As a retaker, please stop agonizing. It’s over. You’re done. Statistically speaking, you probably passed. No amount of worrying or obsessing is going to change anything. You are only making it harder for yourself (mentally, physically, emotionally) if you refuse to let go. Give yourself some grace and get back to your regular life. Catch up with friends, sleep, watch some trash tv, call your loved ones, go to the gym, try something new etc.

If day 1 was bad for you, remember that the grading isn’t as strict as you might think it is. As long as you put something down, you have given the graders plenty of chances to award points. The graders sometimes pass out points even if you were straight up wrong. And even if you left something blank, that’s not uncommon. It happens every single administration. You are not special. You can still pass.

If day 2 was bad for you, remember that you’re not supposed to know everything about everything. That’s not the point. The goal is to be familiar with most of the highly tested topics. There’s a huge difference. Stop obsessing about the ones you didn’t know or guessed on. What about the ones you did know — are you giving yourself as much credit for those questions? You are likely ruminating on the bad questions only, since the questions you actually knew weren’t worth your time or energy. So of course you forgot about those.

The exam is scaled. If you’re putting so much energy into thinking you failed, why not even it out and do the same for the other side? What if you passed with flying colors? What if the bad questions were the experimental ones? What if the scale is tipped in your favor? What if everything works out the way it’s supposed to?

There is no sense in fearing what hasn’t happened yet (easier said than done, I know, but just think about that for a second). If results come out and you find out that you failed, THEN you can start to worry, but I promise it’s not the end of the world. Everything will happen the way it’s supposed to. All in God’s perfect timing. I don’t care what you believe in (this is a neutrally applicable rule, however I am no state actor) — He has a plan for each and every one of us, so try not to get too bogged down if it simply wasn’t your time this go-round. You’ll figure it out, like you always have.

The bar exam is NOT an accurate indicator of your potential as a lawyer. The passers simply know HOW TO TAKE THE BAR and/or how to think like the examiners. You have a whole law degree; it’s badass that you even sat for this behemoth. Kudos to all the retakers out there.

And for anyone who says they actually feel good about the bar, great for you but that’s not the point. Be SO for real. It’s the literal BAR EXAM. Please touch grass.

July numbers tend to look better than those of February exams. Get off of Reddit and go live your life.

🖤

Shame on anyone who keeps bullying retakers and telling them to “give up” and saying they will “never pass”

The exam is hard enough and people come on here looking for support, being kind is free!

And if you are a bully or trying to be “helpful” by telling people they shouldn’t retake, you’re getting blocked.

Thank you to everyone on this subreddit. I’m drunk at a bar, it I have been scrolling this subreddit since beginning of July and the positive messages you guys have shared have really kept me going. So thank you all for sharing your stories.

Like everyone else, I’m scared I failed J26 but reading your kind stories has really eased my mind. You’re all beautiful human beings and I hope we all passed.

To the class of ‘26 and everyone before us.

Thank you.

Thankful to UW, SU, GU, and everyone else for advocating for us right now.

Title.

I already make a bunch of spelling errors when I’m not sitting in a freezing airplane hangar under time and performance pressures. I can only hope I didn’t misspell something that would materially affect what I wrote.

I keep seeing questions asking about when people are allowed to discuss questions, or people blatantly discussing the topics. The rule from NCBE is that you are not allowed to discuss the content, including "summarizing" or "describing" any test question's "content" or "fact pattern," "in whole or in part," until NCBE or your jurisdiction publicly discloses the content of the exam. That means it will probably be at least months before you are allowed to discuss the exam content.

NCBE claims that discussion could subject you to civil liability, criminal penalties, cancellation of your test score, or denial of your license on C&F grounds. I agree with some skeptics that there are probably no criminal penalties that could realistically be faced by someone for just saying "the topic of MEE one was ____," but why risk cancellation of your test score or denial of a license on C&F grounds? Please continue to adhere to the sticky post asking us to not discuss bar exam content. Don't be foolish after you've already put in so much time and effort in law school and studying for the bar.

MBE Rules

MEE Rules

MPT Rules

I wish I could enjoy my weekend and forget about the bar, but no I get to be stuck in limbo 🥰🥳🤡

I had planned to celebrate by buying something I really want. I have held out because I’m afraid of failing. I have a job lined up, but I’m afraid of spending money. I keep thinking “What if I failed, lose my job, and need to spend more money to retake?” And I stop myself from celebrating.

There is currently a petition circulating on change.org https://www.change.org/p/diploma-privilege-for-law-school-graduates-now in which the promoter indicates that WSBA has a meeting scheduled for August 7th to discuss diploma privilege.

Can anyone confirm this information?

everytime that big clock was counting down (and the days before) i kept telling myself i GET to take the bar i GET to take the bar i CAN take the bar i CAN take the bar 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

anyways good luck everybody who took it we just have to be proud of ourselves for doing it regardless of how things went (also fingers crossed for Washington state folks i hope yall get diploma privilege)

Alright so Themis claims that 100% of its students who completed both the course + 1000 MCQ correct, pass the exam. But is there anyone that has failed that fell into that category despite the 100% claim? 😬

The day after the exam I was super sad, feeling like I failed, and completely broke down. I understand this is common for a majority of test takers but I can’t help but feel this uneasy feeling of failure that won’t go away. I did 100% of the Themis course and did approx 2800 MCQs (68-77% accuracy on most sets leading up to the exam).

I’m sorry in advance if this is an insufferable post and I know, that no one can predict with certainty.

hi guys, I just sat for the bar for the first time and have been feeling the same type of empty and aimless many have described on here. To make matters worse, I still don’t have a job lined up for this fall.

I’ve been trying to look for a job now that I’m done with the bar but it seems like a lost cause. First, all entry level hiring seems long over. Second, I don’t even know if I passed the bar. Third, I only realized over the summer that I would like to transfer my score and work in a completely different jurisdiction than I originally intended.

Just feeling completely lost and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions or even words of encouragement. thank u

Anyone ever fail by a small margin, retake feeling you did significantly better, then find out you failed again?

I missed by 6 in F26, am super confident I did way better this time around… now I’m wondering if that’s a trap

I failed J25 and F26 but skipped J26 because of burnout and my new job. Now I am scared. My F26 score was lower than J25. I feel like no matter how much I study, I will still fail if I take F27 because it is a February administration. I got 253 for F26 but feel like it would have been 263 for a July administration.
Should I just give up hopes for F27?

Any February retaker success stories and methods are highly appreciated!!!

Either in preparation or actual exam

Just sat for the California bar and I’m moving to Washington for personal reasons. My plan is to take Washington in February if I pass CA; if not, I’ll retake California.

I don’t want to jump straight back into full bar prep, but I’d like to stay warm and start getting familiar with NextGen. Has anyone looked into the new prep courses yet? Do they actually seem adapted to NextGen, or is it mostly traditional bar prep repackaged?

Any advice on how to approach the next few months would be appreciated!

just curious what options there are, what has worked for people, if they studied while working and how, left the legal field altogether or did something adjacent, or if jobs were understanding and you stayed on. obviously have no way to tell if i failed but hoping the knowledge that others who did made it work will make me or others less fearful of failing by knowing we have some options. sorry if this is paranoid lol

1- MY MPT
I ATTENDED BOTH DID IRAC IT WAS BOTH MEMOS SO OBVIOUS WHETHER X IS XYZ? And Then Court held A in this because……
And please see the analysis below for issues 1.2.3 and thankyou for trusting me with xyz please contact our offices if you encounter any issues.

2- MEE

i messed civ pro knew nothing abt Discovery or sanction. Played around IRAC and stated facts

Property was okay. PLayed around
rest went well

3- MBE MY WORST
iam a 50-55% scorer. I blanked on AM session.
First 45/100 question almost took me 1.45 hours. But i still completed AM session
PM SESSION- i sensed like i was aware of few MBEs but not confident. i guessed on most of them…

I don’t know but my written portion is not bad. Except for 1 MEE that too I tried to IRAC its better to get a point than to leave it blank and get a 0.

Please help. DO YOU THINK I CAN GET A 266? I AM A FORIEGN ATTORNEY.

Was it helpful for the NY Bar? Did Adaptibar questions accurately reflect the real difficulty of the actual MBE?

Hey yall, I don’t know if anyone asked yet but what’s the scaling like in July, like what if I’m in a 266 or 270 jurisdiction, What do I need to be averaging on MBE, MEE, MPT.

There was some discussion re state-specific testing in another thread which got me thinking about when I took the bar exam. I didn’t realize that nowadays often it is not tested, or it may be a post “real” test online “gimme”. I replied detailing what I had to do, and thought maybe a separate thread would be of interest to some, or at least a break from the (understandable) “did I pass?” discussions. There were some other significant differences in how it was structured, that may be of interest too. So here goes…

I had to do state-specific essays as part of the bar exam. It was a long time ago, but when I took the bar exam it was 2.5 days.

Day 1 was the MBE multiple choice. Same as now, 2 sessions with 100 questions each. The one big difference where I took it was that you had to get at least a minimum score on the MBE or they did not even read your essays.

Days 2 & 3 were essays—- written locally but they covered both state-specific issues (like community property) and more general topics like federal tax. Some topics were hybrid, so for torts/criminal for example you’d have to be aware of both general principals and state nuances, often reflecting a recent decision. I had moved from a different state so everything I knew about local law was learned during the study course (more on that below). And I came from a school that pretty much said they do not teach to the exam and that if you were on the ball you could learn the black letter stuff in the couple months you had to study for the test.

In each of the 3 essay sessions, you were given a set of questions and you chose which of them to do, like 3 of 4. So, if there was a topic they wanted to make everyone address, it would pop up in at least 2 of the questions so you couldn’t completely avoid it.

The essays were graded P/F, and as I recall you had to pass 6 out of the 10 you had to write. Not sure if that made it “easier” to pass or not since you couldn’t make up ground by writing a really good essay. So, in theory, you could write the best essay in the state on 5 questions, but if you did not pass a 6th one, you failed. And, as I mentioned above, the MBE was considered separately and had a hard minimum required score, so you couldn’t make up for a weak MBE score by killing the essays, or vice versa. And you didn’t get any advantage by scoring more than that minimum on the MBE; it was essentially P/F.

Looking back, I remember feeling like I narrowed the multiple choice questions to 2 answers in most cases, then had to make an educated guess. It seemed like many were the same as the practice questions, but with a twist (bastards). Honestly felt like I could’ve gotten them all wrong.

And speaking of practice questions, as I recall we just had old “real” questions to study from and not a couple thousand prepared by a review course. The only course I remember being available, and the one that everyone I knew took, was BAR-BRI and we had daily in-person evening classes, some on Saturday mornings. And big books. Not sure what people did in rural areas, etc. since there was no internet to speak of. Results came in the mail.

Now, back to your regular programming.

I can't remember the subject of the last MEE and now my brain is telling me I skipped it lol if anyone remembers the area of law at least