60% of Bar exams will be multiple choice questions

SAYS SUPREME COURT
60% of Bar exams will be multiple choice questions

By Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 10:58:00 07/08/2010

Filed Under: Board Exams, Laws

MANILA, Philippines—Sixty percent of the 2011 Bar examination will be multiple choice questions (MCQ), while only 40 percent will be essay, the Supreme Court said.

Associate Justice Roberto Abad, chairman of the 2011 Bar Examinations Committee, said it will not only be a test of the examinees’ knowledge on codal provisions or provisions of the law “but also their comprehension and analysis.”

The MCQ exams, the high court said, should be able to assess three main skills of the examinees: knowledge and recall; comprehension or understanding; and analysis and application.

The MCQ exams will have the following advantages: objective correction of the papers since every question has one definite answer; encouragement of the mastery of subject because of the difficulty of distinguishing between a correct and a nearly correct answer; and the employment of a wider scope of topics since the examiner can ask as many as 100 questions in an hour and a half exam, among others.

As for the examiners, the time spent in preparing the MCQs will be more than compensated by the time saved in correcting the examination papers.

Court Administrator and SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez earlier stressed that the proposed two-step Bar examinations for 2011 is most likely to be approved by the court en banc. The two-step Bar examinations proposal came following consultations with deans from various law schools, he added.

The Bar examination are currently comprised of generally essay-type questions for eight subjects: Political Law, Remedial Law, Taxation, Criminal Law, Civil Law, Mercantile Law, Labor Law, and Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises.

The high court annually conducts the Bar exams pursuant to its constitutional mandate to promulgate rules governing, among others, the admission to the practice of law.

The Bar exams are traditionally held in four consecutive Sundays of September. This year’s Bar examinations is spearheaded by Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, chairperson of the 2010 Bar Examinations Committee.

But Marquez said even if the proposed two-step Bar examination will be approved ahead of the scheduled Bar examination in September, it will no longer be applied in the 2010 Bar exam due to lack of time.

The first Bar exams were held in 1901, with 13 examinees.