Ways To Pick Up Easy Points On Michigan Bar Exam Essays

Four Ways To Pick Up Easy Points On Michigan Bar Exam Essays

Your goal on the essay portion of the Michigan bar exam is to pick up as many points as possible in an efficient manner.  You don’t want to leave points on the table, especially if they could have been earned in a relatively easy manner.  In this post, we teach you some strategies to pick up easy points on Michigan bar exam essays.  By ensuring you grab these easy points, you will quickly build up a solid foundation for your final score!

Four Ways To Pick Up Easy Points On Michigan Bar Exam Essays

1. Utilize clear organization

Using clear, clean organization is a great way to pick up easy points on Michigan bar exam essays.  We have many blog points that go into greater detail on organization (for example, see this post on how to structure Michigan bar exam essays), but you want to be sure to follow the IRAC format.  Have a separate IRAC for each issue you need to discuss in order to make things easy on the grader.  Start with a heading that identifies the issue.  Then provide a strong rule statement that covers no more than what you need to answer the specific question posed.  We recommend you then move to a new paragraph and conduct your analysis.  Finally, move to a new paragraph and conclude.

By separating out the components of your essay, you reduce the chance of the grader missing something.  If your rule and analysis get smashed together in one paragraph, the grader could easily skim right over something that deserves credit.  Thus, in order to ensure you get your points for the rule, analysis, and conclusion, be sure to set them apart from each other.  Further, these individual IRACs for each issue will ensure that the grader can quickly identify that you’ve answered all of the relevant questions.  This maximizes your chance to earn full points!

2. Bold/underline key works

When the graders are reviewing essays, they are doing so quickly as they have many to get through in a relatively short period of time.  Often times they will just skim your essay, looking for obvious indicators that you either did or didn’t get the answer right.  One way to score easy points on Michigan bar exam essays is to bold or underline the keywords in your response so that you guarantee the grader sees them.

For example, in your statement of the law, you might choose to bold any key legal phrases that form the essence of the rule to draw the grader’s eye.  If you are trying to define tortious battery, writing “an act with intent to cause a harmful or offensive contact (or imminent apprehension of such contact) and a harmful or offensive contact directly or indirectly results” certainly allows the key elements of battery to stand out among the other words in this paragraph.  A grader won’t miss this!

3. Utilize the facts in your analysis

Pretty much all of the facts in the fact pattern are there for a reason.  In general, they can all help you reason to some conclusion.  You want to demonstrate that you know the purpose of these facts and understand how they work with the law to lead to a conclusion.  Even if you don’t know the role of a fact, act like you do!  In reviewing essays as an appeals writing firm, we have seen some high scores for essays that present a thorough discussion of the facts, even when it is completely wrong.  Thus, you can pick up some easy points on Michigan bar exam essays by emphasizing the use of facts in your analysis.

4. Always make sure to state a conclusion

Michigan graders seem to place a lot of emphasis on your conclusion, meaning you should too in order to score those easy points on Michigan bar exam essays.  We have seen relatively strong scores for essays that don’t have much of the law or analysis correct but still reach a correct conclusion.  A correct conclusion alone can earn you a few points.  Thus, make sure you always reach a conclusion for every issue posed to you.  Especially if you are running out of time, make it a priority to get a conclusion down on the page.  These are the easiest points you can earn – don’t leave them on the table!

For more Michigan bar exam tips, check out our numerous Michigan resources, below!

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