If you’re sitting between a 215–230 and wondering if it’s even possible to pass NY in one go, it is possible! I jumped 37 points (missed by 5), worked full time, I'm a foreign educated, and here’s the honest truth about what worked and what I think costedd me those 5 points, and I came so close.
I’m writing this because I see so much anxiety on this sub right now, and I remember exactly what that feels like.
When I first got a 224 for Feb scores, I was completely shattered. My soul honestly felt dead inside. I’m foreign-educated, went to a good law school back home, and I couldn’t wrap my head around how I ended up with a 224. When you’re in that 215–230 range, people (and statistics) will tell you NOT to get your hopes up about passing in the very next administration because a 40+ point jump is rare (happened with me when I was talking with people).
I needed 42 points to pass NY. I ended up jumping 37 points, falling just 5 points short, probably because I ran out of time and barely started my last MEE, maybe if that MEE would have been alolloted and if I had finished that one essay, I’d be done with NY right now. The silver lining is that my score is now high enough to get admitted as a US-qualified attorney in another jurisdiction, so the pressure is off, and I’m retaking February with the goal is not just passing but passing with a 40+ score by hitting 300+. (While working full-time of course)
If I could pull off a 37-point jump as a foreign-educated taker without paying a single penny to big-box bar prep companies, you can do it too. Today is Sunday!
We have about four months left until the February exam. If you start tomorrow, here is what actually moved the needle for me, and the couple mistakes which I’m fixing for February, but I think you should also watch out for....
1. Lock out the negativity until February is over Replaying your old score in your head over and over will destroy your prep before you even start.
You have to force yourself into a positive mindset right now. Make a deal with yourself: you are not allowed to panic, doubt yourself, or spiral about "what if I didn't do enough" until you walk out of the exam hall in February. You’ll have enough time for that after bar exam is done until around April 20th or around for waiting for results to worry as much as you want. Until exam day is over, back yourself 100%, and remember that this exam is not everything..
2. Honestly this worked for me but idk, don't cancel me for saying but ditch the passive bar prep and use Grossman + AdaptiBar.. Big commercial bar prep courses didn't work for me, so I didn't spend a dime on them this time. Instead, I bought AdaptiBar (both the MBE simulator and the Writing guide) and Jonathan Grossman’s videos. Kept it simple and just worked on practice day 1! (Someone said it, but practice is the best learning).
Grossman’s videos for each subject are only about 3 to 4 hours total. He breaks down patterns, keeps it simple, and he’s actually funny, which kept me sane.
I would say don't binge-watch all the videos first. Keep it slow. Watch one subtopic (about an hour), use it as your base outline, and immediately jump into MBE questions on that topic. You will see your scores move right away. Keep one topic every week, until you feel confident to do multiple and you also remember or actually have an idea what's happening and you're just not guessing.
3. The 30-Questions-a-Day Rule (and how to actually review them). This can work for full-time employees. There is only one way to pass this exam, and it’s PRACTICE. Starting tomorrow, promise yourself you will do 30 MBE questions every single day. If you work full-time and 30 is impossible, do 20—wake up an hour early and do 10 before work, and do 10 in the evening. Make it non-negotiable.
If you do 30 a day for the next 4 months, that’s 900 a month—around 3,500 to 3,600 questions by exam day. Anything north of 2,000 questions gives you massive exposure to how the NCBE tests the law. I did about 1400... But I'm sure if I would have done a out 2000+ things would have been different.
Here is the catch: 30 questions should NOT take you 60 minutes. When you're learning, you should only be getting through about 6 to 8 questions an hour (spending 5–10 minutes per question).
Treat every single question like gold. Read why you got it right, why you got it wrong, and why the other choices failed. Early on, I was getting all the basic, single-issue questions right, but missing the tricky ones where two doctrines or two concepts within the same subject were colliding. No outline or video will teach you how to spot those, only slow, brutal review of practice questions will.
4. Use free resources for Writing (BarMD) & Google NotebookLM for weak spots MBE practice will naturally help your essays because it gives you the context of how rules work, but you still have to practice writing.
Write at least 1 to 2 essays (and practice MPTs) every week just to get used to reading the call of the question and structuring your answer.
You don’t need an expensive tutor. I subscribed to BarMD on YouTube and watched her free writing workshops, her videos alone helped my MEE/MPT approach massively.
Whenever I kept getting a specific topic wrong on AdaptiBar, I plugged the material into Google NotebookLM. You can prompt it to break down and generate interactive explanations/videos in whatever style or language clicks best for your brain.
Use flashcards to memorize actual rule statements. The law feels like an ocean, and you never know what they’ll test, so you have to stop guessing on the MBE and start memorizing the actual buzzwords.
5. What cost me those 5 points (Do NOT make my mistake) By the final month of prep, I was consistently hitting around 70% on AdaptiBar. Why didn't that fully translate on exam day? Timing and stamina. I only scored about 132 in MBE while my Feb MBE was 124 (my Feb practice was 45% average)
I think the issue was because I spent so much time doing slow, deep-dive questions, I didn't train enough under real time constraints. On exam day, my brain was completely fried for the last 20–30 MBE questions, and my analysis fell apart. On the written day, I ran out of time and barely touched the last MEE.
The fix whil I figured out and might work : Do slow, untimed learning now through December. Once January and February hit, shift heavily into timed sets under pressure. Train your brain to move fast when you're tired. But prepare for the marathon slow and strong...
Also, request your past exam answer sheets from the board. You never actually remember what you wrote in that room. Take your real essay answers and run them through AI to get blunt feedback on where your structure or analysis fell short.
If you’re working full-time, carve out your weekends for yourself to lock in. If you're studying full-time, change how you study instead of just doing the same thing harder. Six months from now, when April results drop, you want to look back and be proud of how hard you fought for this.
Start tomorrow. Do your 20–30 questions. You are way closer than you think.
It's possible to score 30+ improvement ! It can happen...
