The First Enconter: A Borg in Training

My first taste of barbri Bar Prep come from BARBRI AMP. AMP stands for "Accelerated Memory Performance." I did one section and was bored out of my mind, although it seems to be reasonably effective at its state goal. This learning tool is a series of 27 multiple choice questions that are asked in sections of eight. At the end of each section AMP explains the answers you got wrong. Explanations for correct answers are also available, but I did not take advantage of this option.

(On a side note barbri seems to publish its name in either all caps or all lowercase letters. I don't understand when and how it uses each, so just know that is the explanation for this incosistency.)

In order to complete all 27 questions each must be answered correctly twice which is a bit redundant for me but I guess that's why it works. The problem for me is that once my brain recognizes that it has read something once, it switches to scan mode. I figure out which question is being asked, then I look for the answer that AMP previously told me was correct. I don't examine or think about what the question is asking or why. The second or third time through there is no deeper thought into the law than simply memorizing and matching an answer to a question. Maybe I'm just not doing it right. I should probably force myself to concentrate more on each question, but this becomes difficult when I have already answered correctly once. (I told you there would be whining.)

I guess this issue is my problem with the whole idea of memorization as a form of education. Memorization doesn't teach us to think. It doesn't teach us to be lawyers. It doesn't help us be proficient people or successful citizens. Memorization merely places listed information in the file cabinets of our brains to be regurgitated at a later date.

While much material must be memorized in order to understand general ideas, logging the files without understanding their contents is dangerous, in particular when it comes to law. While it is important to know what a law says, it is more important to know what the law means and why it was put in place. A law's goal, the policy, why the law exists, is more valuable to me than how the law is expressed on paper and I think our education should reflect this more often. However, it appears that for the next two months I must become a mindless drone absorbing information, black letter law to be squeezed out over a two-day span.

It's going to be a long summer.