A UNIQUE COURSE FOR A UNIQUE TEST

The way the Performance Test is handled by most bar reviews makes a tough test only more difficult. More unmanageable. More intimidating.

Too many students are lured into failing the Performance Test with high scores on practice exams, false assurances about an easy test format given to generous grading, and ever higher pass rates. After this, the receipt of a failing bar scorecard due to poor scores on the Performance Test comes as quite a shock. The failed student has been conditioned to believe the poor scores were his or her fault, not the inadequacy of their course preparation.

Our students' feedback, our enrollees' successes and bar statistics prove that it doesn't have to be that way. You study for the Performance Test. You learn an approach to the Performance Test. You master Performance Testing and use these skills to pass the California Bar exam despite poor essay scores or weak multistates.

IMPACT OF PERFORMANCE TESTING

The Performance Test dramatically impacts your final score because it is 26% of your potential total score. Each performance test equals two essays; so, the two performance tests are worth four essays. Since the Performance Test is such a large percentage of the exam, a strong score can overcompensate for average or weak grades elsewhere on the exam.

Indeed, throughout the 90's, students averaging "70" on the two performance tests could rescue SIX "65" (failing) essay scores, and put them over the pass mark for the Written Section of the exam. (Extra points were then available to compensate for weak MBE scores, if necessary.) Conversely, better-than-average objective test-takers learned that a dismal showing on the Performance Test could destroy otherwise passing scores. (For example, where the MBE score balanced out a failing essay average, but failed to positively affect weak P.T.'s.)

WHY YOU NEED TO MAXIMIZE

Since the bar is cumulatively scored, you take your points wherever you can get them. Through our workshop you are able to access 26% of the possible exam points. In no other way, and for no other test, can you spend such little time and money for such a large return in skills, confidence, and point-potential.

A common misconception is that if you've clerked or been a paralegal, you'll have no problem with performance testing. Not true. The Performance Test is unique, and we teach you specific skills and techniques necessary to win at this pressure-packed game.

Your goal must be to beat, i.e., to "max" out on, the Performance Test; anything less may not be enough when coupled with a weak essay or multistate showing.

THE MAXIMIZER ATTITUDE

The Maximizer Workshop was built on the theory that the Performance Test as administered in California is a well-constructed, layered, and finely tuned piece of work. We don't undersell it; we don't overplay it. (Unlike most other courses, this program was designed by a test-taker who actually took the Performance Test to earn his license.) We won't give you "sure-fire tips" that were outmoded by 1990, or read from the same text being used in the multistate jurisdictions. Our exclusive techniques were designed solely for the California Performance Test of the nineties.

LEARNING-ENHANCED ENVIRONMENT

Instead of infrequent, generalized lectures on the mistakes in Performance Test model answers, we offer a concentrated three full-day workshop paced over six sessions with hands-on guidance and immediate feedback. We employ enhanced teaching methodology, and utilize materials that replicate actual bar experience. But to truly maximize your training and keep you from stressing, we promote a relaxed, reduced-pressure atmosphere conducive to individual learning.

ACTUAL TESTING MATERIALS

Some courses are still using "made-up" Performance Tests from the early Eighties, or Multistate Performance Tests, or '83-'84 tests that featured multiple choice questions as part of their format. We avoid outdated Performance Tests from 1983-84, and even the mid-80s, and instead feature actual recent California Performance Tests in their original form.

AN ADVANCED METHODOLOGY

The Advanced Performance Seminars program offers different tests to challenge and expand your technical abilities. It teaches practical short-cuts and effective task approaches. And provides the Maximizer test-taker with a proven organization methodology to out-perform other applicants in an important point-laden area.

OUR UNIQUE TECHNIQUES

Because most of the initial lecturers for the review courses were drafted from appellate practice or legal research, the systems they propose fail to recognize how time pressure (not to mention test anxiety) make these fact-marshaling marathons such monsters to analyze, outline and write in the time allotted.

Since the A.P.S. Maximizer Workshop is the culmination of feedback from both successful multiple repeaters and first-time takers who utilized our methodology in passing the California Bar, timing factors are addressed first and foremost to ensure that all students are able to effectively marshal and present the key points necessary to pass. Our unique methodology eliminates the "read twice" syndrome that some counsel, and cuts back sharply on the interim paperwork that other courses favor.

LEARN A WORKABLE APPROACH

Organization is essential: we offer practical short-cuts that eliminate paper clutter. Timing is critical: we demonstrate how you can control the information intake instead of letting the material flow control you. Our Maximizer workshop will show you how to unlock the secrets to a performance test in the first twenty minutes. (Some students tell us that the methods and techniques they learn by the end of the third session (of six) are alone worth the price of the workshop!) Where many courses try to approach difference tasks by training you in formatting (for example: make your answer look like a court filing), we show you how to approach all tasks in a manner that organizes your answer to deliver the grader the requested substancein the requested sequence.

PRACTICE WITH RECENT TASKS

Many courses are still using practice problems that were drafted in 1980-84 in anticipation of the new Performance Test. Most of these tasks involved writing briefs. Our Maximizer Workshop draws from the most recent exams to illustrate the type of problems currently favored — and the range of tasks most likely to be encountered.

FULLY EXPLORE OUR APPROACH

The Maximizer Workshop runs you through six tests with ten variegated tasks, and reviews eight more recent Performance Tests. Your instructor guides you through the tests, pointing out the traps, pitfalls, and maximum point areas. Instruction is interspersed throughout the tests so that student problem-solvers are immediately able to confirm their interim decisions or, if necessary, take a new tack to appropriately deal with the rest of the problem.

Instead of spreading your performance workshops over a month or two as some courses do, the Maximizer Performance Test Workshop is held over a six-session week or weekend so that you are able to concentrate and repeatedly practice what you have just learned. In this manner students acquire a true mastery of the techniques and the approach being taught.

DISSECT EACH TEST STEP-BY-STEP

Some courses have you write a performance test and then lecture after the fact about what you answered. In effect, they warehouse you for three hours and then read from a suggested answer with reference to File/Library page cites. This pedagogy minimizes your learning. We promise not to read "at" you.

In the A.P.S. Maximizer Workshop we walk you through each performance test. We do the work one step at a time so that if you miss a critical early clue and get lost, you won't waste the whole three hours — not to mention a singular opportunity to tackle the remainder of that particular test to learn what was required for a passing score. You will finally master how to find the selection or organizing principles as you read, not after the fact. And you'll learn to accomplish this under the bar's suggested time constraints!

RECENT RESULTS PROVE OUR POINT!

For the last 5 years, if you averaged "70" on the Performance Tests you could have failed ("65") all 6 essay questions and still passed the California Bar Exam!

EIGHT YEARS OF SUCCESS STORIES

Our Maximizer P.T. Workshop has worked for over a thousand enrollees: multiple-repeaters with learning disabilities or performance anxiety, dejected repeaters with minus-60 P.T. averages, disappointed out-of-state attorneys, and the endemic do-or-die basket cases. In addition to successfully coaching the famous 48th-timer, we continue to help repeaters finally put this bar behind them and get on with their careers.