June 27, 2005

pmbr revisited

My husband has now equipped Piet with the full complement of PMBR lectures on CD. Now I can subject myself to a continuous stream of MBE review just by leaving the headphones on and the playlist on loop. Yum.

I do not, however, have either of the PMBR practice-question books. Everyone else seems to. On one hand, the law student herd mentality is kicking in, murmuring in my ear that I should invest in at least one volume and work through the Better Questions! Really!, thereby avoiding underpreparation. But on the other hand, I've shown a sad inability to apply myself to practice questions on paper (I HATE THESE GODDAMNED BOOKS!! HATE THEM!!!) and am probably far enough behind already that I might not even get to the book. So I might as well just save my money. Right?

Good plan? Bad plan?

Alternatively, there's the PMBR crash course the week before the bar exam. This is starting to sound like a better plan for me -- a good hard cram will probably be just what I need, a few weeks from now when I'll be all addlepated with California essay topics and general bar angst. Or is this just a waste of money as well?

thus spake /jca @ June 27, 2005 08:16 PM
Comments

The PMBR crash course is a 3 day affair. The first day is a full-length practice MBE. The second and third days have you go over that practice MBE. I signed up for it and was really pissed off by it. Basically, I thought that it was a gigantic exercise in motivation-by-fear. The questions were very hard, much harder than the actual MBE. The point seemed to be to have students get low scores in order to freak them out about the need to study. The answers on the second and third day didn't seem to me to be any more useful than the answers in the book they gave us.

OTOH, some of my friends actually liked it.

If you're doing the BarBri questions regularly and consistently and trying to understand why your wrong answers are wrong, it's probably not necessary.

Posted by: Bill Logan at June 27, 2005 09:02 PM

I agree with the comment above. I took the 3-day PMBR just before the exam and I really regretted doing so. Basically, they try to scare you (and often succeed!), but then you get even more freaked out because you realize that you only have, like, a week until the bar exam. I will say, though, that my MBE score *did* improve from the time that I switched over from BarBri questions to PMBR. That said, I still have many friends who passed just using BarBri. I, on the other hand, have yet to pass. Don't follow the herd - they're just sheeps being led to the slaughter. Do what makes you feel comfortable!

Posted by: Glib Gurl at June 27, 2005 09:17 PM

I can't offer any insight into the course substance, but if it's a question of wasting money, what will your firm (eventually) pay for? If they're willing to cover all bar-prep costs, then they should cover PMBR, too. If not...

Posted by: rex at June 28, 2005 12:47 AM

Go ahead and buy the PMBR books. You'll get some detailed outlines that might fill in some blanks left over from Bar Bri, and you'll be introduced to the way the writers at PMBR write their practice questions. That isn't to say that they write better questions, but in trying questions from both companies, you'll end up seeing a greater variety. Of course, time is limited, but the books (without taking the course, which may be unnecessary) aren't terribly expensive. Also, the questions are very challenging which helps to prepare for the less challenging (although only slightly, I felt) questions on the exam

Posted by: Sean at June 28, 2005 12:59 AM

I have an extra PMBR blue book that I am willing to part of , if you pay the shipping. Its copyrighted this year and has 800 questions, 100 per each area plus a 200 questions test. E-mail me if you need it... Hani

Posted by: Hani at June 28, 2005 06:06 AM

I am so sick of this I could die. I am taking it for the second time in Texas.

Good luck to you.

Posted by: jaye at June 28, 2005 07:41 AM

Hani, would you be willing to send me your PMBR book? Please e-mail me if you are. Barbara

Posted by: Barbara Archibald at July 3, 2005 04:50 PM