Excerpt below from article written by PASS in Los Angeles Daily Journal (5/07)
Whaaat? Didn’t law school prepare me for the Exam?
What was I doing for three or four years? What do you mean?
Different kinds of tests.
Law school exams were likely all or mostly all essays. You may have sometimes had more than one hour to complete them, and some may have been “take home” or “open book” exams. They may have tested legal analysis in the context of fact patterns, but they may also have called for policy discussions or a commentary on the historical perspectives of the legal rules in questions. (After all, much of what you did in law school was study where the law was and where it’s going –legal history and those forces shaping what the law will become in the future.)
By contrast, the Bar Exam is really three different Exams in one:
The Essays. There are six of these, each one hour, and each testing mainly your ability to IRAC a ½ to ¾ page fact pattern (i.e. to identify issues, state the applicable modern majority rules of law, logically apply the law you stated from memory to the given facts to resolve those issues you identified, coming to a reasoned conclusion). The interrogatories are often open-ended (in the nature of what are the rights and remedies of Party A) leaving you to figure not only the “answers” but what the questions (the “issues”) are. [The “answers” are actually the least important part!]
The Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”). There are 200 of these MBE questions, and you have only about 1.8 minutes to answer each. They test fine distinctions in points of law in six subjects. You read a short fact pattern followed by an interrogatory and respond by “bubbling in” the best of the four given answer choices on the scantron answer sheet. (Note we said the “best” answer, meaning not always the “correct” answer choice!)
The Performance Tests (“PT”). There are two of these, but they each last three hours and are each worth twice the weight of each essay question. Essentially, these are practical exams; you are simulating a lawyer with a client file and asked to draft one or more real-world documents –motions, memos, letters, affidavits, discovery plans, and more. They are “open book” in that the legal principles are provided in the resource materials given though you have to extract them –i.e. pull holdings from cases, analyze statutes, read jury instructions, etc. They would be “easy” for most law students IF you were given three days to complete each one. But to provide a complete enough answer to pass each time in only three hours, you must learn how to tackle the PT and train the skills necessary to PASS.
Scope, Grading and Timing...
--The Scope of Testable Topics Differs! Law school exams tested one topic only –you came for your contracts exam and you were tested on contracts and contracts alone. You finished Contracts and “flushed” contracts law out of your mind (you “deleted” the “contracts file” in your brain, as it were). But the Bar is a comprehensive exam –you must keep numerous subjects in your head at once, and develop a strategy for calling up the rules you need from multiple “files” you must retain in your brain simultaneously, as you approach each type of test. The MBEs are spread between six substantive subjects and the Essays test 13 subjects. As if that were not enough, the Essays sometimes test more than one at a time. (In law school you would rarely if ever have to answer a question about an Innkeeper’s duties in a fact pattern that called for a discussion about the enforceability of the Innkeeper’s employment contract. But the Bar might well, “cross over” issues from two different substantive subjects in one essay fact pattern.) Again the good news: you can learn a plan of attack to answer these, no problem.
--The “Grade” You are seeking Differs! On law school exams, you goal is typically to get the “A” or the highest score. The Bar Exam is a pass-fail test. While at first blush you might think that involves the same effort, there is a different strategy to ensure that you pass, and no need to write the so-called “Brandeis brief.” Rare is the “extra credit.” And, assuming you PASS, no one will ever know your score. But the all too common pitfall is that those who strive for the “A” may find the subtle issues but often miss or fail to provide the level of detail required for all of the main and obvious points. It’s a trap you can easily avoid when you understand it.
--The Timing of the Test Differs! Law school exams were likely an hour or two, staggered on different days over perhaps a week or two. The Bar Exam lasts for three grueling days, with identification procedures before all of the six half-day sessions, and very strict proctoring throughout. The atmosphere is tense and competitive, and most people find themselves beyond exhaustion when it’s over. You need to develop endurance strategies, and those too differ from what got you through to the success you achieved in law school.
Excerpted from article written by PASS in Daily Journal (May 2007)
