How difficult is difficult?

So how hard is CLP?

I'm sure almost everyone has heard the CLP examinations has a certain stereotype of difficulty tagged on it. We fret about its passing rate, and as discussed in my last post, the supposedly low passing rate subsequently led to various negative connotations. Whilst various factors affects the passing rate, I opined that the difficulty of the CLP examination was reasonably constant as a whole throughout the years, thus cannot stand as one of its factors.

That does not mean that CLP is not "difficult". I'm phrasing it in such a way, given the subjectivity on what difficulty may mean. To be fair, I will hence discuss in general, what the CLP consists of, the workload it involves and the effort I've had to put in. In consideration of these matters in an amalgamation, would be a yardstick as to its difficulty:

What Does it Involve 
The CLP examinations consists of 5 papers as follows:

1. General Paper (GP) - Tort & Contract law
2. Criminal Procedure
3. Civil Procedure
4. Law of Evidence
5. Professional Practice - Land law, Ethics & Advocacy, Probate law, & Bankruptcy law

So effectively, you actually have around 9 or 10 subjects to prepare. Ethics & Advocacy is usually taught in CLP courses as a separate subject, although I don't see why it should be, given its close relations and reference to the Legal Profession Act 1976.

In terms of time given per paper, it's 3 hours answering time per paper, and if I recall correctly 10 minutes reading time, for all papers except GP, whilst GP is given 15 minutes. During the reading time, you may also draft notes or your 'grand plan' on a spare sheet of paper provided. You may also highlight parts of the question. In addition, there are prescribed statutes books you are allowed to bring in the exam hall for each paper, all except GP where you would be expected to memorize all that is necessary. Sadly under a new ruling from the LPQB, statute books can no longer be highlighted. Apparently some students got too smart in the past by highlighting alphabets from words in a particular section, which then indicated a certain case related to the section, which the LPQB weren't too happy about.

Its Workload

CLP courses usually start somewhere towards the end of September, and all subjects should be taught to completion by around mid-April (I'm using BAC as a reference). That is approximately 7 months, followed by which, revision will immediately commence from mid-April to early or mid-June. And then there's the exam that begins early July. So effectively, a candidate has approximately 9 1/2 months to prepare for CLP. I'm talking about time, given that the time of preparation in proportion to the amount of material to study is tantamount to the workload involved.

From here now, we'll look at the amount of materials you can safely drop. For GP, there would be a single question for both Tort & Contract, hence compelling a candidate to study both areas. Nonetheless, you would possibly find GP to be one of the easier papers to manage with the least materials to study. You would find the scope of topics taught for CLP Torts & Contracts simplified and narrow as opposed to what was taught in LLB. While there are commonly tested areas, I find it risky to neglect studying any area, given the limited options. I believe there should be areas to focus on, but none should be neglected; a mistake I made which thus only allowed me to scrap through with a pass, and a potentially costly F grade. I'll be using 'Stars' to indicate the degree or amount of materials to study'. So for GP, let's put it at: [3/5 Stars]

Then there's Criminal Procedure. After scheming through a few past year papers, I believe a candidate can pass safely by studying 70% of the topics, given that a candidate only needs to answer 4 out of 7 questions provided. On top of that, a lot of the questions can be answered by direct reference to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), [2/5 Stars].

Civil Procedure is a mind wrecking subject, given the vast amount of procedures to understand. Amongst difficulties a candidate might face would be differentiating the application of a certain procedure in multiple circumstances, and knowing which one to apply. Within procedures itself, there can be various exceptions which have to be familiarized. It is also very heavily dependent on memory work with various cases and statutes tied to each procedure. Nonetheless, given the option of answering 4 out of 7 questions, studying 70% of the popular topics should be safe, though even then, there would still be a lot to digest. [5/5 Stars]

Evidence takes a step back from Civil Procedure. It is however heavily tied to understanding and application and a decent degree of case memorization. It's fortunate that the Evidence Act is a thin book that you could bring into the exam hall. Again 4 out of 7 optional questions to answer. I propose studying 80% of the main materials. I've added an additional 10% as opposed to my regular 70%, given that certain questions in evidence can intersect with multiple areas. [3/5 Stars]

Finally there's Professional Practice. While it may seem a lot, most of the final materials to study can again be reduced, which is made easier by the linear way of which the exam questions are set. The paper consist of Part A & B. For Part A, there would be 4 questions, 2 each for ethics and advocacy. You need to answer any 2 out of the 4. While ethics and advocacy can be a hell of a memorizing discourse with over 5-6 sets of regulations to memorize and heaps of cases portraying the variety of instances where poor lawyers were whipped by the disciplinary board; studying 3-4 major areas of each will keep you afloat, given the limited ways the questions are set. Part B on the other hand consist of 3 questions on Land Law, 1 on Probate, and another on Bankruptcy. Any 3 questions out of the 5 must be answered, forcibly ensuring you at least answer 1 question from Land Law. Strategically, most candidates will take the option of forgoing either Probate or Bankruptcy, hence answering 2 Land questions, and 1 of the other. (which was what I did too!). Using that strategy, 80% of Land law topics should be studied, and a 100% of the other sole subject. I found the hardest bit of this paper was answering a question, and then switching to another question of a very different area of law. Given the multidisciplinary area of this paper: [4/5 Stars]

So as you can see, there are concessions that can reduce the total materials to study, but this requires very careful planning and strategy. In areas where I've depicted a % to study, that requires your careful evaluation over popular and important topics that have constantly been questioned in previous years, as opposed to less popular ones. But trust me on this, it would be impossible to study everything to perfection, and I personally find it is better to master a few good topics, than to study everything and flop them all. I believe what a lot of my peers failed to do was to very cleverly select which areas to focus on, and on top of that, nearing exam, even their focus areas weren't in top notch conditions. Its nonetheless a deception, when lecturers or the LPQB accuse candidates of selective learning as a reason for their failures. I would kindly differ, that it is only foolish selective learning that will cause the downfall of a candidate.

My Own Effort

So they say CLP students have no life. Well hmm.. I never really had a life to begin with, so didn't really make a difference to me. Let's just divide my CLP life into days when I had lectures & tutorials, and free days. On lecture/tutorial days, I rarely missed classes (If I recall, my record is an absence of less than 5 lectures/tutorials throughout the whole of 2012/2013 study sessions). I'm also there approximately an hour early to ensure I get my favourite and most strategic seat in class, and I've even got a friend that comes way earlier to entrench my seat with a caveat. During lectures, I am quiet and usually attentive. I also have the habit of selectively jotting down notes which I feel are important. In addition, I'm rarely ever back late to class after breaks. There were times when I however get overly bored. If that happened, I'll whip out my PSP and start gaming, hoping my subconscious mind absorbed all that the lecturer was teaching. Finally the lecture is over, I'll rush home via the KTM, take a quick nap, shower, have lunch/dinner, and turn on my laptop. From there on, I'll be surfing Facebook, pondering about in malaysiakini.com, or even play some online games. In the remaining hours of the day that I have, I'll either be reading back what was taught for the day (especially the parts I'd missed out while playing my PSP), or make/re-make brief notes (at the same time, Skype chat with my girlfriend in full screen would be opened, ensuring I made myself look busy). That would be around 1-3 hours.

On a free day, I'll wake up around 12-2pm, get about my daily business, and start studying, again. The proportion of study and play would usually be around a 50:50 , which I think was attributive as to how I retained my sanity throughout. My studying would usually consist of making more notes, or simplified notes on topics previously taught, before the next lecture day (study time around 4-6 hours). Occasionally I'll attempt some very early pre-mature memorization work. Most of it would be forgotten later, but it does ease recurrence of memory when a serious attempt is made at memorizing near exams. Given that I rarely met up with friends (no, I don't have that many anyway), my routine was reasonably constant, although I occasionally met up with a buddy once or twice a month, and I made sure it usually fell  on a free day.

There's also a difference of study methods that I used during the lecture sessions, and the revision sessions. As depicted, I spent most of the lecture season making notes, and understanding concepts. Memory work was given a low priority at that point. But come revision, the first half of the revision period would be spent finalizing any concepts I have yet to understand. I made it a point to understand fully what I have yet to understand by all means necessary. There was also the analysis of past year questions, attempting a few of them, and familiarizing myself with the fashion of questions posed and what were the hot topics. From such analysis, I cut down on what to memorize. On the second half of the revision period, fewer attempts would be made in answering questions, and more towards memorizing cases and sections from statutes. (average personal revision time at home: 7-9 hours, and for the second half period: 7-10 hours). 

Conclusion

Given all those facts and my share of my experience, was it difficult? Again, difficulty is subjective. For me, CLP is not rocket-science. It is not entirely impossible to understand, rather it is do-able if one just stops whining (even better if you could look at it in a positive light), sits down, read it through, draw some mind-mappings/charts, and perhaps re-read it through once more. Personally, I would say the difficulty in understanding is moderate, so is its application in exam questions. I would in fact rank it equal to what I've done back in my LLB days. There is however very heavy memory workload in certain subjects, which requires good memorization skills & techniques. The other issue is the immense amount of information a candidate is required to absorbed in the short period of study time before the exams. Even with the strategic reduction of materials to study and focus, it still required hard work and great resilience to persevere through. If there was anything difficult about CLP, it would be coming to the ideal strategy which enables one to pass, or to score even better than a pass; and having the will and determination to follow through with this grand scheme, one has designed for himself.

More shall be discussed on studying strategy for each subject in some later post, hopefully for today, this brief overview has helped a little :)