You’ve studied hard. You’ve learned techniques for the MBE, for the essays, and for the performance tests. You have outlines, flash cards, mnemonics, and checklists. You’re prepped, you’re ready. It’s go time.
But there’s a secret weapon you can hold in reserve. You can’t memorize everything. You can’t guarantee that you won’t get thrown for a loop. So you need something that will get you through those times when your memory is shot and your training abandons you. Contrary to popular wisdom, that secret weapon is common sense.
When your studying and systems and tactics abandon you, the urge is to grasp at straws for any little slice of information that you can get down on paper and build an answer around. What happens then is you pigeonhole an answer into a category it doesn’t really belong in. This is a very big problem if your studying is stuck at Level 2.
But at least spend a minute thinking what common sense would dictate. Generally, the law is designed around outcomes, so often what seems logical, what seems right is often the correct answer. But law school teaches you to look for the exceptions. So you end up out thinking yourself and get lead down a path when the answer is staring you right in the face.
Remember, the bar exam is about minimal competency. The idea is not to create the most complicated and elegant answer you can. The idea is to amass points. So when you’re faced with a question that stumps you, dumb it down. Just right a logical answer based on common sense and defend it the best you can. You’ll save organization points because the answer will tie itself together better. It’s also better to take the likely chance at 60% of the points than take a wild stab at 90%.
So don’t let basic logic and common sense get pushed aside in the bar exam. They are useful allies, no matter what law school taught you. And when the chips are down and you’re stuck, it might just be the secret weapon that gets you through the bar exam.
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