Finally, the judicial exam is over, and now I feel somewhat unaccustomed to it, unaccustomed to the days of pressure, goals, and motivation. Although the results always leave one with regrets, at least this year’s judicial exam has been quite beneficial for me personally.

The 2010 Judicial Exam is a Game Where a Large Group of Fools is Played Around by a Few Individuals

This year, the number of applicants for the judicial exam is estimated to surpass last year’s record high, as it is said that the pass rate will continue to increase, making the judicial exam a mere ordinary entry-level test. With 600 points in total, scoring 360 points is equivalent to obtaining a pass into the public security, procuratorial, and legal professions. Compared to the pass rates of 5% or even lower in other countries, China’s judicial exam is practically a direct giveaway. Unfortunately, I was not among those who passed…

The judicial exam consists of four papers. The first three are objective multiple-choice questions, and the last one is entirely subjective, with each paper worth 150 points. The multiple-choice papers each have 100 questions: the first 50 are single-choice, followed by 40 multiple-choice, and the last 10 are variable-choice. In the subjective paper, there are two essay questions (written in a grid format), and the other five are basic short-answer and analysis types. I had known this structure for a long time, but I had never memorized the division of subjects across the papers, leading to confusion and frustration before the exam.

The subjects of the judicial exam include but are not limited to: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Civil Law, Administrative Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Civil Procedure Law, Administrative Procedure Law, Commercial Law, Economic Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Law, International Commercial Law, International Economic Law… The weight of each subject varies according to the importance placed on different legal departments domestically.

The Idea That New Laws Are Always Tested is a False Proposition

The so-called “new laws are always tested” refers to the notion that laws newly enacted or implemented in the country in the current or previous one or two years will definitely be the focus of the judicial exam. For example, the Property Law of 2006 appeared extensively in the judicial exam questions in the following years.

The most important new law in 2010 was the “Tort Law.” All judicial exam teachers and almost all candidates believed that the Tort Law would account for at least 15 points in the exam, and 30 points would not be surprising. However, the unfortunate reality is that it seems the Tort Law was not tested this year.

The teacher said that the Banking Law would only be tested with one question, and I believed it, but it turned out to be worth almost ten points;
The teacher said that the Election Law was very important this year, and I thought, yes, I worked hard to memorize the Election Law, but it only resulted in one question;
I thought that the first volume would not test Civil Law, but I was wrong, as the third question turned out to be a big one;
I thought I had a good grasp of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, but I was wrong again, as the examiners focused on female staff;
The Property Law was enacted in 2007, and the Contract Law in 1999. Moreover, several judicial interpretations on real estate were issued this year. I thought that real estate transactions would be a major focus this year, with Contract Law being less significant. In fact, the teacher said so too. But—the examiners told us that I was wrong again, as real estate transactions were hardly tested, while Contract Law had quite a few questions.

I originally intended to list these things one by one, but every time I recall them, it’s heart-wrenching, so this article has been written intermittently, with two days of pause.

Judicial Exam Teachers Are All Big Hustlers

I have always valued judicial exam training teachers highly, as they specialize in this field and should be quite capable. Therefore, based on personal preference, I selected two sets of audio lectures and handouts from judicial exam teachers, one being the so-called basic class, which started around May or June, another being the legal provisions lecture series, which started in July, and the last being the pre-exam breakthrough class, which started at the end of August.

Looking at these three sets of training materials, I feel that relying solely on them for the judicial exam is quite ridiculous. However, due to youthful naivety, even in July when I saw the lineups of major judicial exam training institutions, I still held onto hope.

Of course, I’m not dismissing them entirely. Some courses are indeed very good, but for most people, it might be a case of missing the forest for the trees. For example, regarding the “crime of abducting and trafficking women,” most judicial exam schools only focus on the fact that this crime can encompass the “crime of rape,” but whether it includes “intentional injury” or “compulsory indecency” is not mentioned in the training classes I attended.

Judicial exam teachers always say, “In the judicial exam, the vast majority of questions are a review of knowledge points from past years’ real questions,” but in reality, anyone who has taken the exam should know that relying solely on past years’ real questions is not enough to pass the judicial exam, as most questions are not simply modified versions of old questions. According to the theory of legal reasoning, the statement “In the judicial exam, the vast majority of questions are a review of knowledge points from past years’ real questions” does not logically lead to the conclusion that “mastering the knowledge points from past years’ judicial exams will enable one to pass the judicial exam,” because the middle term in these two statements is not comprehensive. The “knowledge points” referred to by the judicial exam teachers are broad, such as “intentional homicide” or “abducting and trafficking women,” but the actual “knowledge points” in the judicial exam are often limited to the nuances of these crimes. That is to say, even if we know that “intentional homicide” and “abducting and trafficking women” are tested every year, we may still get the questions wrong because any broad knowledge point like “intentional homicide” contains too many nuances, and it’s almost impossible to remember all of them. Therefore, it’s normal to get these questions wrong every year even though they are tested every year.

How Many Points Can One Score in the Judicial Exam?

The judicial exam is different from the college entrance exam. In the college entrance exam, the highest score I’ve seen is 731 out of 750, with 141 in Chinese and English, full marks in math, and 299 in science.

But in the judicial exam, when it was 400 points, no one scored 300; when it was 600 points, no one scored 500. Even the top scorers in the country, after taking the exam, mostly feel nothing, because the judicial exam is essentially a contest of opinions between individuals and the country’s top legal academic researchers.

It can be said that every question answered in the judicial exam represents an individual’s personal opinion, but our personal opinions may not be accepted by these examiners who have decades of professional legal research. Law is a relatively subjective discipline, and even in countries with codified laws, any legal enactment is the result of subjective attitudes being reconciled among people.

Some judicial exam teachers can boldly claim in certain training stages that their handouts can completely cover the judicial exam, or that all the knowledge points that can be tested in the judicial exam are included in their handouts. This kind of foolish statement actually fooled me.

Someone said that in the 600-point judicial exam, 200 points are from known knowledge points, 200 points are from unseen ones, and another 200 points are from half-known and half-remembered ones. And we have to make up 360 points from these three sets of 200 points.

How Long Should One Prepare for the Judicial Exam?

Some say that preparing for the judicial exam requires about 1200-1500 hours of study, others say that a two-week intensive preparation can also pass, and yet others say that two months should be enough for a normal person. There are various opinions, and the results vary accordingly.

Someone often likes to give an example: in the 2003 administrative law exam, a question comparing administrative penalties and administrative licensing involved four options covering eight knowledge points. Anyone who didn’t fully grasp all eight knowledge points would be out of luck, as it’s extremely difficult to guess the correct answer in a multiple-choice question. The judicial exam is filled with such questions that mix multiple knowledge points, objectively creating a frustrating result: candidates who “know nothing” and those who “know incompletely” often fail, because those who know nothing are just guessing, while those who know incompletely often miss or incorrectly select some answers, leading to no points.

I have been preparing for the judicial exam for almost half a year, and the reason for the minimal effect is largely related to the continuity of my study. The preparation for the judicial exam is largely a test of memory, with a vast sea of knowledge points requiring uninterrupted repetition and memory, otherwise, it’s easy to forget. A simple way to put it is that each review of a legal department takes more than two or three days, and for some like Criminal Law and Civil Law, it might take one or two weeks at the beginning. As a result, each review cycle might span dozens of days. Can you still remember which hundreds of knowledge points you studied today after 20 days?