In case you did not know, the bar exams will be taken by thousands of examinees. More or less, 6800 aspiring lawyers take the bar examinations every year. This number is very big when you are talking about the Bar. Why? The examination is written essay and only one examiner for each subject checks the examination notebooks of examinees. Hence, there is a necessity to write a brief, logical and complete bar exam answers.
What does “brief” answer mean?
It does not mean one sentence, nor three sentences only.
“Brief” answers in the bar does not mean that you need to write only a one-sentence answer. According to Judge Doctor, our Professor in the College of Law for Political Law Review class:
“Brief” answer does not mean that your answer must be so short that in doing so, it is as though you have no answers at all. “Brief” answer means that you write direct to the point answers. Whenever you are confronted with a question, the answer must be responsive in order to be direct to the point. Hence, any answer which is not direct to the point can never be brief because it will always go around the bush.”
According to Atty. Amora, our Professor also in the College of Law for Civil Law Review class, exam answer must not be too long. Answers must always be kept short. “Dapat si-ak”, said by Atty. Amora. In my own understanding of his statement, “dapat si-ak” – referring to the Boholano context of chopping wood using an axe where every blow must cause the firewood to break - which if connected to the study in law means that every time you throw[write] a statement in the examination notebook, ALL MUST BE SIGNIFICANT AND MUST REVOLVE ON THE APPLICABLE LAWS in relation to the issues of the case. Therefore, every statement must not be useless. Any statement which solicits doctrines and laws or solicits ideas which are not applicable to the case are therefore garbage.
For example:
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Question: Is there rape committed by a man having sexual intercourse through force with a gay who underwent sexual reassignment?
Answer:
None. Under the law, rape, in first form, is committed by a man who shall have carnal knowledge of a WOMAN either by force, threat, or intimidation as among others.
It is crystal clear that a gay (man) cannot be a victim under the first form of rape which requires sexual commerce with a WOMAN even if attended by force, threat, or intimidation.
Even assuming that a person had sexual transplant to have that genital of a woman, the law cannot admit of extended application for those persons. Penal laws are ought to be interpreted strictly against the state and liberally in favor of the accused. Thus, a person's act should not be brought into the hands of the law when it is not clearly within them. Where the law requires gender as an element of the crime, it must be so established for the crime to be committed.
However, the person who had sexual intercourse with a gay(man) can be held liable for rape thru sexual assault, the second form of rape. Under the law, sexual assault is committed by any person inserting his penis into another person's mouth or anal orifice or any instrument into the genital or anal orifice of another person attended by force, threat, or intimidation as among others.
In here, the man who inserted his penis into the genital of the gay can be said to have inserted an instrument or object which is his very organ. In one case, SC ruled that finger is an object. There is no cogent reason to rule that penis is not an object when the SC has held that object does not necessarily purport to be an inanimate object but can also be part of the body of a person.
Moreover, whenever a person is charged of rape thru sexual intercourse, he cannot be convicted of rape in the second form if the same is established instead of the crime charged.
Rape thru sexual assault is not inherent in the first form. At most, the accused can only be convicted of acts of lasciviousness, a crime inherent in both cases.
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Notice that the above suggested answer is quite long. The question calls only for the discussion of the first form of rape, yet the answer discusses further about the rape in the second form. This in a way solicits further a law or idea which is no longer required by the examiner.
Solicitation of doctrines, laws, or ideas which are not part of the questions nor the issues of the case violate the basic instructions in the Bar Examination. It is not allowed in the actual bar exam.
How to write logical answer?
Follow simple rules in logic –
Position
Major premise
Minor premise
Conclusion
Responsive Answer
Legal Basis
Analysis to the facts
Conclusion
Answers which follows the above logic are usually the ones which are complete.
Should answers be written in paragraphs or can it be written in a single paragraph?
There are those who passed the bar using the three-paragraph rule and there are those who used single paragraph in writing their examination answers.
The beauty, may be, in using paragraphs in writing answers is that it becomes easy for the examiners to read the exam notebooks and easy for him to identify your responsive answer, discussion of the law, analysis to the facts, and conclusion.
Above anything else, you must understand that the Supreme Court does not require nor provide for the exact form as to how bar exam answers should be written. Hence, it is all up to the examinees how to approach the Bar Examinations.
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