此处收集有关NY BAR的全部信息

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此处收集有关NY BAR的全部信息

www.totoolaw.com  2003-1-16  土兔法律网


基本信息：

State Board of Law Examiners
7 Executive Centre Drive
Albany, NY 12203-5195
Telephone: (518) 452-8700
(800) 342-3335 (in NY only)
www.nybarexam.org

2003 Exam Dates
Feb 25-26
July 29-30

2003 Exam Locations
Albany, Buffalo, Manhattan

FILING DEADLINES
Exam applications may be obtained upon request from the state board. Must be filed at least 90 days but not more than 120 days prior to exam.
No late applications accepted.

FEES
Exam fee: $250
Admission on motion: Contact Board of Law Examiners for information.

BAR EXAM FORMAT
The New York Bar is a 2 day exam.
First day, morning session, 3 hrs. 15 min. (9 AM to 12:15 PM) - three essay questions and 50 New York multiple choice (NYMC) questions. Although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the estimate allocation of time is 40 minutes per essay question and 1.5 minutes per multiple choice question.
First day, afternoon session, 3 hours (1:30 to 4:30 PM) - one MPT and two essay questions. Although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the National Conference of Bar Examiners developed the MPT with the intention that it be used as a 90-minute test. Therefore, the Board recommends that applicants allocate 90 minutes to the MPT and 45 minutes to each essay.

Second day, both sessions 3 hours (9 AM to 12 NOON and 1:30 to 4:30 PM) - Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) - 200 multiple choice questions.


SUBJECTS TESTED
MBE Subjects
Constitutional Law
Contracts/Sales
Criminal Law/Procedure
Evidence
Real Property
Torts

New York Subjects
Agency
Bulk Transfers (Winter 2000 only)
Commercial Paper
Conflict of Laws
Corporations
Domestic Relations
Equity
Federal Jurisdiction
Future Interests
Insurance (No Fault)
New York Practice & Procedure
Partnership
Personal Property
Secured Transactions
Taxation (Winter 2000 only)
Trusts
Wills
Workers' Compensation
Plus NY distinctions for all MBE subjects

GRADING AND RESULTS
The allocation for grading purposes will be 40% essay questions, 10% NYMC, 10% MPT, and 40% MBE. Results are generally released in early May for February exam and late November or early December for July exam.

MPRE
A scaled score of 72 on the MPRE is required for admission.（TOTOO注：已经升到85分）

RECIPROCITY
Acceptance of MBE Score
Applicant may transfer MBE score from a concurrent exam only.



[此贴子已经被totoo于2003-1-14 6:42:35编辑过]
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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:30:52

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呵呵，帖个有趣的。

Here are 10 last-minute tips to help you when it's your turn for the exam. These were submitted by real-life lawyers who have taken the bar exam, passed it, and lived to tell about it:

1. See a stupid movie.
You need to relax before the test. Laugh. De-stress. Take your mind off things. A silly flick is a perfect way to do just that. Sit back with a tub of buttered popcorn on your lap and forget about the bar exam for two blissful hours. Remember that your choice of movie is important, too. As one prosecutor in New York wrote in, "Don't go and see Blair Witch Project the night before [the exam]. If I had to listen to that annoying girl scream 'Josh!' one more time I think I would have slit my wrists." The idea is to take your mind off the monumental task you have ahead of you by watching something mind-numbing. Good suggestions for pre-exam movies include Scary Movie 2 and the law school-related Legally Blonde.

2. Set two alarms.
For an event as important as the bar exam, one alarm is simply not adequate. You'll sleep better (if you can sleep at all) knowing that at least one alarm will definitely wake you from your fitful slumber. Enlisting a friend to call you in the morning to make sure you're awake gives you additional security. But be certain to give your friend strict instructions the night before. If you want a quick "Wake up! Good luck!" then tell your friend. If you'd prefer a longer chat to help calm you down, let your friend know.

3. Drink a glass of wine.
Wine relaxes you and helps you sleep, so have a glass of wine before you go to bed. But please do not exceed one glass of wine. The bar exam is difficult enough without struggling through the haze of a wine-induced hangover. If wine isn't your style, curl up with a cup of decaffeinated chamomile tea or soak in a warm bubble bath.

4. Take a car service to the exam.
If you live in a city where you commonly use taxis or public transportation to get around, consider ordering a car service to take you to the exam. The last thing you need to worry about in the morning is hailing a taxi or dealing with the subways. If you have access to a car, you still may decide that a car service is a good idea, especially if your car has a funny way of breaking down when you least expect it. And no matter how you are getting to the test site, be sure to leave yourself twice as much time as you think you need to get there.

5. Eat oatmeal and bananas for breakfast.
We all know that eating a healthy breakfast can give you the energy you need to get through your day. On the morning of the bar exam, have a bowl of oatmeal, which is an excellent source of complex carbohydrates for a boost of energy. Adding a banana is a good idea, too; bananas provide a staggered energy release that will help give you the endurance and stamina you'll need to tackle the test. (The over-achieving lawyer who sent in this tip eats this breakfast before she runs the New York and Boston marathons!)

6. Leave the books at home.
You've studied hard enough. Or you haven't studied hard enough. Either way, bringing study materials to the test site isn't going to help you. Also, looking at your outlines (and seeing rules that you never quite committed to memory) may make you even more nervous than you already are. If you don't know the exceptions to the hearsay rules by exam time, you're not going to learn them while you're waiting for the proctor to seat you. Instead, try closing your eyes and doing some deep breathing to steady your nerves.

7. Bring earplugs.
You'd be surprised how annoying some people can be when they're taking the most important exam of their lives. That guy over there is cracking his gum. The woman next to you hasn't stopped tapping her foot for the last three hours. The guy behind you is breathing so loudly you're afraid he's suffering from some kind of attack. Do yourself a favor -- bring earplugs, just in case. If you can, do a practice test with the earplugs in place before test day in order to get used to them. The sound of your heart pounding in your chest unaccompanied by any other sound can be disorienting if you're not used to it.

8. Consider having lunch alone.
You know yourself. If you think that hearing your friends complain about that killer torts essay or the heavy-breather seated behind them (see number 7, above) will freak you out and increase your own stress level, then bow out of the communal lunch, sit somewhere by yourself, and eat your lunch alone. Your friends will understand your need to unwind in private.

9. Don't eat a turkey sandwich for lunch.
Know how you start to yearn for a nap after eating turkey on Thanksgiving? Your sleepiness may be the result of tryptophan, an essential amino acid found in turkey that causes the body to produce serotonin, which acts as a natural sedative. While some nutritionists balk at the idea that turkey can make you sleepy (they argue that tryptophan is most effective on an empty stomach), why take the risk? Save the turkey for a normal day and make yourself a nice protein-packed peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

10. Write yourself a note.
The bar exam in most states takes place over the course of two days, and it's essential that bar examiners view the two days as two separate tests. No matter how badly you think you did on the first day of the test, the second day is another opportunity to prove how hard you studied and how well you've learned the material. Before you leave the house for the first day of the exam, write yourself a note and leave it on your bed for when you return that evening. The note should contain reminders of how hard you studied, how you know the law inside and out, how you're a bar exam god (or goddess) who knows everything. Tell yourself that you're going to rip through day two of the exam. At the very least, the note should make you smile, and it may even give you comfort if you had a lousy first day.

Bonus tip.
Cake's rendition of "I Will Survive" almost single-handedly got me through the bar exam. Find the song that lifts your spirits, gives you energy, and makes you dance like Kevin Bacon in that warehouse in "Footloose." Listen to it at lunch and between test days. Then put it on and dance like crazy when you find out you passed the exam.

Good luck!


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:37:49

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Purpose
So what is the bar exam? And why do people take it?

The bar exam is an examination administered by State Bar organizations. The State Bar organizations, among other things, regulate the quality of legal services provided in the state. The test is one of the primary instruments by which they do so. By forcing all bona fide lawyers who practice in the state to take and pass the test, they ensure that all lawyers have at least a minimal level of legal knowledge. The bar examination is therefore not so different from other examinations that are a prerequisite for the practice of other professions -- doctor, optometrist, veterinarian, and so on.

Passing the bar exam is the biggest obstacle to getting a bar license. In some states, there may be other requirements, such as having three years of legal education and so on. States also typically require a screening process by which they determine if you are "morally fit" to be a lawyer -- in other words, they want to make sure that you don't have a criminal record or a habit of embezzling money. If you have led a fairly honest life, then passing that screen should not be a problem.

What exactly does a bar license let you do? Well, in each state, it is illegal to "engage in the practice of law" if you are not licensed to do so. What the words "engage in the practice of law" mean is pretty vague, but generally speaking, that phrase is interpreted fairly broadly. I have heard of cases where the state bar will sue people, such as legal secretaries or paralegals, for just giving some matter-of-fact advice on, for example, how to handle a divorce. In general, you need a license to give any advice on what a law means or how it applies, or to appear in court. Having a bar license, as a result, gives the profession a monopolistic chokehold on the giving of a wide range of services that virtually everyone needs at one point in their lives. It is that monopoly that gives lawyers an income and a level of job security unmatched by many other less protected service professions.

Because bar examinations are implemented by the 50 state bar organizations, each state's exam can differ moderately. I say "moderately" because there is a fairly standardized base of knowledge that all bar exams test on. That makes it significantly easier for an attorney who has passed the bar exam in, say, Utah, to pass the bar exam in California or New York or other states as well. We'll get more to that later when we discuss the content of the examination.

In short, if you want to be a lawyer and practice in a certain state, then you will probably have to take the bar exam of that state.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:38:18

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Content of the Bar Exam
So what is it like to take the bar exam? Well, let's break it down by category.

Preparation time. The earlier the better is my philosophy. While I was preparing for the bar exam, I was regularly telling people that it was the largest single academic effort that I had ever faced -- and I was saying that after 3 years of Yale Law School and 4 years as an undergraduate at Stanford. Most prep courses will try to make you study maybe 8 hours a day for two months prior to the exam. I know some people who have been able to prepare adequately for the same number of days, but for only 3-5 hours a day. My personal opinion is that you can study much more efficiently for the exam than many prep courses recommend, but I'll get to that later.

Structure. The exams differ state by state, but are roughly similar. Typically, the exam is broken into two or three days. One day is always devoted to multiple choice questions, and the other days are usually devoted to just essays, and sometimes some smaller multiple choice questions. The California exam, for example, is broken up as follows:

Multi-state Multiple Choice -- all on one day, 2 sessions of three hours each
General Essays -- split over two days, 2 sessions of three hours each
Performance Test Essays -- split over two days, 2 sessions of three hours each

What's that like in reality? Basically, a lot of people wake up bright and early and march down to the test center by 9 a.m. You enter a cavernous room that houses a thousand people or so, get your exam in front of you, and face dead silence and a blizzard of questions for three hours. You are then released for an hour lunch, and then you're back again for another intense three hours, after which you crawl back, exhausted, to wherever you came from to prepare for the next day. Doing that for two, even three days straight can be a real strain. That's why it's important to imitate test conditions in your preparations, and to toughen up your endurance. A lot of times it comes down less to how much knowledge you have, and more to how long you can endure the menacing scribble of pencils and a mind-numbing barrage of questions, under time pressure, for six hours a day.
Type of Questions. There are three types of questions: performance, multi-state, and essay. Various states may also have hybrids of these -- for example, little essays or little sets of multiple choice questions addressing specific topics. There are two types of topics that each type of question can address -- multi-state or state-specific. Multi-state questions test the subject matter that every bar exam test taker across the entire country has to study. Every exam in the country will, for example, give you two sessions of three hours each of multi-state multiple choice questions. The multi-state subject areas are:

Contracts
Torts
Constitutional Law
Sales (an affiliate of Contracts)
Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
Evidence
Real Property
That's kind of nice, in that one third to one half of every exam in the country is basically the same, based on the same material and in the same format. In California, the proportion was roughly one half -- the actual proportion is probably different from year to year -- because 2 of the 6 sessions were entirely devoted to multi-state questions, and 2 of the six sessions were devoted to General Essays (see above) that could be on either multi-state or state-specific topics. Put another way, in California, since the last two sessions -- the Performance test -- were not based on knowledge of either multi-state or state-specific law, you could just have multi-state knowledge in your head and still be fully prepared for five sixths of the exam. It's a nice uniformity across the nation that can prove helpful if, for example, you need to take the bar exam for more than one state. It also greatly simplifies your studying efforts, and helps you focus if you are running out of preparation time.
State-specific questions, on the other hand, test the law that, as the title implies, are specific to your state. This subject matter, naturally, differs often -- but not always -- from state to state. Below I've listed the state-specific subjects for the California bar exam. Many of those subjects, though with different content, are what appear on other bar exams as well:

Civil Procedure
Professional Responsibility
Remedies
Trusts
Wills
Community Property
Corporate Law
Lastly, there's the Performance exams which only some states, like California, administer. The nice thing about Performance exam questions is that you don't need any knowledge of any substantive law to get a perfect score. All of the law that is required -- usually it's made up law -- is provided in the materials of the exam. What these exams test is how well you can deal with a mixture of facts, case law (i.e. court opinions), and statutes to come up with a legal solution to a fake legal problem. If you have some sense of how case law, statutes, and facts interact with one another -- one of the basic tenets of legal education in law school -- then these sections will be a cake walk. For sure, you'll want to familiarize yourself with sample questions and maybe take a practice exam, but if you feel good on one fake one, you probably will do fine on the actual exam. I literally did one practice exam for 2 hours and that was the total extent of my preparation for this part of the test. My advice: definitely prepare for it a little, but otherwise devote your attention to the other sections. I'll get more into suggested tactics for the exam later.

So that's it for the different types of law to study. It looks kind of long and intimidating, doesn't it? I remember when I saw long lists of subjects as I provided above, my stomach churned and I thought, oh man, this is why people curse this test and why preparation is such a painful experience. It doesn't have to quite be that way, though.

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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:38:36

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Things to Do Before the Exam
Here's a little checklist of things to do as much as six months or more before the date of the bar exam:

When and where is the bar exam? Since you're using this site, I am assuming that you have ready access to an Internet connection. If you haven't already done so, go to the web site of the state bar of the state you wish to practice in, and order all the necessary materials. Typically, the bar exam takes place twice a year, and you want to sign up and make your payments well in advance if possible. Upon receiving your materials, you'll also get a sense of where the test location is.

File your Application of Moral Determination. This typically will come in your initial bar exam packet. It's a big sheaf of papers that will try to track down where you've been and what you've done for the past decade or more. You'll also have to find friends who are willing to vouch for your morality. It's important to file this as soon as possible, because it can take quite some time to process -- anywhere between a couple of months to a year. It's nice to do so that you can get your bar license as soon as possible following passage of the bar examination.

Reserve a hotel location near the test site. This is pretty important. The bar exam is two to three days long and is quite gruelling as well as psychologically stressful. The last thing you want to do is to be caught in traffic on the way to the test center, or in a grimy hotel near a busy intersection where sleeping is a wish rather than a reality. Hotels and motels near the test center fill up REALLY fast, so try to book as early as possible. 4-6 months early is not too early at all. Ideally, you would get a hotel or motel that is right across the street or a very short stroll from the test center. It is important, too, to scout out the area well before the exam -- note where the center and hotel are, where various eateries are, and so on. The main idea here is: you have enough stress to deal with in dealing with the test. So that you are focusing 110% on the exam, you want to do all you can to eliminate unexpected little developments that may frustrate you or distract you even a little.

Get your law degree and finish up all remaining coursework. Some law students don't finish up all their coursework or have a paper or two to finish up before formally getting their law degree. Make sure to finish everything and receive your J.D. prior to signing up for the bar exam. Some states, like California, require that the J.D. be in your hands prior to taking the test.

Sign up for bar exam preparation courses. I have my problems with these courses, but sometimes the materials are useful, even if the half-day lectures are not. Still, if you have the cash to burn, or better yet, if your future employer has already agreed to pay the expenses of the class, then by all means sign up. The most prominent bar preparation course is BARBRI, and another one that has gotten decent reviews is PMBR, which prepares you solely for the multi-state portion of the exam.

OK, so you've handled all the preliminary stuff. But the main question is: how do I prepare for this monstrous exam? That's what I'll get to next.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:38:51

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Key Preparation Concepts
So how do you tackle this exam? I feel that I've devised a method that works wonders. Unlike many of the methods supported by the big bar preparation programs, mine is cheap and efficient. It runs along the following premises:

Don't study to acquire knowledge, study to beat the exam. A lot of the test prep courses make you sit for hours in a lecture hall, listening to a blizzard of concepts. I think my course wanted me to sit there for four hours a day. But this isn't law school anymore -- sitting around, listening to long lists of facts just isn't helpful. That's because sitting around and listening to lists of facts trains you in regurgitating long lists of facts or describing a certain field of law in general. But the exam doesn't test that. It tests your ability to spot issues, know a very limited number of legal rules, and apply them.
The actual amount of knowledge you need is pretty limited. A lot of the bar exam courses make you listen to hours and hours of lectures or tapes, and read books that double as bedroom doors. But in preparing for my exam, I reduced my study materials to 15 roughly 10 page outlines. So why don't all the bar prep courses just give you the outlines that we inevitably are forced to create anyways to condense all that awful material? Well, then they couldn't justify a cost for their courses that range from $500-$2500, could they?
Practice makes perfect. You don't want to study lists of law for too long. Outlines are a perfect starting point, they give you at least a basic framework to start with. Then the goal is to spend 90% of your time applying that knowledge. You'll do very badly at first, but that's alright. You'll do well by the end.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:39:13

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Study Schedule
I've included a study plan below. It's basically identical to the one I used to prepare for the California bar exam, reportedly the most difficult one (as judged by passage rates) of all the exams in the nation. To commit to this study plan, you need to stick to it two months in advance of the actual examination.


LEGEND
MS = Multistate
S = State-specific (S and a number refers to separate state-specific subject areas)

WEEK ONE

Day One. REVIEW MS CON LAW, DO 50 MS CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Two. DO 100 MS CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Three. REVIEW MS CONTRACTS, DO 50 MS CONTRACTS QUESTIONS
Day Four. DO 100 MS CONTRACTS QUESTIONS
Day Five. REVIEW MS CRIM, DO 50 MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Six. DO 100 MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Seven. REVIEW MS EVIDENCE, DO 50 MS EVIDENCE QUESTIONS

WEEK TWO

Day One. DO 100 MS EVIDENCE QUESTIONS
Day Two. REVIEW MS PROPERTY, DO 50 MS PROPERTY QUESTIONS
Day Three. DO 100 MS PROPERTY QUESTIONS
Day Four. REVIEW MS TORTS, DO 50 MS TORTS QUESTIONS
Day Five. DO 100 MS TORTS QUESTIONS
Day Six. DO 100 MS CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Seven. DO 100 MS CON LAW QUESTIONS

WEEK THREE

Day One. DO 100 MS CONTRACTS QUESTIONS
Day Two. DO 100 MS CONTRACTS QUESTIONS
Day Three. DO 100 MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Four. DO 100 MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Five. DO 100 MS EVIDENCE QUESTIONS
Day Six. DO 100 MS EVIDENCE QUESTIONS
Day Seven. DO 100 MS PROPERTY QUESTIONS

WEEK FOUR

Day One. DO 100 MS PROPERTY QUESTIONS
Day Two. DO 100 MS TORTS QUESTIONS
Day Three. DO 100 MS TORTS QUESTIONS
Day Four. DO 100 QUESTIONS OF A WEAK MS TOPIC
Day Five. DO 100 QUESTIONS OF A WEAK MS TOPIC
Day Six. DO 100 QUESTIONS OF A WEAK MS TOPIC
Day Seven. TAKE A FULL PRACTICE EXAM

WEEK FIVE

Day One. TAKE A PERFORMANCE EXAM
Day Two. REVIEW S1 AND ANSWER S1 QUESTIONS
Day Three. REVIEW S2 AND ANSWER S2 QUESTIONS
Day Four. REVIEW S3 AND ANSWER S3 QUESTIONS
Day Five. REVIEW S4 AND ANSWER S4 QUESTIONS
Day Six. REVIEW S5 AND ANSWER S5 QUESTIONS
Day Seven. REVIEW S6 AND ANSWER S6 QUESTIONS

WEEK SIX

Day One. REVIEW S7 AND ANSWER S7 QUESTIONS
Day Two. REVIEW MS CON LAW AND ANSWER MS CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Three. REVIEW MS CONTRACTS AND ANSWER MS CONTRACTS QUESTIONS
Day Four. REVIEW MS CRIM AND ANSWER MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Five. REVIEW MS EVIDENCE AND ANSWER MS EVIDENCE QUESTIONS
Day Six. REVIEW MS PROPERTY AND ANSWER MS PROPERTY QUESTIONS
Day Seven. REVIEW MS TORTS AND ANSWER MS TORTS QUESTIONS

WEEK SEVEN

Day One. ANSWER S1 AND S2 QUESTIONS
Day Two. ANSWER S3 AND S4 QUESTIONS
Day Three. ANSWER S5 AND S6 QUESTIONS
Day Four. ANSWER S7 AND CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Five. ANSWER MS CONTRACTS AND MS CRIM QUESTIONS
Day Six. ANSWER MS EVIDENCE AND PROPERTY QUESTIONS
Day Seven. AMSWER MS TORTS QUESTIONS

WEEK EIGHT

Day One. ANSWER S1, S2, S3, S4 QUESTIONS
Day Two. ANSWER S5, S6, S7 AND MS CON LAW QUESTIONS
Day Three. ANSWER MS CONTRACTS, CRIM AND EVIDENCE QUESTIONS
Day Four. ANSWER MS PROPERTY, TORTS QUESTIONS
Day Five. REVIEW OUTLINES AND REENFORCE
Day Six. REVIEW OUTLINES AND REENFORCE
Day Seven. REVIEW OUTLINES AND REENFORCE

So what does all that goobley-gook mean?
Here's a quick rundown of what the sentences above refer to. Later, I'll flesh out in detail how to carry out each recommendation. A lot of the later pages will draw upon some study techniques that I have developed throughout my life, in addition to techniques I developed specifically for the bar exam.

WEEKS ONE TO FOUR: REVIEW MS [SUBJECT]
This means to review and absorb the contents of a decent outline on the subject, such as the ones sold at this site. I offer some techniques on how to do this later.

WEEKS ONE TO FOUR: DO # MS [SUBJECT] QUESTIONS
This means to take multiple-choice questions under test conditions, to grade your score, and take the lessons from your errors and reintegrate the into your outline. You can acquire the mutiple choice questions from BARBRI, PMBR, e-bay (where BARBRI AND PMBR materials are sold super-cheap) and the State Bar Associations.

WEEK FOUR: TAKE A FULL PRACTICE EXAM
This means to take a full-length 6 hour examination (2 sessions of 3 hours each), in which you tackle 200 questions total. You can get full-length multi-state tests from the above providers as well.

WEEK FIVE: TAKE A PERFORMANCE EXAM
This means to take a full-length Performance Exam, if such an exam exists in your state. Take it in real-time conditions so that you are acclimated to them. You won't need to prepare much more for this part of the exam.

WEEKS FIVE TO EIGHT: REVIEW [SUBJECT]
This means to carefully review the subject-specific outline (offered for California subjects on this site).

WEEKS FIVE TO EIGHT: ANSWER [SUBJECT] QUESTIONS
This means to test yourself against questions that can be acquired from the same providers listed above. Typically, you should have a stack of about 6-15 essay questions for every subject on the test. The idea is to take on the first question, try your best at writing up an outline, and then checking your answers against the answer key. I'll talk more about how to prepare on the following pages.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:39:27

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Multiple Choice Preparation

Reviewing the Outlines.

The first thing to do is to get your hands on some good outlines. Many are available on this site; you can also construct your own from whatever study materials you may have from BARBRI or some other preparation course.

The good thing about outlines is that they lay out the main issues for each of the main topics within each subject. In a good outline, these issues will be listed out, with simple definitions. That's exactly what you want, because that's exactly what you will want to memorize for the exam. Not every exception or every detail, but the main points.

So let's say you have a solid outline. How do you study? I would find a quiet place that isn't distracting. Lying on your bed is not a good idea. Sitting at a desk that shares a computer chock full of distracting computer games is not a good idea. Hungry people studying next to full refrigerators is not a good idea. I would recommend your law school library, or a public library where you can concentrate and isolate yourself for a decent period of time.

Then, read through the outline once and make sure you understand generally what they are talking about. If you don't understand a section at first glance, read it again carefully and, if necessary, seek outside source materials to figure the lessons of that section out.

Now, go through the outline slowly, section at a time, and test yourself. How do you do this? First read through a section, which will probably test some concepts. Then, push the outline out of eyesight and either by scrawling on a sheet of paper, or just by talking to yourself, list out what you just learned. Give it your very best shot, and write out everything you can remember. Pretend as if you are taking an exam or something. If you given it your best go but some elements are still missing, then go back to the outline and correct yourself. Then, act as if you're taking a mini-exam again, and try again. Try and try again until you can explain the concept to an imaginary and ignorant person, or when you can write it out completely in a tiny but intelligible outline.

So, for example, let's say you're running through your Torts outline, and you come up against a section that says the following:

ASSAULT: The requirements of Assault are:"

cause apprehension of harmful or offensive contact
action; not mere words
appearance, not reality of ability to harm/offend
immediacy -- cannot be a threat from the future
After looking, at the section, you might say the following to yourself, as if explaining it to a friend: "OK, so to be held guilty of assault, you need to pass four tests. First of all, the guy's action has to cause apprehension, a fear of harmful or offensive contact. Secondly, there has to be an action -- you can't just yell bad language. Third, there only has to be the appearance of harm -- it doesn't matter if the guy wasn't able to really harm you or not. And lastly, the threatened harm has to be immeidate -- you can't threaten to harm someone tomorrow or some day in the future, and be guilty of assault." Then you can move on to the next section.

This seems like a funny way to study. So why is it effective? The main idea is to optimize your mind for taking the bar exam. On the bar exam, you might face a question -- either essay or multiple choice -- that you can identify as having something to do with assault. So what will you need to do in the few seconds you have to analyze and answer the question? Your mind will have to do just what the above paragraph was describing -- it will have to quickly and sharply pull out the important elements. In other words, by training in this way, you are sharpening your mind by duplicating a mental process that you will undergo when you are actually taking the examination.

Don't worry about being able to regurgitate the entire outline when you've finished moving through it, section by section. That will come naturally in time. Going through it, section by section, with each section becoming a mini-pop quiz, just once should be sufficient, twice if you want to be really sure. Again, this memorization part is essential in that it provides you with an essential base of knowledge -- but the meat of the training comes in actually answering questions.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:39:40

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Multiple Choice Preparation

Taking On the Practice Questions

In my study schedule, I then recommend that you tackle 50 or 100 multiple choice questions. These can be acquired from e-bay if you want to save money (people are always on there selling used materials from bar prep courses). You can also often acquire past examinations and answer keys from the state bar associations themselves. And if you are taking BARBRI or some other bar prep course, then you'll have no problem -- they give you plenty of sample questions to look at.

On the actual bar exam, you'll have to answer 100 questions for every 3 hours of the exam. That 1.8 minutes per question, or about 1 minute and 48 seconds per multiple choice question.

I recommend that you take the questions in 50 question chunks. Pick out 50 questions from your materials, and put yourself again in an isolated, extremely quiet environment. Set your timer -- give yourself exactly 90 minutes for those questions. Then go at it, and do as well as you possibly can. Act as if this is an actual exam, try to score as high as you possibly can.

In your first few exams, you are going to do miserably. But that's OK. Questions will look familiar, but you'll get lost in the tricky detailed differences between answer choices. You might only get 10-30% correct in your first go. Don't worry about it. That's OK.

After you finish the exam, correct it and record the % amount that you got right. Keep this number -- it will be crucial later when determining what areas you're strong in and what areas you're weak in, and thus where to devote any excess study time that you have.

Then, go to the answer key and examine each question, both the ones you got right and the ones that you got wrong. Make sure that you understand how you got question wrong. Was it because the answers were slightly but meaningfully different from one another? Was it because you read the question wrong? Or did you just not know a certain concept?

If there are new facts or things that you learned from answering the question, then by all means scribble a note to yourself. The best way to incorporate such lessons would be to draw an arrow and a small note on your outline. After a while, your outline will be the authoritative source of all of your collected knowledge about the exam.

I cannot overemphasize how important the above elements are. From very early on, you are training yourself for the exam. You are learning to see the types of questions that they ask, how you can be fooled by close answer choices, and the sort of detail that they demand from various parts of your outlines. Also, you're getting comfortable in general with the multiple choice format, both with regard to the technique and timing. It is much more important to spend time drilling yourself in these skills, rather than spending time listening to a dry voice in a classroom, or by reading through columns after column of fine print.

Taking the Full Exam and Improving Your Weak Areas


When you take your first 50 questions for any given subject, you'll probably get only 30-50% right. By your fourth set of fifty, hopefully you'll be scoring somewhere between 50% and 70%. Generally, on average, you want to be getting about 65%-70% of the questions right.

If after the fourth set of fifty you are still scoring below 60%, then spend some of the designated slots in the schedule on doing 100 more questions of that subject. Review your outlines carefully, be extra meticulous in writing down the reasons for your mistakes. Inevitably, your scores will rise.

If you follow my study plan, you'll have done more than 2,200 multiple choice questions. This should be sufficient to pass the exam, if you have done them thoroughly and conscientiously. Most people that I know who passed did about that many, sometimes a bit more, and sometimes a bit less.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:39:56

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Essay Preparation


Knowledge-wise, by week four or so you should be pretty strong in the multi-state subjects, so you'll have a head start on the essay portion of the exam, of which often half -- if not most -- focuses on multi-state subjects.

As for the state-specific subjects, the process by which you review your outlines is the same as it is for the multiple choice questions. Read the outlines carefully, figure out the language and make sure it is all clear and understandable at a glance. Then go slowly through each outline, section by section, testing your knowledge, creating mini pop-quizes for yourself with each section. Make sure you can pass all the pop-quizes and then you can move on to the essay questions themselves. Don't worry if by the time you finish up the outline, you can't pass all the pop-quizes that you set up for yourself at the beginning of your self-examination. That knowledge will come with time and with additional practice on the essay questions themselves.

Of course, your first question is probably: well, what are these essay questions like anyways? Typically the main essay questions present a series of facts, and then you are expected to recite various legal rules, then explain how the facts fit into those rules and what the legal outcome would be.

Here's an example of a typical essay question, shortened for the purposes of this example:

Bob is walking down the street one day when he confronts a young woman. The woman growls menacingly and says, "I'm going to kill you someday!" She then runs off. About three days later Bob is doing some gardening in his lawn and the woman sees him. She doesn't plan to actually injure him, but decides to scare him by running at him full speed and then swerving away when she came within 10 feet or so. Bob, however, sees her coming, and, in trying to evade the attack early, hits his head on a water sprinkler and injures himself severely. What causes of action are there against the woman by Bob?

A knowledgeable test-taker might look at this case and think, hmm, well, first of all this is a torts issue, because torts involves law suits by one person against another for some kind of injury.

Then you notice that the first encounter between Bob and the woman doesn't involve physical contact, but just a verbal threat. That comes closer to the issue of ASSAULT (Dont' worry if you don't understand these concepts right now, or how I'm coming up with them. Just take note of the thinking style.)

In the second encounter, the woman wants to scare and threaten Bob -- again, elements that possibly consitute an ASSAULT. She never actually hits him, but Bob, in attempting to get away, does experience physical injury. Physical injury tort claims caused by another usually have to do with BATTERY. (There are also other claims that should be brought in and talked about here, particularly NEGLIGENCE, but for the interests of brevity I won't explore it now.)

So we have two incidents, the first involving an ASSAULT analysis, the second involving an ASSAULT and BATTERY analysis. So we look inside of our head, and find the legal frameworks for ASSAULT and BATTERY. And here they are:

A claim of ASSAULT can be satisifed if the victim can show:

an act was committed that caused apprehension of harmful or offensive contact
assailant had an intent to cause the act
assailant caused the act
also: act cannot be mere words, it must be a real action
also: the physical threat need not be real, but can be fabricated
also: the threat must be immediate, not far in the future

A claim of BATTERY can be satisfied if the victim can show:
an act was committed that caused harmful contact to victim's property or person
assailant had an intent to cause the act
assailant had caused the act
Now, the test-taker would probably write a very quick 30 second outline to himself, that will go something like this:

I. FIRST ENCOUNTER
A. Claim: ASSAULT
1. The Law
a. Act that caused apprehension
b. Intent
c. Causation
2. Application
a. Act caused apprehension, but threat not immediate
b. Act just a voice, no action
c. Intent existed
d. Causation existed, but act insufficient

II. SECOND ENCOUNTER

A. Claim: ASSAULT
1. The Law -- same standard as above
2. Application
a. Act caused apprehension, immediate threat, accompanied by action
b. Effort to cause apprehension intended
c. Woman caused act
d. Conclusion -- guilty of assault

B. Claim: BATTERY
1. The Law
a. Act that caused harm
b. Intent
c. Causation
2. Application
a. Act did cause harm, indirectly, which is alright
b. No intent to cause harm or to touch
c. Woman indirectly caused harm
d. Conclusion -- not guilty of battery because touch not intended

As you can tell by looking at the outlines, the pattern is repetitive and pretty straight-forward. First, in your mind, you cut up the fact pattern of the question into little sections -- either subject matter sections, or in this case, into events.

Then, you remember the law that applies, and you remember the legal framework that governs that law. Finally, you apply the framework against the facts, and come out with a verdict.

So, based on those outlines, here is a sample answer. Notice how strongly it adheres to the outlines:

I. FIRST ENCOUNTER

A. ASSAULT

One could argue that in the first encounter, in which the woman threatened Bob with death, that the woman would be guilty of assault.

To be successful in a suit for assault, the plaintiff must prove three things. First, he must show that an act took place that caused immediate apprehension of harmful contact in the defendant. Second, he must show that the defendant had an intent to cause that act. Lastly, he must show that the defendant actually caused the act to take place.

If the plaintiff brings a suit for assault based on his first encounter with the woman, he will not be successful. The woman had an intent to make Bob afraid for his life, and he did indeed cause apprehension in Bob. The threat was entirely verbal, however, and was not really accompanied by a physical action. Furthermore, the threat was not immediate, as the woman said that she would kill him "tomorrow," as opposed to immediately.

II. SECOND ENCOUNTER

A. ASSAULT

Bob might also bring a claim for assault against the woman with regard to their second encounter. In this case he probably would be successful. The woman rushed at him, in other words engaging in a physical act that made him worry for his own safety. Unlike in the first example, the threat was immediate, as evidenced by Bob trying to leap to safety. And the woman clearly was the reason behind Bob's apprehension, and had intended to cause that apprehension in him. As a result, all the requirements of a successful assault claim have been met.

B. BATTERY


Bob might also bring a claim for battery against the woman. To satisfy a claim of battery, the plaintiff must show three things. First, he must demonstrate that harmful contact took place. Second, he must demonstrate that the contact was caused by the defendant, and that the defendant intended to cause that contact.

Under the above analysis, Bob would not be successful if he brought a suit for battery against the woman. Bob was harmed as a result of what the woman did. But the woman had no intent to touch Bob at all. As a result, she cannot be held liable for battery.

So that, in sum, is how the essay process works. First, read the essay. Second, figure out the legal framework. Write a tiny outline. And then write out the outline in words. The key, really, therefore, is to get to the outline stage, because after you have a decent outline, writing is a piece of cake. But how do you prepare for this kind of analysis? Check out the next section.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:40:12

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Essay Preparation


Preparing for the essays is easier than one would think. In its own way, it is actually quite a bit easier than preparing for the multi-state multiple choice questions, which occasionally can focus on little details that are easy to miss. But the essays are all about bigger picture issues, so above all want you want to get in your mind are the main concepts.

Another comforting aspect of the essays is that even if you get the law wrong, sometimes your analysis is just as or more important than the law. The State Bar Association of California, for example, have released sample answers that got the highest scores that actually have incorrect law within them. But the State Bar realizes that when you become the lawyer, you're not going to pulling the law out of your brain, but rather after looking it up in a book. Hence, minor mistakes in your knowlege of the law is not a huge problem. What they are primarily looking for is your ability to spot issues, and your ability to actually apply the law.

My recommended format for preparing for the essays is as follows: after you have carefully read through a subject outline as explained in previous pages, go again to a quiet place and stack up all the same essays and essay answers that you have for that subject. You should have at least 6-15 essays, which again can be retrieved from the State Bar Association itself, PMBR, BARBRI, or e-bay sales of books from those three entities.

Now pick up the first essay. Act as if you are taking an examination. Give yourself 15 minutes to read the essay carefully, and 5 minutes to prepare an outline. Really try your best, don't give in to a temptation to immediately look at the answers. When you've given it your best shot -- the kind of full shot that you would give a question on the actual exam -- then look at the answers.

Now look at the answers very carefully. If you see a bit of law or perspectives on the law in there that you didn't understand before, add appropriate notes to your outlines. Make sure you understand what you missed the first time around and how.

Now, immediately, take your fake little self-test again. Give yourself 20 minutes as described above, and see if you can answer the essay question and outline an answer with as much detail as the sample answers. You'll probably fail, even though you just looked at the answers, because there is just too much information. Just try your best.

Rinse, wash, and repeat. Keep doing this until you can quickly write out a more or less accurate outline that includes all the points in the model answer. Then move on to the next question, and pursue the same approach.

Again, the strength of this approach is that you are constantly honing your ability to face a fact pattern, address issues that come up, sketch out outlines as quickly as can be and formulate an answer.

Once you get to Week Five and Week Six, you should be timing yourself to meet the tough standard of the actual exam. Typically, for a three hour period they'll give you three essays (although this may differ from state to state). So for each essay they will give you one hour. Plan to read the essay question in 5 minutes and to outline it in 10 minutes. You will also want to write out your essays a couple times too, to get used to that feeling. When you do that, do it in three hour sprints of three essays, just as in the exam itself.

After a while, and certainly by Week Six, you should be using your essay questions like large flash cards. Scramble them up, and then toss a question at yourself. Read it quickly, then whip out the outline in 5 minutes, and then go to the next question, and the next one.

You may worry that you are cheating, because you are just looking over the same questions over and over. In a way, of course, that is true. But the good thing is that you are learning the raw ability to spot check, to work under time pressure, and to construct frameworks with great speed. If you have 10 essays in your hands, all focusing on the same subject area, then it is unlikely that the actual bar exam will test an issue that you haven't challenged yourself with already. There may be a different fact pattern -- for exam, Bob might be an old granny, and he might have been hit by a truck rather than indirectly -- but the general issues will probably be similar, be it negligence, assault, battery, trespass or whatever. If you can whip through 13 subject areas or so, multi-state and state-specific, and quickly write up excellent outlines in five minutes for the 6-15 samples questions that you have for each subject area, then you will be well prepared for the bar exam. That's exactly the standard that I used for myself, and I found it highly successful, as well as psychologically comforting.


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-- 作者：totoo
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 6:40:29

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Performance Exam


Depending on the state, some takers have to face performance exams. These exams were introduced because of concerns that lawyers were too book-wormish, and were poor at actually applying the law in real-life situations. The Performance Exam's goal is to simulate a case and a legal challenge for the budding would-be attorney.

With a Performance Exam, you typically get 3 types of materials: the main question, a collection of court cases and statutes, and a collection of clippings, interviews, and articles.

The idea is to read the question and to see what kind of issue the client is raising in this part of the exam; to read the laws/statutes and know what the controlling legal framework is; and then to read the facts, apply the laws and come out with a conclusion.

Does this structure sound familiar? It should -- because it is pretty much the same structure that I recommended for the essays. If anything, your task here is a bit easier, because you can't feel guilty for not memorizing enough law to get you through the exam. With the Performance Exam, the law is all there in front of you.

As I said before, the Performance Exam is not terribly difficult. It's just a matter of organizing your essay correctly, and for guidance on that just reread the previous section on essay writing. In preparing for the California Bar Exam, I just took one full length Performance Exam -- for the California exam, that's two tests that last 6 hours total -- and that was pretty much the end of my preparation. Doing the Performance Exam helped me know what to expect, and gave me a lot of psychological comfort, as well as helped me with my timing and so on. That should be enough preparation for you as well. It may be helpful, however to keep the following points in mind:

Read the question carefully. One of the easiest way not to do well on this part of the exam and lose some free points is to answer a question that they never asked, or not to answer a question that they did ask. Of your three hours, take a full hour to prepare and outline your answer. Of that hour, spend a good 10 minutes reading the question and making sure you got everything that they wanted.

Watch your timing. Spend perhaps one hour in preparing your essay, and two hours writing. It may seem strange to prepare for a full hour, but once you have your outline down pat -- including notes on EVERYTHING that you need for a complete answer -- you're golden. If you focus too much, too early on words and sentence structure, you may in your haste miss some important parts or forget part of the question. Plan carefully, then execute when you're ready.

Take good, readable notes on the statutes and case law. The case law and statutes that you are given can run quite a few pages. It will be a huge waste of time if you are caught fumbling through pages, searching for that legal rule that you saw "somewhere." Write solid notes on a blank piece of paper, highlighting major rules, and also page number references so you can go back and grab quotes or further details as necessary.

So that's the Performance Exam -- not too challenging, but sometimes exhausting, because, as in Calfornia, this section can last as long as six hours. That's where the utility of the practice exam comes in -- so both mentally and physically, you'll know what to expect.


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-- 作者：icelaw
-- 发布时间：2003-1-14 10:11:50

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版主真好：）
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-- 作者：香蕉
-- 发布时间：2003-1-15 6:15:20

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多谢了

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原作者：TOTOO网友
来 源：TOTOOLAW【美国版】
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