July 4th is right around the corner and you are about to enter the final few weeks of bar exam preparation. Your essays don’t look anything like the sample answers. You bombed the simulated MBE practice test. And it is starting to feel like time is running out.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Over the past 80 years, we have worked with tens of thousands of students from all over the country who felt the same way. Panic is starting to set in and it feels like you are the only one struggling.

But don’t panic! You still have the time to improve your score! In fact, depending on how you use the next few weeks, this will likely be the most important part of your studying.

With the time remaining, what can you do right now that will make the most significant difference in improving your score on the exam?

Here are the three things you must do now to ensure you pass the bar exam:

Step 1 is to get professional help. No, not go to a therapist, but hire a professional bar exam tutor to help you in your final month of preparation. If you are taking a first time course, you are just about to finish the substantive review of each subject, and then in the weeks remaining you will be asked to essentially do lots of practice and put it all together by yourself. But you are not a bar exam expert. If you were, you would likely not be reading this. So you do not know how to prioritize your studying and what to do if your practice scores are not going up, no matter how many questions you practice on.

A professional bar exam tutor does know these things. We are not just talking about someone who passed the bar exam and is now looking for a way to make a little extra money. While these types of tutors may mean well, they are just as likely to confuse you as they are to help to raise your score.

You want to find a tutor who is trained and experienced at actually teaching students test-taking strategies and has a proven track record. Do your research before simply picking a tutor from a Google search.

At Marino, we train our bar exam tutors in our famous exam strategies and assign each student to a tutor based on what the individual student needs.

So what exactly can a good tutor do for you? Well, Step 2 is learning proper exam taking strategies for the different sections of the bar exam.

The right tutor can keep you on schedule. If you are having trouble with a particular section of the exam, or a specific substantive topic, a tutor can evaluate your skills and give you strategies and methods for improving your proficiency. A tutor can help drill you on the rules of law and give you personal feedback on your Essays, MPTs, and MBE problems.

If you are taking the bar exam for the first time and are in a bar course, a tutor is an effective study companion. They can help you get the most out of your course. And if you failed and are studying again, a tutor can help you understand why you failed and work with you to correct your weaknesses and improve upon your strengths.

Now, what if you if you are in a situation where you find that you really just do not have the time or resources to get the full benefits of a good bar exam tutor? And you need guidance and direction.

Well Step 3 is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

If you need help on the MBE (worth a full 50 percent of your overall bar exam score on the UBE and in most jurisdictions) is there anything you do at this late stage?

Yes, due to the feedback from current and former students, we have created a specialized program centered around our famous Marino MBE Method to significantly raise students’ MBE scores with only a few extra hours of work. The program is simple: (1) you watch a short, online video lecture to learn the Marino MBE Method, (2) you apply the Method on assigned MBE questions, and (3) you meet one-on-one with an expert bar exam tutor for one hour to reinforce the Method, answer questions, and receive guidance for the remaining study period. In addition, you have the option of practicing what you have learned on seven 25-question, single-subject practice exams, and reviewing the answers and our Method with a video lecture of each exam.

The program is affordable enough that every student should be able to benefit from it, and it takes less than a day to complete — just give us a few hours of your time to learn a different and better way of attacking MBE questions.

Having problems practicing with the MEE essays or the MPTs? We can help there as well. Marino professionals will grade 6 MEE essays and 2 MPTs and give you feedback and direction as to how to improve in the final weeks.

If you feel like you are not on track to pass the bar exam and don’t know what to do — just email us at [email protected] or give us a call 212-249-3779 and we will give you our best, most honest advice. Helping students to pass the bar exam is what we do.

We wish you good luck in the remaining month before the exam and remember — DON’T PANIC! There is still time to bring your score up significantly!