jbm_lecture on mcqs for the online bar review_new.pdf
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LECTURE ON MCQs for the ONLINE BAR REVIEW
- Prof. Jaime Bilan Montealegre -
Let me first wish you “Good Luck” in your quest to
become lawyers. Some of you may have dreams of
becoming one of the best lawyers in town, but to be one
you have to first hurdle the 2011 Philippine Bar
examinations.
My task is to discuss what a Multiple Choice Type of
Examination is or what is commonly called as MCQs.
As you very well know, the Supreme Court approved
three major changes in the 2011 Philippine Bar
Examinations. In Bar Matter 2265, which deals with the
Reforms in the 2011 Bar Examinations, these major
changes are the following:
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First, the Supreme Court has Redefined the
Coverage of the Bar Examinations. As it is now,
there is a syllabus for each subject in the Bar
Examinations, meaning that the coverage of the Bar
Examinations is arranged by topics and sub-topics,
rather than by just stating the covered laws, or in
other words the coverage of the bar exams is
specifically outlined indicating the subject areas
covered, unlike before where the Supreme Court
would simply state the covered laws and a cut-off
date of decisions rendered.
Second, the Supreme Court mandated the use
of MCQs in the 2011 Bar Examinations. As per Bar
Matter 2265, the MCQs shall specifically measure the
following cognitive skills:
(a) Knowledge and recall – meaning your
knowledge of and ability to recall the laws,
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doctrines, and principles that you will need as a
new lawyer;
(b) Understanding – referring to your
understanding of the meaning and significance
of those same laws, doctrines, and principles as
they apply to specific situations; and
(c) Analysis and solution – meaning your
ability to analyze legal problems, apply the
correct law or principle to such problems, and
provide solutions to them.
In the briefing papers issued by the Supreme
Court, for each bar subject, 20% of the MCQs are for
knowledge and recall; 40% for understanding and
another 40% for Analysis and Solution.
The third major change is the use of essay-type
questions to measure your lawyering skills.
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Thus, in the 2011 Bar Examinations, the questions
shall be of two kinds:
First, Multiple Choice Questions that measure
your knowledge and understanding of laws and their
applications; and
Second, Essay-Type questions that will
measure your lawyering skills.
I’m sure you know by now that the first three
Sundays of the Bar Examinations are devoted to
MCQs and the last Sunday for Essay-Type questions.
I will limit my discussion on MCQs because this year
will be the first time that this type of question will be used
in the Bar examinations. I believe that making yourselves
very familiar with MCQs, their nature, how they are
constructed and how they are best answered, will make
you feel more comfortable and confident when you take
the Bar Examinations.
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Now, what is an MCQ?
Basically, an MCQ is one where the question itself
contains the standard by means of which the correct or
the best answer is to be selected. It is composed of two
(2) parts: (a) the STEM; and (b) the OPTIONS.
Let me illustrate the parts of an MCQ by this
example:
(1) The Supreme Court has original and
exclusive jurisdiction against which of the
following Commissions in petitions for issuance
of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus?
A. Commission on Elections
B. Civil Service Commission
C. National Labor Relations Commission
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D. Securities and Exchange Commission
That portion which reads:
1. The Supreme Court has original and
exclusive jurisdiction against which of the
following Commissions in petitions for issuance
of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus?
is the stem.
The enumeration from where the correct or the best
answer is selected is called the options. In this example,
these are:
A. Commission on Elections
B. Civil Service Commission
C. National Labor Relations Commission
D. Securities and Exchange Commission
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One of the options should be the correct or the best
answer and this is called the key answer. I’m sure you
know that key answer is (A) the Commission on Elections.
The wrong options are called the distracters.
You will notice that in this example that I have given
you, the stem of the MCQ presents a problem in an
interrogative or question form and you, as the examinee,
are to choose the best or the correct answer to the
question from the options given. It does not mean,
however, that the stem of an MCQ should always be
presented in the interrogative form. The stem can also be
presented in an incomplete statement.
To illustrate, the example that I just gave you can be
presented in this manner:
(2) The Supreme Court, in petitions for
issuance of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
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mandamus, has original and exclusive
jurisdiction against the _____________.
A.Commission on Elections
B.Civil Service Commission
C. National Labor Relations Commission
D.Securities and Exchange Commission
In this illustration, the stem presents a problem as
an incomplete statement and you have to choose the
option that will correctly or best complete the statement.
You will also notice that in the two (2) examples I
have given you, both have four (4) options. You might
ask: Is there a rule as to the number of options that an
MCQ should have?
Although majority of the standardized tests use four
(4) or five (5) options, there is no rule which dictates as
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to the number of options that an MCQ should have. But
one thing is sure, the more options an MCQ has, the more
difficult it becomes for the obvious reason that the
probability of choosing the best or the correct answer
becomes smaller as the number of options increases.
In the 2011 Bar Examinations, I understand that the
Supreme Court has limited the number of options to four
(4). Thus, even if you don’t know the answer to a
particular item, for as long as you answer that item, you
still have a twenty-five percent (25%) chance of getting
the right answer. Thus, as a reminder, never leave an
item unanswered. The score you will get when you simply
guessed the correct answer and when you really know the
correct answer will be the same. The important thing is
you get the correct answer!
Based on the foregoing discussion, you will note that
the essential feature that differentiates MCQs from the
essay type questions resides in the form of the response.
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In MCQs, you indicate your answer by choosing (normally
by checking or shading) the one of the several
alternatives that you believe to be the best or the correct
answer. The response to an essay type question, on the
other hand, is written in whatever manner you may deem
appropriate. Thus you are free to choose the particular
words with which to clothe your ideas and to organize
them in your own way. In other words, the answer of an
examinee in a Multiple Choice Type of examination is
either correct or wrong. This may not be the case in
Essay Type Examinations because the examiner may give
some points to your answer although your answer may
not exactly be considered the correct answer.
Let me now discuss the steps in the construction of
Multiple Choice type of examinations.
The construction of Multiple Choice type of
examinations normally starts with the preparation of what
is called the Table of Specifications.
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This Table of Specifications is a two-way grid which
contains the subject areas covered, and the cognitive
skills to be measured, by the examination. It indicates
what percentage of the questions measure what kind of
cognitive skills and from which subject areas covered by
the examination.
As I have earlier mentioned, the Supreme Court has
prepared a syllabus for each of the bar examination
subject. In the Table of Specifications, the syllabus itself
will be the subject areas covered in that subject. The
cognitive skills to be measured are those which the
Supreme Court has specifically enumerated, that is:
1. Knowledge and Recall;
2. Understanding ; and
3. Analysis and Solution.
For example, the Table of Specifications for Remedial
Law/ would look like this:
(See Table of Specifications for Remedial Law)
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You may ask: What use will the Table of
Specifications have considering that you will not be
involved in the preparation of the Bar Examinations?
Well, it would be of great help if you have this Table
of Specifications so that you are sure that all the subject
areas included in the bar examinations were covered by
your review. Moreover, you will have a better view of
which subject areas would be a good source of an MCQ
measuring a particular cognitive skill.
To give you a particular example, under the subject
area of General Principles, it would be logical to expect a
question here measuring your cognitive skill in knowledge
and recall or understanding rather than on a question
measuring analysis and solution.
Are there rules in the construction of MCQs?
Just like any type of examination question, there are
basic rules in the construction of MCQs in order that the
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Multiple Choice Type of Examination can be considered
valid and reliable. A little knowledge of these basic rules
will probably guide you better in answering MCQs,
especially in situations where you will simply guess the
correct answer, because you really have no idea as to
what the correct or best answer is.
The first rule in constructing MCQs is that the stem
of the item should be meaningful by itself and should
present a definite problem.
Let us look again /at one of our illustrative items:
(3) The Supreme Court, in petitions for
issuance of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus, has original and exclusive
jurisdiction against the _____________.
A.Commission on Elections
B.Civil Service Commission
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C. National Labor Relations Commission
D.Securities and Exchange Commission
In this illustrative item, is the stem meaningful by
itself such that it presents a definite problem?
Now, compare that with the following illustrative
item:
(4) The Supreme Court has
____________.
A. original and exclusive jurisdiction
against the Commission on Elections
in petitions for issuance of writs of
certiorari, prohibition and mandamus;
B. original and concurrent jurisdiction
with the Court of Appeals against the
Civil Service Commission in petitions
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for issuance of writs of certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus;
C. original and concurrent jurisdiction
with the Court of Appeals and the
Regional Trial Courts against the
National Labor Relations Commission
in petitions for issuance of writs of
certiorari, prohibition and mandamus;
D. original and concurrent jurisdiction
with the Regional Trial Courts against
the Securities and Exchange
Commission in petitions for issuance
of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus.
In this illustrative item, can we say that the stem is
meaningful by itself such that it presents a definite
problem?
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It is of course obvious that in our first illustration,
the stem is meaningful by itself such that it presents a
definite problem. This is because you can complete the
sentence with the answer that the examiner wants from
you as the examinee.
We cannot say the same with regard to the second
illustrative item. Here, the item is constructed in such a
way that the stem is not meaningful by itself or does not
present a definite problem because any set of options
may be placed therein to end the stem. Clearly, you, as
the examinee, have to read the options before you can
determine the kind of answer that the examiner really
wants from you.
Now, what is the significance of this rule to you as
the examinee?
It simply means that after reading the stem, you
should already have an idea of the answer that you will
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look for from among the given options. This will prevent
you from being confused by the distracters or prevent you
from answering the question by just guessing the correct
or best answer.
It cannot be avoided, however, that there are
instances when you do not really have an idea of what the
correct answer is after reading the stem. In this
situation, there is no other choice but to go through the
process of eliminating the wrong answers, rather than
choosing the correct answer. The problem with the
process of elimination is that you may not have the luxury
of time to do this more so that you will be answering 100
MCQs in a matter of four (4) hours. In some instances,
you may even have to answer 200 MCQs in four (4) hours
because the Supreme Court has scheduled 2 bar subjects
in the morning of the first Sunday of the bar
examinations, i.e., Political and International Law, and
Labor and Social Legislation. In fact, you will also have to
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answer 200 MCQs in four (4) hours in the morning of the
third Sunday of the bar examinations because both
Remedial Law, and Legal Ethics and Forms are scheduled
on that day.
The second rule requires that the stem should be
stated in the negative form only when significant learning
outcomes require it. The following is an example of an
MCQ where the stem is stated in the negative form:
(5) The Supreme Court, in petitions for
issuance of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus, does not have original and
exclusive jurisdiction against the
_____________.
A. Commission on Elections
B. Commission on Audit
C. Court of Appeals
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D. Securities and Exchange Commission
In a way, this rule is interconnected with the first
rule. As I have just discussed, after reading the stem, you
should already have an idea of the answer from among
the given options. This will not be possible if the stem is
stated in the negative form because there will be limitless
options which can be the correct answer.
Let us look again at our example of an MCQ where
the stem is stated in the negative form:
(6) The Supreme Court, in petitions for
issuance of writs of certiorari, prohibition and
mandamus, does not have original and
exclusive jurisdiction against the
_____________.
A. Commission on Elections
B. Commission on Audit
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C. Court of Appeals
D. Securities and Exchange Commission
The correct answer is, of course, letter (D) because in
options (A), (B) and (C) we all know that the Supreme
Court, in petitions for issuance of writs of certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus, does have original and
exclusive jurisdiction over them. Provided we do not
change options (A), (B) and (C), whatever option is
placed in letter (D), that will still be the correct answer.
There is likewise the possibility that you may have
simply failed to notice the negative word “NOT” in the
stem, thus you failed to answer the question correctly not
because you do not know the correct answer, but because
you did not read the question or the stem properly. When
this happens, the very purpose of the examination is thus
not achieved. In situations, therefore, when the stem is
stated in the negative form, the examiner should have
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capitalized, the negative word “Not” and it should have
been in bold letters. You, as the examinee, must take
extra care to read the question properly. Do not be
overconfident that you really understood the question.
The third basic rule mandates that the stem should
be free of irrelevant materials. This is best illustrated by
the following item:
(7) The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
could be original, exclusive, concurrent and
appellate. In petitions for issuance of writs of
certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus, the
Supreme Court has original and exclusive
jurisdiction against which of the following
Commissions?
A. Commission on Election
B. Civil Service Commission
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C. National Labor Relations Commission
D. Securities and Exchange Commission
In this illustration, the first sentence of the stem
which says that “The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
could be original, exclusive, concurrent and appellate” is
practically irrelevant because the rest of the stem already
presents a definite problem. What happens when there
are a lot of irrelevant materials in the stem is that you
would be wasting a lot of time reading these irrelevant
materials and thus, there is a possibility that you may not
be able to finish the examination. Moreover, as the
examinee, you should not be distracted by these
irrelevant materials. Your focus should be on that part of
the stem which presents the problem. Stated otherwise,
the rule simply says that examination time is not the
proper time to give a lecture.
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Fourth, all of the options should be grammatically
consistent with the stem of the item.
To Illustrate:
(8) A necessary party to a case is also
referred to/ as a ______________ party.
A. indispensable
B. compulsory
C. proper
D. real
You will notice that in this example, option (A) is not
grammatically consistent with the stem. In all instances,
where the option is not grammatically consistent with the
stem, that option is not the correct answer. Because of
this rule, you of course know now what to do in situations
where the option is not grammatically consistent with the
stem. You should just eliminate that as the possible
correct answer.
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Fifth, verbal associations between the stem and the
correct answer should be avoided. This is best illustrated
in the following example:
(9) The doctrine which dictates that the
judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction
may not be opened, modified or vacated by any
court of concurrent jurisdiction is known as the
____________.
A. Doctrine of Judicial Stability
B. Principle of Judicial Hierarchy
C. Rule on Equity Jurisdiction
D. Doctrine of Primary Jurisdiction
In this particular example, the use of the word
‘doctrine’ in the stem will already give you an idea which
option is the possible answer. If after reading the stem
you still do not know the correct answer, you definitely
should not consider options (B) and (C).
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Sixth, an item should contain only one correct or
clearly the best answer. Your job is to look for the answer
which the examiner tried so hard to hide behind the
attractive or plausible distracters.
The difficulty level of an MCQ would depend on how
well the distracters work. If the distracters are not
working, such that you will be able to arrive at the correct
answer even if you do not know it, then that is an easy
MCQ. I think the examiner will have a difficult time
looking for distracters which are plausible.
Examiners, however, will capitalize on the following
to make the distracters plausible to really test your
knowledge, recall, understanding, and analysis of the law:
(a) Use the students’ most common errors.
(b) Use important-sounding words (significant,
accurate) that are relevant to the stem.
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(c) Use words that have verbal associations
with the stem (politician, political)
(d) Use textbook language or other
phraseology that has the appearance of
truth.
(e) Use incorrect answers that are likely to
result from student misunderstanding or
carelessness
(f) Use distracters that are parallel in form
and grammatically consistent with the
stem.
(g) Make the distracters similar to the correct
answer in length, vocabulary, sentence
structure, and complexity of thought.
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Ninth, the correct answer is sometimes given away
by the relative length of the distracter, and this may
provide a clue to the correct answer. For instance, the
wrong options are relatively longer than the correct
answer because the examiner would add more words to
make them stand out as plausible distracters. On the
other hand, the correct answer is usually longer than the
other options because the examiner would tend to add
more words to it in an effort to make it the best answer.
Tenth, the correct answer should appear in each of
the alternative position in an approximately equal number
of times but in a random order. In other words, the
examiner will make sure that the correct answers are not
all in (A) or (B) or so on. The examiner will make sure
that there is no pattern in the placement of the correct
answers. Since this is the case, you should take a second
look at your answers to see if all of them happens to be
all in (A) or (B) and so on.
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I hope this lecture will help you deal with MCQ’s in
the bar examinations. There is no reason for you to be
afraid of MCQ’s as long as you have reviewed thoroughly
for the bar examinations. This lecture will be of no use to
you if you have prepared well.
Good luck, and welcome to the profession!
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