Don’t Be the Houston Cougars. Take the Shot.

With 19 seconds left in last night's NCAA men's basketball national championship game, the Houston Courgars had the ball and a chance to win it all.

Emanuel Sharp rose up to shoot a three. The University of Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. flew in to contest. Sharp pulled back mid-air, dropped the ball, hoping a teammate would pick it up. No one did.

Houston froze. For nearly three full seconds—with a national title on the line—nobody moved. Florida’s Alex Condon finally dove on the ball with two seconds left, sealing the win. Houston never even got a shot off.

That’s how their season ended. Houston lost by two points, 65-63.

And that’s how some bar takers fail the exam every year—not because they didn’t know everything, but because they didn’t take the shot when it counted.

Multiple-Choice Questions

Leave it blank? It’s wrong. There’s no penalty for guessing, so even a semi-confident answer has a 25% shot at being right. A blank has a 0% chance.

Why is 25% better than 0%? Because over the course of 100 multiple-choice questions, if you guess on 4 questions and get 25% of them right, that's 1 extra correct answer—and that could raise your scaled score by multiple points. Leaving those same 4 questions blank would net you zero. Guessing keeps you in the game. Blanking guarantees a miss.

Guess if you must—but don’t freeze.

Of course, this means managing manage your time wisely. Don’t get stuck on one difficult question and risk running out of time for others. If you’re unsure, mark it, move on, and come back if time allows. Leaving questions blank because time expired is just as costly as freezing in the moment.

Every question deserves a shot.

Essays

Essay responses in Uniform Bar Examination jurisdictions are mostly graded on a 1 to 6 scale. While IRAC is the preferred structure and generally leads to higher scores, if you're running out of time, it's far better to write something—even if it's not in IRAC format—than to leave the page blank.

Even writing one relevant sentence—like stating a rule or offering a logical conclusion—can earn you 1 point.

A completely blank or unresponsive response? That’s a zero.

And here’s why that 1 point matters: Each essay can earn up to 6 raw points, and there are typically six essays in total. Your combined essay score makes up 30% of your overall UBE score. If you leave an essay blank and get a 0, you’ve lost about 17% of the possible points for that essay. Do that more than once, and it can drag down your total score enough to fall short of passing.

Just like the multiple-choice section, time management is key. You’ll get 6 essays in a 3-hour block. That’s 30 minutes per question. But if you spend just 33 minutes on each of the first five questions, you’ll have only 15 minutes left for the sixth—and that’s barely enough time to read, outline, and write a meaningful response.

Write efficiently, watch the clock, and if time is running short, don’t panic—write something. Even a rushed response gives you a shot at a point or more. Writing something—even if it’s not perfect—keeps you in the game.

So here’s your bar prep takeaway

🏀 Don’t hesitate.

🏀 Don’t drop the ball.

🏀 Even if the clock is running out, even if you’re unsure—take the shot.

Because in basketball and on the bar exam: You can’t win if you don’t try.