How Does One Approch An Essay Question - Carefully.
For Ms. Severe Who Is Taking The Exam With An "Empire State of Mind."
1. Yes or No. There is an answer to the essay question. The answer is either yes or no. The answer is not maybe. It is not perhaps. It is not, "there is a 50% chance of something." The answer is not sometimes. The essay portion of the exam is not designed to provide you with the opportunity to write a middle of the road answer. The essay is not the place for "standing on the fence." Why? Then there would be no wrong answers. Everyone's middle of the road answer would be correct. If the exam was written for a smack dab in the middle answer, then everyone would write a safe, side of the road answer. Why would someone risk writing a yes or no answer to a question, when the "maybe this, maybe that," answer would provide her with a passing grade for that question. Why would someone go out on a limb and choose yes or no, if there was no real reason to do so.
There is one other reason why there is an answer to the question. An examiner is never really certain if you truly know the law if you subject him or her to a middle of the road, it could be this or it could be that answer. How can someone justify giving you a high enough score on a question to pass you when you are waffling? I never forget the people that I have tutored for the bar tell me (okay, argue with me forever and forever) in our initial meeting why it is important that they stay in the middle when they do not know the answer. I listen to them tell me how they have written exam after exam after exam, and failed, and failed and failed. Over and over and over again. Honestly, it brings a note of sadness to me, because I am witnessing someone who took the bar over many times for no real reason, except that he or she never stood solidly on one answer and followed a sound analysis for that answer.
2. Timing Is Everything. The time alloted to write out the answer for an essay question varies from state to state. Essays can be 10, 12, 20, 25, 30, 45, or 60 minutes in length. Please remember one small thing about the recommended time for writing the essay. The examiners' recommend 25 minutes (for, example) because it will take you 24 minutes and 59 seconds to write the best answer possible. That is just enough time to take a breath, and turn the page to the next question. If you have completed a question before the recommended time for your jurisdiction, that does not necessarily mean that you did something wrong. It just means that you need to review your work to be certain that you did everything right. Do not assume that just because you have four and one-half minutes left on a particular question, that you are ahead of the game. Assume that the game is being played on you. Look back, check your facts, and ask yourself, did I utilize all of my facts to the best of my ability. Then, and only then, should you move forward. A little cocky. A bit cool. Slightly confident. Yes, you are those things. Careful is something that you are, too.
3. Shooting From The Hip. When you read the call of the question, at least one issue jumps out at you, and like bad breath, you notice it immediately. The next thing you know, you are huffing and puffing, writing so hard, you are bleeding at the fingers. You are so happy to have an answer, to be able to say something, to show yourself and your family and your school, and your grade school teacher, and the girl that would not hold your hand on the fifth grade trip to the zoo, that "you are," as Jesse Jackson might say, "somebody."
I say to you, "slow down, brown cow."
Stop shooting from hip - - so quickly. Look at the call of the question and the words before you, carefully. Look for connector words (and, or, but, if) for help to determine what is required of you. Plan your answer. Think about it. Outline it. Organize your thoughts, first (let us not forget about the issues and sub-issues {that is plural}). Then we can move forward and share our brilliance with the world. What are you looking for when preparing an adequate answer for the essay portion of the bar examination?
4. Three & Two, or Three & Three. I have yet to read a bar exam question that does not contain at least three issues and two sub-issues or three issues and three sub-issues. As an infamous comedian might say, "not never" have I seen a bar exam question nor written a bar exam answer that did not contain enough firepower to provide the examinee with a strong challenge. The examination is designed to test your knowledge of the general areas of law, as well as discrete areas of the law. The examination is designed to test those elements where there is tension in the rule. Tension does not mean that the rule is flexible. It means just the opposite. It means that the rule has been tested in the courts on many occasions. On those many occasions, it has been determined that the rule can be extended to include another thing, another item, another kind of human being (man, woman, child). There is tension because there is uncertainty in the rule - - uncertainty as to what, if anything, is the next exception or extension of the law. The tension in the rule often forms the sub-issues in a question.
5. It's Called A Fact Pattern for a reason. The facts create a pattern and you contemplate which laws to apply to the problem. Do the facts in the pattern, sewn together, constitute an tort (negligence)? Or, is it a formation issue of a contract? Perhaps someone blocked another person's road on adjacent property, causing a prescriptive easement. Do the facts signal that there are three people in a business relationship? Is it a corporation, a partnership, or an agency relationship. We aren't sure whether those three people, who entered into business relationship, created a corporation, a partnership or an agency relationship. But we can make certain educated guesses based on the facts that are sitting right under out noses.
But you must use the facts (all the time) to create the story about why X is guilty, and Y is not, or why M is liable and N is not. It is not a guessing game, but it is a well-reasoned one. Yes, your ability to answer a question is based on your knowledge of the law, but it is also based on a combination of your knowledge of the law and your ability to aptly understand, locate and apply the appropriate facts to the law.
1. Yes or No. There is an answer to the essay question. The answer is either yes or no. The answer is not maybe. It is not perhaps. It is not, "there is a 50% chance of something." The answer is not sometimes. The essay portion of the exam is not designed to provide you with the opportunity to write a middle of the road answer. The essay is not the place for "standing on the fence." Why? Then there would be no wrong answers. Everyone's middle of the road answer would be correct. If the exam was written for a smack dab in the middle answer, then everyone would write a safe, side of the road answer. Why would someone risk writing a yes or no answer to a question, when the "maybe this, maybe that," answer would provide her with a passing grade for that question. Why would someone go out on a limb and choose yes or no, if there was no real reason to do so.
There is one other reason why there is an answer to the question. An examiner is never really certain if you truly know the law if you subject him or her to a middle of the road, it could be this or it could be that answer. How can someone justify giving you a high enough score on a question to pass you when you are waffling? I never forget the people that I have tutored for the bar tell me (okay, argue with me forever and forever) in our initial meeting why it is important that they stay in the middle when they do not know the answer. I listen to them tell me how they have written exam after exam after exam, and failed, and failed and failed. Over and over and over again. Honestly, it brings a note of sadness to me, because I am witnessing someone who took the bar over many times for no real reason, except that he or she never stood solidly on one answer and followed a sound analysis for that answer.
2. Timing Is Everything. The time alloted to write out the answer for an essay question varies from state to state. Essays can be 10, 12, 20, 25, 30, 45, or 60 minutes in length. Please remember one small thing about the recommended time for writing the essay. The examiners' recommend 25 minutes (for, example) because it will take you 24 minutes and 59 seconds to write the best answer possible. That is just enough time to take a breath, and turn the page to the next question. If you have completed a question before the recommended time for your jurisdiction, that does not necessarily mean that you did something wrong. It just means that you need to review your work to be certain that you did everything right. Do not assume that just because you have four and one-half minutes left on a particular question, that you are ahead of the game. Assume that the game is being played on you. Look back, check your facts, and ask yourself, did I utilize all of my facts to the best of my ability. Then, and only then, should you move forward. A little cocky. A bit cool. Slightly confident. Yes, you are those things. Careful is something that you are, too.
3. Shooting From The Hip. When you read the call of the question, at least one issue jumps out at you, and like bad breath, you notice it immediately. The next thing you know, you are huffing and puffing, writing so hard, you are bleeding at the fingers. You are so happy to have an answer, to be able to say something, to show yourself and your family and your school, and your grade school teacher, and the girl that would not hold your hand on the fifth grade trip to the zoo, that "you are," as Jesse Jackson might say, "somebody."
I say to you, "slow down, brown cow."
Stop shooting from hip - - so quickly. Look at the call of the question and the words before you, carefully. Look for connector words (and, or, but, if) for help to determine what is required of you. Plan your answer. Think about it. Outline it. Organize your thoughts, first (let us not forget about the issues and sub-issues {that is plural}). Then we can move forward and share our brilliance with the world. What are you looking for when preparing an adequate answer for the essay portion of the bar examination?
4. Three & Two, or Three & Three. I have yet to read a bar exam question that does not contain at least three issues and two sub-issues or three issues and three sub-issues. As an infamous comedian might say, "not never" have I seen a bar exam question nor written a bar exam answer that did not contain enough firepower to provide the examinee with a strong challenge. The examination is designed to test your knowledge of the general areas of law, as well as discrete areas of the law. The examination is designed to test those elements where there is tension in the rule. Tension does not mean that the rule is flexible. It means just the opposite. It means that the rule has been tested in the courts on many occasions. On those many occasions, it has been determined that the rule can be extended to include another thing, another item, another kind of human being (man, woman, child). There is tension because there is uncertainty in the rule - - uncertainty as to what, if anything, is the next exception or extension of the law. The tension in the rule often forms the sub-issues in a question.
5. It's Called A Fact Pattern for a reason. The facts create a pattern and you contemplate which laws to apply to the problem. Do the facts in the pattern, sewn together, constitute an tort (negligence)? Or, is it a formation issue of a contract? Perhaps someone blocked another person's road on adjacent property, causing a prescriptive easement. Do the facts signal that there are three people in a business relationship? Is it a corporation, a partnership, or an agency relationship. We aren't sure whether those three people, who entered into business relationship, created a corporation, a partnership or an agency relationship. But we can make certain educated guesses based on the facts that are sitting right under out noses.
But you must use the facts (all the time) to create the story about why X is guilty, and Y is not, or why M is liable and N is not. It is not a guessing game, but it is a well-reasoned one. Yes, your ability to answer a question is based on your knowledge of the law, but it is also based on a combination of your knowledge of the law and your ability to aptly understand, locate and apply the appropriate facts to the law.
Tomorrow: Answering The Question, Writing the Analysis. Examples, Included.
Extremely helpful information, especially regarding the number of issues and sub-issues we should expect in every question. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree this was extremely helpful. Thank you.
ReplyDelete