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EVD10 topics330 practice questions

NextGen Bar Exam Evidence.

Relevance, character, opinion, hearsay, confrontation, and impeachment under the FRE.

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All 10 topics in Evidence

Scope-aligned

★ marks the 9 topics NCBE flags at memorize level — know these cold; the rest lean on provided materials and reasoning.

  1. 01

    Relevance & 403★

    Logical relevance and its low threshold (including the effect of an offer to stipulate) and the exclusion of relevant evidence for unfair prejudice, confusion, or waste of time under Rule 403.

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  2. 02

    Character, Crimes & Habit★

    Admissibility of character evidence; crimes, wrongs, or other acts; the permitted methods of proving character; and habit and routine practice.

  3. 03

    Lay & Expert Opinion★

    Lay opinion testimony; and expert testimony — qualification of the expert, proper subject matter, reliability, the permissible bases of an expert opinion, and the ultimate-issue rule.

  4. 04

    Foundations, Authentication & Best Evidence★

    Foundation, authentication, and identification of evidence (including the examples in FRE 901(b)) and the best evidence rule — proving the content of a writing, what counts as a writing, and the treatment of duplicates.

  5. 05

    Witness Competency & Trial Mechanics

    Presentation of evidence beyond authentication: competency of witnesses and of jurors as witnesses, refreshing recollection, objections and offers of proof, judicial notice, and limited admissibility.

  6. 06

    Privileges & Policy Exclusions★

    Testimonial privileges (spousal immunity and marital communications, attorney-client and work product, physician/psychotherapist-patient) and policy-based exclusions (insurance coverage, subsequent remedial measures, and compromise and payment of medical expenses).

  7. 07

    Hearsay & Non-Hearsay★

    The definition of hearsay; statements defined as not hearsay (a declarant-witness's prior statement and an opposing party's statement); and hearsay within hearsay.

  8. 08

    Hearsay Exceptions★

    Exceptions to the rule against hearsay — those available regardless of the declarant's availability (present sense impression, excited utterance, then-existing condition, medical diagnosis, recorded recollection, business and public records, learned treatises, reputation) and those requiring unavailability (former testimony, dying declaration, statement against interest, and forfeiture by wrongdoing).

  9. 09

    Confrontation★

    The Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses and the limits it places on testimonial hearsay in criminal cases.

  10. 10

    Impeachment & Rehabilitation★

    Impeachment, contradiction, and rehabilitation: attacking a witness's capacity to observe, remember, or relate; contradiction; prior inconsistent statements and conduct; bias and interest; character for truthfulness (bad acts and convictions); religious belief; rehabilitation of an impeached witness; and impeachment of a hearsay declarant.

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4 sample EVD questions

Real questions from the Evidence bank, with the full explanation. The paid bank covers all 10 topics and difficulty levels.

A jewelry store is robbed at gunpoint, and the State charges a former employee named Boyd. At trial, the prosecutor offers evidence that on the morning after the robbery Boyd bought a one-way bus ticket to another state using a false name and had shaved off his distinctive beard. Boyd objects that fleeing and changing his appearance prove nothing, because innocent people often panic and run when they fear being blamed for a crime they did not commit.

Is the evidence of Boyd’s flight and change of appearance relevant?

  1. Yes, because it has some tendency to show a consciousness of guilt. Correct
  2. No, because innocent people sometimes flee, so the evidence fails to prove that he robbed the store.
  3. No, because evidence of flight is never enough to sustain a conviction on its own.
  4. Yes, because fleeing the state after a crime conclusively establishes the fleeing person’s guilt.
Why: Rule 401 sets a famously low bar: evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable. Flight under a false name and a hurried change of appearance have some tendency to show a guilty conscience, which bears on whether Boyd committed the robbery, so the evidence clears Rule 401 (A). B and C make the same error from different angles — they demand that the evidence prove guilt or be sufficient to convict, but relevance never requires sufficiency; a brick is not a wall, and the innocent explanations Boyd offers go to weight for the jury, not admissibility. D overstates in the opposite direction: flight is not conclusive proof of anything, and relevance does not require certainty. The evidence is a legitimate building block, which is all Rule 401 demands.

A plaintiff sues a delivery company after one of its vans rear-ended her car at a stoplight. To prove the van driver was at fault, the plaintiff offers evidence that the driver collects vintage postage stamps and once won a regional collectors’ award for his stamp album. The company objects that the hobby has nothing to do with the crash. Liability turns solely on whether the driver followed too closely and braked too late; nothing in the case concerns the driver’s pastimes.

Is the evidence about the driver’s stamp-collecting relevant?

  1. Yes, because a detailed hobby helps the jury understand what kind of person the driver is.
  2. Yes, because any true fact about a party to the lawsuit is relevant background information.
  3. No, because it has no tendency to prove any fact that is of consequence to the case. Correct
  4. No, because the danger of confusing the issues substantially outweighs its probative value.
Why: Rule 401 requires two things: a tendency to prove a fact and that the fact be of consequence. The stamp hobby fails the second half — fault turns on following distance and braking, so the driver’s pastime proves nothing that matters, making it irrelevant no matter how true it is (C). A and B stretch relevance past its breaking point; “understanding the kind of person” and “any true fact about a party” are not consequential links, and materiality demands an actual connection to a claim, defense, or issue. D reaches the right outcome by the wrong route: Rule 403 balancing is for evidence that is relevant but dangerous, and there is no need to balance evidence that never clears the relevance bar to begin with. Immaterial evidence is excluded under Rules 401 and 402, not 403.

A warehouse burns to the ground and the owner sues an electrician, alleging that faulty wiring the electrician installed started the fire. No witness saw flames erupt from the wiring itself. Instead, the owner offers a fire investigator who will testify that the charring was deepest at the electrical panel and that scorch marks fanned outward from that point across the walls. The electrician argues the burn-pattern testimony is irrelevant because nobody actually observed the wiring ignite.

Is the burn-pattern testimony relevant?

  1. No, because only direct evidence of ignition can establish the cause of a fire.
  2. Yes, because it tends to prove the fire’s origin through a reasonable inference. Correct
  3. No, because circumstantial evidence carries less legal weight than eyewitness testimony.
  4. Yes, but only if the investigator first rules out every other conceivable cause of the fire.
Why: Circumstantial evidence — proof of one fact from which a jury may infer another — is fully relevant and is not weaker than direct evidence as a matter of law. A burn pattern radiating from the electrical panel tends to make it more probable that the wiring caused the fire, which satisfies Rule 401 (B). A invents a direct-evidence requirement that does not exist; causation, like most facts at trial, is routinely proved by inference. C misstates the law — circumstantial evidence is entitled to no less weight than direct evidence, and any difference in persuasive force is for the jury, not a barrier to admission. D loads relevance with a sufficiency condition it never carries; the evidence need only nudge the probability, and unaddressed alternative causes affect weight, not admissibility.

During a contract dispute over a shipment of lumber, one party offers a relevant email in which the other side’s manager admitted the boards were the wrong grade. The opponent concedes the email is relevant to a disputed issue but argues that being relevant is not by itself enough to make the email admissible, and urges the judge to consider whether some other rule of evidence might still keep it out. The judge agrees the email bears directly on the quality dispute.

Which statement best describes the effect of the email being relevant?

  1. Being relevant guarantees the email’s admission no matter what other rules provide.
  2. Because it is relevant, the email is admissible unless some other rule excludes it. Correct
  3. Relevance is beside the point; only the hearsay and privilege rules decide admissibility.
  4. The email is inadmissible unless its proponent shows it is more probative than prejudicial.
Why: Rule 402 states the default: relevant evidence is admissible unless the Constitution, a statute, the Federal Rules, or other Supreme Court rules provide otherwise, and irrelevant evidence is never admissible. Relevance is therefore necessary but not sufficient — it opens the door, but hearsay, a privilege, or Rule 403 can still shut it (B). A treats relevance as a guarantee, ignoring the many rules that can exclude relevant proof. C swings too far the other way; relevance is the threshold requirement for all evidence, not an afterthought, and irrelevant evidence is categorically barred. D misstates Rule 403 by flipping its burden and standard: the default favors admission, and evidence is excluded only when probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger — the proponent need not affirmatively prove it is “more probative than prejudicial.”
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Common questions

Evidence FAQs

Relevance, character, opinion, hearsay, confrontation, and impeachment under the FRE. The published content scope breaks it into 10 topics, examined through both MCQ formats plus integrated question sets and performance tasks.
10. Our notes are mapped one-to-one against NCBE's published content scope, and starred topics mark what NCBE flags at memorize level.
Active recall beats re-reading. Read the notes once, then practice exam-format questions in mixed order, then revisit weak topics. Our weak-area tracker surfaces the topics dragging your accuracy down.
Yes. The free diagnostic quiz is open to everyone, free accounts get the first topic of every subject — notes included — plus 5 premium questions a day. The full EVD bank (330 questions today) is unlocked with a one-time purchase and covered by the 14-day money-back guarantee.
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