I've reviewed a lot of bar exam essays, and the same point-loser shows up over and over: generic application.

Students spend all their prep memorizing rules, then when it's time to apply them, they write things like "the defendant breached the contract" without ever tying it back to the specific facts in the hypo. Graders aren't scoring "did you know the rule" — they're scoring "did you use THIS fact pattern to argue it."

Quick test you can run on your own practice essays right now: highlight every sentence in your application section. If you can swap in a different fact pattern and the sentence still makes sense, it's too generic — and it's costing you points.

The fix is boring but works: for every element of a rule, force yourself to name a specific fact from the hypo that satisfies (or doesn't satisfy) it before moving to the next element. It slows you down at first, but it's exactly what separates a 3 from a 5 on the rubric.

Curious if others have run into this same issue — what's the point-loser you keep catching in your own practice essays?