Just give me a straight answer!

PMBR Question #67 from the 3-day workshop:

Bunky was a 15-year-old who was rather big for his age. He was six feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds. On Halloween night, Bunky decided to dress up as a bank robber. His costume consisted of a black raincoat, a ski mask, and a toy pistol which resembled a real gun. He went to a number of homes in his neighborhood and when a person opened the door, he would hold up his gun, shoot a few blanks, and say, "Your money or your life... trick or treat."

At about 9:30p.m. Bunky went to the home of Mrs. Wrinkles, a 78-year-old widow, who lived alone. When Bunky rang the doorbell, Mrs. Wrinkles opened the door. Bunky then pointed the gun at her face and said, "Your money or your life." Before Bunky could finish his sentence, Mrs. Wrinkles quickly closed the door. She retreated to her living room, sat down on a chair, and suffered a non-fatal heart attack.

If Mrs. Wrinkles asserts a claim against Bunky to recover damages for her heart attack, she will:
(a) recover, because he committed an assault.

COMPARE WITH...

Barbri Question- MDR, Mixed Subjects #89

On Halloween night, Darryl, who is 12 years old, dressed up as a bandit by wearing dark clothes and a pair of panty hose over his head and went trick or treating. Darryl carried a toy gun that looked like a real firearm. Darryl's method of operation was to go up to a house and ring the bell. When the person answered, he pointed his toy gun at the person's face and said, "Your money or your life," and then shouted, "Trick or Treat!" At the fifth house he went to, Darryl began this routine, but before he could say "trick or treat," Patty, the elderly homeowner, screamed and slammed the door in Darryl's face. Still shaken by the experience, Patty suffered a heart attack five minutes later.

Has Patty a cause of action against Darryl?
(d) No, because Patty should have known that the gun was a toy since it was Halloween.

I just typed out both questions in their entirety, hoping I would spot the difference. Is anyone seeing it?

I tend to agree with the Barbri explanation because a reasonable person wouldn't have been afraid since it was Halloween. But PMBR says nothing about basing this on a reasonableness test.

Ugh. ugh. ugh.

Pull out your restatements ladies and gents

So I'm going through the PMBR questions from the 3-day workshop that I'm skipping... and with every answer I read I became more and more assured that I made the right decision by leaving. Seriously, they just test inane little points of law and the only explanation is "there's actually this little tiny exception noted in a footnote to the restatement that..." Seriously. I think I can live without that point.

By the way, did you know that in Michigan, if you score a 150 on the MBE that waive you in- regardless of your essay scores? Why do we live in California again?

All by myself

I left PMBR after the first hour. Steven Palmer goes through the explanations a lot more slowly than I do. And quite frankly, my 65% was apparently not that pathetic compared to the majority of test takers. So I will read over the answers/explanations on my own and focus my time instead on the remaining CA subjects that I'm still not completely firm on. On the agenda for today:

• Wills/Trusts: make attack pack/review/memorize substantive law, outline at least 4 essays, simulate 1
• Go over PMBR answers/explanations
• Do a mixed set of 50 MBEs from the Barbri book
• Do 2-3 random essays

Wow. That's a lot. I'd better get going.

By the way- if I had one of those smiley face charts to record my daily feelings, it would say "Today I am terrified." Shaking, nervous, terrified. Woke up at 6 am, went for a run, been jittery ever since. The adrenaline has started pumping...

Should I go or should I stay?

1 hour in to PMBR Day 2... I'm thinking I'm wasting time. Hmm...

Flight or Fight

Just got home from Day 1 of the 3-day PMBR workshop. I had seriously considered ditching out of the 3 day in lieu of on my own study.... but I'm glad I went. In my opinion, forcing yourself to do a full 200 HARD questions in timed test conditions can never be a waste of time.

As for the rumors, this test was definitely harder than what the actual bar exam will be. I scored 122/200 for a 61%. However, the answers and explanations booklet says you should add 36 to this raw score to get your scaled score becuase they have eliminated the "give me" easy questions that typically represent as many as 20 questions on the real exam. They also have a chart that allegedly compares you to other testtakers based on their approximations. According to that chart, anything over a 120 is over 90th percentile on a national PMBR scale. So I'm feeling good.

I am going to go to Days 2 & 3. This is a decision I made while taking the test today. The fact is, there were some questions on today's test that I need explained and as productive as I have been lately, I also know that I haven't been fully reading the explanations like I should be to get full value out of the practice questions. Plus, my stamina is waining and I figure this will be a good way to count sitting and listening as study time.

On the schedule other than that... tonight is remedies which shouldn't take too long because so much of it piggy-backs on other subjects. Tomorrow is Community Property and Wednesday is Trusts/Wills. I put those on the PMBR days because I'm already feeling pretty strong about them. In addition to making my attack outline and doing a final review of each of those subjects, the daily plan is to outline at least 2 essays and simulate 1 in that subject. If I have time, I'm also aiming for 50 mixed set MBEs and 1 random essay per day.

As for my emotional health... On my run last night, I cried- just really let it all out. But then I had a moment of clarity- there's really nothing to be sad about, and not much to be scared about at this point. I am ready, and a week from tomorrow I will be even more ready. And after that... life just gets so much better- I am a lucky girl and I have a lot to look forward to. I definitely feel like my body is in flight or fight mode at this point. So I just have to keep fighting.

Spread the Word

Mr. PMBR Contracts has a great idea. For any question that looks impossibly hard (i.e. any future interest question or this particularly long contracts question we're looking at right now), just guess A and move on. Why 'A' you say? Because if we all pick A then maybe the bar graders will say 'Hmm.. everybody got A, maybe A really is right...' Not sure if it's ever worked before, but it's worth a try. So spread the word. Just pick A.

Great Success.

Borat is not the only one who makes great success. After a pitiful 40% on the PMBR Torts 50 questions test this morning, I reviewed all the explanations, listened to the lecture and then did another 50 PMBR questions at the library... this time I got 72% improvement. Awesome. Now on to Contracts.

Duh

If one more bar review book or lecturer reminds me not to misnumber my answer sheet on the MBE I will kill them- or at least their visual image. Seriously, Mr. PMBR Torts has been rambling on about it for at least 4 minutes now. That 4 minutes just cost me $1.30 ($890/9 days of instruction/5 hours per day). He's not as good as Mr. PMBR Con Law because I feel like he's just going over the questions and the magical "approach" and not actually giving us a big picture of torts. Oh well, back to paying attention.

Easy?

I'm in Day 2 of PMBR- Torts and the lecturer just said "Torts is the easiest subject tested on the bar." Hmm... that's what the Con Law guy said yesterday... By the way, I only got 40% right this morning so I'd better pay attention.

One day down.... a lot to go...

So day 1 of bar prep is officially in the history books. It actually feels good to get started. Today was Con Law day in the PMBR 'early bird' course. I got a little more than half right on the 50 question set that started the morning. I liked the lecture format, how it interspersed the question with a comprehensive outline of the subject. I went to the library after class to do more practice questions and see if I had learned anything. I did 25 con law questions from Adachi's "MBE Survival Kit" and got less than half right. Pitiful. Then I did 10 questions from one of the PMBR workbooks, and got 9 of them right. Hmm... Whatever- at this point I am studying the questions, not practicing them, right Mr. Talamo? And now for my favorite quote of the day: "Rational basis plaintiffs are losers." That's all folks- off to bed. Tomorrow is torts day.

You're a heart-breacher

I've been going through the PMBR flashcards at work because work is boring and the flashcards are a lot less obvious than a big book... So I'm on contracts today and I find it funny that one of the contract types subject to the Statute of Frauds, is a marriage contract- specifically where a person promises consideration to another for the latter's promise to marry the former. Now, I remember reading a few cases in Family Law where people sued for broken engagements and what not and understand that a lot of common law is quite arcane, but what makes me laugh here is how hard PMBR tried to apply this rule to a modern situation in their example:

"A orally promised to give 1,000 shares of IBM stock to B, if she would marry him. B accepted A's offer. If A subsequently changed his mind and declined to marry B, A's promise to deliver the sotck would not be enforceable under the Statute of Frauds."

Seriously, was IBM stock really around in the days when these types of contracts were actually sued upon? SERIOUSLY?!?