Category: Essay Exam

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Essay Exam Exam Grading law school academic success Torts

Professor Taking Essay Exam

Professor surprised at reading exam

I created a video, watch a professor take an essay exam, where I take a torts bar exam question I’ve never seen before.  Using bar exam conditions, I limited my time to 30 minutes and took it closed book.  This process was useful for me, because it reminded me of the extreme pressure my students encounter on the bar exam and on law school exams.

Useful Exercise

young woman studyingThere are several reasons why students will find this exercise valuable.  One, it helps them understand that even an expert struggles to complete a bar exam in 30 minutes.  Two, they can observe how an expert uses their time to first prepare to write and then write.  I then wrote the exam using the Nested IRAC method, an organization technique to ensure you don’t miss anything.  Three, they can see an expert make mistakes, and still earn a decent grade on the exam.

The second part of this exercise was to grade the exam using a grading rubric used by many state bar examiners.  I first discussed the grading rubric, then reviewed the bar exam grader’s model answer, and finally reviewed my essay.

Comparing Answers

As I compared my answer to the model answer, I was surprised by a few things. For starters, I noticed that the grader was assigning points almost exclusively for duty and breach of duty. Yet the call of the question asked me to “explain” my answer.  I understood this to mean a full negligence discussion.  That required not only duty and breach, but also actual cause, proximate cause, and damages.  To do this for each of the three plaintiffs was impossible on a 30 minute exam–a poor job in designing this exam.  A more focused question by the bar exam designers would have yielded better answers.  Oh well, c’est la vie.

How Many Points?

Another problem with the essay question was the point allocation of 15% for the final issue on the unforeseeable extent of injury (i.e., the eggshell plaintiff rule).  The call of the question appears to give it equal weight with the first question, which was comprised of three parts. Thankfully, I was running out of time when I got to this issue.  Therefore, I did not spend more time on it than was necessary. But I didn’t know that when I was taking the exam.  So the lesson here is to do your best. There really isn’t a way to know exactly what the grader is looking for.  Make sure to discuss all the main issues, and if you have time then discuss minor issues.

The Documents

Here are the documents I used for this exercise:

 

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Essay Exam Exam Preparation Torts

Rule Statements on Exams that Get Top Grades

Hand writing word rules, for rule statements

There are ways to write rule statements on exams that get top grades.  Many students don’t know how to do this, even though it’s not a difficult skill to master. Specifically, students fail to provide thorough rule statements. A thorough rule statement is one that accurately defines the primary issue, each relevant word in the issue, and any related issues.

Desk in rules statement exampleFact Pattern Example

Brad and Bella are in the same high school math class. One day before class, Brad thinks it would be funny to pull the chair from under Bella as she is sitting down.  He quietly goes to Bella’s chair, and just as she is sitting down he pulls the chair out from her. Bella falls on her rump, but is not physically hurt.  Bella is quite embarrassed by Brad’s action. Discuss all causes of action Bella can bring against Brad.

Poor Rule Statements

A poor rule statement for this question might read: “A tort occurs when someone intentionally hits someone else.” The rule discusses parts of a battery, but fails to mention the tort by name.  It also fails to identify, let alone define, all the relevant terms. It is not enough to identify some amorphous intentional torts and fail to specify battery.

Average Rule Statements

An average essay answer might read like this: “a battery is the intentional contact of another in a harmful or offensive manner.” This is a good basic definition for battery. However, it fails to define the three key elements of battery: intent, contact, and harmful or offensive. You may want to watch this video on battery for a deeper understanding of this tort.

Reached top of mountainSuperior Rule Statements

A superior essay will have a rule statement like this:  “a battery is the intentional contact of another in a harmful or offensive manner.  Intent is defined as someone who desires the act, or has knowledge to a substantial certainty that the contact will occur.  Contact is defined as the physical touching of a human being.  And finally, harmful or offensive is measured by what society deems as harmful or offensive.” As you can see, in addition to the average rule statement, you must also define intent, contact, and harmful or offensive.  Why?  Because these three key terms will drive your analysis.

IRAC Method

Remember, it is not enough to use the IRAC method in an answer.  Even average answers tend to use IRAC, but they miss out on points because they fail to define necessary key terms. You don’t have to define obvious words like “is” or “the.” But you do need to define every term that judges and lawyers find significant. And by significant, I mean words that can be disputed at trial.

Application

Finally, don’t forget that a great rule statement is only the first step in getting a good grade. Some students have superb rule statements, and then bomb the application section of their essay.  It is imperative that you apply the facts to the rules to get higher grades. This isn’t the only thing that differentiates the average answer from the superior answer, but it is a significant factor in students receiving lower grades.

How to Improve

The best way to improve is through practice.  You need to take short practice exams and then get feedback on how you performed.  Most professors will not review your practice exams, so get help from your academic support department or private tutor.  Also, create a small group for the sole purpose of taking practice exams. If you’re not in a group, you may want to watch this video on law school study groups.

 

 

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Essay Exam Exam Grading Exam Preparation

The Rule Dump: #1 Law School Exam Mistake

Wrong way sign

The rule dump is the number one mistake students make on their law school exams. This is when the student throws out as much information from the course that they can remember, hoping that some of it will stick. Usually the rule dump, also called a brain dump, occurs all on the first page of the essay. Let me explain why professors hate it and why it is hurting your grade.

College Exams

In college, the best grades go to student answers that have lots of information.  This is because most college professors test students on knowledge retention. In other words, if you demonstrate that you read the material you get a good grade. That exam writing style will not work in law school.

Law School Exams

While law school essay exams do require you to know the law, that is only the starting point for a well written essay. Law school exams are testing you on higher level thinking skills. In fact, law school professors grade exams by allocating most of the points to those exams that apply the rules to the facts.  So here is what law professors think when they see a rule dump.  We start asking ourselves, does this student understand the issue or is the student trying to throw everything they know into the answer because the student is confused. For more information on the levels of learning, you may want to look at this article on Bloom’s Taxonomy from Vanderbilt.

Relevance

On a business associations exam testing on vicarious liability, the facts clearly state that Mat is an employee.  Some students will then provide a rule dump with all of the rules needed to establish that someone is an employee, like the level of control between principal and agent. But none of that was necessary as the facts provided that Mat is an employee.

That leaves me wondering if the student understands the issue or not. And guess what happens when there is uncertainty?  Students receive lower grades. It is possible that the student understood the issue, but because the student employed the brain dump method that student ended up with a lower grade. The learning point here is that you should only provide the rules that are needed to answer the question.

Conflicts

Another problem with the brain dump is that you might provide different rules that appear to conflict with each other.  This will also cost you points. For example, suppose that you are writing a negligence essay. There are absolutely no facts provided in the question to indicate that the victims are children. Some students will then discuss the attractive nuisance doctrine. This leaves me wondering if the student understands the question or not.

Hidden Rule

A third problem occurs when the rule that is needed to answer the question is hidden with several superfluous rules. The professor might miss it completely or not appreciate how you wanted that rule applied to the fact pattern.

Three law students wearing suits. Rule dump post.Keep in mind that law school is a professional school, preparing students to become lawyers and not professors.  When you bring your case before a judge, or discuss your case with a partner, that judge or partner only wants to hear about the law relevant to the case—not everything you know about the law.  Judges, partners, AND professors are busy people, so only provide the rules you need to answer the question.

Finally, since all exams have some kind of time limit, you are wasting precious time discussing rules that, at best, will be ignored, and at worst, will cost you points.

How to Avoid the Rule Dump

The best way to avoid the rule dump is by using the IRAC Method. This is where you discuss each issue separately: state the Issue, provide the Rule, Analyze the facts, and give your Conclusion. Unfortunately, many students misunderstand how to use the method, so you may want to read my article on Nested IRAC, which explains in detail how use IRAC on a law school essay exam. Before any exam, you need to practice using IRAC. In addition to taking law school exams, incorporate IRAC into your daily class preparation by using the FIRAC Case Briefing Method.

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Essay Exam Torts

Nested IRAC

Eggs in nest.

Most students know about the IRAC method, but few know about Nested IRAC. The IRAC method is where you identify the issue, state the rule, provide some analysis, and then state the conclusion. But nested IRAC involves creating a separate IRAC for each issue and sub-issue on the exam.

Battery Example

Let me demonstrate this through a tortious battery example. If you don’t recall the elements to battery, you may want to watch my video on battery first.

Derek and John are in the same high school math class. One morning, Derek decides it will be funny to pull out John’s chair just as John is about to sit down. Derek pulls out the chair, and John falls on the floor. John is not physically hurt, but he is extremely embarrassed. Fully discuss which, if any, intentional tort Derek committed.

Now, let’s look at the type of answer I get from my first-year law students:

Typical First Year Law Student Answer

The issue is whether Derek committed a battery against John. Battery is the intentional contact of another in a harmful or offensive manner. Intent is when there is the desire or knowledge to a substantial certainty that the contact will occur. The contact must be direct or indirect. The contact must result in harm or offence. Derek desired to cause John to fall, because he went to John’s chair, waited till he sat down, and then pulled out the chair. Though Derek did not touch John, he knew that by pulling out the chair, John would fall on his rear, causing it to contact the ground. Also, though John was not hurt, a person in high school would be offended by being embarrassed by falling on his rear in front of other students. For these reasons, Derek committed a battery.

Problems

Did you notice that this answer does use IRAC and correctly defines battery and each of the three elements? Unfortunately, it does so in a way that leaves the reader confused. This student expects the reader to connect the intent rule in the third sentence with the analysis in the sixth sentence.

Puzzle pieces. For nested IRAC methodNow there are some problems with this approach. First, by putting everything into one giant paragraph, you might miss something important. Second, the person grading the exam might not understand that those two sentences go together. Think of your exam as a jigsaw puzzle. Put pieces together that connect to each other, not three rows apart from each other. Third, your answer will look much more professional with a better organization style, which can make the difference between getting a B or an A on the exam.

Nested IRAC Example

Now, let’s look at nested IRAC. On an exam, every time you have a different concept, even if it’s connected to one concept, you should IRAC that concept in its own paragraph.

Going back to our battery example, you should start with a short introductory paragraph that provides the issue, rule, and then a short conclusion for battery as a whole. You then need additional paragraphs for the sub-issues, or elements as they are called. For battery, that means three more paragraphs: one for intent, contact, and harmful or offensive.

The second paragraph then begins with the issue for that paragraph: The first issue is whether Derek had the intent to commit a battery against John. You then provide the rule, analysis, and conclusion for that issue.

Next, do the same thing for the remaining two elements, leaving you with four paragraphs for this battery essay.

Results

When you use this method, you will write stronger answers because you are less likely to miss an issue. For example, in one large paragraph, you might forget the analysis because it’s hidden in a jumbled mess. But with a nested IRAC, as soon as you notice that your paragraph has only two sentences you’ll know there is a problem. So begin practicing now, and consider using the prewriting essay method I discussed in an earlier episode.

If you’re still not convinced, here is a comprehensive discussion on the benefits and dangers of using the IRAC method.

 

 

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Essay Exam Exam Preparation Physical

10 Exam Day Tips

Don't panic sign for exam day tips post

Looking for exam day tips? It’s the end of the semester and most of you are preparing for final exams. DON’T PANIC! By following these 10 exam day tips you can improve your grades. The principle behind these exam day tips is simple: calm students outperform nervous and tired students every single time.

Let me tell you about John (name has been changed), one of my friends at the elite law school we attended. John is very intelligent but he had one problem: he got overly nervous before exams. On the first morning of the bar exam I noticed that he was frantically reviewing his materials. During the lunch break he rushed to his car so he could study more. And I am sure that he spent every free moment that evening and the next morning reviewing his notes. He flunked the bar that time and also the next two times he took it. I can assure you that John was prepared and would have passed the bar exam the first time if he had remained calm.

Here are your exam day tips:

Tip #1

Remain calm and trust yourself. Did you go to class? Have you prepared the right type of outline? Did you make flash cards? Have you done the hard work before the exam? Did you watch the videos on my YouTube channel?? If you did all of that, then trust that you will perform to the best of your ability.

Tip #2

Get a good night’s rest so that you can perform at your highest level. In fact, watch a TV show or do something else to relax, and get your mind off the exam. If you go into the exam tired and stressed, you will get a lower grade.

Tip #3

Last minute cramming will confuse you rather than help you. I get the strangest questions from students within the last 24 hours before an exam, questions that make no sense and aren’t usually tested on the exam anyway. Last minute cramming will actually result in lower grades, not higher ones.

Breakfast plate. Exam day tips.Tip #4

Eat a well-balanced breakfast as studies show that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This doesn’t mean to have a huge, protein- and carb-loaded, sugary feast for breakfast, but you want to have something in your system so that your brain operates at its optimal level. Check out this article for more detailed info on why breakfast helps your brain
perform better.

Tip#5

Before you leave home make sure you have everything you need for the exam, such as your laptop, pen, paper, or books. In fact, if you can, pack all that stuff up the night before so you don’t have to worry about it in the morning.

Tip#6

Plan to arrive early. I recommend getting to school at least one hour early as you never know what might happen, whether that is bad traffic, a flat tire, or a speeding ticket.

Tip #7

Stay comfortable. One way to stay comfortable is to dress in layers, as the exam room may be too hot or too cold for you. Also, if you need to go to the bathroom during the exam, then go to the bathroom. Don’t worry about losing five minutes of exam time for a bathroom break; otherwise you will be distracted as you think about how desperately you need to go to the bathroom.

By the way, I have one story related to bathroom breaks. A law students was afraid of losing anytime on the exam because of bathroom breaks, so he purchased adult diapers to avoid having to get up during the exam. Please, DON’T do this! It’s actually good for you to get up for five minutes, go to the bathroom, and get your blood circulation moving again.

Tip #8

Yawn before and during the exam as it is a calming technique—and it works!

Tip #9

If you are extremely sick on exam day then get permission to take the exam on another day. I’ve had dozens of students get a low grade because they didn’t know they could request an accommodation. Sure, there are those that abuse the system, but when somebody is obviously sick then they are entitled to take the exam on another day. Just make sure to contact the Registrar, or other authorized person, who can give you permission to take the exam on a different day.

Tip #10

If you are excessively nervous and can’t calm down, consider seeing a mental health counselor, a pastor, or medical professional. Another friend of mine, who also went to an elite law school, failed the bar three times before she went to her doctor. With medicine to calm her down she passed the exam the next time she took it. There is no shame in seeking help from a professional when it is necessary.

Conclusion

These exam day tips can help, but don’t forget to use the IRAC method for your essays. Also, make sure you understand how professors grade so that you can prepare for the exam. Now, use these exam day tips and good luck on your exam!

 

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Essay Exam Exam Preparation Study Technique Time Management

Answer an Essay Question Before You See it!

Word test on chalk board.

Would you like to answer an essay question before you see it!  Want to have more time on exam day to think through your answer? You can have 60% of your essay exam complete before exam day with this preparation method.

Ideally, you should already have three sets of notes, as I mentioned in my episode called “Three Sets of Notes Method.”  In addition, you need to create a fourth set of notes, which I call your Exam Answer outline. This is an organizational tool that will allow you to move quickly during the final. Also, you will write a much stronger essay.

The Process

Here’s how it works. For each possible issue, you will write the ideal answer into your Exam Answer outline. Obviously you won’t know the names of the parties so simply use “Defendant” and “Plaintiff” for the parties involved. And while you do not know the parties’ names, you do know the law and how rules interact with each other.

Negligence Example

Let’s go through a negligence example. Ask yourself what the ideal first sentence of a negligence answer looks like. Then write out something like: “The issue is whether D was negligent when he committed the act against P.” On exam day, you will replace “D,” “P,” and “committed the act” with the facts from the exam.

The next sentence is your ideal rule statement, which you will pull directly from your rule outline. “Negligence occurs when a defendant owes a duty of care, breaches that duty, is the actual and proximate cause, and there are damages to the plaintiff.”   Then wrap up the first paragraph with a brief conclusion. Because all the elements are met, D is liable to P for negligence. By the way, if you haven’t noticed, I am using the IRAC method, which I covered in an earlier blog post.

Now, write the second ideal paragraph, which in this case involves duty of care. “The first issue is whether D owed P a duty of care. Duty of care is a legally recognized relationship between the parties, and is measured by the reasonably prudent person standard. In this case D owed P a duty of care because….” At this point you’ll have a blank, which you will fill in on exam day. Then the last sentence will read: “This element is met (or not met) because D owed (or did not owe) P a duty of care.”

Negligence Per Se

You will do this for each element, but don’t stop there. You also need to create alternative paragraphs, depending on the issues that might appear on your exam. For example, before you get to the final exam, have you thought through how to deal with negligence per se? I ask this because when you have a negligence per se question, you need to discuss the negligence per se AND the reasonably prudent person standard. And you need to do this because it is always possible that the court will deny the negligence per se instruction, leaving you with having to argue the reasonably prudent person standard. This means you need to have an ideal paragraph for this possibility.

So work through negligence per se, using this approach, and end the negligence per se paragraph with something like this: “Plaintiff should be able to establish duty through negligence per se. However, if the court finds that negligence per se cannot be used, then Plaintiff can still prevail under the reasonably prudent person standard.”

There are other areas that you also need to think about. Where does res ipsa loquitur fit into an exam? On a criminal law exam, where do you discuss premeditation? On a contracts exam, where do you discuss a UCC distinctive?

Final Advice

Word plan on a puzzle. Answer an essay question before you see it.

You can wait till exam day to think about all this, but if you plan it all out in advance, now when
you have time, you will know exactly how to structure your essay answer and understand the connections between the different rules. This approach will also give you more time to focus on the analysis portion of the exam, which is where most professors award points. For some additional ideas on how to structure a pre-planned essay, see this guide on how to structure an essay.

By the way, if you have an open book exam, you will truly have a huge advantage over your colleagues that haven’t done this.

 

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Essay Exam Exam Preparation Study Technique

How to Make a Law School Outline

Coffee and notepad for making a law school outline

Do you need to learn how to make a law school outline? Your outline is, nothing more and nothing less, than your blueprint for doing well on the exam. This means understanding law school exam grading, which I cover in detail in the episode called Law School Exam Grading.

First, let’s discuss what you should NOT do when creating a law school outline. A mistake that many law students make is to take their class notes, rearrange them a bit, and then place them into their outline. That is not an outline, but rather a rearranged set of notes.

Also, do NOT include facts from cases discussed in class. The only thing you need from cases discussed in class are the rules from those cases.

So now let’s talk about what should go into an outline. The first thing you need is a framework for the course. I recommend that you take the table of contents from your assigned book, or the course syllabus, and use that as a starting point. You might change the format as you go along, but you need to have something to get you going.

The Rules

Second, place the rules that you learned into the outline. The rules and exceptions to the rules need to be as concise as possible, and written in your own words. For example, suppose you have a case from 1894 and the case states the rule as follows: the wrong inflicted, when the defendant so did with intent, and with force that contacted the victim’s person, must result in adequate compensation for that injury. Now let’s take that archaic language and write something like this: A defendant’s intentional action will result in the defendant paying for all damages. So see what I did there? I took that old language, rearranged it, and turned it into something that we can understand today. Generally, law school exams will only test you on the black letter law.

Third, if the professor tells you, or strongly hints that something is going to be on the exam, then make a note of that in your law school outline.

Fourth, if you know your professor will test you on policy, place the policy arguments in the outline. More on what to transfer from your class notes in the episode “Taking Notes in Law School: The Content.”

Fifth, think about the size of your outline. Since the outline is the primary tool you’ll be using to crush your final, it must be useable. This means short and to the point rule statements that you can use on the exam. Think about it. You will remember a 15-word rule statement a lot better than a 22-word rule statement. This article provides a good example of what an outline could look like.

When to Look at Another Outline

Finally, when you have worked as hard as you can and you believe you have the perfect law school outline, then, and only then, look at an outline that someone else created. As I noted in my last episode, “Why Create Your Own Law School Outlines,” it is critically important that you first work on the outline by yourself because that will help you learn the law better. When you see the differences in the two outlines, don’t just make the changes. Think about the differences. Ask yourself, why is there a difference? You may find that your outline that you wrote is better in a particular area, or, you may find that you missed something. Once you’ve discovered your errors, go back and find out why you made those errors as that will reveal gaps in your knowledge, and potentially in your understanding of the law. If you stop and reflect, you will learn the law in a way that will help you get a higher score on the exam.

Those who rely solely, or heavily, on commercial outlines created by others create the illusion that they know the law. But they are failing to make the connections that are necessary to get high grades.

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Essay Exam law school academic success

Black Letter Law

Black letter law with know the rules on chalkboard

What do professors mean when they say you need to know black letter law, or hornbook law? Black letter laws are the legal rules and principles that are so well accepted across the country that there is no longer any basic disagreement as to what they are. But keep in mind many states have slight variations on how they articulate the rules. Also, states may define certain key terms slightly differently. So when you become a lawyer, or if a professor asks for a certain state’s rule, make sure that you use the variation in your state.

With that slight caveat, no one would dispute, for example, that a tortious battery requires the intentional harmful or offensive contact of another. That is black letter law, as noted in my book on the intentional torts.

Law School Exams

Almost all law professors will require you to learn black letter law for exam purposes. This is because law schools, except in Louisiana and Puerto Rico, are preparing you to practice anywhere in the country. Also, the uniform portions of the bar exam will test you on these rules.

Many of you are wondering where to find these black letter rules. As I mentioned earlier, these rules are also called hornbook rules because you can find them in hornbooks. A hornbook is a book that attempts to capture the most important rules in a single area of law. Some examples include Criminal Law by LaFave, Torts by Dobbs, and Contracts by Perillo. The hornbook writers are able to determine the black letter law by reading cases and legislation from all fifty states, and then distilling them down into a single volume of law.

I do not recommend that students purchase hornbooks because they provide too much information for the typical student. One reason why the hornbooks are so big is because they have extensive footnotes to many cases and legislative enactments. I do recommend that you consider buying concise hornbooks, which condense hornbooks into a more readable size, for example, from 1,000 pages to 250 or 300 pages. For years I assigned concise hornbooks, along with a casebook, as the concise hornbooks provide the most important rules without going into detail about more obscure rules or minority positions.

Bar Exam

Person preparing for bar exam studying the black letter lawIf you are preparing to take the bar exam, the bar prep companies do a decent job in providing you with the black letter law. They do this by distilling the law found in hornbooks into something more manageable. But the law doesn’t always have a clear majority rule amongst the states. In that case, you are unlikely to find those rules on the uniform portions of the bar exam. For a few tips on what not to do more bar exam tips, check out this video on what not to do on bar exam day.

Several years ago I noticed one of these unclear areas in tort law. So I called the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the group that creates the uniform bar exam. I was trying to figure out what rule they would use on the bar exam for that issue. I was told that they don’t test these areas because there is no broad agreement on the rule.

Dissents

Finally, keep in mind that your casebook will have a mix of black letter law and minority positions. This is done for various reasons, such as helping students see two sides of a legal problem or to provide you with a historical progression of a rule. In the words of Charles Evans Hughes: “ A dissent . . . is an appeal . . . to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed . . . .” This article on dissents is lengthy but a good discussion on the importance of dissenting opinions.

 

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Essay Exam Exam Grading law school academic success

Law School Exam Myth: Art and Science

Student taking law school exam

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So you get back your first law school exam and you did not do as well as you were hoping. You go to the professor and ask what you could do to improve on the final exam. At some point during your meeting with the professor, he or she says that exam writing is part art and part science. Even I used to say garbage like that when I was a new professor. What the professor is really telling you is that you really can’t improve and there is really nothing that he or she can do to help you. You’re either born with this art or you are not. If it is innate, then, unless you are born with it, you are doomed!

But if this is a skill that you can learn, then you can improve your performance on a law school exam.

You Are Different

Students come to law school with different skills and abilities. Some have had lots of experience writing technical essays and others just have not. Those with strong technical writing skills do better than those without that experience. And this is not art! I have read thousands of law school exams and what I’ve seen is students at various stages in their writing career. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen great writers during the first semester of law school. And only once have I seen a student who had writing skills that surpassed my own. Since his name was also Beau, I jokingly surmise that there must be something about the name.

So why would a professor tell you that law is part art and part science if it isn’t true? One reason is that it just sounds true, at least until you are challenged by someone else. That’s what happened to me. I gave the whole “its part science, part art” argument to a senior professor with a  Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. He helped me to understand that higher level writing skills are based on an amalgamation of lower level skills. What that means, in the context of essay writing, is that there are many skills that we lump together and conclude that someone is either a strong writer or a weak writer.

Example

The word spelling the chalk board.

Law school exam essay writing is made up of different components: the ability to organize thoughts, writing in paragraph form, using correct spelling, following English grammar, organizing sentences in paragraph form, use of topic sentences, and so on. Once you realize that there is no dark art, some hidden path for the select few, you can begin figuring out how to improve.

Depending on where you start your journey, you may have more or fewer skills you need to learn to catch up with the top writers in your class. But make no mistake, someone that started essay writing in high school has an advantage, just not an insurmountable one.

Continuous Improvement

The key is continuous improvement. To this day, my writing keeps improving. Recently I was writing in a forum and someone compared my writing to Faulkner. I was certainly flattered by the comment but I recognize he would not have made that comment even ten years ago.

Becoming a better writer takes determination. You need to first diagnose where you are and then work on developing those lower level skills. Once you’ve mastered those skills, then you start working on higher skills, and higher skills. The key is to keep practicing until you improve. (Check out these apps to work on your writing skills.)

The biggest mistake I see when grading law school exams is students failing to distinguish between issues. All issues and sub-issues are lumped together, without using the IRAC method. All that accomplishes is a poorly written law school exam. Before your next exam complete some practice exams–you can get some at my exam bank .

Once you realize that you don’t have to have been born a skilled writer, and have implemented your new skills on the final exam, check out my mini series on steps to take after completing the final exam.

Advanced Law School Tip

If you are ready to take your exams to the next level, you need to write your exams using the Nested IRAC method. This approach to writing law school essay exams is what usually distinguishes the top students. Practice using the method a few times, that way it becomes second nature. Also, organize your notes by creating a pre-written essay outline, which will save you time on the exam.

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Categories
Essay Exam law school academic success Study Technique

Memorization Issues: Try Leitner Boxes (Flash Cards)!

Law books. Use Leitner boxes to learn law.

Have you considered using flash cards in a more focused manner? If you have worked hard to prepare for classes all semester, you probably get frustrated when you have trouble memorizing the law for final exams. This method will help you move that information from your short-term memory to long-term memory. Unless active steps are taken to remember what we learn, much of that is forgotten within the first 24 hours of learning it. (See this government publication  for more information on the different types of memory.) The Leitner boxes will help you retain that information throughout the semester. Also, you will want to use the elaborative interrogation technique for deep learning.

Four Sets

For this method, you will need notecards and four boxes to hold those notecards. After you have assembled these materials, the first step is to write on the notecards. This includes all of the rule statements, definitions, etc., you will need for your final exam. All of these cards will go in box number one.

Next, memorize all of the information on each notecard perfectly. Perfectly means you can recite all of the information on the notecard without looking down at it once. You go through all of the notecards in box number one every two days. Once you have a notecard memorized, it goes in box number two.

The notecards in box number two you will go through every four days. If there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back in box number one. Once you have a card from box number two memorized perfectly it goes in box number three.

The notecards in box number three you will go through once a week. Again, if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to the previous box, i.e. box number two. Once you have a card from box number three memorized it goes in box number four.

The notecards in box number four you will go through every two weeks. You get the idea; if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to box number three. Keep reviewing these throughout the semester until the final exam.

Caution

A word of caution to those who know they will be having an open-book or open-notes exam. You still need to know and use this method to learn and remember the information. As you know, the meat of an exam essay answer comes in the analysis / application section. In this section, you link the rule of law to the set of facts provided in the exam question–watch this video on the IRAC method to learn how to to this. Your notes and textbook will not contain the answers to an application portion of an essay. You need to know the rules of law front to back so you can go right into your application section with complete confidence that you know that rule and how to apply it. If you are spending time looking for rule statements or definitions in your notes or books, this will take away time you could be spending on actually analyzing an issue. And if the exam is timed, you do not want to spend that time flipping through your book when you could be writing your answer. The Leitner box method will save you that time because you will already know the information in your notes and in the book and will be able to write it from memory.

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