SAMPLE BAR EXAM QUESTIONS

A young man suggested to his friend that they steal a large-screen TV from a neighbors house. The friend was
angry with the young man and decided to use the opportunity to get even with him by having him arrested. The friend
said he would help, and that night, he drove the young man to the neighbors house. The young man broke in while the
friend remained outside. The friend called the police on his cell phone and then drove away. Police officers arrived at
the scene just as the young man was carrying the TV out the back door. The friend is guilty of what offense in a common
law jurisdiction?
(A) No crime.
(B) Conspiracy.
(C) Burglary.
(D) Conspiracy and larceny.

The owner of a parcel of land received the following letter from a buyer: I will pay you $2,200 an acre for [the
parcel]. The owners letter of reply stated, I accept your offer. Unknown to the owner, the buyer had intended to
offer only $2,000 per acre but had mistakenly typed $2,200. As both parties knew, comparable land in the vicinity had
been selling at prices between $2,000 and $2,400 per acre.
Which of the following states the probable legal consequences of the correspondence between the parties?
(A) There is no contract, because the parties attached materially different meanings to the price term.
(B) There is no enforceable contract, because the buyer is entitled to rescission due to a mutual mistake as to a
basic assumption.
(C) There is a contract formed at a price of $2,000 per acre, as the buyer intended.
(D) There is a contract formed at a price of $2,200 per acre, regardless of the buyers true intention.

An attempt was made to hijack a commercial airliner while it was in flight from San Francisco to New Orleans.
Within minutes, however, the hijacker was seized and the plane proceeded to its destination. Upon the planes arrival,
television stations broadcast pictures of the passengers as they disembarked. Among the passengers pictured on
television was a businessman who was supposed to be in Chicago on company business. The disclosure that the
businessman was in New Orleans and not in Chicago at the time resulted in the loss of his position with his company and
great humiliation and embarrassment for him. If the businessman asserts a claim against the television stations for
broadcasting his picture as he disembarked, is he likely to prevail?
(A) Yes, because the businessmans location was revealed against his wishes.
(B) Yes, because publication of the television pictures caused the businessman pecuniary loss.
(C) No, because the humiliation and embarrassment did not result in physical harm to the businessman.
(D) No, because the scene shown on television was newsworthy.

At a defendants trial for extortion, the prosecutor called a witness expecting her to testify that she had heard
the defendant threaten a man with physical harm unless the man made payoffs to the defendant. The witness denied
ever having heard the defendant make such threats, even though she had testified to that effect before the grand jury.
The prosecutor now seeks to admit the witnesss grand jury testimony. How should the court rule with regard to the
grand jury testimony?
(A) Admit the testimony, because it contains a statement by a party-opponent.
(B) Admit the testimony, both for impeachment and for substantive use because the witness made the
inconsistent statement under oath at a formal proceeding.
(C) Admit the testimony under the former testimony exception to the hearsay rule.
(D) Exclude the testimony for substantive use, because it is a testimonial statement.


Question 1. When pregnant lab rats are given caffeine equivalent to the amount a human would consume by
drinking six cups of coffee per day, an increase in the incidence of birth defects results. When asked if the government
would require warning labels on products containing caffeine, a spokesperson stated that it would not because the
government would lose credibility if the finding of these studies were to be refuted in the future.

1. Which of the following is most strongly suggested by the government's statement above?

(A) A warning that applies to a small population is inappropriate.
(B) Very few people drink as many as six cups of coffee a day.
(C) There are doubts about the conclusive nature of studies on animals.
(D) Studies on rats provide little data about human birth defects.
(E) The seriousness of birth defects involving caffeine is not clear.


Question 2. Buses 1, 2, and 3 make one trip each day, and they are the only ones that riders A, B, C, D, E, F, and
G take to work.

Neither E nor G takes bus 1 on a day when B does.
G does not take bus 2 on a day when D does.
When A and F take the same bus, it is always bus 3.
C always takes bus 3.

Traveling together to work, B, C, and G could take which of the same buses on a given day?

(A) 1 only
(B) 2 only
(C) 3 only
(D) 2 and 3 only
(E) 1, 2, and 3

Question 3. Many, perhaps most, well-disposed, practical people would, if they had to designate a philosophy
that comes closest to expressing their unstated principles, pick utilitarianism. Not only are these distinctions drawn in
some moral systems, but there are numerous places in the law where they are made regularly. Since in utilitarianism
and consequentialism in general the ultimate questions must always be whether and to what extent the valued end-
state (be it happiness or possession of true knowledge) obtains at a particular moment, it is inevitable that the
judgments on the human agencies that may affect this end-state must be wholly instrumental: human actions can be
judged only by their tendency to produce the relevant end-states.

Indeed it may well be that even the point and contents of normative judgments whether legal or moral are
concerned not just with particular end-states of the world but also with how end-states are brought about. These kinds
of substantive judgments take the form: there are some things one should just never do kill an innocent person,
falsely accuse a defendant in a criminal proceeding, engage in sex for pay. These are to be contrasted to judgments that
this or that is an unfortunate, perhaps terrible, result that (other things being equal) one would want to avoid. The
former are very generally judgments of right and wrong. It is wrong to do this or that, even if the balance of
advantages favors it; a person is right to do some particular thing (help a friend, protect his client's interests) even
though more good will come if he does not.

1. The author's point in the passage is primarily that:

(A) law and utilitarianism are not always compatible.
(B) utilitarianism is the operating philosophy of most people.
(C) consequentialism is the basis for legal reform.
(D) direct and indirect intentions lead to different end-states.
(E) judgments about human actions can be made only by the resulting end-states.

2. Which of the following is NOT a feature of utilitarianism?

(A) Results are considered important.
(B) Consequences are considered important.
(C) The valued end-state is considered important.
(D) The means of achieving results are considered important.
(E) The net value of consequences is considered important.