![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenBarBri is eating my life. It's strange how, for a while, it seemed manageable, and then I fell behind one day and since then it's like I can't manage to get anything done. Maybe it's just that this is an endurance test, and I am losing.
It's not that I'm not absorbing information anymore. (Though I haven't tested retention lately.) More that I just can't find the willpower to study instead of goof off.
It doesn't help that the BarBri system frustrates me for various reasons. First of all, they grade some of your practice tests, which is immensely helpful, but they front-loaded the grading, so that I've turned in everything now, and at that point I had only gotten one graded essay back. Which makes it quite useless in incorporating feedback and tracking progress.
I also got my one graded performance test back today, and it pissed me off because the grader gave me barely any feedback and then failed me. On one of the parts where I failed, use of cases, there was one comment that said "Use Robins," and that pissed me off because (1) I did, later in the answer, and (2) their own damn put-every-last-thing-in answer didn't mention Robins even once. WTF?
I know. This is a minimum competence test, and BarBri is a lowest common denominator program. But I think they're not helping anyone's mental condition by jerking us around first with the harsh grading and then giving us the lecturer who reassures us that anyone can pass as long as you can make up a rule and apply it to the facts. (He said it so many times, I bet most people started to believe him, when we all know the pass rate is around 50%.) I waffle between trying to reassure myself and panicking that I suck at the performance test and I don't know how to improve because none of the practices I do will be graded and apparently I don't know myself what to be looking for.
I think I'm almost better off not looking at my graded essays and just pretending to myself that I am passing. Especially since only now am I beginning to fully internalize the IRAC structure and oh look, they aren't going to be able to tell me how I'm doing.
It's too bad BarBri is a big, heartless, money-grubbing monopoly, and wouldn't care about how they could improve their program because it works well enough. Like I said, lowest common denominator.
...okay, I feel a little better now, I think. The ranting was cathartic, and not what I had originally planned to write. What I did want to write was: BarBri lecturers randomly mention Caltech as a euphemism for top scientists and engineers. Most of these people aren't even from California, and I wonder, "How do they even know about Caltech? Why aren't they using MIT instead?" Is it just because this is the California BarBri class? Do they think it's like supporting the wrong sports team? I just don't understand.
In case you're curious, the two instances when Caltech came up were:
1. In the torts lecture on trespass, he emphasized that there must be something physically entering onto the plaintiff's land. And people had asked him about smoke. "'Smoke is made out of particles,' you say. You guys must be from Caltech. Let's keep it simple, okay? Maybe if it's really dark and drops soot."
2. In today's community property lecture, we got to classifying businesses that a spouse had owned and run before marriage. The key is whether the increase in value to the business is attributable to the spouse's skill and labor or to his making a good investment. The example of the second was a wife claiming she had just been in the right place at the right time, had hired some brilliant "Cal Tech" programmers, etc.
I don't know. I just can't help making a fist-pump when Caltech gets mentioned by these people. Perhaps it's just an indication of how awful the rest of BarBri is.
It's not that I'm not absorbing information anymore. (Though I haven't tested retention lately.) More that I just can't find the willpower to study instead of goof off.
It doesn't help that the BarBri system frustrates me for various reasons. First of all, they grade some of your practice tests, which is immensely helpful, but they front-loaded the grading, so that I've turned in everything now, and at that point I had only gotten one graded essay back. Which makes it quite useless in incorporating feedback and tracking progress.
I also got my one graded performance test back today, and it pissed me off because the grader gave me barely any feedback and then failed me. On one of the parts where I failed, use of cases, there was one comment that said "Use Robins," and that pissed me off because (1) I did, later in the answer, and (2) their own damn put-every-last-thing-in answer didn't mention Robins even once. WTF?
I know. This is a minimum competence test, and BarBri is a lowest common denominator program. But I think they're not helping anyone's mental condition by jerking us around first with the harsh grading and then giving us the lecturer who reassures us that anyone can pass as long as you can make up a rule and apply it to the facts. (He said it so many times, I bet most people started to believe him, when we all know the pass rate is around 50%.) I waffle between trying to reassure myself and panicking that I suck at the performance test and I don't know how to improve because none of the practices I do will be graded and apparently I don't know myself what to be looking for.
I think I'm almost better off not looking at my graded essays and just pretending to myself that I am passing. Especially since only now am I beginning to fully internalize the IRAC structure and oh look, they aren't going to be able to tell me how I'm doing.
It's too bad BarBri is a big, heartless, money-grubbing monopoly, and wouldn't care about how they could improve their program because it works well enough. Like I said, lowest common denominator.
...okay, I feel a little better now, I think. The ranting was cathartic, and not what I had originally planned to write. What I did want to write was: BarBri lecturers randomly mention Caltech as a euphemism for top scientists and engineers. Most of these people aren't even from California, and I wonder, "How do they even know about Caltech? Why aren't they using MIT instead?" Is it just because this is the California BarBri class? Do they think it's like supporting the wrong sports team? I just don't understand.
In case you're curious, the two instances when Caltech came up were:
1. In the torts lecture on trespass, he emphasized that there must be something physically entering onto the plaintiff's land. And people had asked him about smoke. "'Smoke is made out of particles,' you say. You guys must be from Caltech. Let's keep it simple, okay? Maybe if it's really dark and drops soot."
2. In today's community property lecture, we got to classifying businesses that a spouse had owned and run before marriage. The key is whether the increase in value to the business is attributable to the spouse's skill and labor or to his making a good investment. The example of the second was a wife claiming she had just been in the right place at the right time, had hired some brilliant "Cal Tech" programmers, etc.
I don't know. I just can't help making a fist-pump when Caltech gets mentioned by these people. Perhaps it's just an indication of how awful the rest of BarBri is.
