The Best Way to Study for The Bar Exam is to Study Actively
You’ve dedicated a good number of years to law school and potentially a sizeable amount of debt. The Bar Exam is the last hurdle you need to clear before you can finally focus on building your career as a lawyer. It’s no surprise, passing the Bar Exam is no easy leap.
The average bar taker believes the best way to study is to have the “black letter law” memorized perfectly. While memorizing rules is important, any layperson can memorize. The real goal, and the best way to pass the Bar Exam is not just knowing the law but knowing how to use the law.
You should be conscious about your approach. 
Watching video lectures or reading textbooks is not enough! Consider taking an active-learning approach as you prep for the Bar Exam. Active learning is more, well, active. You have to do more work! Your brain is not like a tape recorder simply transcribing what you hear. You have to learn the material. You have to test yourself constantly to see if you are retaining information. You have to study and learn material that is challenging for you. You need to apply the information you have “learned” to make sure you know how to use it. And you need to get feedback on the work you have done to be sure that you are understanding the concepts.
Examples of active learning include:
- Answering practice questions. The more you practice multiple-choice questions as found on the Multistate Bar Exam the more comfortable you will be with the material, and the more you’ll master the concepts tested on the bar exam.
- Review the MBE, MPT, and Essay explanations to learn why your answer choice was correct or incorrect.
- Studying with flashcards. Creating and studying with flashcards is an excellent way to master legal concepts and improve your recall on test day.
- Chunking is a process by which a larger unit of information is broken down into smaller units (or chunks) of information, that are easier to retain.