THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS PROGRAMS
WEEKLY STUDY TIPS FOR THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 14TH
Dr. Amy L. Jarmon, Assistant Dean for Academic Success Programs
“Practice makes perfect” is an adage that we have heard all of our lives. We
know it is true for most of life’s activities: driving, horseback riding, skiing, piloting
a small airplane, riding a bike, etc. However, there is often a “disconnect” when
we consider practice for academic endeavors. Students often think that they can
do well without practicing for exam writing. Why? Because not practicing
worked in high school and undergraduate school since the exams duplicated
what the professor told us in class – if we memorized the lectures, we received
“A” grades.
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Law school is VERY different. You need to practice regularly to do well on
your exams. Why? Because law school exams are normally NOT
duplicative of what happened in class.
First, there is often not a right answer that gives you lots of points in law
school. Essay exams require you to give the analysis (how the plaintiff
and defendant would argue the application of the law to a set of facts) for
maximum points. Multiple choice questions require you to choose the
“best” answer from several right answers for the applicable law and facts.
Let’s face it, lawyers are hired to argue the “grey” areas of the law. “It
depends” makes the legal world go around.
Second, classes are about cases. Exams are usually about the “big
picture” of the course – the understanding of the inter-relationships of
concepts. Your professor may have given you hints about that “big
picture” but left you to figure it out from the discussion of cases.
Third, exams are usually also about applying what you have learned from
cases to new fact scenarios that you have not seen before in the cases.
You may use cases as illustrations for analogizing and distinguishing the
new fact scenarios, but cases are not normally the focus of the exams.
(The exceptions are the “big” cases that you need to use as a basis for
analysis – the Erie-type big guns and constitutional law cases.)
Fourth, memorization of the “black letter law” is really only the beginning of
what it takes to do well in law school. Knowing the law is necessary, but
only gets you some kind of “C” grade at best. It is applying the law to new
fact scenarios that garners the most points.
Fifth, part of exam writing is knowing how to “approach” exam questions,
how to organize your answers, how to write concise and cogent
sentences. These techniques and strategies are honed through practice.
So, what are some top tips for practicing for law school exams? For more
detailed information, pick up a copy of the Exam Writing Workshop handouts in
the OASP study aids library: #1 Essay Fact Pattern Exams and #2 MultipleChoice and Take Home Exams. Here are some general suggestions to get the
most out of practice:
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Practice at the end of reviewing sub-topics and topics within a course.
Flashcards can help you check your understanding of concepts and
simple questions. However, you need to practice with more difficult
questions as well. Build on the complexity of the questions to test your
ability to apply the law: start with one or two issues and increase until you
are during harder questions.
Practice on questions combining topics within a course. Look for practice
questions that combine several different topics within the same question.
Again, start with less complex questions and build up to actual final exam
questions.
Practice your “approach” to questions of the type that will be on your final
exam. For essay fact pattern questions: read the call first, spot the
issues, marshall the facts you need to use, note the cases you need to
refer to for analogies, organize your answer by topics and/or suits, etc.
For multiple choice questions: read the call first, note facts that are
important, note the law you need to apply, consider the consequences
and conditions or explanations in the answer choices, narrow down
choices, etc.
Practice your ability to write concise and cogent sentences. Actually
write out some answers so that you can improve at avoiding superfluous
language, repetitive sentences, etc.
Practice your ability to manage your time in the exam. Practice by timing
yourself for essay fact pattern questions and for multiple choice
questions. For essays, use 1/3 of your time for a question to organize
your answer and 2/3 of your time for a question to write the answer. For
multiple-choice questions, use checkpoints to see if you are pacing
yourself properly.
Keep a log of the errors you make in your practice question answers.
You may not see a pattern for one day’s worth of practice questions.
However, if you analyze your mistakes and make notes each time you
practice, you will usually see patterns of errors over multiple questions.
By locating the patterns, you can focus on what you need to correct.
Practice on the type of questions that your professor will use on the
exam. Although any practice questions are better than none, you will gain
the most by using questions as similar as possible to the types of
questions that your professor will ask. For multiple-choice tests, practice
on multiple-choice questions. For essay tests, practice on essay
questions. For short-answer questions, practice on short-answer
questions.
Where do you get questions to practice on during your study time? There are
lots of sources, but here are some suggestions:
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Some professors are willing to give students practice questions that they
have developed over many years of teaching the course.
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The exam database for Texas Tech is on the website: go to Current
Students, Student Resources, Exam Database.
Tutors for first-year courses often go over questions as part of the tutoring
sessions.
You can write your own questions and swap with study partners – not only
does it challenge you to know the information well to write a question, but
your study partner may spot where you are misunderstanding a concept or
missing details important to the analysis of the topic.
The OASP study aids library has a handout on the bookshelves that gives
an updated list (newer one than in the #1 Exam packet) of law school
exam databases at other law schools.
The OASP study aids library has a multitude of practice question volumes
for many courses:
o Lexis Q&A series
o Siegels series
o Exam Pro series
o Flashcards
o First-year Q&A Emanuel’s
o Finz on MBE subjects (that is 6 first-year courses)
o CrunchTime
The OASP study aids library has other volumes that have questions in
them for many courses:
o Examples and Explanations
o Commercial outlines
The law library has old Barbri question books and other study aids that are
not available in the OASP study aids library.
If you have paid a deposit for Barbri, your first-year or upper-division
volumes usually have some questions at the end of each subject outline.
Most essay questions can be re-written to become multiple-choice
questions.
CALI has exercises that you can do for many course topics.
There is a Texas website that has some flashcard series for purchase:
www.texaslawcards.com.
The Texas Bar Examiners have past questions on-line:
http://www.ble.state.tx.us/past_exams/main_pastexams.htm
Look for free websites that offer questions: www.lawnerds.com;
www.findlaw.com; etc.
CAVEAT: Realize that any commercial product or free website may not be
accurate as to current law or match your professor’s
terminology/emphases.