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Thank You Open Book Bar
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On my first attempt of the California Bar Exam I took Kaplan Bar Prep. I did everything that the prep course asked me to do including; attending lectures, reading one hundred page long outlines, doing MBE questions and submitting essays and performance
tests (PT’s) online. Each essay that came back from Kaplan was either a mark of “meets the standard expected” or “above the standard expected”. Each performance test that I submitted was given a “well above the standard expected” mark. After sitting the bar
on my first attempt, guess what…..none of my essays or performance tests “met the standard expected!” After one week of attending tutoring with Open Book Bar I knew exactly why I had not passed on my first attempt. Bobby Doustkam, Open Book Bar’s Tutor, walked
me through exactly where I had been going wrong. My problem was not so much knowing or understanding the law, but the way in which I was structuring and setting up my essays. It is no secret that the California Bar Exam is VERY harsh when it comes to the grading
of essays and PT’s. Bobby showed me exactly what the bar examiners are looking for, and where I could score easy points through doing a step by step analysis in my essays. He made writing the perfect essay a breeze. Over the months which he worked with me
my essays began looking more and more like the model answers which the bar posts on its website. These are answers that have scored highly on test day, and Bobby can show you how to replicate that exact writing style. Part of the change in my writing style
was due to the fact that Bobby worked really hard with me and a small group of students on issue spotting. This is an area that means the difference between passing and failing. I started to see how I was not thinking about the issues in the fact patterns
creatively enough to spot the less obvious issues. Bobby uses a method called “drills” to teach this. Drills is where you sit down in a small group, take 15 minutes to outline your essay answer. He then walks you through exactly how the answer should look,
and points out the irrelevant parts of our outline that are not going to score you points. It is amazing how much you miss in terms of issue spotting and essay structure when you don’t have someone to guide you! On the day of the exam I had practiced outlining
so much I was able to have my whole answer planned out in only 10 minutes for each essay. Bobby had also worked with me on timing issues. We did 6 days of simulated essay and PT exams. The first few simulated essays didn’t go so good. Even after all that practice,
timing issues were still holding me back, however I was able to get this sorted before test day with Bobby’s help. As for PT’s it was clear from my first few attempts that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Bobby does not BS you into thinking you are doing
well when you are not. He worked with me one-on-one to show me a very simple method of writing the perfect PT in the 3 hours you are given. If my answer did not read exactly like a model answer I was given a mark of 55. Bobby is as harsh in marking as any
Bar Examiner. After approximately two months those 55’s turned into 70’s . With MBE’s Bobby worked with me on my particular problem areas of the law. He also gave me a set schedule on how many MBE questions I needed to do to get my mark up. We also worked
on timing issues to make sure I would get finished in time on test day, which was a major problem for me on my first sitting of the exam. If you are willing to work hard, and take direction from this very able and knowledgeable tutor, then this is the course
for you!
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