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Frequently Asked Question |
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Am I eligible to take the NY Bar exam? |
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Do you provide a course for states other than NY? |
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Do you send out printed materials? |
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How long is my log-in access valid for? |
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What do you get when you Purchase Access to Material for the New York Essay exam AND the MBE/Multi-state exam ($324.99)? |
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What do you get when you Purchase Access to the MBE/Multi-state Exam materials only ($199.99)? |
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What is SmarterReview™ and what is so smart about it? |
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Is there any point in purchasing SmarterReview™ if I am doing Bar Bri? |
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Is SmarterReview™ sufficient if I have not signed up to BarBri or Pieper? |
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Why is SmarterReview™ only $199.99 when most courses cost $2,000 or more? |
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How SmarterReview prepares you for the Exam? |
| Am I eligible to take the NY Bar exam? |
| Unfortunately, we cannot advise you whether you are eligible. Only the NY Board of Bar Examiners can give you a definitive answer. You may visit their web page at WWW.NYBAREXAM.ORG |
| Do you provide a course for states other than NY? |
| At this time, we only offer a course for the NY bar exam and the MBE portion of the Multistate exam. |
| Do you send out printed materials? |
One of the key concepts of SmarterReview, is that it is an internet-based course, and one way we are able to keep our prices so reasonable, is by allowing the candidate to print the materials out themselves. Notwithstanding this, we are able to mail out a hard copy of the course by special arrangement. The fee will be $799 when shipping to an address within the US and $999 when shipping to an address outside the US. If this is of interest to you, please contact us by grunsfeld@gmail.com |
| How long is my log-in access valid for? |
Your log-in will be valid for five years. Please bear in mind that it is illegal to share your log-in with anyone else, and the IP addresses are monitored by computer. Where the same log-in information is registered to more than 4 different IP addresses, the log-in maybe disabled. |
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| What do you get when you purchase access to the MBE/Multi-state Exam materials only ($199.99)? |
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| What is SmarterReview™ and what is so smart about it? |
| SmarterReview™ was started to address the following weaknesses of traditional bar review courses. |
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The traditional bar review courses are just impossibly long and make little attempt to distinguish between the material that is essential to know and the unessential material that is only going to be tested once every ten years or never. If you have signed up to one of these courses and received their boxes of materials you will probably be well aware of this point. |
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The traditional bar review courses are very weak in their structure. Topics and sub-topics are not placed in an order and context that is conducive to clear understanding and internalizing of the material. |
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The traditional bar review courses do not give clear examples or illustrations of difficult concepts. |
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Most of the traditional bar review courses, force you to work at their pace according to their schedule. They force you to waste study time by attending lectures in which the information is coming at you far too quickly for you to internalize anything, and besides, a significant part of the time is wasted on the lecturers’ unfunny stand-up comedy routines. |
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Traditional review courses require students to spend huge amounts of time writing up lecture notes. Sure, writing is definitely helpful to the internalization process. But what if all the writing was already captured for you, and you had first rate, not too lengthy but not too brief topic summaries to start off with, and you could spend all your study time reading/internalizing the material, tackling practice questions and drawing tables that encapsulate/ summarize/ compare/ contrast the material? Wouldn’t that be incredible? Wouldn’t it be way smarter?
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Traditional Bar Review courses lull you into a false sense of security by providing you with books and books of simulated multiple choice questions and telling you that they are similar to the types of questions you will face on the real exam. Yet somehow, when it comes to the exam and you are faced with “real” MBE questions for your first time, the questions seem longer, more complicated, more obscure and more in depth. Well it’s not your imagination playing tricks on you. There is simply no substitute for the real thing. |
| How SmarterReview™ tackles these weaknesses. |
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Beginning with the size of the course. The total material that is included or the MBE part of the exam is approximately 160 pages. The additional material that is included for the New York essay part of the exam is only an additional 170 pages. However, of the additional NY material, only 120 pages needs to be known well. That's a total of about 280 pages of material that needs to be known well (internalized) for anyone to ace the exam. The topic reviews only address the areas of law that are tested. Within these specific areas of law, SmarterReview™ is more detailed than say the BarBri Conviser Mini-Review. However SmarterReview™ is still significantly shorter than the Conviser Mini-Review because SmarterReview™ only addresses the topics and sub-topics that are tested.
So SmarterReview™ is smart because it recognizes that not all topics or subtopics are equal. Similarly, not all exam candidates are equal. Whilst digesting and memorizing boxes of material is hard enough if you are devoting two months solely to bar preparation, many students are not in a financial position to do that. However everyone can handle 280 pages of material. And if you go into the exam knowing those 280 pages, you will fly through the exam. |
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The sub-topics within each topic are placed in the most efficient order. Points of law are frequently compared and contrasted so that the student is clear which point of law applies to which situation. The course recommendation also devises an order of topics to study that allows the student to get the most from their study time. Some topics should be studied in sequence. When you purchase access to SmarterReview™ you will have access to this sequence. |
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Whenever a concept is more complicated, the issue is illustrated by an application to a simple fact pattern. In this way, the student can be sure they have understood the full significance of the concept. |
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SmarterReview™ allows you to work entirely at your own pace and the material is available to you 24/7/365 online, from where you can download it to your own computer and/or print it out. |
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With SmarterReview™, all the lengthy boring and laborious work is pre- completed for you. All you have to do, is use your mind and internalize the material, spend some time doing practice questions and you are good to go! |
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SmarterReview has licensed the right from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, to include the 1998 and 1991 MBE exams, as part of its course. Of course, the Answer key is included, as is a table which converts raw scores into scaled scores. There is simply no better way of preparing for the MBE exam, and finding out about your state of readiness for the exam, than by completing two “real” recent MBE exams.
Similarly, you will also be able to access the NY essay questions for the last three years’ NY Bar exams, together with model answers. |
BarBri versus SmarterReview™- A Comparison. |
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SmarterReview |
BarBri
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| Cost of course |
$324.99 |
In Excess of $3,200 |
| Cost to study from home? |
Free |
$1,600 to $1,700 extra |
| Cost to retake exam. |
Free unlimited access to Smarter Review, for life |
$1,170- $1,500 |
| Past MBE exams included as part of course? |
Yes |
No |
| Past MPT exams with suggested answers |
Yes |
Yes |
| Submit essays for grading. |
Yes. Can be submitted any time via email. |
Yes but must be submitted in person and only on specific dates. |
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| Is there any point in purchasing SmarterReview™ if I am doing Bar Bri? |
Absolutely! If you have signed up for Bar Bri, you are well aware of the 10-20 volumes of books that have been given you. It is simply not possible to read through that amount of material in the time you are allotted. That is why SmarterReview™ will be immensely helpful to you. It focuses on the key topics and allows you to allocate your time in the smartest way possible. Say you are struggling to get through all the BarBri material on Contracts, or perhaps you are having difficulty understanding the BarBri material, simply read the SmarterReview™ Contract notes and in 30 pages time you will be an expert on Contract law.
Additionally, access to the 1998 and 1991 MBE exam questions and answers is invaluable. |
| Is SmarterReview™ sufficient if I have not signed up to BarBri or Pieper? |
| Absolutely! Our position is that completing SmarterReview™ gives you a far better chance passing the Bar exam than any of the other Bar Exam Review courses on the market. Study SmarterReview™ for 5 hours a day for 7 weeks before the exam and spend one hour a day taking practice questions and you will be able to grin your way through the exam. |
| Why is SmarterReview™ only $199.99 when most courses cost $2,000 or more? |
The most significant reason why SmarterReview can charge such a reasonable price, is that we have no publication costs. Unlike most traditional Bar Review courses which force you to buy about 20 books as part of their course (at least half of which are entirely repetitive and/or unnecessary), SmarterReview is an entirely online course. So we have no printing costs and no costs associated with the transport of the millions of books. |
| What does the New York Bar Exam consist of and how does SmarterReview prepare you for the Exam? |
| Day 1: |
Time
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Exam |
How SmarterReview prepares you |
9:00 A.M. to 12:15 P.M
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3 essays on New York Law |
Concise but complete Topic Reviews clearly explain the NY law that will be tested.
Candidates submit 3 NY essays and receive a detailed critique of their essays, a grade, and a model answer.
Provides you with access to the last two years NY Bar Exam essays and answers.
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50 multiple choice questions on New York Law |
Concise but complete Topic Reviews clearly explain the NY law that will be tested. |
| 1:45 P.M. to 4:45 P.M |
2 essays on New York Law |
Concise but complete Topic Reviews clearly explain the NY law that will be tested.
Candidates submit 3 NY essays and receive a detailed critique of their essays, a grade, and a model answer.
Provides you with access to the last two years NY Bar Exam essays and answers. |
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MPT Exam |
Access to every past MPT exam since 2001 with model answers provided by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. |
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| Day 2: |
Time |
Exam |
How SmarterReview prepares you |
9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M |
100 Multiple Choice Questions. |
Concise but complete Topic Reviews clearly explain the Multistate law that will be tested. |
| 1:30 P.M.- 4:30 P.M. |
100 Multiple Choice Questions. |
Two past recent MBE exams with Answers
100 Multiple Choice Questions culled from recent exams with an explanation of the answers.
Provides you with access to the last two years NY Bar Exam essays and answers. |
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