My memory of the time leading up to the Bar itself is a little bit fuzzy. My employer had allowed (made) me to take the week leading up to the exam off from work. I spent that week doing essay questions. I seem to recall that I tried to slowly wind down the studying in the final few days, taking a bit more time off from studying, etc.
The first day of the Wyoming Bar Exam was the MBE. On showing up and checking in, each person got a little bag of goodies to use while taking the exam. It had things like pens and pencils, a granola bar or two, a couple pieces of candy, a small clock, tissues, etc., all in a see-through bag so we could have it in the testing room. It was a nice touch.
We all know the multiple-choice drill, and this was pretty much what I expected. That is, it was until the afternoon’s power outage. That was fun. We were all herded into the hallway and cautioned not to discuss the exam. The proctors did a bit of circulation, too. Thankfully, in Wyoming there aren’t a ton of people to keep track of, maybe only 50 or so were taking the MBE there. (There were more people taking the Wyoming Bar, but those taking Colorado’s Bar as well sat for the MBE in Colorado that day.)
Once the power came back on, we returned to our seats and resumed. While our little break could have been a major distraction, and perhaps it was for some, I thought it was nice to get a second afternoon relief period. When I’d taken full six-hour practice exams, my second-half score had always been significantly lower than my first-half score. I attributed that to being tired and, at a certain point, my motivation to do well being subsumed by just wanting to get the thing done with. So I thought it rather fortunate to get another break, even if it was only 20 minutes or so.
At any rate, the rest of the exam was uneventful. I even finished early. I felt fairly good about my performance, but only because I’d done well in the practice exams. The MBE is the only multiple-choice test I’ve taken where my feeling after the exam has little relevance to my actual score. But I felt that even if I’d bombed compared to my practice exams, I’d still get a passing score.
That night, I went home and, tired as I was, looked over some of the state-specific material again. There was some specific water law stuff that particularly needed some refreshing on. As it turns out, this was a good thing to review.
Part III tomorrow.
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