 100 questions in the morning, and the same in the afternoon).
The practice exam was a good early indicator of our progress with the materials already studied and a learning experience for the real exam which was 9 weeks away.
I remember being told that getting 100 out of 200 questions correct would be a satisfactory score on the Simulated MBE at this stage. So, when I didn't reach at least 100, I did feel as though I was still behind and thought, 'would I be able to catch up?'
I thought that I would have the rest of May, the whole of June and part of July to focus on the areas of law I was struggling with; to get a sound understanding of the substantive law and improve my scores. But by the end of May, we had only just finished the 7 core areas of law for the MBE exam, which is the multiple choice questions. We still had a further 5 areas of law to cover for the MEE exam, which is the essay part. And never mind the MPT section that I still had to learn LOL.
I really don't know why or how I didn't realize that we still had to do this...I remember thinking to myself, 'i've still got to learn about family and matrimonial law, wills and trusts, corporations, agency, partnership and security interests, 7 weeks before the exam and still grasp contracts, real property, constitutional law, evidence, torts, criminal law and procedure!!'
In all honesty, I had not fully understood how much I was actually required to know or study for this exam until now. At the beginning, I just jumped at the opportunity to do this as a 'now or never' opportunity because I had postponed it several times before and didn't want to postpone it any longer. Maybe if I had allowed more time to think about what I was actually getting myself into, I may have been put off by it all and not gone for it!
Well, I only had 7 weeks to do whatever I had to do to make sure I was ready for the exam and to pass. By the end of June, we had covered all the subjects for the bar exam and we had a full day mock exam on the first Saturday of July, which I attended in London.
With the actual exam 3 weeks away, I really wanted to see how much I really knew and how much I still needed to know for the exam. I did better than I did on the simulated exam in May but I felt like I still had so much more to learn.
By then I was only working 22.5 hours a week so I had an extra day and a half to study! The time went so fast and before I knew it, I was flying to New York to sit the exam!
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