When Getting It Wrong Is Good

As you head into the last few weeks of bar preparation, you will want to incorporate lots more practice exams into your study schedule. This includes taking several 100- and 200-question simulated exams under test-like conditions.

There are variety of reasons why some graduates indicate not taking these practice exams, however. Some are valid reasons. but lots of them aren't. One of the most incorrect reasons I hear why graduates don’t take these important practice exams is “I don’t feel ready, and so I’m not going to get the questions right, and so it’ll be a waste of my time,” or some variation of that argument. That is farthest from the truth.

And that’s because they’re looking at the practice tests the wrong way. The practice tests are designed to help you make adjustments in your learning (especially during these last few weeks of bar preparation) and to help you build that long-term memory so that you can better recall that information on test day in February—when it really counts.

Take a quick read of Scientific American’s "Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn."

Here's an except: “People remember things better, longer, if they are given very challenging tests on the material, tests at which they are bound to fail. In a series of experiments, they showed that if students make an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve information before receiving an answer, they remember the information better than in a control condition in which they simply study the information. Trying and failing to retrieve the answer is actually helpful to learning.”

The article ends with a quick summary: “And remember, even if you get the questions wrong as you self-test yourself during study, the process is still useful, indeed much more useful than just studying. Getting the answer wrong is a great way to learn.”

If you have not completed practice MEEs or MPTs, or half-day or full-day MBE practice exams, do so now, so that you give yourself more time between taking the practice tests and the bar exam to learn and re-enforce the information. And if you have taken all the practice and simulated exams so far—kudos to you!—but remember to continue to incorporate more practice exams into your practice over the next few weeks.

Over the next several weeks, you should find yourself taking practice exams, identifying your weaknesses, working on those weaknesses, taking more practice exams, identifying additional (or the same) weaknesses, working on those weaknesses, taking more practice exams, and repeating the process over and over again.

And don’t be discouraged about getting questions wrong. That's actually a good thing as long as you're taking the time to review the explanatory answers and learning that information. As the Scientific Americanarticle stated: “Trying and failing to retrieve the answer is actually helpful to learning.”