Certainty in PT - Here the Rules Control Everything

If you remember, for essay questions, the facts control everything—they determine which issues are triggered, how analysis is conducted, what facts trigger major issues indispensable for passing, what facts trigger minor issues, bringing "plus" grades on top of the major issues, how thorough the analysis of a particular issue should be conducted, and which form of IRAC is appropriate for the facts given. In the realm of Performance Tests, it is the rules that control everything.

Yes, for a PT question, we need to know the tone of writing being persuasive or objective; yes, we need to know who we are speaking as and who we are speaking to for the task given; yes, we need to decide the format for the header being an office memo, appellate brief, or else; yes, we need to find out the way to frame the main issue(s) in the right tone for the task; and yes, we should read the Library first before reading the Files...

These are the standard teachings of a PT workshop run in-house by law schools or a commercial bar review company. While these are all correct and necessary, they are not sufficient in directing a student in knowing what issues are triggered, what issues are major issues that are indispensable for passing, what facts trigger minor issues, bringing "plus" grades on top of the major issues; how thorough the analysis for a particular issue should be conducted, and which forms of IRAC is appropriate for the facts given... Looks familiar? Yes, a passing and high passing grade of PT requires a student/examinee to answer the same questions and make the same decisions on the Bar Exam as the essay questions. As both constitute the written portion of the California Bar Exam, the same quality and grading points in the legal analysis are sought in both. Granted, there are some particularities with PT that are different than essays, but the way we approach them for grades share more commonalities than differences.

In terms of the difference, we all know that there is one difference between essays and PT on the Bar Exam - the rules in essay questions are the substantive doctrinal laws we study very hard in law school, which we must know by heart before sitting for the exam, while the rules in PT are handed to us during the exam. What is not shown and not familiar by a law school graduate is how the rules in a PT decide - guess what - what issues are triggered, what issues are major issues that are indispensable for passing, what facts trigger minor issues bringing "plus" grades on top of the major issues; how thorough the analysis for a particular issue should be conducted, and which forms of IRAC is appropriate for the facts given...

The most crucial thing in solving the PT task right and in passing and high passing is to have a complete set of rules presented in the answer sheet - knowing how to correctly and completely "mine the rules" in a PT question is the number one determining factor influencing your PT grade. When students mine the laws correctly and completely, they know how the analysis should be "spread out" in solving the given task and how the writing should be unfolded, covering all the major checking points for a passing and high passing grade.

Another way to put it: the rules guide students into the actions and choices they make on the Bar Exam every step along the way. This guidance is the certainty the Sytstem provides to PT. When you have the rules "mined" correctly, you have the structure of your analysis set up on the answering sheet - you have determined all the corresponding issues and their respective importance. The job after that becomes clear: to fill your structure with analytical contents - you know by then what facts in the Files matter and matter the most; you know under which issue you should assign facts that support or weaken your ground as required by the task. There are efficient methods of tracking them in the System while you read the Files and when you write your analysis. You will be shown.

Once you have the rules properly "mined," you are set up on the course for passing and high passing.