Post-Exam Studying

A common question I get:

“Should I start studying for the next bar exam before I’ve received my scores? I don’t think I passed!"  Not among the easier questions I receive. There’s a rather simple formula dealing with time. If you’ll be working while studying, you’ll have less time to study per day and will therefore need a longer time span of studying if you plan to study the same number of hours you would have studied had you not been working. Nothing complicated about that. And so that might lend itself to the claim that, yes, you should start studying before results if (1): you’ll be working; and (2): you’re in a state that releases scores later than most or even some other states. But there’s one catch: psychology. This test demands so much from its victims that any thought that you might have passed will be percolating in the back of your mind, rendering any priority outside of studying superior. If you can overcome that human nature, and if you’re quite certain you’ll be taking the test again, starting before results makes sense.