You say you are hitting the low 50s and 60s. I passed the bar last February. My scaled MBE was 147.6 or something to that effect.
I did about 3500 practice questions. On the 2000 or so barbri questions (which most people here seem to think are the "easy" ones) I think I averaged about 55%, maybe a 60%. I can remember 1 practice session of 100 questions where I think I got like 79% right.
It really amazes me how all these sweet people get on here saying "I'm getting 75-80% on my MBE practice....." yet a vast majority of these posters are taking the bar for the 2nd, 3rd or more time. I guess they are just horrid essay writers? My guess is that they are either lying, not taking the practice under actual test conditions, or maybe they just tank the actual exam. There are probably a lot of other explanations as well. Don't let these people get to you. So you're only getting 50-60%. Who gives a shit? If guys "allegedly" getting 80% in practice consistently are failing the exam then why should the number of practice problems you get right even matter?
I read this forum a lot waiting until the results came out and I let the same BS creep into my head as well. I see a lot of good advice on here but at the same time, it seems like all the "experts" chiming in are guys who have failed multiple times. Not that this makes their advise any less helpful, but I wouldn't let it effect how you go about studying.
For what it's worth, and since it actually seems to differ significantly from what a majority of posters are offering, I'll lay out a brief outline of my study schedule below. Also, for what its worth, I took the Texas Bar. I'm sure there will be those chiming in that says NY/CA are much more difficult, and they are probably right, but there seems to be a general consenus that Texas is at least in the top 5 with regard to difficulty (i'd say NY, CA, FLA, TX, ???, not in that order necessarily)
1. I went to BarBri every day and filled out the notebook.
2. Like I said, I did about 3500 MBE questions. I wanted to do 4K (yes I bought into the hype too; "do 2000 questions yadayadayada" so I was going to take it a step further and do 4000. For me I think 3500 was a good number. I'd usually try to do about 100 per day. Some days more, some days less, some days none at all. I'd do the questions in sets of like 35 in an hour, under timed conditions every time. I'd only REVIEW THE ONES I MISSED; never reviewed ones I got right unless I just felt like it. My reasoning for this was simple; i figured if I got something right, no sense in wasting time reviewing something I already knew, and if I got it right for the wrong reason, at some point I would get a similar question and miss it, hence reviewing it anyway and correcting the mistake.
2. For the essays I did about 100 essays total. All I did was do practice essays under actual test time/conditions. I typed out full answers to every essay on my laptop using exam soft's practice test format. My thing is that if you practice under actual conditions then once you get to the test there will be no surprise. Then I'd check my answers with the yellow book and either be happy or sad.
3. I did 2 practice PTs.
4. I did about 25 procedure and evidence practice tests and reviewed answers.
4. As far as how my days would go, it was pretty much like this. My bar bri was at Baylor which was about an hour away. I'd get up around 8, drive over there, and start MBEs once i got in the library. Then I'd take a short break and get some food. They had a pretty solid cafeteria. Then I'd go maybe do an essay or 2, and by this point it would be time for BarBri (they have them in the afternoon and evening only for some reason). I'd go to BarBri, then go down to my car and change into shorts, etc, and go run (I run 10 miles a day for exercise). Running around the baylor campus was fun; the bear trail. After this I'd go over to gold's gym and shower. Then I'd go walk around the circuit city there in waco looking for bargains. Was nice to just fuck around for awhile. After that I'd go back to the library and do more essays, or mbes or whatever until about 11pm or so. Then I'd go home and do it again.
This was pretty much my routine every day during bar bri. I worked hard, but I'd also fuck around a lot and just think about things. I only did ever find one "deal" at the circuit city; the dock for my lap top that I used during the exam. I'd also walk around the mall a lot in Temple (that's where I was staying); I remember quiting early one night to go watch the premier of Friday the 13th.
The point im getting at is this. More than likely, if you put in the work (and I mean honestly put in the work; not just tell yourself you worked hard) then you will likely pass. It blew my mind how most of the baylor grads I'd see studying probably only actually studied for around 10 days before the exam due to being in school longer on the quarter system. I'd think to myself "how can they pass?" I looked at the results and all but 1 passed. Either they are just that brilliant (probably so) or rather they worked hard.
Don't by into the hype. Don't by into all this "advice" from repeaters or first time passers. Don't be scared. If you can look in the mirror at the end of the process and say you gave it a solid effort, then how upset can you be?