Breadcrumbs

It is a given that facts in the essay questions trigger issues in answering the questions asked, and some facts matter more than others. The facts that matter can be seen as the "breadcrumbs" left intentionally by the Bar Examiners because they are the Bar Examiner's way of telling us what they are testing and what issues they are looking for in answering analyses during grading.

If we look closer, though, there are some practical and critical dimensions to applying this general understanding to our writings on the Bar Exam and turning it into an actual passing or a high passing score.

We must recognize what specific facts are "breadcrumbs" because not all facts count. In addition, We need to distinguish which "breadcrumbs" matter the most and which matter the least on a scale. They correspond to the major issues and the minor ones, respectively. They decide how much time we will spend on an issue and the depth and specific "form of analysis" we treat them respectively. The major issues are the ones we cannot afford to miss for a passing grade under the very limited time resource available. The minor ones may swing the grades above the passing line as it may influence the grader's impression of the quality of our writing, provided we have already done some analysis for the major issues that make the passing possible.

Furthermore, we need a system to quickly recognize each of them and their degree of importance again, even during a quick scan later when we are about to start analyzing. They need to be readily available and jump out of the page when needed during the writing in the analysis stage. Much of the grade comes from how we used those "breadcrumbs" in the analysis to answer the questions. Much of the success and smoothness come from the extent to which we spend the right amount of time on the right issues in the analyses.

It prepares us well for bar writing if we are trained with a system where we can do all the above effectively, efficiently, and stay consistently effectively and efficiently, across subjects, streamlined, and with minimal arbitrary speculations possible, under realistic exam conditions and pressure.