7 TIPS IN ANSWERING BAR QUESTIONS

The Philippine Bar examination is considered as one of the most challenging licensure examinations in the Philippines. Its mortally rate is much higher compared to other government regulated examination. It is the Supreme Court and not the Philippine Regulation Commission that administers the examination, as well as the conferment of the license to practice law. From the Halls of the Manuel L. Quezon University to the University of Sto. Tomas, it has make and break hearts, dreams and aspirations.

Many, perhaps, have attempted to persuade you on how to answer bar questions and this is no exception. However, rather than dwelling on the substance and content of the answer, this focuses on simple tips you might have overlooked and will be looking during the course of your road-to-being-a-lawyer.

8 TIPS IN ANSWERING BAR QUESTIONS

1. Always treat your examination in law school as the actual bar exam. There is nothing that can be achieved without preparation. Preparation, as has been said, starts in the first day of law school. Certainly, depending on the law school, it administers two or four examinations every semester. Always treat that examination as if you are taking the bar examination. No excuses.

If during your law school days, you wear a jacket while answering, you were jacket in Sto. Tomas. If during your law school days, you write with a cheap gel pen, use that cheap gel pen. If during your law school days, you do not eat while taking the examinations, then do not eat while taking the bar examinations.

2. Avoid extremely numerous erasures. Your excitement might cause you to write swiftly your answers in your notebook but the hitch is that your organized thoughts might not reflect that is what is written on your notebook. Organize your thoughts and write it without a rush although you must be conscious of the time. This skill needs practice. Failure to do this will eventually lead you to so much erasures as there are skip words you will insert or delete repeated words or redundancy. 

It is not pleasant if, at first glance, there are so many erasures on your notebook. It is a cause of concern. So, even before you mock-bar have yourself your our mock-bar in the confines of your room. Study the choice of words and the structure of your answer. Refine if needed.

3. Observe Margin and Indention. Nothing beats a well-presented answer to the eyes of the examiner. You market yourself through the neatness of your work. While others say that a neat work will expose grammar and spelling issues, then muster your grammar and spelling. 

Just imagine a work without a margin and indention. It will not only look terrible but also disappointing, as it shows unprofessionalism and mediocrity of work.

4. Review your entire work. Make it a habit to review your work before you submit the same. While there may be unavoidable corrections at least show to the examiner that you corrected it. It leaves an impression that you are diligent in your work and that you have one of the fundamental traits of a lawyer -finding fault to where there is none (just kidding). Seriously, reviewing the entire work of yours, at this early stage, will have good repercussions as it will become mechanical in the process.

5. Have enough rest. Yes! Rest is a huge contributor in your passing percentage. An overworked candidate of the bar will not likely give the best shots of his as fatigue will set in the course of the examination. When that happens, you tend to finish your work in haste, your comprehension will falter, your appreciation of facts will fail, and remembering the law will be a struggle. A good rest is enough to boost your energy in staging an eight hour battle for four Sundays.

Relax if need be. Pressure and so much overthinking will not help. You will always have that weird feeling that every topic in your law book will be asked. But the truth is that of the thousands of principles in Civil Law only 30 basic principles will come out. It is enough to master the basic, after all, the Supreme Court needs only passers with that of an entry-level lawyer. Do not bother about it. Chill.

6. Claim that you will. Have faith in yourself. Never doubt. Grow that feeling that you can hurdle every single questions being asked. You might not provide the right answer, at least, give a reasonable one. The average passing percentage is peg at 20% . Be part of that! You must have that fighting spirit, a burning will, and a willful intent to be a lawyer. Hard work and smart studying will bring you to the halls of the revered Supreme Court for your signing of the roll of attorneys.

7. Pray. Nothing is stronger than the will of our Supreme Judge.

Hope this will help you. Goodluck!

WHY DO I FAIL THE BAR EXAMS?

For more than a century, the Philippine bar examination has been a tale of success, failure and redemption. Many are poised to join the legal profession, yet a handful are given passes to hurdle that difficult bar examinations. Candidly speaking, the bar examination is just another examination akin to that in law school. There is nothing special about it except that the examination is for eight subjects held at the University of Sto. Tomas and crunched into four Sundays. Frankly, many bar questions ask the same application of principles and novel principles sometimes are introduced but, still, it is the obvious that is begging.

Romancing the lips of an angel in celebration and failure.

Now, in tears or frustration, you have not read your name from among the list of the successful bar examinees. In shock and denial, you perused the list over and over and over again. In desperation and exasperation, you ought to blame the examiners, the professors and maybe, your friends, family or your disposition in life for your failure.

To point fingers is a betrayal of yourself. No one is to blame other than you. I have to warn you that this article is not intended to draw inspiration so that by the time you are done reading this material, you will immediately jump from your seat and scour the pages of your law books. This article is an attempt, perhaps, of the reasons why you have failed the bar and will keep failing.

Remember the 3 L’s? Does it even sound familiar? 3 L’s as professors demand from you in your law school days are LEGIBILITY, LANGUAGE and LAW.

What is LEGIBILITY? Legibility, in its simplest form, is the ability to write clearly the words, phrases and sentences so as to make it readable from the standpoint of the reader. You might find your writing incomprehensible from another's view and you have a heavy burden to correct your ways. The ability to convey your message in proper handwriting is not an innate skill where only chosen artists are bestowed with rather it is a learned skill. It is a skill which can be developed through constant practice and patience.

However, legibility is not limited in writing the words correctly; proper margin and indention are also factors. Also, the proper way of erasure, if unavoidable, must be taken into consideration. You may, perhaps, failed in this aspect if your work was done hastily and with no regard to punctuation, margin, and indention. It is a sure way to create a disaster.

An examiner feels respected if your work is neat. There was a Supreme Court Guideline in the 2013 bar exams that the ideal number of words per line is seven to ten words. Do not compress the sentences and be generous of the spaces. The first impression does not come from your reasoning and citation of law but from the legibility of your work. Make it neat and comforting to the eyes of a 60 year old examiner.

What is LANGUAGE? By the time you have decided to go to law school must have must already understood that the official language of the court is English. Command of English is a key factor to convey your message. Lack of it will send confusing ideas and incomprehensible statements. Your subject-verb agreement may have no agreement at all and your grammar may be in complete disarray.

Bad English is not always a result of bad education. Bad English is an element of flunking. Bad English does not make you a lawyer. Good command of English will always lead you to greater percentage of passing the bar. You can easily dismay the examiner if, for instance, in the opening lines alone, you speak of language fairly spoken by aliens.

How do you cure that? I propose two ways of solving the unsolvable, First, read a lot of news paper editorials; and Second, memorize the law. Reading news paper items will make you more wittingly articulate. Mimic the writing style of an editor.

When reading a material, always, make sure to comprehend and finish it. It is always a good habit to finish reading the material. Do not roll your eyes over or gaze at it like the shooting stars at the night sky. Always bear in mind that the bar examination is an 8 hour ordeal and during that 8 hour, your comprehension to the questions raised will give you a better chance of giving a correct and reasonable answer.

Now, by memorizing the law, you are thereby literally borrowing the language of the law. You can never go wrong when you memorize law, I speak only of the language and not its application. The problem with law books is that it has no pictures. The remedy is to endure it. 

Further, always find time to mandatorily review your work and read in lips the sentences you’ve written. You can track and detect with ease the lapses you have committed and correct it. The trouble with you is that you do not review your work. Like a good editor, correct your work before submission.

What is LAW? Bar exam is all about preparation and preparation starts at the first of law school. It has been, time and again, echoed in all articles written by legal luminaries on how to pass even top the bar exam.

Either you lack basic knowledge of the law or fail to appreciate the question so as to provide an incorrect application of the law. Reading the bar question and understanding the bar question are two different things. You probably failed to understand the bar question, thus you provided Law A as an answer instead of Law B.

The examiners are not unforgiving. In fact, they give credit to answers which may provide reasonable and intelligent answer. Law is not a perfect science and it will never be. A long standing principle today may be overturned in the afternoon. A law promulgated a century ago may be repealed at any moment’s notice. A doctrine once held for a time may be abandoned for a second. The point is, a good argument of the law is a good credit waiting.

During you law days, perhaps, you yielded to your desire in skipping reading the entire supreme court decision, took shortcuts and embrace memory aids instead of law books, and drown in self belief that you can make the bar with little to no understanding of the entire process.

There are countless factors why you failed and there will plenty of reasons to strive and strike again. Strike like an eagle. The bar is just another examination. There is nothing special about it. It’s just and will be an examination.

So, why have you failed? Guess?