Exam Pro Bar Prep Workbook Revised
Author:
Friedland, Steve I.
Edition:
1st
Copyright Date:
2010
18 chapters
have results for bar exam
I. Introduction 48 results (showing 5 best matches)
- How are these categories relevant to bar exam takers? All too often, students do not realize they are novices in taking bar exams, especially when the assumption is that the bar exam will be just like law school tests. Once students realize they might be unconsciously incompetent for the bar exam, although not for law school, bar exam preparation is directed to raise the students’ skill sets to reach that unconscious competence level.
- When experts prepare for a bar exam, they might learn rules in this format, storing the rules compactly and accessing them in the exact same way. It is the ability to access precise rules in a ready and pertinent manner that matters most for the bar exam. That is, “output” is what really matters, not “input.”
- To attain the processed knowledge and application abilities needed to succeed on the bar exam, some methods of studying are more effective than others. As noted above, the most effective methods can again be described in terms of protocols. What this really is saying is that there are expert studiers and novice studiers—and it is much better to find out about being a novice before the bar exam takes place.
- Essays on the bar exam are different than those gracing law school exams. In law school, essays are often an hour or more in length. On many bar exams, the essays often are allotted 30 or 45 minutes per essay, with as many as 12 essays assigned in a single day. (See, e.g., North Carolina. Florida, which currently has hour-long essay questions.) Law school essays can consist of 10 pages of single-spaced facts or more; some bar exam essays are a long paragraph. The call of the question in law school often is simply a single word—“Discuss.” The bar exam offers complete sentences that channel discretion and provide much greater limits—to the consternation of some students, who are overinclusive in their responses. These directed questions do not anticipate the “dumping” of outlines or notes in a form of, “Here, Prof, I made or memorized this information, the answer lies within somewhere, and I am going to show you I really worked hard in this area.”
- As noted above, essay writing on the bar exam often is significantly different than essay writing in law school. On the bar exam, unlike supermarket aisles, no subject is labeled for the students’ convenience. For every question, students must first select the course tested—sometimes, a difficult task in and of itself. Also, most calls of questions are focused on a particular topic or topics. Ambiguity as to what the bar examiners want is often minimized by specificity in the questions. The question generally will not be framed solely in terms of “discuss,” a common request on law school exams. Further, students must organize their thoughts in a cogent manner under great time pressure. For example, future employment is often riding on this exam. Unlike law school, bar exam graders reviewing up to a thousand or so tests do not have the time or inclination to go “hunting” for the meaning of a test-taker’s response. Another major distinction is that bar exam essays tend to be shorter...
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Exam Pro: Bar Prep Workbook Revised 14 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter VIII Review: Civil Procedure 1 result
- Subject Matter Jurisdiction, Personal Jurisdiction, venue and other pretrial process issues often dominate Civil Procedure questions in law school and on the bar exam. While Civil Procedure is not currently a subject of the Multistate Bar Exam, it might be coming soon. In any event, it is a topic regularly tested by states.
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Chapter I Review: Introduction and Overview 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- A critical part of preparing for the bar exam is understanding that it is not simply a continuation of law school exams. The bar exam’s emphasis on multiple choice questions, multiple essays of a shorter duration than law school, no professor leading the course and the grading, and then multiple courses covered, all indicate the importance of understanding how to prepare effectively for a somewhat new, certainly longer and challenging multi-day examination.
- —as the chart shows, there are different levels of competence for any task. With respect to the bar exam, unconscious incompetence is the worst, as it is for most other tasks as well.
- Scheduling can play a big part of effective bar preparation. To paraphrase a song, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. In bar exam prep, it is important to emphasize the most important areas of the law (e.g., hearsay in evidence and negligence in Torts) and to improve the skills needed for the exam (critical reading, thinking and writing). Schedules can vary depending on the person, but treating the preparation as a first job and being as specific as possible with the schedule (saying “learn negligence per se” instead of “study Torts”) are two helpful characteristics of a good schedule.
- This kind of incompetence simply makes lots of assumptions about the exam and either includes no studying or the kind of studying that is not related to the success of the test-taker on the bar exam. The highest level of competence is unconscious competence, it’s the lowest level’s counterpart. This means the test-taker has extremely good habits and practices that are still invoked even under stress and time pressure conditions. The epitome would be Captain Sully, the US Airways’ pilot, who landed the plane in the Hudson River, saving the lives of all of the passengers as well as the crew.
- This chapter contains responses to problems in the preceding chapters, commentary and additional information. While it may be tempting to look at these answers prior to answering the problems and essay questions contained in the book, it is generally better to practice writing out responses, either focusing on various techniques or using the problems as simulations. Note that these essays and multiple choice questions can assist the test-taker in preparing for the bar exam as well as for law school examinations.
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Preface 3 results
- This book is intended to illustrate how bar exam preparation can be different than preparing for law school exams. Specifically, effective preparation for the bar exam consists of a blend of learning rules precisely, acquiring deep and organized knowledge and using that knowledge by doing problems. This blending does not have a correct ordering. One can study the rules first and then do practice problems or blend doing problems and mastering rules. What matters is how one retains and communicates knowledge and uses it to solve problems; it is not simply a matter of acquiring gobs and gobs of information, but rather accessing and applying the information that counts the most.
- The book models what experts do to organize knowledge through frameworks, like a GPS system, suggesting three types of bar exam frameworks for maximum organization—a general one to use while answering questions (course-area-rule-exception); (2) course-specific ones (contracts, torts, property, etc.); and rules (procedural due process, conversion, assault, etc.).
- The book also recognizes there are many ways up the mountain to bar exam success, and people will have different approaches to learning and succeeding. Thus, while the book offers different techniques and “road-maps,” you must determine what works best for you. I hope you end up having a great view—from the top of the mountain.
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- 304 U.S. 64 (1938), is a staple of first year Civil Procedure courses and is sometimes tested on the bar exam. The doctrine occasionally might appear on the Multistate exam in Evidence questions concerning the choice of law that applies for certain evidentiary rules. The Doctrine more likely will be tested on the state component of the bar examination.
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- Constitutional Law essentially begins in the same manner as Civil Procedure, with a segment on jurisdiction, asking, “What are the courts’ powers to hear a suit?” The key premise in this context is that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. These limits often appear on the bar exam, as well as the legislature’s role in the courts’ jurisdiction.
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Table of Contents 6 results (showing 5 best matches)
- There are several provisions of the U.C.C. that are “must knows” for the bar exam. Some significant rules involve:
- Note the differences in the way this framework is organized from other formulations. Contracts can start with the question, “Is there a valid contract?” But that is not the most strategic conceptual start to a contracts analysis for the bar exam, which mixes and intertwines two sources of Contract law—the common law and the U.C.C. In addition, it is common to define a contract as an offer, acceptance and consideration without any valid defenses, but this organizing framework separates out defenses for isolated analysis. Under this framework, a contract can still be void or voidable, depending on the defense.
- In what order did you learn about contracts in law school? How did you organize Contracts questions on exams? What part of Contracts is left out of the framework above?
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II. Torts Problem Solving Techniques 2 results
- These rules all have significant components which can be extremely useful to understand on the bar exam, individually and by comparison. is a recurring theme in effective bar preparation. If students can distinguish rules, they are more likely to understand them, spot them on an exam, and offer a useful and clearer treatment of how the rules apply to particular fact patterns. (E.g., strict products liability is focused on the defective nature of the product, whereas negligent products liability is focused on the conduct of the commercial manufacturer or seller.)
- be tested on the bar exam?
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Chapter IV Review: Criminal Law 2 results
- False Pretenses is a statutory crime, but one that often finds itself on the bar exam because it readily is contrasted with larceny by trick, where only possession of personal property is obtained by fraud. For an example about false pretenses, see generally,
- to him, seriously injuring the innocent moviegoer. Sam later stated he is not sure what exactly transpired, because it was like a “huge fog enveloped me,” but that the “evil-doer” sitting next to him had to be stopped before he had an opportunity to attack Sam. In a later psychiatric exam, Sam was diagnosed as having paranoia and schizophrenia under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Volume IV—Text Revision (DSM IV—TR) (the manual used by psychiatrists and psychologists for the diagnosis of mental disorders).
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Chapter V Review: Constitutional Law 1 result
Title Page 2 results
- : While on patrol on a cool October evening near the Constantine Bar and Grill at around 2 a.m., Officer Hollywood observed a person leaving the club through the rear entrance of the bar, heading toward the parking lot. The Officer decided to approach the individual, and, for safety purposes, detained the individual briefly while he patted the man down. The Officer discovered a soft bag of heroin in the person’s front pocket, and arrested him for heroin possession.
- Two weeks later, after being charged with Driving Under the Influence (DUI) of Alcohol and having counsel appointed in that case under the state Afford Justice Act, she was asked to participate in a line-up concerning the larceny of the pocketbook, which she did. Barbara was identified in the line-up as the person in the bar sitting next to the larceny victim when she left her pocketbook for a moment. Barbara then headed home.
- Barbara was a student at the State University who studied hard, but also liked to go out with friends. One Thursday night, she went to meet her friends at a local hangout, the Lucky Strike. It was a special discount night called “Thirsty Thursdays,” where beer was sold at a very reduced price. As the night went on, someone stole the purse of a woman in the bar who had left it to go talk with someone standing a few feet away. The police responded to the larceny call and a description of the likely perpetrator was given.
- Barbara had hurried out of the bar before the police came. She wanted to avoid the police if she could. As she drove home around midnight, Barbara was stopped at a roadblock by the police. The roadblock was set up because of a growing problem of drunk driving at the University. The police were stopping every fourth car and asking for registrations and driver’s licenses. Barbara was very nervous; too nervous for the police. Based on Barbara’s bloodshot eyes and breath that smelled like alcohol, the policeman asked her, “Did you have any alcohol this evening, Ma’am?” Barbara answered, “Just a beer, Officer.” The Officer, Staley, asked, “Just one?” Barbara answered, “Well maybe one or two.”
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Chapter IX Review: Criminal Procedure 4 results
- : While on patrol on a cool October evening near the Constantine Bar and Grill at around 2 a.m., Officer Hollywood observed a person leaving the club through the rear entrance of the bar, heading toward the parking lot. The Officer
- Two weeks later, after being charged with Driving Under the Influence (DUI) of Alcohol, and having counsel appointed in that case under the state Afford Justice Act, she was asked to participate in a line-up concerning the larceny of the pocketbook, which she did. Barbara was identified in the line-up as the person in the bar sitting next to the larceny victim when she left her pocketbook for a moment. Barbara then headed home.
- : Barbara was a student at the State University who studied hard, but also liked to go out with friends. One Thursday night, she went to meet her friends at a local hangout, the Lucky Strike. It was a special discount night called “Thirsty Thursdays,” where beer was sold at a very reduced price. As the night went on, someone stole the purse of a woman in the bar who had left it to go talk with someone standing a few feet away. The police responded to the larceny call and a description of the likely perpetrator was given.
- Barbara had hurried out of the bar before the police came. She wanted to avoid the police if she could. As she drove home around midnight, Barbara was stopped at a roadblock by the police. The roadblock was set up because of a growing problem of drunk driving at the University. The police were stopping every fourth car and asking for registrations and driver’s licenses. Barbara was very nervous; too nervous for the police. Based on Barbara’s bloodshot eyes and breath that smelled like alcohol, the policeman asked her, “Did you have any alcohol this evening, Ma’am?” Barbara answered, “Just a beer, Officer.” The Officer, Staley, asked, “Just one?” Barbara answered, “Well maybe one or two.”
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- Criminal Law and Torts have another thing in common—bar examiners love their defenses. In Criminal Law, there are two major types of defenses, those that negate an element of the crime, such as mistake and intoxication, and affirmative defenses, where the defendant essentially admits the act and the mental state, but under the circumstances is still not guilty of the crime charged.
- resist picking up a knife and intentionally stabbing the person next to him, seriously injuring the innocent movie-goer. Sam later stated he is not sure what exactly transpired, because it was like a “huge fog enveloped me,” but that the “evil-doer” sitting next to him had to be stopped before he had an opportunity to attack Sam. In a later psychiatric exam, Sam was diagnosed as having paranoia and schizophrenia under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Volume IV—Text Revision (DSM–IV TR) (the manual used by psychiatrists and psychologists for the diagnosis of mental disorders).
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- Property is perhaps the most difficult of the Multistate Bar courses to put in a coherent and pithy framework. The subject matter more often appears to be a group of unconnected islands, individual topics that in themselves are all too often obfuscatory. Yet, a framework can be created and “Rights and Limits” describes much of it. Rights, in particular, means a bundle of legal rights—exclusion, possession, use and transfer. Use, for example, figures prominently in distinguishing between certain types of interests in land (covenants and easements, respectively).
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- Publication Date: September 30th, 2010
- ISBN: 9780314268457
- Subject: Bar Exam Success
- Series: Exam Pro Series
- Type: Exam Prep
- Description: Based on the premises that the bar exam essay is often different in style, length, and scoring from the law school exam essay and that organization and issue identification can best be achieved by a structured, strategic approach rather than "winging it," this book uses frameworks as a guide to writing a top-notch essay. The opportunity to practice techniques allows students to further improve their writing.
