You’ll often see advice to read the call of the question first in an MCQ or MBE question. As always, humans like to look for one universal strategy that works in all situations.
The idea with going straight to the call is that you’ll know what you’re looking for before you read the fact pattern, so you filter details more efficiently. That part is true. It’s helpful to know what the question is testing.
But there are weaknesses with call-first to watch out for, and a more nuanced approach for starting an MCQ.
Problem 1 with reading the call first: Sometimes the call doesn’t tell you the issue.
Not useful: “Will the plaintiff prevail?” “Should the motion be granted?” You’re still going in blind. You’ll need to read the stem or the answer choices to figure out what kind of question this is.
Kind of useful: “Is the evidence admissible?” It’s about admissibility, which tells you it’s an Evidence questions. But most Evidence questions are about admissibility.
More useful: “Should the court grant the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction?” We know it’s a Civ Pro question about personal jurisdiction.
BTW, this is true on the essays too. Compare these calls from the same essay question:
- “What claims and remedies, if any, may Reed reasonably pursue against Linda? Discuss.”
- “Were the developer’s residential deed restrictions valid? Discuss.”
- “Will Nancy succeed in her claim against Linda? Discuss.”
The first and third calls barely tell you the subject. The second call tells you to think Property and deeds.
Problem 2 with reading the call first: You still need to read the call again anyway.
Whether the extra few seconds of going back and forth between the call and the stem are worth it depends on how informative or specific call turns out to be.
Problem 3 with reading the call first: You might put on blinders once you think you see an issue.
Granted, seeing the issue is helpful and the entire purpose of reading the call first. You’re aware of the issue and want to pay more attention to the important facts.
But if you’re not careful, you might miss adjacent issues, exceptions, or important keywords from the hypo.
For example, the call asks, “Is the defendant liable for battery?” You lock in on intent and harmful contact. But buried in the hypo is a line that the defendant was a surgeon and the plaintiff signed a consent form. You miss the consent defense because you were already running the battery checklist.
There’s more than one way to know what an MBE question is testing.
- You could read the call first. Works well where the call is specific.
- You could just read the question from top to bottom. What are you losing exactly by doing this?
- You could read the answer choices first. The choices tell you which issues the question is actually testing. “Because the contract was not in writing” versus “Because the offer was revoked” gives you a big hint that the dispute involves contract formation. Meanwhile, the call might just ask whether Pimothy can enforce the contract (which could be based on many things).
The call-first technique isn’t wrong. It feels like you’re outmaneuvering the question. It gives you an approach to follow. It works for some MBE questions. For the rest, other parts of the question are giving you more clues than you think.
What to do instead
If you want to narrow down the issue on a first pass, I prefer to get an overall snapshot from a quick bird’s eye skim: the stem, call, and answer choices in 2-3 seconds.
Notice a few keywords. Get an idea of the subject and issue. Then start from the top.
Now you’re covered from all angles and you haven’t spent more time than a dedicated call-first approach alone would take.
This is “step 0” in the sample NextGen MCQs I go over: