Start Over: What the Scientific Method Can Teach Us About Bar Prep

If you've been watching sports on television lately, you may have seen the Eli Lilly commercial centered on the scientific method. It's a memorable ad because it presents progress as a process rather than a single moment. The commercial focuses on observing, questioning, testing, analyzing, and then beginning again.

Its core message is simple: Sometimes progress requires you to start over.

That idea is especially useful in bar preparation.

One of the biggest mistakes students make is treating every practice multipel-choice question, essay, or performance test as though it is a final verdict on whether they are going to pass the bar exam. Sure, a rough MBE set can feel discouraging. Yes, a weak essay can create panic. And running out of time on a performance test can make a student feel as though they're already falling behind. But practice isn't supposed to function as a final judgment. Practice is supposed to help you learn so that you'll be prepared on the days when performance actually counts.

That's why the scientific method provides such a helpful framework for thinking about bar prep.

The Scientific Method Is Really Just a Learning Process

For those who haven't thought about the scientific method in a long time, it is simply a structured way of figuring things out. You begin by observing what is happening. You ask questions about why it's happening. You come up with a possible explanation. You test that explanation. You review the results. Then you repeat the process with better information than you had before.

That isn't just how scientists work. That's also how successful bar examinees improve.

Bar prep isn't a straight line. It's a cycle. You try something, measure the result, make an adjustment, and try again. The students who improve the most are usually not the ones who never struggle.

Let me repeat that: The students who improve the most are usually not the ones who never struggle.

Instead, they're the ones who are willing to learn from what their practice is telling them.

Start with observation, not emotion

The first step is observation. In bar prep, that means looking honestly at what actually happened.

Maybe you scored lower than expected on a set of Evidence questions. Maybe your essay lacked rule detail. Maybe you wrote a decent MPT but didn't finish it. Those are observations. They are facts. They give you something concrete to work with.

This step matters because students often begin with emotion instead. They say things like, “I felt terrible about that set,” or “I thought I knew this subject better.” Those reactions are understandable, but they aren't especially useful on their own. Improvement begins when you move from reaction to observation.

Ask what went wrong (and why)

Once you identify the result, the next step is to ask why it happened.

That question is more important than many students realize. A poor result can come from several different causes. Perhaps you didn't know the rule. Perhaps you knew the rule but misread the facts. Perhaps you spotted the issue but couldn't organize your response clearly enough. Perhaps timing was the real problem.

Without asking why, students tend to respond too generally. They decide they need to “study harder” or “do more questions.” But more work isn't always better work. The more helpful approach is to identify the actual source of the problem so that your next round of studying is targeted rather than random.

Form a theory and test it

This is where the scientific method becomes particularly useful. After observing the problem and asking questions, you come up with a working theory about what needs to change.

Maybe your theory is that your essay scores are low because your rule statements are too thin. Maybe you're missing multiple-choice questions because you have memorized labels but don't understand how the rules operate in context. Maybe your timing issues are caused by overthinking the opening part of each question.

Once you have that theory, you test it by changing something specific in your study process. You might rewrite rules from memory. You might do a focused set on a single subtopic. You might spend more time reviewing explanations than answering questions. You might force yourself to outline more quickly and start writing sooner. Or, maybe it's the opposite: You might force yourself to develop a more detailed outline before you begin actually drafting your response.

The point is that you're no longer just working. You're making an adjustment for a reason.

Review the results, then repeat the process

After you make an adjustment, you need to see whether it actually helped.

Did your score improve? Did your analysis become clearer? Did your timing improve? Are you explaining your reasoning more effectively? Are you seeing patterns more quickly?

This part of the process is why review is so important. Students sometimes think that doing large amounts of practice is what leads to growth. Practice matters, of course, but the growth often comes from what happens after the practice. Careful review turns experience into improvement.

Then comes the part students often resist: Doing it again.

The Eli Lilly commercial is effective because it frames starting over in a different way. Starting over sounds like defeat when people hear it in ordinary conversation. In reality, starting over often means that you have learned something. You aren't beginning from scratch. You're beginning again with better information.

That's exactly how bar prep works.

Repetition Isn't a Flaw in the Process

Students sometimes say they're tired of reviewing the same subjects or doing the same kinds of questions. That feeling is understandable, but repetition isn't evidence that something is wrong. In bar prep, repetition is part of how knowledge becomes usable under pressure.

The key, however, isn't mindless repetition. It's thoughtful repetition. You aren't simply repeating tasks for the sake of repetition. You're revisiting the material with greater precision, better awareness, and more refined habits.

Each cycle helps build something important. It sharpens rule recall. It strengthens analysis. It improves timing. It makes your writing structure more automatic. It increases endurance. In that sense, reiteration isn't just important in bar prep. It's necessary.

That is why Eli Lilly's ad message of “start over” matters so much.

In bar prep, starting over doesn't mean you failed. It means you're still in the process of learning, adjusting, and improving. And that is exactly where you should be.