The new "two-booklet" rule

The Office of the Bar Confidant (OBC) of the Philippine Supreme Court releases the Official List of Successful Bar Examinees and other bulletins related to the Bar examination. This year, Bar Bulletin No. 4 (No. 6 on the website) was issued by the OBC, incorporating the new two-booklet rule.

[1] The examinees should master the Guide and the Instructions on the cover page of every Questionnaire. This Guide is released well ahead of time for the examinees' reference.

[2] They should read and examine the Instructions on the cover page of every Questionnaire as soon as they are allowed to do so by the head watcher. The number of pages stated in the Instructions should be carefully compared with the actual number of pages in the distributed Questionnaire. The correct number of questions should be verified to ensure that the Questionnaire has no missing or duplicated pages.

[3] After confirming the correct number of pages and questions, the examinees should plan their answering time, and accordingly, pace themselves. The time allotted for the examination in every subject is four (4) hours, and the questions have been formulated and calculated to be answerable within this time, with an allowance for the review of the examinees' answers.

[4] The examinees shall be given one (1) Questionnaire with two parts (i.e., Part I and Part II) and two (2) conjoined booklets. Answers to questions in Part I of the Questionnaire should be written in the Part I booklet, while answers to questions in Part II of the Questionnaire should be written in the Part II booklet. The cover, as well as the first page of the two (2) booklets, shall bear the labels "Part I" and "Part II", respectively. The Questionnaire shall also clearly indicate the labels "Part I" and "Part II" for the corresponding portions.

In implementing the two-examiner policy, every Bar subject shall be divided into two (2) parts - Part I and Part II. Each examiner shall be assigned a specific scope from which to formulate his/her questions. During the Bar examinations, each Bar examinee shall be given one questionnaire (containing Parts I and II) and two conjoined booklets (marked Part I and II), where answers corresponding to each part of the questionnaire shall be written.

Each booklet shall contain a card wherein the grades or rating received by the Bar examinee for each part shall be indicated. After the examinations, Part I booklets will be released to the first examiner simultaneous with the release of Part II booklets to the second examiner for checking, in order to expedite the checking of booklets while ensuring the quality of assessing them. (Revised 2019 Bar Examinations. B.M. No. 3489. January 15, 2019. Pages 1-2. Supreme Court.)

[5] The examinees are allowed to mark the question/s, the answer/s to which they are not sure of, and move on to the succeeding questions in order not to waste precious time. They can later return to those initially marked questions.

SOURCE: Office of the Bar Confidant. Guide and Rules of Conduct to the 2019 Bar Examinations. "Some Tips in Answering Bar Examination Questions in General." Bar Bulletin No. 4 (No. 6 on http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/bar-admissions/bar-2019/).