| Unregistered |
13-05-2020 02:50 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
(Post 133912)
I'm not the guy who posted the initial comment, but I don't think that's what he meant. I think he meant - if you are a normal student in a good (or above average) law school you shouldn't be afraid of passing the bar (unless your law school didn't teach you well enough) - it's an elitist attitude but that attitude is prevalent among the SG unis. However, I do not disagree that the bar is supposed to be a rite of passage and to weed out the weaker students, and it's not meant to be a big deal unless you're aiming for distinctions or top in course.
His comment on the 90% pass rate was "Taking an exam with a 90% pass rate does not give you a higher chance to pass" read with his immediate statement of "your effort and intellect does not change according to statistics" should be read as "even if you take an elective with a higher pass rate, if you are a lousy student you will still fail, and if you're a good student just ignore the pass/fail rate since you will be of a minimally acceptable standard to pass either way." (I'm not sure what you took his statement to be - seems like you took it as an insinuation that the bar is really easy if 90% passes, which is not what he meant). His meaning was that if you are smart enough for the legal sector, then you should be able to pass the exam, regardless of the % of failures, because exams will always have failures but smart/hardworking people will definitely pass ("your effort or intellect does not change according to statistics").
I disagree with his statement - a 90% pass rate compared to a 50% pass rate elective evidently means that the course is either more difficult or content heavy (and that a normal student who studies well will still find it easier to pass the 90% pass rate course - it's just simple mathematics). It literally means that only the bottom 10% of the exam sitters will fail. To the original poster, don't be an asshole, I'm sure that there are people with legitimate concerns about the courses, and they want to understand
I understand that the original poster wants to harp on the "being smart/hardworking means you don't have to care about the pass rate" type of reasoning but that's not logically sound advice. Making a logical, informed choice is also part of being a good student/lawyer. Telling people that their fears are unsound does not show them anything except a smug sense of superiority on your part. I'm sure that was not your intention, but it does come across that way, which led to this poster's comment against you. Since it's a rite of passage, and the electives generally don't matter, then obviously you would have an easier time studying (and possibly excelling) at an elective with a high pass rate.
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I am the original poster and yes, the "90% pass rate" was just a figure plucked from thin air. My bigger point I was trying to make is that one should not be choosing electives based on pass rate.
No sure how it could be misconstrued and I do not really understand the whole moderation point. My point is that it should not matter.
As someone else posted on this forum, taking this kind of attitude of trying to game the system should really stop by the time you are taking the bar exam. This attitude will also then lead someone to apply for a place in a firm with the most trainees (higher chance), highest retention rate etc. Surely this cannot be healthy and will only lead to an unhappy lawyer.
Personally, you can see Part A / B as an obstacle, or you can see it as having the final opportunity to have the luxury of time to learn from about a subject which can help you in your practice. Sure you can argue that you cannot teach someone to be good in practice, but for some of the subjects like wills / arbitration etc, at least you get the luxury of reading up on it first which I personally believe helps.
For example, you are not familiar at all with arbitration but you are going to do litigation. Your first piece of work is to assist on an advice on a potential arbitration dispute etc. Being unfamiliar with the concepts of arbitration, you basically have a few hours or days to learn everything there is about arbitration then consider the issues and do the research or provide the advice. Alternatively, if you have had one entire module in law school to learn about arbitration or at least 6 months during Part B to learn the basic concepts on it, when you get that piece of work, you can straight away zoom in on the gaps in your knowledge and need not do an entire refresher course within the span of a few hours or days.
of course I am saying this as someone who has already gone through this some time ago. If you are saying that intellect / ethics does not matter because Walter Woon is just trying to fail people to regulate the numbers (as opposed to weeding out the "weaker ones"), then yes perhaps such deliberate choices would make sense. |
