Exam Taking Tips for Criminal Law

Professor Moses'

Exam Taking Tips

criminal law

Introduction

Jack Kerouac's approach to life is appealing, but if you are a law student, finals are like taxes, inevitable. So you might as well get ready. These are some random thoughts on preparing for and taking my first year criminal law exam. The suggestions may be of some use to students in other criminal law sections and other law schools. Many of the tips also apply to exam taking in general. These tips are guideposts, not hitching posts. Your approach to the exam should be based on your own perceptions and inventiveness, but, to me, it's all about proper preparation and execution. There is a burgeoning body of literature that caters to the law student who trying the survive and/or excel in law school. Two relatively recent publications, Miller, Law School Confidential: The Complete Law School Survival Guide by Students for Students, New York, St. Martin's Press (2000) and Fisch & Paul, Getting to Maybe: How to Excel On Law School Exams, Durham, North Carolina Press (1999), illustrate the available publications. [Note:I haven't read either of them.] There are also plenty of other law professors that are ready to tell you how the cow "eats" the cabbage and to provide you with examples of their former exams. A former student of the ubiquitous Professor Dressler has a handy discussion of how to prepare for his professor's criminal law exam. If you would like to see how bar examiners phrase questions, check the Internet to see if your state's Board of Law Examiners makes previous exam questions available. My state, Texas, (1) does so. In recent years, the examiners, while not providing model answers, have even made comments about the questions indicating how the examinees did on each question. Here are starting points for other states: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY.

The importance of doing well in your first year. Before I get to specific suggestions, let me point out the importance of doing well on the 1L core courses taught during the first year. Criminal law is one of those required first year courses. The grades you make in the first 30 semester hours set the tone for the rest of your law school career. This is so because these early grades will be a determinative factor in whether you will be invited to join our school's law journal. Your first year scores will also influence whether you will be able to gain a summer clerkship at a good law firm. Grades during the first year also play a big role in one's ability to transfer from one law school to another. Those who don't do well in the first year can, by dedicated effort, dig themselves out of the hole, but without a first year grade cushion, a threat is always present. One bad semester in the second or third year can spell disaster to the student whose average hovers just above a "C." So, the message is: Gut up the first year, and devote yourself to doing well on the exams. See the Law Nerd's advice on achieving Success in Law School. [Note: I have posted a slough of hyperlinks to first year criminal law outlines in Bushrod's Notes - Assignment One. You'll find at least a couple that you like.]

Classroom participation in law school and preparation for the law school exam differ from your undergraduate college experience. In college, we often attend large class sessions and listen to a teacher lecture about the subject. We take notes. We study the notes and memorize facts. The information flows from the college professor's brain onto our class notes. Class discussion in many college courses is often minimal. In college, our grades are often based on a series of tests, e.g., pop quizzes, mid-terms, research papers, final exams, field studies, etc. . Law school is different. You will be called upon in your first year classes to stand up in a group of other students and orally discuss (recite) cases you have read and briefed. Your law professor will invite you to offer a public analysis of subject matter that you have read but have not mastered. The professor may grill you with a bewildering set of hypothetical questions, expecting you to give prescient answers based on a knowledge of law, facts, and policy. Unless you majored in public speaking as an undergrad, the law school emphasis on class discussion can be stressful, even when you have a grip on the material. You may wonder why you should be required to stand up in class and talk about the subject when the person who is paid to teach the class, and who knows a lot more about the subject than you do, seems to do nothing much more than ask questions. The law professor obviously knows the answers to the questions that s/he is asking you to answer. Wouldn't it be simpler for the prof to just give you answers? You could write the information down, memorize it, and regurgitate it on the exam? Why should you be required to brief cases and then have to stand up and be interrogated about them? It's because lawyers get paid for two things, talking and writing. Yeah, that's what lawyers do. They analyze legal problems and write and/or talk about them for a living. If you look at it that way, it makes sense that some of the law school experience should be about giving you practice in analyzing, writing, and talking about legal matters. It's what you are going to be doing for the next forty years. Might as well start now.

The classroom activity in law school differs from the law school exam. In class, we spend most of our time look at cases (stories about people) that typically involve one crime and one to three dissectible issues that are clearly apparent when you read the appellate court's discussion of them in the opinion(s). In class, we also study specific issues in the penal codes or common law of crimes. The essay portion of the criminal law exam is somewhat different from what we do in class. Long essays focus on problem solving. The typical long essay entails a hypothetical story or scenario that typically involves multiple actors, usually four to eight, committing an array of offenses and having a panoply of potential defenses. Your job is to discover the crimes and defenses packed into a mountain of facts and dig them out for issue analysis and discussion. You may also be called upon to contrast and compare the crimes and defenses that could occur under more than one set of laws, e.g., TPC, MPC, and C/L. If your exam includes objective multiple choice questions, you'll always be instructed to pick the best response; the best response may not be 100% factually perfect, merely the best, i.e., most accurate, response.

Study and Preparation

Study the table of contents of the casebook and UCL. It's real easy to be overwhelmed by what appears to be a massive amount of unconnected material. You can see all these trees, but you wonder how big the forest is and where its boundaries are. The way to get a bird's eye view of the forest is to study the table of contents in the casebook and Dressler's UCL. There is a logic to the course. It has a beginning, middle, and end. There are a finite number of major topics that will be covered.You'll find that topical outline in the table of contents of your casebook.

Create a checklist of crimes and defenses. Using the table of contents of the casebook and UCL, make yourself a checklist of crimes and defenses. The list won't be extremely long. Here are a couple of efforts that might be styled as semi-checklists that could serve as starting points for you. (1 - Univ. of Chicago BLSA), (2 and 3 , the latter being more of a checklist, by a chap, apparently now a lawyer, named Dave Case who warns you of the foolhardiness of relying on other people's notes - I like his style)

Make yourself a comparison chart contrasting crimes and defenses under the common law, the TPC, and the MPC. If your criminal law teacher is competent, s/he will test you not only on the common law of crimes, but also on the MPC and, perhaps, on your state's penal code. You can expect that a typical criminal law essay question on my exam will ask you to compare and contrast the results you would get under the C/L, the MPC, and the TPC. Therefore, make yourself a comparison chart that highlights the instances where the MPC and TPC differ from the common law of crimes and defenses. You can probably find a student from a prior class who has such a chart. If so, borrow it and use it a starting point for your own chart. Also, check the Internet - students have posted files of common law - MPC comparison charts - (1), (2), (3). Here's a so-so comparison chart (common, law, MPC and Texas Penal Code) that someone made in my course a few years back. Of course, to learn this stuff, you eventually need to make your own chart. The effort you expend in making your own chart will cause the information to be much more memorable to you than it will if you simply try to memorize or rely on someone else's comparison chart or outline.

Make yourself an outline. Start your outline at the beginning of the semester. You may want to look at outlines created by other criminal law students. (1), (2a & 2b), (3), (4a & 4b), (5), (6) I have listed a slough of other sample student outlines from around the U.S. in Assignment One of Bushrod's Notes I. I suggest that you use the table of contents from your resources, e.g., casebook, to help organize your topics. Your outline will be much more useful than your class notes, unless your teacher is simply reading an outline to you in class. You learn a lot about the course by making an outline. The study and practice of law requires a lot of self-study. Your teacher is a guide and a facilitator; your teacher cannot learn it for you. If you know someone who has taken the course, borrow his/her outline and use it as a starting point for your own outline. The doctrine that you need to know will make sense and stick to your mind if you expend the effort to make your own map of the material. You should begin to become familiar with your outline from the day you start writing it. There's always a danger or overdoing an outline to the extent that you wind up with an outline as thick as your casebook. To make study manageable, you should pare your study outline down to 25 or 30 pages. I suggest that you start studying your outline seriously no later than five or six weeks before the exam, even though the outline is obviously not complete. If you get a jump on the exam, the information can become organic to you.

Take full advantage of the resources, suggestions, and hints that your teacher has made available.If your teacher has provided you with collateral sources of information, take advantage to them. In our criminal law course, you have the opportunity to attend several 3+ hour review sessions; you have a teacher generated web site with well over 200 pages of material directly on the subject matter of the course; you have teacher written handouts; you have the Dressler UCL hornbook; you have links to many downloadable outlines (1), (Bushrod I) on the subject of criminal law, including the color-coded outline that is available (only to students in my class) in the files section of the Powwow E-Discussion Group; you have numerous hyperlinks to useful sites such as ones dealing with the MPC, outlining, relevant current cases in the news, etc; you have sample long answer and short answer essays from previous exams; you have over 350 sample true/false and multiple-choice questions; you have a Langdell academic tutor, a student who did reasonably well in criminal law; you have video tapes re exam preparation made by the top students in several previous criminal law classes taught by your professor, etc. If your teacher's web site hints that something might be on the exam, don't discount the suggestion. [Note: Many students find it helpful to use study aids such as flash cards, MBE bar exam sample questions from released MBE exams, charts, mnemonic devices, etc. With some effort, you can discover and develop these resources. You may find it useful to find a good bar review and sign up early; most of the bar review courses, e.g. BRI, will give signees outline material while they are still in school. Check with your bar review rep.]

Anticipate the questions. After preparing and studying all of your materials, e.g., notes, outlines, study guides, TPC, MPC, Dressler, casebook, teacher's notes, sit down and try to write the sort of exam your teacher would craft. If your exam will contain objective questions, e.g., multiple choice and/or true/false, write a few of your own. (You will find many such questions in the archives of our class e-discussion group.) Try going through the Dressler hornbook and constructing 20 or 30 T/F and M/C questions. Do the same with a sample essay. What crimes will you be most likely to face, e.g., homicide or issuance of a bad check? What defenses are you most likely to encounter, e.g., self- defense and retreat or use of force by a parent in disciplining a child? Do you anticipate that a long answer essay will involve multiple actors? If so, will that implicate issues of complicity theory, solicitation, and/or conspiracy.

If the exam is comprehensive, as they usually are, the content of the exam should correspond roughly to the weight of the course materials. If you spend 10% of classroom and outside reading talking about a particular group of offenses, e.g., criminal homicides, and your professor is fair, you can probably anticipate a roughly proportionate amount of testing on that subject on the exam.

Get the jump on the exam. As I said previously, start your review and exam study six weeks before the exam. (See outlining above.) If you start studying your outline well before the exam, the information will sink into your memory banks. You will have time to see the forest as well as the trees. You've got to get out in front of the classroom schedule. If you wait until the end of classes to start studying for your exam, you will not have enough time to understand and absorb the relevant information that your test will cover.

Use the Internet to find some sample questions and give yourself a mini-exam under timed conditions. (See Final Thoughts below) Practice will not make you perfect, but it will make you better. Gather some of your professor's previous essay questions, and practice answering them under battlefield conditions with a kitchen timer. If your professor does not make old exam questions available to you, look on the Internet. You will find copies of criminal law exams given at other law schools, e.g., (1 - Harvard Law), (2 - Golden Gate's Professor Moskovitz), (3 -directory), (4 - with model answers from Professor DeWolf from Gonzaga ), (5 - University of Kentucky), (6 - Hastings - a good one ), (7 - Professor Edmundson of Georgia State), (8 - Ole Miss), (9 - Mercer), (10 - Seton Hall), (11), (12 - Professor Kruse of Washington College of Law), (13 - Professor Green of L.S.U.), (14 - Professor Logan of William Mitchell), (15 -Professors Bluth and Kravitz of Capital), (16- Creighton archive by professor), (17 or 18 - UC Berkely - Boalt Hall - Finals, Sample Answers, Practice Exams), (19 - Professor Batey of Stetson), (20 - Professor O'Connor's criminal justice multiple choice exam with answers). Read them before you test yourself to get a flavor for questions and answers.] If you are in a study group, mock exam-taking can be a useful group activity. Time management is a big part of successful exam-taking. You will have to keep close track of time on the actual exam. That means having a good watch or small clock that you can monitor. You might even want to buy a Radio Shack timer (+- $10) that will allow you to time downward, e.g., from thirty minutes down to zero. If so, you can glance at you timer and see how much time you have remaining on the particular question. Turn the alarm off in the exam room! (There's more below about the importance of managing time during your exam. You may find a few worthwhile suggestions at this web site (1) devoted to the general subject of preparing for tests.)

Open book tests are no easier than closed book exams. If you are facing an open book exam, study just as hard or harder than you would study for a closed book exam. If the exam is closed book, you may want to memorize your checklist of crimes and defenses so that you can immediately write it out on a piece of scratch paper when the exam begins. You can use the sheet in working the essay. You won't have time to write a comparison chart; you will have to depend on your memory for comparisons and contrasts.

Instructions:

Read the general instructions. Most exams contain general instructions at the beginning of the exam and, perhaps, at the beginning of each section. Read them, and follow them.

Read the instructions within the question. i.e., the "call of the question", before you read the hypothetical facts of the question. The essay exam question will typically provide you with a hypothetical set of facts and then ask you to do something with those facts. That instruction as to what you are supposed to do with the facts constitutes the call of the question. It's typically at the end of the essay question, often in its own little separate paragraph. You should read that portion of the essay question before you read the hypothetical facts. Having advance knowledge of what you are going to have to do with the hypothetical facts will color and inform your analysis when you read the facts. Here's an example of the call of the question from one of my own long essay questions:

In light of the relevant material that you have studied in this course,

discuss fully the offenses that actors A,B,C,E, and G may have committed,

and discuss any potentially applicable defenses, affirmative defenses, or pleas in bar

of trial that the actors may have to the offenses. To the extent that constraints of time allow,

compare all aspects of criminal liability using the common law, the Model Penal Code, and

the Texas Penal Code.

It's quite important to know what question you must answer based on the hypothetical facts presented in the essay question. You only want to answer the question asked! Sometimes the direction or scope of the question will not be what you would anticipate from simply reading the hypothetical facts. For example, the sample call of the question in the example above does not ask the student to evaluate the criminal responsibility of actors D and F. Assuming there are such actors and that they are alive at the end of the hypo, a student who had not carefully read the call of the question might waste time writing about the criminal responsibility of D and F. So, begin your reading of the essay with the call of the question, i.e., begin reading at the end of the question where the call is located rather than at the beginning where the hypothetical facts start. Never anticipate the call of the question.

Essay Questions

You'll hear a lot about the IRAC method of answering essay questions from all the gurus who travel the country giving bar review lectures and telling you how to take an essay exam. I don't have much to add. IRAC is an acronym for ISSUE, RULE OF LAW, APPLICATION OF LAW TO FACTS, and CONCLUSION. In my opinion, your analytical recognition of the relevant and crucial aspects of crimes and defenses and your application of the relevant law to facts in issue is more important than your ultimate conclusion, though you must reach a conclusion if the question calls for it. Don't think that you can simply regurgitate valid law and expect a good grade when the law is not applied to the facts. It's not just about memorizing a tub full of black letter law. The knack of writing a good essay comes from your organized analysis of the facts and application of only the applicable law. In my first year criminal law course, it is a bit trickier than most courses involving codes because I ask you to study and then compare and contrast three bodies of law, i.e., the common law, the Model Penal Code, and the Texas Penal Code.

Read the question from bottom to top to bottom. See "Call of the Question" above. Don't assume that you know what the professor wants you to do or how the story ends. You need to know what you are being asked and what you are not being asked before you read the facts. For example, in a recent exam there were eight potential criminal actors. The question asked for answers relative to six of the eight. Students who gave answers that included the two actors who were not the subject of the question wasted valuable time. They were answering a question that wasn't asked. What they said didn't count for them or against them, but the time spent in going down that trail was wasted.

Understand whose view you are to take. Notice whether the question asks you to take a neutral bird's-eye perspective, e.g., looking at all of the facts, what crimes and/or defenses may be present, or an adversarial position for one side or the other ,e.g., writing a memo supporting the constitutionality of a statute or legal advice to a client.

Some criminal law essay questions may ask you to discuss all crimes and defenses implicated from the facts. Other questions may be more limited in scope. Carefully read the question (problem). Most long essay questions involve multiple actors and somewhat complex transactions. Short essays, multiple choice, and T/F questions typically involve only one or two potential parties to a crime and usually involve only one transaction. You must determine which defendants (in the case of multiple defendants), which crimes, and which defenses you are being asked to write about in your answer-solution-resolution. As a general rule, your answer should deal separately with each potential defendant, discussing each crime and defense as it applies to that defendant. This is the PARTY METHOD of structuring your answer. The other alternative method of structuring your answer is the ISSUE METHOD, in which you discuss each applicable crime and/or defense indicating the person(s) to whom the crime or defense applies.

As you analyze a problem for the presence of crimes, remember to look for the elements of each potential crime, whether it be common law, MPC, or TPC, e.g., the act of "breaking" in common law burglary, a "trespass" against the possessory right of the owner in the case of common law larceny. In the various substantive crimes there will often be a voluntary act or actionable omission, a state of mind, attendant circumstances, and, in the case of result oriented crimes like murder, causation in the sense of factual and legal (proximate) cause of a harmful result by the accused or one for whose action the accused is vicariously responsible. With regard to mens rea offenses, look for facts that possibly negate mens rea, e.g., intoxication and/or mistake of fact.

When you deal with an inchoate crime involving an attempt, you will usually be concentrating both on the voluntary act, i.e., did the accused do enough to constitute an attempt, and the actor's state of mind. In the case of conspiracy, you will be looking for the illegal agreement and, in some cases (the TPC always, the MPC sometimes, and the C/L never) the overt act in furtherance of the conspiratorial agreement.

If you are looking at multiple actors in the long essay story (You will be.), you probably will need to consider the application of complicity theory principles of vicarious liability for the acts of others.

In the case of defenses, you need to first determine whether there is a potential crime before you tackle the issue of what defenses may apply to the crime. With regard to defenses, talk about defenses that are relevant and plausible. You may want to talk about justification defenses, e.g., self-defense, before you talk about excuse defenses, e.g., duress, intoxication, diminished capacity, insanity. Make yourself a list of defenses. Some of them may have common threads, e.g.,self-defense, defense of a third person, defense of property, defense of habitation. Remember, you may have numerous defenses in one scenario. Don't think that simply because one defense seems to apply that another won't also be plausibly applicable. Necessity is sometimes a fall-back justification defense that may apply when others won't.

Sometimes there are different legal theories that can underpin responsibility for a guilt of a crime. Consider, for example, criminal homicide, a crime that you can be almost certain will appear somewhere on your criminal law exam. In scenarios involving criminal homicide that may be murder, don't forget to ask yourself which of the various forms of malice aforethought, e.g., intent to kill, knowledge that death was reasonably certain, intent to inflict grievous bodily injury, depraved heart (extreme indifference to the value of human life) and felony murder, may apply. It may be more than one. Also, if there is no murder, don't forget to consider whether there may be a lesser offense, e.g., manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide. In cases of criminal homicide, remember that the main variable is the state of mind (culpable mental state).

Outline your essay answer before starting to write. Although you will be pressed for time, it is a good idea to plan your answer in brief outline form before you start to write in the space provided for your answer on the exam. Outline your answer on scratch paper. As you analyze the question, break it down into factual and legal components so that you can relate law to facts to achieve a solution. In reading, analyzing, and outlining a question, it is often a good practice to underline phrases that appear to be significant, thus, breaking the question into its component legal and factual elements. It is unwise merely to read the question in a general way, to note that it involves general principles of law, and then begin to write an essay about those general principles. There should be an interfacing of the discussion of principles and the analysis of the particular facts presented in the question. Remember that the author of the question has tried to carefully draft the question to pose issues that require application of specific law to specific facts. Remember also that exam questions are often concerned with your approach to the solution of problems raised by the facts. Before writing, you should devote substantial time (perhaps 10 - 15% of the total; 6 - 9 minutes of a 1 hour essay question) to planning and outlining your answer on scratch paper. Don't be influenced by the fact that other students begin writing their answer immediately. Some of them are shooting from the hip and will be wide of the mark. (You've already seen examples of "fire, ready, aim" approach, when these same folks shoot from the lip in recitiation.) Someone has to be in the bottom half of the grading curve. It may be some of them, not you. Plan your approach, and stick to your plan!

Stay on course.Your professor is probably looking for clarity, coherence, and conciseness, in addition to knowledge of course materials. Less credit will be given for a sprawling, unorganized answer that merely list points and arguments or uncritically restates casebook, hornbook, or lecture materials.

Don't restate all of the facts, only the relevant facts: It is fruitless to try to pad your answer by aimlessly regurgitating facts that are not relevant to the question. The examiner has written the facts and doesn't need to be retold the entire story. In most instances, it is best to go immediately to the legal issues that require resolution and mention the facts as they are relevant to these legal issues.

Don't add facts to a question, unless it is essential. Don't rewrite the question in order to avoid coming to grips with a difficult issue or to create an issue that you really want to write about. Occasionally, it may be in order to state that additional facts, if present, would affect your answer

Don't fill up your narrative answer to the essay with a string of case cites. On the other hand, don't forget to mention a controlling statute or case. There is usually little advantage in citing cases, particularly if they are used simply to buttress general propositions. Unexplained citations to cases will garner little or no credit. Reference to a case or cases may, in some instances, be helpful in developing an analysis. In any event, do not lose time by feverishly trying to recall the name of a case if it can be characterized by a phrase, e.g., "the New York premeditated murder case involving the illiterate Italian immigrant who choked and stabbed the doctor," rather than People v. Caruso.

"If" is a dangerous word. Answer the question asked. Don't talk too much about issues that are not there. It is sometimes appropriate to note that, on the facts given, a particular issue that might have arisen does not arise, having been foreclosed by such-and-such fact. However, if you come to the exam expecting to write about issues A, B, and C and, to your disappointment, these issues are not raised by the facts, don't spend all your time writing about what would have happened "IF" issues A, B, and C had been present. [If kittens were born in an oven, would they be biscuits? If frogs had wings could they fly? If blue birds weren't blue, what color would they be? The speculative "if" has all sorts of possibilities, but most of them lead to blind alleys in your answer.]

Don't state legal conclusions without reasons. You will get little credit for concluding, "Hamsterlicher committed murder" without giving your reasons for such a legal conclusion. Explain why the conclusion follows by applying the law to the facts. The right answer in an essay isn't right, unless you explain doctrinally how you go there. To check yourself in practice exam situations, see how many times you use the word "because" in your essay answer Every time your answer contains the word "because" ("b/c" if you are in outline mode), you will usually be providing a reason for your conclusion, i.e., you are explaining "why" and "how" you arrived at your conclusion. Other words or phrases that often hallmark reasons or explanations for your conclusion are: "however," "even if," "similarly," "alternatively," "in contrast," "likewise," "additionally."

You've got to dig quite a few issues out of a mountain of facts. You probably won't spot all of them. Spot the issues and resolve them. When an exam question is long and complex, e.g., multiple actors engaging in multiple acts, your instructor has room to insert more legal issues. It is important to identify as many of these issues as possible. Since your time for composing an answer is limited, issue recognition may diminish the time available for full and complete issue resolution. Long-winded resolution won't be possible. You should go directly to an issue and resolve it. Now is not the time to be a gasbag. As a general rule, if there are fifteen legal issues in an essay question, the student who recognizes and identifies all fifteen and quickly resolves each by analysis and conclusion, will receive more credit than the student who identifies only four and more completely resolves each of the four, looking at each of the four issues upside down, backwards, and forwards. A quick cursory look at a long essay question sometimes isn't enough to reveal all of the issues. Even though issue spotting is particularly important in long complex essay questions where a number of issues may be salted away, don't stop there. Issue spotting is not enough. Explain why the relevant legal issue is raised by specific facts.

What about short answer essay questions? Resolution of issues on short answer essays becomes more important by virtue of the fact that issue spotting is easier that it is with long essays. It is very difficult to insert and hide a large number of substantive legal issues in a short essay. Thus, in answering a short essay question, your instructor is often testing your ability to resolve one or two readily identifiable issues.

Handle the issues one at a time.

Keep your mind open to both sides of the issue.

Apply the principles you have learned in an organized manner. Emphasize clarity, cohesiveness, and conciseness. The organization of your answer should reflect a reasoned analysis. Keep your sentences short and simple. [What is the opposite of short and simple? Suppose, instead of suggesting that you keep it short and simple, that I had written, "It is incumbent on all scriveners and all who are engaged in forensics of any nature whatever to effectually make their communications compendious, pithy, succinct, and totally lacking in prolixity, circumlocution, and sesquipedalian words, as they are noted for their lucidity, perspicuity, trenchancy, and terse sentences."] Much of what you learn from your Legal Research & Writing instructor about writing clearly can be applied to writing essay exam questions.

Use paragraphs.

Use complete but simple sentences with short words . [This advice is violated by many testees.] Use simple sentences with short plain words.

Write big and legibly. If you cannot write legibly, PRINT. If you are one of those who cannot resist writing tiny little Lilliputian words that can only be discerned with a microscope or magnifying glass (I'm not kidding.), the best advice for you is: type. The "tiny word" writers have caused many a hawk-eyed law professor to be fitted with bifocals. Try to avoid starting over after having scratched through whole sentences and/or paragraphs. See below.

There's not much time for humor or levity. Don't try to be funny, unless you have time and are absolutely sure it will put the grader in a better grading mood. Unless you are able to be really funny in print, stay away from humor and levity. Remember, doctrinal analysis in law school is supposed to rob you of your humanity, passion, emotion, and sense of humor. Real trial lawyers sometimes refer to law professors as the "morticians of the profession." [Note: It'll take about five years to get your humanity back after the law school experience. Then you start collaborating with others, talking regular English, and winning your cases down at the courthouse.]

If you have time, go back through and review your answers, highlighting key words. If circumstances allow, you may find it helpful to take a yellow highlighter and go back through your essay, highlighting key words.

Usefulness of a Watch and a Time Chart.

Time flies, even when you're not having fun! KEEP TRACK OF TIME! BUDGET YOUR TIME! Time is of the essence. Try to figure the available proportionate amount of time you have for each question. It's easy if you know how much time you have, the number of questions, and the relative value of each question. [Note: My exams last for 3 hours (180 minutes). Total point value is 180 points. Each question will have an indicated point value. The point value will be equivalent to minutes, e.g., you should budget 60 minutes to a 60 point question.] Don't overbudget a disproportionate amount of time to any of the questions at the expense of the others. You never get the lost time back! Answer the question within the time limits prescribed, and then move on, regardless that you have much more to say in answer to the question and irrespective of whether you need more time to ponder it. Each semester some student will run into difficulty by devoting too much time to certain questions, shorting her/himself on others.

DO NOT LEAVE ANY QUESTION BLANK!!! You will receive zero credit for blank answers. ANSWER ALL THE ESSAY QUESIONS, EVEN IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF YOUR ANSWER. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER SKIP AN ESSAY OR OBJECTIVE QUESTION. If you find yourself running out of time, outline the remainder of your answer, and guess on any objective question. When you have been told in advance the number of questions on the exam and the point value of each question, there is no excuse for leaving any question blank. Bring a watch.

Objective and Essay Questions and the Various Exams You Must Pass to Be Licensed to Practice Law (Emphasis on Texas)

When, in a few years, it comes time to take the bar exam, you will find that criminal law is tested on the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE). The six-hour test is given twice, in the latter part of part of of February and July. There are two hundred (200) multiple-choice (objective) questions covering Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Property, & Torts. Although the number varies, approximately thirty (30) of these objective multiple-choice questions are about criminal law, i.e., the law of crimes and defenses to crimes. All objective criminal law questions are based on the common law. You are asked to choose the best answer from four choices. You can get more information from the National Conference of Bar Examiner's web site. [Note: For states that use the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), the NCBE has announced that, effective with the July 2007 administration, the MEE will include nine questions instead of seven, with three questions drawn from the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). Coverage of the new MEE will include criminal law and procedure.]

Texas Lawyers: Prior to issuance of a Texas law license, you are required to take and pass the Texas Bar Examination (TBE). The highest possible combined total score on the TBE is 1000. A combined score of 675 points is the minimum passing score.The TBE is comprised of the following four parts:

Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) - The MBE is described above and is the part of the TBE that tests your knowledge of crimes and defenses. The MBE accounts for 40% of the total points.

Multistate Performance Test (MPT) - The MPT involves a legal analysis or writing assignment that taps into your legal research and writing skills in a realistic situation in which you are required to complete a task that a beginning lawyer should be able to accomplish. The MPT consists of one ninety (90) minute task, in which the examinee is furnished with a file of source documents and a library of research materials to be used in accomplishing the designated task. The MPT requires examinees to: (1) sort detailed factual materials and separate relevant from irrelevant facts; (2) analyze statutes, cases, and administrative materials for principles of law; (3) apply the law to the relevant facts in a manner likely to resolve a client's problem; (4) identify and resolve ethical dilemmas, when present; (5) communicate effectively in writing; and (6) complete a lawyering task within time constraints. The MPT accounts for 10% of the total.

Texas Essay Test (Essays) - The Essay Test is a six-hour examination consisting of twelve (12) questions about Texas law, each of which must be completed in thirty minutes; five subjects are assigned two essays each, and two subjects are assigned one essay each; the subjects are as follows: Uniform Commercial Code (two essays), Business Associations, including agency and partnerships (two essays), Family Law (two essays), Wills & Administration of Estates (two essays), Real Property (two essays), Trusts & Guardianship (one essay), and Consumer Law (one essay). The Essays account for 40% of the total points.

Texas Procedure and Evidence Test (P&E) - The P&E is a ninety-minute test consisting of twenty (20) short-answer civil law procedure and evidence questions and twenty (20) short-answer criminal procedure and evidence questions. The P&E accounts for 10% of the total points.

Information about the bar exam in any state is also available, as well as the national ranking (1), (2) of the law school you attend. This link will allow you to see essay questions asked on previous Texas examinations. Try this site for information (some of it gossipy) about law schools around the country. Here's another site that gives you some information about law school finals. This professor's web page provides information re the Texas bar.

Applicants for the bar will also be required to take and pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) - The MPRE is administered three times yearly; a passing score is valid for five years from the date the MPRE is taken. [Note however: A passing Texas Bar Examination score is void if an applicant has not satisfied all admission requirements within two years of notification.]

A suggestion: I have set up a powwow e-discussion group for the entire class. It could be a great vehicle for sharing information. I encourage you to use the e-discussion group as a forum for developing and sharing T/F and M/C objective questions. If each person in the class would develop and post to the powwow group one objective question and correct answer from each case they are assigned to brief, together with the supporting material in Dressler, Bushrod, and/or Bullets, the entire class would, at the end of the semester, have a collection of roughly 100 -120 good objective questions with well researched and clearly explained answers. I can almost guarantee you that some of those questions would be on the exam. This effort would require cooperative action of the entire class. One or two duds, who would take the benefit but not the responsibility, could mess it up for everyone.

There will probably be objective questions our criminal l