You’ve started studying for the bar, and you’re finally in a flow of practicing essays, cramming the law, and moving on to the next essay. You may be starting to suspect that this is not enough and that there is no way you will remember how to organize your essays during the actual exam.
Don’t worry – the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) provides a guide to each of the essays on the UBE. These point sheets are intended to guide the exam graders, but savvy test takers use them to improve their skill before the test. If you know what the graders are looking for, you will know how to better prepare for test day. The point sheets tell you how much each issue is worth so this is a great way to estimate how much time you should have spent on each issue as you practice.
The point sheets for the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) will look slightly different, but your approach to using them successfully will be similar. Self-evaluation is critical for preparing for the exam.
There’s a scene in the movie Run, Fat Boy, Run, when Simon Pegg’s character Dennis, mid-marathon, 
For many bar takers, outlining an answer before writing is a commonly skipped but crucial step to developing a successful answer.
Studying for the bar exam without practicing your writing is like trying to speak a new language without saying the words out loud. You’re unlikely to get fluent just from reading or listening to a recording. The same is true for bar exam success. It requires practice, and we recommend starting in week one. 
If you have a family, then you know how difficult it can be to balance anything with family life. Between kids’ activities, school, playtime, mealtime, bedtime, and all the other responsibilities that come with being a parent, it is hard to find any time for yourself let alone time for studying for the bar exam. What may feel like an obstacle may instead be your secret weapon!
Welcome, if you landed on this article, it gets better! The snow is the perfect excuse to stay inside and study, right? Unless you don’t know what snow is, then maybe just give me a ring, and we can come up with another excuse to study. If you have landed here, I would like to say you are way ahead of the holiday slump because you recognize the double hurdle you may have to jump to successfully pass the February bar exam – the Holiday Hurdle.