Patent Bar Exam Study Strategies and Annoyances
Since I last blogged I have been concentrating my efforts on learning to navigate the MPEP. I have been doing this by using ExamWareTM to answer questions randomly sampled from all of the sections. Before now I had some awareness regarding how large and difficult the MPEP is, but having to actually use it to answer exam questions has been something of an eye-opener.
I should note here that my desktop computer at home is a Mac, and it deals with PDFs a little bit differently than a PC. Instead of temporarily opening the PDF for each chapter as you select it from the drop-down list in ExamWareTM, it downloads a new copy of the chapter each time you select it. As a simple work-around, I downloaded each chapter individually and keep them in an easily accessible folder. This way, I can consult the drop-down menu to see which chapter I want and then open the PDF from my folder, rather than downloading 50 copies of Chapter 2100: Patentability as I go through the questions. That’s a long explanation for a pretty simple issue, but that’s just the sort of minor annoyance that I think most people probably run into.
Anyway, the MPEP is large, intricate, and difficult to navigate, particularly for a beginner. I know, news flash, right? I’ve found the Subject Matter Index to be of some use, but it’s just too big to be a primary tool in locating question-specific issues within a very limited time window. You also never know if the index is going to have an entry for the keyword you’re looking for, so I don’t want to go into the test thinking that using the Subject Matter Index is going to be anything other than a semi-desperation move.
I have found that simply going through the questions has been fairly effective in becoming familiar with the MPEP. Of course, there are chapters that come up over and over again, such as the aforementioned Chapter 2100. The chapters that come up infrequently will probably not get much more than a cursory view, with the idea that if there are not many old exam questions from these chapters, there likely won’t be many on new exams.
As far as the results I have been getting so far, they have been fairly encouraging, but also frustrating at times. Paul Gardner mentioned several times during the Patent Bar Review course that one must be vigilant in monitoring for all the potential hazards posed by potential questions, such as knowing what information is important, what should be ignored, and what exactly the question is asking. By this time I can say I definitely concur with Paul. A good portion of the questions I’ve missed have been because I missed some detail that had more to do with the way the question was posed or the answers were presented than the actual concepts of patent examination procedure. However, I think that I’m getting better at spotting these details, and the only way to continue to improve is to continue to see exam-type questions.
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