In each Trial, there are a specific number of legal concepts that are relevant to the fact scenario. To get all the points available for identification, you will need to identify roughly half of those topics. If you identify more than half, you will earn more than the max points for identification (this regularly happens).
Most of the points in the trials lie in identification, so it’s the king. It’s also crucial because it sets the ceiling for your points in description and application. This is because you can only describe and apply legal concepts that you’ve identified. More on that, below.
The strategy lesson here is to be sure you identify as many relevant legal concepts as possible using the most accurate legal vocabulary you can. Note that spewing random legal concepts that are distantly relevant is a waste of time – they won’t earn points and they’ll only make it harder for me to spot the legal concepts that are relevant.
On the other hand, it is fair game to identify legal concepts as a means of distinguishing or contextualizing a key concept you will explain and apply in depth. For example (one having nothing to do with the law), if the situation calls for you to talk about animals that can fly, you would get points for mentioning as context that there are also animals that walk on land and others that swim in the water. You would not, however, earn any additional points for identifying (or describing) water and land animals in any more detail. You may know a lot about water and land animals, but those are not the concepts that the scenario calls for.
You earn points here by fully and accurately describing and applying the legal concepts you identified. You can only describe and apply, of course, legal concepts that you’ve identified. So, if you identify the target number of concepts (roughly half of the total possible), you can earn full points for description and application if your work is high quality. If you only identify half of the target number of concepts (roughly 25% of the total possible), however, you can only earn half the points for description and application, and only then if your work is high quality.
The reverse is also true. If you identify more than target number of legal concepts, you can earn more than the points allotted for description and application because you will be describing more than what was expected.
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