Michigan Bar Exam Essay Deconstruction, 2011 (Bar Review)

Having recently passed the July 2013 Michigan Bar Exam, I found Glazier's supplement to be highly helpful. This supplement deserves five stars because it can be used by anyone preparing for the Michigan's bar exam: a first-time test-taker, anyone studying on their own, and even those using one of the large test-prep company programs.I used this supplement in conjunction with one of the large test-prep company programs and I can assure you that, although some of the questions were covered under my program, this supplement was still well worth the money. This supplement contains over a decade of past Michigan bar exam essay questions. In addition, most of the essay questions also contain student answers and model answers from the Michigan Board of Law Examiners. What made this supplement most helpful was that the student answers are graded, so you can not only compare your answer to another student's, but also see what type of student answer gets what score from the grader's perspective. There are two absolutely crucial reasons to buy this supplement even if you are using a test-prep program. First, this supplement contains so many old state essay questions that you can tell what legal rules are tested more often from exam to exam. I was able to focus my studying and memorizing efforts. Second, the amount of old essay questions also allows you to see pretty much every question pattern that the Michigan Board of Law Examiners can possibly throw at you. For instance, the personal property question on the July 2013 examination was quite similar to an older personal property question contained in this supplement. I didn't even have to outline that question on the exam because I already knew how to structure that question's answer and I knew the rules by heart. Needless to say that question was one of three questions that I received a "10" on.There are some slight downsides to Glazier's text. First, it has not been updated since 2011 and there have been some significant changes since then. The Michigan Board of Law Examiner's has not only changed the weight of each section on the exam, but also appears to have given the essay portion of the exam more scrutiny. It would be helpful if this supplement was updated with some recent essay questions and graded student answers. Second, this supplement contains only questions and answers. There are no bullet point lists of what you need to know for each section, or any other sort of outline guide. Nevertheless, reading through each question and taking notes on what legal rules were examined is still extremely helpful.Regardless of any defects that this supplement might have, I highly recommend it for any future Michigan Bar Exam test-taker. Good Luck!

This book is ideal for essay practice. If you're taking the MI Bar Exam, BUY IT! Even if you have another sample essay book from barbri or whoever. Of all the essay materials I reviewed (which in all honesty is fairly limited) this is the best.I found that model answers for essay questions were of limited help (in general). I spent the most time reviewing essays of my weakest subjects and the model answers were too difficult for me to replicate. I will not be able to pull out a case citation on a corporations/commercial paper question.However, this book included student answers that were extremely helpful. They were responses that I could realistically replicate, and gave me a good idea as to the difference between a marginal answer and a good one. Student answers were often 7, 8, or 9s.Also, bad answers (~3/10pts) were even helpful. Super easy to get a 3 or 4 on a subject I have near zero knowledge of.Defining characteristics of 3 or 4 score: "below average and typically off-topic with only a sprinkle of relevant rules or application. These answers are typically unorganized and often discuss irrelevant issues and rules. These answers fail to examine an important issue or issues and neglect to bolster the analyses with specific facts contained in the question."^ that is not a hard mark to hit in one of your weak subject areas.A score of 1 or 2 requires: "fundamental inability to respond to the specific issues addressed in the question."A score of 0 is pretty much reserved for a complete failure to respond, failure to respond in English, or failure identify or address any intelligible point (my own words but generally paraphrased).*My only regret is waiting until the last week of study to open this book. I should have replaced all of the essay practice from my bar study course with this book.

While I'm sure there are stellar students that could do without this, for the rest of those prepping for the Michigan bar exam I can't say enough good things about this book. With its help I passed the July 2012 exam - the one with the worst pass rate in recent history. The most helpful part of the book is the collection of answers with points. Reading these will help give you the confidence that your answer need not be great in order to get a decent score. In fact, you can be wrong on the law but have a good analysis and still score well. You should also pay attention to the author's commentaries on answers - these detail why an answer received the score it did or provide other useful insights.I strongly suggest you read all the civil procedure and criminal procedure questions. There are elements that show up in these that can be quite picky - for instance, you may have to know aspects of the Michigan Constitution or be able to differentiate between the various forms of summary disposition. These are not items that will be covered by the commercial bar prep classes, so you will have to seek this information out on your own.For what it is worth, in addition to working through the two complete exams provided, I assembled other past exams and wrote the answers. My only criticism of the book, which you can easily work around, is that it would have been nice to have some type of index that would have the past exam questions assembled in a table so you could easily get from one question in the same exam to the next. The book is ordered by exam topic, not by exam sequence. Further complicating the assembly of past exams is that not every topic is tested in every exam sitting. This is really nitpicking, though. I consider the book to be an invaluable aid.