Sean Silverman is an attorney and teacher who has prepared numerous students for the MBE, both in person in New York, as well as over Skype for those located outside of New York. For an indication as to his teaching style, visit his website at http://www.mbetutorial.blogspot.com. And while there, feel free to submit a question. If interested in receiving tutoring, feel free to contact him at ssilver0210@hotmail.com.
In a previous post, I offered my advice regarding a general approach to studying for the MBE. In this post, I will review a specific concept that many students find to be difficult when preparing for the exam. The topic is character evidence in criminal cases, and the rule to consult is in article IV of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
When studying evidence, you should first ensure that you have a clear understanding of the general rules before tackling the exceptions. As such, let’s review rule 404. That rule states that evidence of a person’s character is not admissible for the purpose of proving that he acted in conformity therewith on a particular occasion.
Now, for the exceptions in criminal cases: The defendant (or accused) can present evidence of his/her own good character (provided that it is a pertinent character trait), in an effort to prove that he acted in conformity with that trait on a particular occasion. The defendant also can introduce evidence of a pertinent character trait of the alleged victim in an effort to prove that the alleged victim acted in conformity with that trait on a particular occasion. In either of these two situations, the door is open for the prosecution to offer evidence rebutting the evidence offered by the defense.
The prosecution is also able to offer character evidence of peacefulness of the alleged victim in a homicide case to rebut evidence that the alleged victim was the first aggressor.
Evidence of the character of a witness can also be introduced for impeachment purposes, but when studying these rules, it is best to keep these topics separated for practical purposes. Rules regarding impeachment can be found in Article VI of the code.
Finally, you should note that although the general rule (see above) prevents evidence from being offered for the purpose of proving that a person acted in conformity with a particular character trait, that same evidence may be admissible for other purposes such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake/accident. This rule exemplifies the importance of focusing not only upon what evidence is being presented, but WHY or for what purpose) the evidence is being presented.
I hope you’ve found this short summary to be helpful. I intend on posting further “breakdowns” in the future; so please feel free to post requests in the comments!
Sean Silverman is an attorney and teacher who has prepared numerous students for the MBE, both in person in New York, as well as over Skype for those located outside of New York. For an indication as to his teaching style, visit his website at http://www.mbetutorial.blogspot.com. And while there, feel free to submit a question. If interested in receiving tutoring, feel free to contact him at ssilver0210@hotmail.com.
The MBE is an overwhelming test. It’s overwhelming both physically, and psychologically. Discovering the proper approach to taking in, and learning, the large amount of information necessary to do well on the exam, is essential for success. When tutoring my students for the exam, I always begin by providing the advice that I’m about to set forth in this essay. In my view it’s the first building block, and foundation, to the months ahead of intense studying. To begin, let’s discuss the two components of studying for the MBE, each of which alone will not ensure mastery of the material, but taken together provide a very strong basis for learning the material, and ultimately succeeding on the exam.
The first component is mastery of the substantive material that could potentially be covered on the exam. Thankfully, we’re not left in the dark as to the scope of this information. The National Conference of Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) has provided an outline that all test-takers should print out before beginning their studying.[1] Though the outline is vague, it does provide the test-taker with a convenient checklist to use as a guideline as to whether the information that needs to be learned has been covered while studying. As you learn an area, check off that area on your subject matter outline. This will not only help to keep you organized in your studying, but will also alleviate some of the psychological stress that accumulates when studying the large amount of information covered on this test. You’ll have a direct visual as to the information that you know, and the information that you still need to learn. This is a confidence builder, and the importance of such a mental advantage is paramount. At times, you’ll feel as though you haven’t grasped a certain area of the subject matter outline well enough. Make a note of that on your subject matter outline, so that you can review the material once again in your substantive outlines.
Component two consists of applying the law that you’ve learned through your outlines to the types of questions that consistently show up on the MBE. Although the scope of the MBE is quite broad, after sufficient practice, you will begin to recognize patterns as to how each area of law (from your subject matter outline) is most often tested in the multiple choice format. This recognition of patterns is a skill that all test-takers should strive for, and in reaching this level, you can be confident that you are gaining an adequate understanding not only of the substantive law, but also of the mindset of the test-makers.
In summary, to do well on this exam, you must learn the law on a deep level, and then not only learn how to apply the law, but learn how the law has been applied on previous questions, so that you can use that knowledge as a means of understanding how you will likely need to apply it on your exam. It’s a time-consuming approach, and will often require numerous readings of your substantive outlines, as well as thousands of practice multiple choice questions. But it’s time well spent! You’ll enter the test with the knowledge you need to succeed, and with a confidence to provide you with the means of doing so.
As we enter into the July 2010 Bar Exam study season, tens of thousands of students will be gearing up for their respective bar exams at the end of July. There’s little doubt that the next couple months will be very stressful. At times you’ll feel overwhelmed due to the variety and sheer volume of what you need to study and practice. There are a lot of viewpoints out there about what subjects to study, for how long and in what order.
Here at MicroMash we adhere to a philosophy that empowers our students. We provide the TOOLS to succeed, but ultimately that success is up to you. You are in charge of your own fate as you prepare for the bar exam. No one else can prepare for you. You have to put in the time, the work, and the discipline. My advice is to build a study schedule you can live with by chunking down the work into manageable pieces. However, it is also important to build some down time into that schedule to re-charge your batteries. Anyone who dives in and doesn’t come up for air for a 6 to 8 week period is asking for trouble.
Will you study on the weekends?
Students often ask whether it makes sense to continue their studies on the weekends. Some prefer to use that time as free time and give themselves a break. Others use the time for a lighter study schedule, to review the items they studied during the past week, or to prepare for the week ahead. So we thought we’d ask you to share your planned study habits for this coming bar exam. Do you plan to study during the weekends, or use that as down time, or a mixture of both?
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Because our MBE study and practice programs are online, we here at MicroMash Bar Review have access to a lot of interesting data and analytics. We looked at that data from the recent February 2010 Bar Exam and thought we’d share the study habits of those that have come before. We looked at the number of people who logged in every day during the 8 weekly periods leading up to the bar exam in February (Sunday to Saturday). The first and most obvious way to look at the data was to aggregate all the days of the week to see if there were any trends present within people’s study habits. This is what we found…
Students who logged in to practice MBE questions at MicroMash, by day of the week
MicroMash MBE Study Trends for February 2010 Bar Exam
As you can see from the above graph, there is a pretty significant difference in terms of weekend MBE practice. It appears that fewer people are practicing MBE questions over the weekend. Now, it could be that students are taking that time to review other materials, or to create flashcards, prepare for the coming week, or any number of other activities that are bar study related, so we cannot infer that 25% fewer students are studying on weekends.
The other thing that jumps out at me right away is the trend within the work week. Mondays and Tuesdays start out very high with a drop off on Wednesdays and Thursdays. However, the thing that surprises me most is the number of log ins on Friday. I suspect what’s happening is that some students slack off mid-week, but as Friday approaches they realize they need to “get crackin” or end up starting the weekend behind where they want to be – hence the increased work being done on Fridays. What can you take from this? Ratchet up your study time on Wednesdays and Thursdays to be sure you’re doing what needs to be done every day. Formulate your plan and stick to it, modifying only when something urgent interrupts your study schedule.
Another interesting way to look at the data presented itself to us as we looked through the numbers. We looked at the MBE log in data for the 8 weeks leading up to the bar exam and compared week over week log ins to see how people allocated their study time over that period. Here’s what we found…
Students who logged in to practice MBE questions at MicroMash, week by week
MicroMash MBE Study Trends for February 2010 Bar Exam, Week Over Week
As you can see from this second graph, there is a fairly consistent increase in activity as the bar exam approaches, with the exception of a drop off the week prior to the bar exam. This makes sense to me because a significant number of students like the notion of winding down the stress level and study time as the exam approaches.
I don’t think we can draw any steadfast conclusions from this usage data because MBE practice questions really only reflect one aspect of bar study. Nevertheless, I found this data interesting and worth sharing, and I hope that you do too. Good luck to all of you who are sitting for a bar exam this July! Stop back frequently – we’ll begin serving our MBE questions of the day again here on Bar Exam Brief for the 8 weeks or so leading up to the exam. You can also review previous questions from last February by clicking on the “MBE QoD”in the tag cloud to the right, or by simply clicking here! As always, you can add to the discussion via the comments section below.
