THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS PROGRAMS
WEEKLY STUDY TIPS FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 28TH
Law students often give each other advice about how to study best. Some of the
well-meaning tips that students receive are actually bad advice. Here are
reasons why some of the common myths regarding studying are not good
advice:
 Myth #1: Don’t bother keeping up with class preparation; just focus
on exam studying. It is imperative that you keep up with your reading
and outlining for each course while you study for exams. If you coast in
class for 4-6 weeks, you will not have a good understanding of the
material covered in those critical weeks. Consequently, you will need to
re-learn it all right before the exam.
 Myth #2: Use all of your absences during the last week of class to
focus on exam studying. The last couple of weeks are essential to your
performance on the exam. Professors may spend time tying together the
concepts. Professors often give tips and instructions regarding the exam.
Professors may review the course in the last classes. Professors may
allow extra time for student questions. Professors may focus one or more
exam questions solely on the last two weeks of class. If you skip class
and depend on another student’s interpretation of what happened, you
may be at a disadvantage.
 Myth #3: You don’t have to study as hard for multiple-choice exams
because you just have to recognize the “right” answer. In law school
multiple-choice exams, you are usually looking for a “best” answer rather
than one “right” answer. Consequently, you need to study as hard for
multiple-choice exams as for essay exams because you need to know the
nuances of the law to choose the “best” answer. Some people even say
that you need to study harder for multiple-choice exams than for essay
exams because you cannot explain anything about the answer you
choose.
 Myth #4: You don’t have to study as hard for open-book exams
because you can look up anything you want. You will not have time to
look up everything during the exam. You should study for open-book
exams as if they were closed-book exams. You need to “own” the
material and not just be generally familiar with it. If you have a rule book
or code book, you will not need to memorize code/rule sections verbatim.
However, you still need to know the “condensed” version of the rules or
code sections by heart to avoid the necessity of reading the code section
for every problem or question. Always practice using the code or rule
book to become very efficient in its use.
 Myth #5: Do the very minimum in Legal Practice and focus on your
substantive courses. Employers often emphasize your Legal Practice
grade because they want to know if you can write. Legal writing and
analysis are critical to being a good lawyer. Most summer law clerks are
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research and writing the entire time. In addition, a good grade in Legal
Practice has a positive impact on your grade point average.
Myth #6: Wait until right before the exam to do any practice
questions. Practice questions are critical to knowing whether you really
understand the material. You should do practice questions throughout
your exam review at the end of each sub-topic and/or topic. Practice
questions also help you to get your exam-taking techniques on “auto-pilot”
for more efficient and effective use during the actual exam. Right before
the exam, you will want to do more complex practice questions and some
“exam conditions” practice questions. You would not expect to become an
expert water skier without practice; exam writing is no different.
Myth #7: Re-read your cases for your exam review so that you know
them really well. Cases are generally mere vehicles for the legal
information you need to apply to new fact situations on the exam: rules of
law; definitions of elements; policy; arguments that parties can make;
steps of analysis; tests; and/or court reasoning. Re-reading the cases is
an inefficient use of time because it focuses are separate units of
knowledge and details. Instead, you want to focus on understanding the
“big picture” of the course and how to apply the legal information in cases
to new fact scenarios. You want to be able to cite a case name
(especially U.S. Supreme Court or major cases) or the case facts (“the fox
case”) to analogize or distinguish on the exam, but you do not need to
know every detail of a case to accomplish that task.