Succeeding in the Practice Exams
I took my first simulated exam (well, half-exam) about two weeks ago, and it did not go well. Up to that point, I had answered quite a few practice questions and become somewhat familiar with the MPEP, so I felt relatively confident. However, it seemed like I got all the difficult questions that have a lot of details and very few of the simpler questions that can be answered in a minute or less, so I struggled the whole way through. I don’t actually doubt the ability of ExamWareTM to randomly sample questions for a simulated exam; it just feels like you can’t catch a break sometimes.
Despite getting a frustratingly low score, the simulated exam was a very helpful (and probably absolutely necessary) step in my exam preparation. As Brad has indicated both at the PRG Patent Bar Review Course and on the blog, half the battle is figuring out how to handle the test itself, rather than learning the material. The simulated exam is very useful because it can provide an indication of your level of preparedness for the exam itself, independent of the subject matter of the test. Taking a practice exam with the little timer relentlessly counting down demands that you maintain the pace required to answer all the questions in the allotted time.
I started out taking too long on most of the questions in the beginning, expecting to start seeing the easy ones I could make up the time on. However, I eventually realized I was just flat out taking too long because I had to look up just about all of the questions in the MPEP, rather than simply knowing the answer. Then, I started answering some of the questions based on what I already knew, even if I couldn’t rule out all of the other options. This strategy did not serve me well. As it turned out, I missed several questions by misreading or misunderstanding the question, or even the section of the MPEP I was looking in.
All of these factors were very helpful for the second simulated exam I took a week later. The second time was so much better I considered titling this post “The Agony and the Ecstasy” in reference to my first and second attempts. I was much better at managing my time, and I was much more efficient looking things up in the MPEP. I would still like to significantly reduce the number of times I need to refer to the MPEP and also the number of times I have to resort to using the Subject Matter Index section of the MPEP, but at least I have a pretty good idea of how much searching I can do before I just have to make my best guess and flag the question to go back to at the end if I end up with extra time. I also did a much better job of reading the question and making sure I fully comprehended what it was asking, although there were still a couple of instances where I missed a question because I missed a detail or misunderstood what the question was actually asking for.
At this point, I’m feeling fairly confident that I can get to where I need to be by answering section-specific questions (to bolster my knowledge in my weaker areas) during the week and then taking practice exams on the weekends. Hopefully, I’ll soon be less reliant on the MPEP, so I can take a little longer on the more complicated questions, since I won’t have to look up as many of the less complicated questions.
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