Suggested Answers to the 2006 Bar Questions

Hey guys, the “Suggested Answers to the 2006 Bar Examination Questions” published by the Philippine Association of Law Schools is now available at Rex Book Store for P268.00. Now, the examinees of the 2006 BAR will have a benchmark whether they have gotten the questions right. Although it is not advisable for us to read these answers because they are mere suggestions and does not necessarily mean that we are wrong if we deviate from these answers, still, one cant help gauging his performance in the recent BAR based on the suggested answers published by PALS.

I have personally not yet reviewed all my answers because I try to keep myself pre-occupied with work. I must admit thou that sometimes I couldn’t help myself thinking about the answers I have made in that BAR. Honestly, I feel that the last BAR examinations were intended more to those persons with photographic memories (enumerate, define) rather than to those who interpret and analyze and apply the law. Further, other questions seem to be tests of what the examinees do not know instead of what they know and there were even two questions in Political and Public International Law that only contestants in Game Ka Na Ba? were fit to answer.

Further, there are several questions in the recent BAR that were not included in the coverage such as those questions in Taxation and Mercantile Law. And several examinees cried on how long the Criminal Law Examination was.
Overall, the lament of majority of us examinees is that the questions asked in the 2006 Bar Examinations seek to test not so much the power of analysis of the examine, but the examinee’s retention and memory. Therefore, law students have really no choice but to memorize the provisions of the law because BAR exams lay more stress on memory work rather than reasoning. And since passing the BAR is an indispensable step in becoming lawyers, then we have no choice but to memorize the law.

A word of caution thou: my profs often tell me that answering questions in the bar is not based entirely on how well you know the law but also on how you present your answers: the neatness, the observance of margins and the legibility of your penmanship. So, we should not despair if our answers do not totally agree with PALS for wrong answers may still be given credits if presented well.

Again, to my fellow examinees, a little over a month na lang and malalaman na natin results ng BAR. May GOD bless us all.