It’s game day. You have spent weeks and months practicing and preparing for the biggest exam of your life: the bar exam. You have your pencils sharpened, thoughts together, and you are ready to get this exam behind you! You sit down, open your test packet and all of the sudden, all of the knowledge you just had completely escapes you! What on Earth should you do!? Unfortunately, this is a very real situation that can happen when you sit for the bar exam. Whether it be nerves, anxiety, or a moment of panic, your mind can go completely blank when you go to start your exam. You may scramble to figure out what you should do if you can’t remember anything you studied. Fortunately for you, I have a strategy to help you through this stressful moment so that you are prepared ahead of time! Here are some tips and tricks to get you through your mind blanking! I hope these help your endeavor to pass the bar exam!
Take a Moment to Compose Yourself
Blanking on test day is a pretty stressful occurrence so it is safe to say you may be freaking out a bit. The best thing to do initially is to take a deep breath! Take a moment to compose yourself so that you can clear your head. You may feel like this is counterproductive as you will be losing out on valuable time. However, it is best to take a minute to yourself so that you can try to continue forward. This time you spend calming yourself will actually be beneficial to you in the long run! Afterall, you will have a clear mind and it may even trigger you to remember some knowledge you have forgotten. Even if you need to get up and go to the bathroom to decompress, that’s perfectly fine. This may be the best way to use your time if it will help you focus!
Circle and Move On
Have you calmed yourself down? Great, let’s proceed to the next step! Let’s say you get to a question, and you have absolutely no clue what it is asking for. That’s okay, circle the question and move on! Make sure you skip the question on your answer sheet or in your essay booklet so that you do not incorrectly answer and lose out on points. Next, look forward and see if there are other questions or prompts that seem easier to you or the information comes out naturally. Focus on those questions so that way you can maximize your time and the knowledge that is in the forefront of your brain. This will help you feel more confident and get the brain juices flowing.
Write down everything you know
You’ve gone through the questions that you can and now you’re not exactly certain where to go from here. At this point, you may have had some sort of “brain burst” and remembered some things. Now may be a good time to write down a little bullet-point outline on an area of law or topic. You can also jot down as much as you can remember regarding the specific question. Word vomiting is not necessarily going to score you top points on your essays. However, it may bring your focus back to the bar exam, and get your gears turning.
Go Back and Review
Alright, you have gone through all of the questions, circled questions you skipped, and answered the questions that seemed easier to you. Now is the time to go back and review the questions you skipped over. It’s possible that another question may have clued you in to the answer of a harder question. Or perhaps the topic made you think of other topics in the areas of law and reminded you of something you forgot. Even if you continue to struggle with a few questions, try to narrow down your answer to two options so that you can go back for a final review to maximize your time.
Take Your Best Shot
Now it is down to the wire, what now? Unfortunately, you need to take your best shot! You are not penalized for questions that you get wrong on the bar exam. You are technically only penalized by the questions that you do not answer at all since you completely lose out on points by not answering a question. Thus, putting an answer down gives you a chance at getting it correct and earning points. This is also true if it is an essay question. If you put down some sort of rule of law or analysis, you may still be able to score a few points! Remember, you don’t need a perfect score to pass the bar exam, you just need a passing one! So look over the question and take your best shot!
It’s OK to Blank
I recognize that blanking may seem like the worst thing that could possibly happen to you right now. Fortunately, it’s not, the exam is not over yet, and you can still do well! This is just a minuscule moment in your legal journey. You still have time to get your head back in the game. It’s okay that you do not remember every single rule of law or all of the knowledge you gained during bar prep. You have worked hard and prepared for countless months to get to this point. All you have to do now is to try your best so that you can be successful! You will be able to pass the bar exam, you’ve got this!
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