I wasnt going to live blog the bar exam this time, but those who know me know I wouldnt be able to resist. 1. The summer bar exam is given in the big convention center in downtown Houston. (No driving out to Pasadena like in February.) I expected the number of test takers to be at least twice the number from February, but it didnt look like there were that many more test takers this time. Maybe because the room was so much bigger, the crowd didnt look as big. I dunno. 2. I was confronted with a horrible ethical dilemma as soon as I sat down this morning. The chair I was assigned to was wobbly. As I shifted in my chair, it rocked back and forth. The guy on my right was already in his chair, so I couldnt switch with him. But the guy to my left wasnt there yet. What should I do. Would I be a horrible person if I swapped chairs and gave him the wobbly chair? What to do? What to do? Finally, I gave into temptation and reached over to the chair on my left. And it was wobbly too. Oh well, I didnt switch chairs, but I cant say its because I did the morally right thing. ;-) 3. Given a choice, I will always sit in the back of a room, where I can see everybody and see the entrance/exit. But my assigned seat this time is in the front row of the second group of tables. And the proctors for my section are right in front of me, about 10 feet away. They basically stared at me the entire time. Yuk! 4. Were not allowed to take any beverages into the room with us. I tend to drink water about every 5 minutes. I carry a bottle of water with me everywhere I go. Since its a timed test, there no time to get up and go to the water fountain except maybe once in each three hour test period. And the proctors sitting right in front of me were sipping on bottles of water. ARGH! 5. My keyboard was acting up this morning. Either it would get stuck on a letter and type it 25 times in a row. Or it would start erasing row after row or the answer I had typed. I freaked! There was no way I would finish in time if I kept having this problem every 30 seconds! I exchanged the USB inputs for my mouse and my keyboard, and that took care of that problem. Thank goodness! 6. There were two sections today. The first is a lawyerly activity where they give you some facts and a couple short cases, and you have 90 minutes to read and analyze them and then write a sample memo or brief. I feel like I knocked that part of the test out of the park. It was a breeze. 7. The second section was 20 short answer questions on Texas civil procedure/evidence and 20 short answer questions on Texas criminal procedure/evidence. That was an area that I really didnt do any studying on, and I struggled on that part of the test. I know I can do well on it next time if I can keep my anxiety under control and put in the time to study. I answered each question Sustained, Overruled, File a Motion for Dismissal, etc. and gave a very convincing sounding reason. On about half the questions, I knew the correct answer. On the other half, I was just guessing, but I made it sound like I was 100% confident. Now Im going to do a little reviewing, have an early dinner, and once again crawl in bed before the sun goes down.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 19:38:18 +0000