Episode 206 - Focused Learning for Mastering the MBE

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by aboduw

A podcast episode featuring Ryan Zajic from UWorld discusses bar exam preparation with hosts Lee Burgess and Alison Monahan. The conversation covers Ryan’s background in education and law, his path into UWorld’s legal content team, and how the UWorld MBE QBank launched in 2020. It also explains UWorld’s expansion from medicine to other fields, and highlights lessons relevant to bar study, including active learning and detailed explanations using the IRAC method.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Hosts and guest overview

Ryan Zajic’s background

Education and path to UWorld

UWorld’s shift into bar exam prep

Launch timeline and rationale

Applying lessons to MBE study

Active learning and IRAC explanations

Lee Burgess: Welcome to the Bar Exam Toolbox podcast. Today we're excited to have Ryan Zajic from UWorld joining us on the podcast to discuss bar prep. Your Bar Exam Toolbox hosts are Alison Monahan and Lee Burgess, that's me. We're here to demystify the bar exam experience, so you can study effectively, stay sane, and hopefully pass and move on with your life. We're the co-creators of the Law School Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the career-related website CareerDicta. Alison also runs The Girl’s Guide to Law School. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on your favorite listening app, and check out our sister podcast, the Law School Toolbox podcast. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can reach us via the contact form on [BarExamToolbox.com](BarExamToolbox.com), and we'd love to hear from you. And with that, let's get started. Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast. Today we are excited to have Ryan Zajic from UWorld on the podcast, discussing bar prep. Ryan, thanks for spending part of your morning – I guess it's my morning, your afternoon – with me. So, thanks for taking the time. Ryan Zajic: Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be part of this. Lee Burgess: Absolutely. So to get things kicked off, can you share a bit more about yourself and how you got interested in working in bar prep? Ryan Zajic: Yeah, absolutely. So, I've always been interested in education, my mom is a professor of Nursing, I have several relatives who are in education as teachers or principals. And so, I've always had education in my background. I went to law school at Creighton University, and there I was a writing tutor and a Civ Pro TA during my time there. And those experiences were some of my highlights during law school. I really enjoyed working with students, working with faculty on different projects. And I found the work extremely rewarding and noticed that it helped me become a better researcher, a better writer, a better overall student. Once I graduated from law school and took and passed the bar exam in Nebraska – which is a UBE state – I went into practice, but was always drawn back toward legal education. And so, I was looking one day and saw that there was this company called UWorld, they were just starting to move into the legal market in terms of test prep. And so, I applied and ended up being one of the first hires for the legal content team as a content developer. And it's been really amazing to look back at when we started developing the UWorld MBE QBank and seeing it launch in 2020, and now seeing the warm reception it's had from students and faculty alike. Lee Burgess: Great. And I think UWorld is new in the bar exam world, but it is not a new company. I know that the platform is used for a lot of different tests and has been used for those tests for a while. So, can you share a little bit about how the company branched into the bar exam space? It's just been a few years. Ryan Zajic: Yeah, that's right. Like I mentioned, we launched the UWorld MBE QBank right at the beginning of 2020. I think it's a seminal year for many of us and many of the listeners. So yeah, we've been in the legal market for just over two years now. But UWorld, like you said, has been around for much longer. It was the brainchild of our CEO – Dr. Chandra Pemmasani – who was a medical student, and when he was in medical school realized that the materials to prepare him and his fellow medical students for the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam were not great. He didn't find them helpful, they weren't readily accessible for students, and there just wasn't much in the market for students to have options to choose from. So, with the help of his family and a few of his friends, Dr. Chandra created a website where he developed case-based learning questions. He then offered these questions and explanations to medical students. From there, UWorld was launched and is no

FAQs

What motivated Ryan Zajic to work in bar exam preparation?

He has a long interest in education and previously worked in legal education settings during law school. After passing the bar and practicing, he returned to education-focused work by joining UWorld’s legal content team.

How did UWorld expand from medicine into the legal bar exam space?

UWorld began with Dr. Chandra Pemmasani creating case-based learning questions for medical students. The company later extended into other professional areas and launched the UWorld MBE QBank at the start of 2020, later joining forces with Themis Bar Review.

What study approach does UWorld emphasize for bar exam materials?

UWorld focuses on active learning supported by detailed explanations. The discussion highlights using the IRAC method—Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion—to help students learn effectively.

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by aboduw