The saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If you took the July California bar exam and were unsuccessful, you may have recently received your blue books with your answers. Though looking at your blue books may be the last thing on your mind, preparing to take the next exam without doing a thorough review of your answers from the previous exam would, in my opinion, be “insane.” One of the best ways to improve your chances of passing the next California bar exam is to review your answers (either review them yourself or have someone else do it), figure out what you did wrong, and eliminate those mistakes moving forward.

---

When you open up the blue books, you may be surprised to find that there is not a mark on them – no comments or critique – leading you to ask, “How do I know what I did wrong so that I don’t make the same mistake this time around?”

---

In the next few days, the bar examiners will be publishing two student answers on their website for each essay question and performance test. The published answers are not sample answers. They will have errors and mistakes, but in the opinion of the examiners, they were passing answers. By comparing your answers to the released sample student answers, you can surmise where you made mistakes and work on eliminating them as you prepare for the next exam.

Below is a 5-step plan to self-critique your answers:

1. Does my answer have all (or most) of the issues discussed in the released answers? If not, why didn’t I address every issue? Did I misread the question or did I not spot the issue being tested?
2. If my answer has the relevant issues, do I have the correct rule statement for each issue? If not, did I make up something reasonable and analyze based on the rule that I stated?
3. Does my answer apply the relevant facts similar to the way the released answers do? Did I use most of the facts provided? Does my answer spend the same amount of time discussing an issue as the released answer? For example, does my answer have only a paragraph for an issue that the released answer spends a full page discussing? (Tip: When you use a fact in your answer, cross it out in the fact pattern; by the end of your analysis, most—if not all–of the facts should be crossed out. This ensures you didn’t overlook something.)
4. Does my conclusion answer the question being asked in the interrogatory? Did I get the right conclusion? If not, is my conclusion nonetheless supported by the factual analysis?
5. Catch-all: Is my answer “readable” to the grader? Did I use headings, underlining, etc., to make it easy for the grader to see that I spotted the relevant issues, rules, and key facts? Do I use short paragraphs? If hand-writing the exam, is my writing legible? Remember, you can have a complete answer, but if you do not make the grader’s job easy, he or she may not be able to read it thoroughly, which makes it much harder to get a passing score.

If you have any questions or would like us to evaluate your blue books from the July exam, please email [email protected] or click the following link to use a form: https://docs.google.com/a/themisbar.com/forms/d/1aB_hnfTJlGsxt8Bfco-0w_qNMQ6JlfnD8vbinn3GE1E/viewform

Good luck on the bar exam!