Ground and pound

After two days of Bar prep. class I have to say that I think Barbri knows what they're doing. During the first lecture, which was a shortened session about how to take the test, Bar prep. was likened to marathon training. Start slow, build your pace, increase the distance and add time and effort, which strengthens your mental muscles.

While the first class held some important information, for us it was effortless, a good way to get us back in the classroom and used to being lectured again. Then we had two full-length lecture classes Thursday and Friday followed by a four-day Memorial Day weekend.

A friend told me that last year they started after Memorial Day and it makes me wonder if Barbri scheduled the classes to give us a half-week warmup to get stretched out before we dive deep in the law or if that's just the way the schedule worked out because of the test date.

The Barbri rep., Paul Ready, spoke to us between sessions, expanding on the marathon metaphor, and explained that for the first month we should be only studying about 6-8 hours a day, not worrying about memorization, and that we should have a day completely off. Ready specifically told us to keep living our lives for the first month. Although, on or about July 4th, we need to bump our studying up to 10-12 hours a day and go completely into Bar mode, become a memorizing machine, and shun our social life. He still stressed the importance of exercise and stress relief though.

Barbri seems to have teaching memorization down to a science. We had the same speaker, through a video, both days and the way he taught was perfect for forced memorization and because the short week fits into their marathon metaphor.

He repeated everything multiple times, gave mnemonic devices, flailed his arms around and changed his tone repeatedly. His voice and tone were annoying as were his rapid successions of arm and body movements. BUT, these all made him effective. He reminded me an informercial pitchman in every possible way, skilled at breaking down something to its finer, basic points, then pouding them into your subconscious to be retrieved later if only accidentally.

Basically how the Bar prep. class works is we sit with a pre-written Barbri outline that has spaces to be filled. We listen to a three-part three-hour lecture and fill in the blanks. It reminds me of high school classes like history and biology, which makes sense because we were being taught to pass tests then too, not so much how to think. The speaker was great about making sure we knew exactly what we were supposed to fill in, as we are preparing our outlines to memorize later.

He was also adept at explaining how, as to order and exent, the Bar graders want us to answer. He broke each hypo answer into parts, giving the issue, the rule, the explanation of the law, the fact/rule analysis, the exceptions and finally the conclusion.

It seems that Barbri has done extensive research into make their program as efficient as possible using the ground and pound method of education, running the same three plays over and over gaining three and a third yards at a time. turning forward progress into first downs, first downs into momentum and momentum into touchdowns. This is going to be among the most redundant experiences of my entire life but at least the type of law changes every day.