What the Bar Exam 13 Times Approach Actually Looks Like
Most people who talk about taking the bar exam multiple times don't mention the specific framework that some test prep programs use. The Bar Exam 13 Times method breaks the exam preparation into thirteen distinct study blocks, each targeting a different component of what the bar actually tests. It's not a magic system. It's a scheduling structure. The structure works like this. You divide your preparation window into thirteen chunks, and each chunk focuses on a specific subject area or skill. Here's how the typical breakdown looks in practice: Block one covers law basics. Block two moves to contracts. Block three handles torts. Block four is property. Block five is civil procedure. Block six is criminal law and procedure. Block seven is evidence. Block eight is the multistate multiple choice section, which most people overlook until it's too late. Block nine is the essay writing format. Block ten is the performance test. Block eleven is state-specific material. Block twelve is timed practice under real conditions. Block thirteen is review and refinement.
I used this structure myself when preparing for my state bar exam. The key insight that nobody tells you is that blocks eight through ten are where most people fail, not blocks one through seven. You can know all the substantive law and still bomb the exam because the MBE section requires a different kind of thinking than a law school exam, and the performance test is essentially a drafting exercise under extreme time pressure.
How to Actually Use the Thirteen-Block Method
Start by mapping out your exam date and counting backward. If you have twelve weeks, each block gets roughly one week. If you have eight weeks, you compress some blocks and extend others based on your weak spots. The formula isn't rigid. It's a template. For the substantive law blocks, I recommend using a combination of outline creation and practiced application. Don't just read outlines. Write them yourself. The act of organizing the material forces you to identify gaps in your understanding. When I went through the contracts block, I spent three days just creating a single-page flow chart of the entire UCC Article 2 analysis. That chart ended up being worth more than any review book I bought. The MBE block deserves special attention. The bar exam contains two thousand multiple choice questions across its sections, and the MBE alone accounts for fifteen hundred of them. Most students treat multiple choice like a passive review activity. That's a mistake. You need to do eighty to one hundred practice questions per day during this block, grade them ruthlessly, and understand every single wrong answer. Not just the ones you got wrong. Every answer choice on every question.
Get the Full Details
I ran into a specific problem during my MBE block that I want to share because it almost cost me points. The question I kept getting wrong involved the intersection of statute of limitations and tolling doctrines under state law variations. I was using a national bar prep course that presented statute of limitations rules as if they were uniform across jurisdictions. They aren't. California, New York, and Texas all handle tolling differently, and the MBE occasionally tests state-specific variations through the federal question lens. My workaround was pulling the exact statute of limitations rules from the NCBE official materials and cross-referencing them with my state's bar supplement. This took an extra four hours but prevented me from losing five to seven questions on exam day.
The Counter-Intuitive Parts Nobody Warns You About
Here's something that surprised me. The essays often matter less than you'd expect, at least in scored portions. I was told repeatedly that essay writing was the most important part of the exam. In my state's jurisdiction, the MBE weighted at fifty percent and the essays at thirty percent. The performance test made up the remaining twenty. That means if you spend eighty percent of your time on essay writing, you're optimizing for the wrong thing. The essays are easier to improve quickly through outline familiarity, while the MBE requires sustained practice to shift your score meaningfully. Another thing that doesn't get discussed enough: the exam is designed to fatigue you. By the time you reach the last three essays on a six-hour session, your cognitive performance drops significantly. I learned this the hard way during a practice run when I wrote my strongest essay first and my weakest last. The difference in quality was stark. The workaround was doing full timed practice sessions that matched the actual exam sequence, not just practicing individual components in isolation.
Where the Method Breaks Down
The thirteen-block structure assumes you have a solid foundation from law school. If your substantive law knowledge is thin, spending one week on each subject won't be enough. You'll need to extend blocks one through seven and compress the later blocks, or drop the framework entirely and use a traditional sequential review method instead. I know people who tried to force the thirteen-block schedule despite having weak contracts and property backgrounds from their first year. They ended up rushing through those subjects and falling apart on the exam. There's no benefit to rigidly following a schedule if the underlying knowledge isn't there. Also, this method doesn't account well for people who are working while studying. The MBE block especially demands daily practice hours that are difficult to fit around a full-time job. If that's your situation, consider spreading the thirteen blocks across sixteen or eighteen weeks instead of cramming them into a standard twelve-week window.
Getting the Materials You Actually Need
You don't need expensive software or a specialized program to run the Bar Exam 13 Times approach. What you need is a set of MBE practice questions, state-specific bar materials, past performance test prompts, and a way to track your timing. Most bar prep companies sell courses that already organize content into this kind of block structure. If you're self-studying, the NCBE provides free sample questions and official guides that cover the exact material tested. I created my own tracking system using a simple spreadsheet. Columns for each block, rows for days, and a cell for each practice question count. At the end of each block, I calculated my accuracy rate and identified which topics were dragging my score down. This visual feedback was more useful than any generic percentile report the commercial prep companies provided. The method itself is just a scheduling tool. The exam doesn't care how you organize your study time. What matters is consistent practice, honest self-assessment, and adjusting your approach based on where your actual weaknesses are rather than where you assume they are.
