I received this question regarding the format of exam answers two weeks ago and should have answered it sooner.
Question: [I am wondering about] your preference in styles for answering the exam. IE: some professors prefer that you make a single decision on an issue and move forward, some prefer you address and make a determination on every potential result of an issue and others, still yet, prefer you simply argue the potential sides and make no final determination on the issue. I have been in classes where professors prefer issue spotting to be like blasting a shotgun (trying to hit as much as possible) and where the professor prefers issue spotting to be like a sniper's work (hit a single target with efficacy). Is there a manner you feel most effectively portrays our understanding of con law? I only ask because it allows me to prepare for the test ahead of time in how I organize my notes/outline, etc...
Answer: I will do my best to answer this, but I'm afraid that, no matter what, it will have to be imprecise. First, the most important thing is to answer the question that is asked. Often students get off track, for instance, by reciting all of the arguments the plaintiff or the defendant might possibly make, regardless of their plausibility, and without actually analyzing their likelihood of success, because they failed to read that the question prompted them to provide an objective analysis of the legal problem.
Second, I think a well-prepared student could take almost a week to answer a typical law school exam. Thus, implicitly the exam is not asking you to provide your best answer in the abstract, but your best answer given the time that is available. In other words, one of the skills being tested is your ability to discern which issues are the most important, which ones present the closest calls legally, and thus which ones deserve the bulk of your attention (and which ones can be disposed of rather quickly). Obviously, there is no algorithm for this. But engaging in a triage of the issues is an important skill. Indeed, this may be one of the most significant ways that law school exams actually measure a skill critical to the practice of law. To be sure, you infrequently will face the pressure of a 3-hour deadline to turn something around. But you will always have less time than you would like to complete all of your work, and you will constantly be making choices about what is most important, allocating the scarce resource of your attention accordingly.
Finally, I think my model answers, particularly the complete answers in the 2001 exam that I posted today on ClaraNet (answers to essay questions B, C, and D) might give you a general sense of what I think solid answers look like. I will leave it to you to analyze where they fit within the categories you describe above.
Hope this helps in some way.