Why you feel exhausted studying for the bar exam

By Brian Hahn

Let me guess. Is this your idea of bar prep?

• Listen to lectures while sitting still like a statue

• Pause to take notes and fill in the blanks

• Re-read giant outlines you highlighted last week (osmosis didn't work) before falling asleep with the lights on

Traditional bar prep is built around consumption. Most of the time is spent consuming the product, not actually learning. You can listen to a lecture and walk away thinking you're going to remember the material later.

It feels like studying. It's low-friction and easy to do for hours.

Consuming is more tiring than doing

Trying to hold all these rules and abstract ideas in your head is more difficult (and less effective) than turning them into practical insights. The insidious part is that you feel like you need to do MORE of this even when (and because) it stops feeling productive eventually. This makes you more and more stuck without you knowing why.

It's actually our mental energy that becomes a bottleneck. When you're exhausted, you can't do anything even if you have the time.

Remember that DOING is LESS exhausting than THINKING about doing it.

Your body is better at learning by example. Clarity comes from DOING. You remember ideas better when used in context (like practice questions).

So instead, eat and then digest

Yes, you do need that initial foundation at first.

To be clear, the issue is NOT that you're studying outlines and getting a structured introduction to the material from lectures.

When you're hungry, you eat.

The issue is when ALL you do is eat, when you continue doing this well past diminishing returns. You're stuck in your chair, bloated.

You could "eat" all the content (lectures, outlines, flashcards) and not build anything with it. You could stuff yourself with information BUT don't bother to process and digest what you consumed (learn and retain by applying to exercise questions). You pile up bricks without building anything.

Remember that we don't get scored on how well we watch videos and read books. We're scored on how correctly we answer questions.

This means your time is better spent testing yourself with similar questions, essay attempts, anything that forces you to retrieve and use the information rather than just absorb it. And most importantly, reviewing your work against model answers, which is where most of the learning happens. Do both using this archive of past exam questions.

Why switching feels so uncomfortable

Practice questions are uncomfortable in a way that lectures and cozy outlines aren't. When you get something wrong, you know you got it wrong. It bruises our ego. But not passing hurts more than struggling now.

Getting questions wrong is exactly the point because it tells you where the gaps are. Watching a lecture gives you no feedback.

The most effective way to learn is by trial and error. This is how machine learning works. Treat yourself like some kind of artificial intelligence.

Simple, right?

But you already knew what to do. You want to reduce the noise and focus on what moves the needle in bar prep. The problem is that you don't trust yourself enough to do it.

Again, this isn't a call to skip the foundational review entirely. You need the initial exposure to the material. But that exposure is just a starting point. Don't get stuck playing defense.

After you cover a chunk of subject matter, test yourself:

• Find MBE questions to practice with, and know the highly tested topics. (Hint: The NCBE tells us straight up that there WILL be 36-39 questions on just three topics for a whopping total of 21.43% of your score.)

• Find past exam questions (essays and performance tests) to practice with.

• Get things wrong. Study the sample answers. Use those wrong answers as clues for what to review. THIS is the time to go back to study your outline more intensely.

Do it again. Watch yourself become more proficient at answering questions.

This might feel uncomfortable at first, but it's LESS exhausting than passive consumption alone. You feel actual progress → you get motivated and excited. You actually know where you stand. You know what's sticking and what isn't. You know when you're improving.

That's how you make progress and actually be productive in bar prep.

Brian is the founder and chief strategist at Make This Your Last Time, a patent attorney, and second-time passer of the California Bar Exam after figuring out what works and what doesn't. He's been writing about actionable and effective bar prep since 2014, helping tens of thousands of bar takers across the country pass the exam.