October 23, 2014 · 9:00 am

7 Strategies for Success on Multiple Choice Exams

In the past two posts, I described how law school multiple choice questions are different than those that appear on undergraduate or high school exams, and we’ve explored some of the common obstacles to success on law school multiple choice exams. As I’ve already mentioned, the most important key to success in law school multiple choice exams is preparation. Today, I want to talk about some additional strategies that can help you answer law school multiple choice questions.

(1) Watch your speed: I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth emphasizing again. Take your time as you go through the multiple choice exams. It is easy to feel rushed because time passes so quickly during law school exams. But when students rush, they often choose the wrong answer because they missed a key word and not because they didn’t know the material.

(2) Allocate your time: Allot an equal amount of each time for each question, and stick to that schedule. You should divide your time based upon how much each part of the exam is worth. If you have a 3-hour exam, and the multiple choice section is worth 1/3 of the total points on that exam, then set aside one hour for the multiple choice. If there are 30 multiple choice questions in that section, then you should take approximately 2 minutes for each question. Don’t take time away from the multiple choice when the point distribution signals how much time you should spend on that section.

(3) Don’t add to the question: Ask yourself, what’s on the page? Don’t complete the definition or argument in your mind and conclude that it is correct. This especially becomes a problem when you’ve studied a topic extensively and know it so well that you can define every key term. Be sure that everything is on the page, and that you are not completing things in your head.

On a related note, assume nothing in addition to what has been established or given. Don’t assume the existence of any facts or outcomes. Your professor may be testing whether you recognize that an essential fact is missing!

(4) Ignore red herrings: There are two kinds of facts in multiple choice questions: important facts, and facts that are there to distract you. Make conscious choices about which facts are essential to the question, and don’t let those red herrings lead you off track.

(5) Answer all questions: This may seem obvious, but an additional key to success on multiple choice exams is to answer all questions. Specifically, skipping a question creates the possibility that your remaining answers will be out of order. Answer each of the questions in order, and mark and come back to questions you were not sure of if you have time.

On this same theme, if you begin to run out of time, make sure you leave no answers blank. You will not be penalized if you get the answer wrong, but you have no chance of getting the question right if you don’t put an answer down. If you’re running close on time, make sure that you save enough time to fill in any remaining answers.

(6) Eliminate wrong answers: In law school, you get to the best answer by eliminating answers which can’t be correct. Make sure that you eliminate answers that don’t resolve the issue or focus on a different issue. You should also eliminate answers that apply the wrong legal reasoning, mischaracterize the facts, or misstate the law. In order to be correct, an answer must be correct in every respect.

(7) Make smart guesses: Finally, when you can’t decide what the best answer is, make sure that you make an intelligent guess. Don’t guess until you’ve eliminated any wrong answers that you can identify. Be careful not to overcomplicate the question–the issue that jumps out at you is likely the issue that the correct response addresses. You should also be careful about answers that include absolutes – as you’ve already learned in law school, there are few things in the law that are absolute. That’s one of the reasons why the most common phrase in law school is “It depends.” Words like “must,” “always,” and “never” often (but not always) indicate an incorrect answer.

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October 21, 2014 · 9:00 am

4 Obstacles to Success on Multiple Choice Exams

Yesterday I explained the difference between law school multiple choice exams and those you took in undergrad or high school. An understanding of those differences is one key to achieving success in your law school exams. Today, I want to talk about some of the obstacles to success in law school multiple choice exams, as well as some suggestions for how to avoid or recover from those obstacles.

There are 4 major obstacles to success in law school multiple choice exams:

The Race to the Finish: The first obstacle is speed—often, students rush through law school multiple choice questions too quickly. There is a lot going on in each multiple choice question; often a single fact may be the key to the correct answer. If you read too quickly, you are likely to miss the most important part of the question. The key to not moving too fast through multiple choice questions is to fully utilize the time you’ve been given for that section. Take the time to read each question carefully, and don’t cheat the multiple choice questions by racing through them to get to the next part of your exam.

Reliance on Instinct or Emotion: The second obstacle is the temptation to be guided by instinct or emotion. Before you came to law school, you may have had professors tell you that you should go with your first instinct. The same is not true for law school multiple choice—in fact, there is commonly a wrong answer that will appeal to those who rely on instinct. Law operates on logic, not instinct or emotion. You must put aside your first impressions and carefully analyze all possible answers before choosing the best answer.

The Fear Factor: The third obstacle is panic. Maybe you’ve had this experience. You start the exam, look down at the first question, and suddenly every thought leaves your head. It is as if you never took the course. You immediately think to yourself, “I’m going to fail!” The key to dealing with this obstacle is preparation. If you have done a good job preparing in advance of the exam, you have the resources you need to do well on the exam. Trust in your preparation, and get started. Before long, you will forget your panic and get into a rhythm answering questions.

“I’ll Just Wing It”: Finally, the most serious obstacle to success on law school multiple choice exams is lack of preparation. I talked about this in the last post, but it’s worth emphasizing once again—preparation is critical to success in multiple choice exams. There is just no way around doing the hard work prior to the exam.

Stay tuned for my next post, when I will provide some additional tips for successful multiple choice exams in law school.

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October 20, 2014 · 9:00 am

Introduction to Law School Multiple Choice Exams

Law school multiple choice exams are not like the multiple choice exams you took in undergrad or high school—law school is a new world, and law school exams require a new approach. Unlike undergrad, where a basic familiarity with the course materials could potentially help you answer multiple choice questions, the same cannot be said of law school. Those who try to rely on basic recognition of information in multiple choice answers will likely fail the exam.

The foundation of success on multiple choice exams in law school is preparation. You have to study for multiple choice exams in the same way that you study for essays—you must have a thorough understanding of the law to be successful. This is because law school multiple choice exams do not just test your ability to recognize the law. Instead, they test your ability to apply to a new set of facts, a new hypothetical example. The fact pattern in a multiple choice exam resembles the types of hypotheticals your professor might give you in class. You will have to spot the legal issues and identify what law is required to address those legal issues.

The other reason why law school multiple choice questions can be so challenging is that they commonly ask you for the best answer, not the “right” answer. This means that more than one answer could solve the problem presented by the question. A “correct” answer may not necessarily be the “best” answer. Identifying the best answer will require you to have a thorough understanding of the law, but it will also require you to develop other test-taking skills.

Keep reading this week as further posts explore how law students should approach multiple choice exams. I will describe some of the obstacles to choosing the best answer for each multiple choice question, as well as techniques that will help you achieve success in your multiple choice exams.

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October 14, 2014 · 9:10 am

Stress and Time Management in Law School

Image courtesy of holohololand/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of holohololand/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

At this point in the semester, I always have law students coming to my office, stressed out because they feel that they just do not have enough time to get everything done. First-year law students have just started believing that they understand at least part of what they’re studying, but then the need to fit time in to outline course materials or complete a legal writing assignment undermines that new confidence and increases their stress. Upper-level law students think that they have law school under control, but then they realize that they’ve committed themselves to too many extracurricular activities, and there’s that one course (or more!) that’s much more difficult than anticipated.

Students often respond to these demands on their time by staying up even later to study. As a result, they do not get enough sleep. Because students are sleep-deprived, it takes longer to get reading and other assignments done, and they’re more likely to make mistakes in their work—less sleep does not translate into more productivity! Moreover, because they are not taking care of their health, these students may catch that cold or flu bug that’s going around, adding even more stress and potentially leading to missed classes that have to be made up somehow on top of everything else.

So if less sleep is not the answer, what is? There are two key things that students can do at this point in the semester to make sure they stay on track.

First, reevaluate your study schedule. It may be time to revisit the weekly schedule you created for yourself at the beginning of the semester. What worked for you at the beginning of the semester may not be the right approach now—you should tweak your schedule to make sure that you are devoting the right amount of time to each task. When students reevaluate their study schedules, they often find that they have more time than they thought they did—they just aren’t making the best use of that time. Once you have a working schedule, hold yourself to it. Don’t allow distractions keep you from getting your school work done during the time you’ve set aside for it.

Second, revisit your priorities. If you recall, a few months ago I explained that it is important to keep priorities in focus during law school. It is easy to get off track and commit to things that do not relate to your most important priorities in life. Look at your schedule and make sure that things that are not on your priority list are not taking over—if you aren’t careful, those commitments can prevent you from spending the time on the things that you’ve decided are most important to you.

This is the point of the semester where getting back to basics can help you to deal with law school stress—keep your focus on the things that you find most important, and use time management to stay on track!

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October 12, 2014 · 9:01 am

How Citations Strengthen Legal Writing

It’s that time of year when first-year law students are developing their understanding of legal citation, whether they use the Bluebook, the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) Guide to Legal Citation, or some other citation guide. Law students face a perennial struggle with identifying and using appropriate citation forms for legal authority. The rules for legal citations are much different than those used in other types of writing. The legal citation rules are complicated, and it’s easy to become frustrated when the professor takes off points because you should not have put a space after the period in the citation. Even upper-level law students struggle sometimes with citations. It is one of those aspects of legal writing that law students generally dread.

So why is there so much emphasis on citation in law school? Why do these details really matter? I’m not talking about universal reasons here—of course there are benefits to having a uniform system of legal citation so that it is easier to identify law and locate it in the original legal sources. But what I want to talk about today is why citations should matter to you. Why should you care if you apply the appropriate citation rules and your citations follow the proper form? A sarcastic student might say, “Because the professor cares, and he or she will lower my grade if my citations aren’t accurate.” This reason is also true, but there’s still more to it than that.

Specific, accurate citations are important because they signal information to the reader about your competence as a law student and, ultimately, as an attorney. Clients want to feel confident that their attorney pays attention to the legal details, and they are more likely to feel that confidence if they see that the attorney pays attentions to details even when it comes to the small things like citation. (In law school, your professors are your clients—these observations still hold true in that context!) If you make mistakes in punctuating citations because you have decided that the punctuation and spacing rules are unimportant, you signal that you might not pay close attention to nuances in the law as well—even if that is not your intent, and even if it is not actually true.

Likewise, providing specific pincites (in other words, the page number(s) on which the information can be found) is also important. When you provide generic citations, you are basically saying, “Trust me. What I am saying here is found somewhere in the case, but I can’t be bothered to tell you where.” That approach does not build the reader’s confidence in your writing. Like accuracy, specificity builds the reader’s confidence in your legal competence.

If you reframe how you think about citations, you can use them to strengthen your legal writing. Specific, accurate citations are an opportunity to add to the persuasive quality of your writing, and they can increase the reader’s confidence in your professionalism and analytical skills.

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October 10, 2014 · 5:55 pm

3 Tips for Spotting Issues in Law School Exams

It’s that time of the semester when law students are beginning to think more about exams, either because they’re in the midst of midterms (if their law school has midterms) or they’re anticipating final exams. One of the skills required for success on law school exams is the ability to spot legal issues. Law school essay questions contain complex fact patterns that incorporate numerous legal issues. The more issues you are able to identify, the more opportunities you will have to show your understanding of legal principles and your analytical abilities—and capitalizing on those opportunities contributes to better grades. Issue spotting can also help you on multiple choice exams. When you are able to identify the specific legal issue being tested in the question, you can use your knowledge of the relevant law to eliminate wrong answers and help you identify the best answer.

With these benefits in mind, here are 3 tips for spotting issues in your law school exams:

1. Outline, Outline, Outline!: The most important key to being able to spot legal issues on law school exams is the preparation that you do before the exam. In recent weeks, we’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring the best approaches to outlining in law school (for more information on outlining, see here, here, here, and here). If you have organized your outline in the right way, you will already have identified the possible types of legal issues on an exam. You will also have an understanding of the important rules and tests that relate to each issue, as well as key policies and relevant case examples.

2. Create an Issue Checklist: One way that you can make sure that you do not miss important issues is to create an issue checklist for each of your classes. Creating a checklist is easy. Just take an outline that you have done for one of your law school classes, such as Property, Torts, or Evidence. Go through your outline page by page, making a separate list of all legal issues and sub-issues. Write out the list in the order that it is organized in your outline. Don’t include any details–your checklist should be made up of key words and phrases, not tests, definitions, case names, or other detailed information. Think of the checklist as something similar to a grocery list. If you were shopping for the ingredients to make a certain recipe, you wouldn’t write the entire recipe out again to take to the grocery store. Instead, you would just list the ingredients you need to purchase. That’s the approach you want to take to the checklist as well. If the outline is the recipe, your checklist is the shopping list of ingredients.

Once you have your checklist organized the way that you want it, commit it to memory. When you go into the exam, use the checklist to make sure that you don’t miss issues in the hypothetical fact patterns. You can use the checklist to identify legal issues in both multiple choice questions (short hypotheticals) and essay questions (longer hypotheticals).

3. Identify Relationships Among Legal Issues in Advance: There are usually relationships among certain legal issues. If you identify those relationships in advance, you are more likely to recognize them in fact patterns during the exam. For example, one major legal issue in Torts is negligence. But if you see a negligence issue in the fact pattern, you know that there are other legal issues that might also be relevant, such as vicarious liability, joint and several liability, comparative/contributory negligence, various defenses, and various types of damages. As you begin to identify issues in that fact pattern, you should look for any facts that suggest that those legal issues are at play as well.

If you notice, the common theme to these issue-spotting tips is advance preparation. What you do before the exam is what ultimately makes your issue-spotting efforts successful!

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October 5, 2014 · 1:48 pm

Skipping Class in Law School

In recent posts we have explored some of the important academic skills students need for success in law school, such as reading and briefing cases, taking effective class notes, and outlining. As important as those skills are, law students can easily undermine their study efforts by missing too many of their law school classes. In fact, many students who struggle academically in law school also have a significant number of class absences—it is difficult to do well if you aren’t consistently in class.

Let’s explore some of the reasons law students give for missing class:

  • “The syllabus says that I can miss four classes before my grade will be penalized, and I haven’t used all of my absences yet.”
  • “My parents booked this family vacation six months ago, and they didn’t realize at that time that law students do not get the entire week of Thanksgiving off.”
  • “I have a midterm in Torts tomorrow that I want to study more for, and Property doesn’t have a midterm.”
  • “I stayed up really late last night finishing an assignment that is due for Legal Writing, and I just couldn’t get myself out of bed early enough this morning to go to Contracts class.”
  • “I was going to be five minutes late to class, so I decided it was better if I didn’t go at all.”
  • “I didn’t go to class because I didn’t get the reading done.”

In reality, these types of reasons are rarely an adequate justification for missing class in law school. Here are some explanations for why this is the case:

“The syllabus says that I can miss four classes before my grade will be penalized, and I haven’t used all of my absences yet.”: Your syllabus may list a maximum number of absences, but that doesn’t mean that you have that many “free” passes to miss class. Each time that you miss class, it puts you further behind in the course. In some cases, you may never recover the information you lost from not being in class. Students commonly skip too many classes early in the semester, and then if something happens later in the semester, such as a family emergency or major illness, they end up penalized for too many absences.

Sometimes students decide they can skip classes late in the semester because they still have absences available. This is a bad choice for two additional reasons: (1) in the last few weeks of the semester, your professor may provide specific guidance about the final exam, and you will miss that information; and (2) you may not have enough time to make up what you missed, especially if the professor is playing catch-up and covering a lot of material in each class.

“My parents booked this family vacation six months ago, and they didn’t realize at that time that law students do not get the entire week of Thanksgiving off.”: Vacations are really never a good reason for missing classes in law school, for the same reasons that I explained above. Put your family and friends on notice that any vacations will have to be scheduled around your law school schedule. You are investing a lot of time and money into becoming a lawyer; keep your priorities in focus.

“I have a midterm in Torts tomorrow that I want to study more for, and Property doesn’t have a midterm.”: You should never “steal” time from one class to do something for another. Keep in mind that each of your classes is important—you will earn grades in all of them. It takes much more time to make up what you have missed from a class than to go to class in the first place, and you will end up taking that time from yet another class or another priority if you aren’t careful.

“I stayed up really late last night finishing an assignment that is due for Legal Writing, and I just couldn’t get myself out of bed early enough this morning to go to Contracts class.”: This excuse is usually just about poor scheduling, poor prioritization, or procrastination. As I explained above, “stealing” time from one class to do something for another is never the way to go. Work on creating a study schedule that builds in time to complete Legal Writing assignments and other assignments that will take a lot of time, and stick with it—don’t wait until the last minute!

“I was going to be five minutes late to class, so I decided it was better if I didn’t go at all.”: Unless your professor has a clearly stated policy that you should never to go into class if you are tardy, you should still go to class. It will be easier to make up the five minutes that you missed than it will be to make up an entire class. Just make sure that you are careful about how you come into the classroom so that you reduce the amount of distraction you create for your professor and fellow students.

“I didn’t go to class because I didn’t get the reading done.”: Like the previous excuse, you should go to class unless your professor has a clearly stated policy that prohibits attendance in this circumstance. You won’t get as much out of class if you haven’t done the reading, but it is still a better choice than missing class entirely.

The alternative: Treat Law School Like an Important Job. Here’s the thing. Law school is your job right now—a very important job. So treat it like one. People who have important jobs don’t “skip” work. There can be really good reasons for missing work or class (such as serious personal or family illnesses, emergencies, child care issues, job interviews, etc.), and it’s ok to be absent for those reasons. But don’t let “skipped” classes become an impediment to academic success.

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October 1, 2014 · 9:00 am

I’ve Created My Outline: What Do I Do Now?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve talked quite a bit about outlining in the past several posts. It is important to recognize that outlining is about the journey, not the destination. Because it is part of your learning process, you should view each outline as a work in progress. As you go through the semester, continue to revise and condense what you have already included in the outline, even as you add new material. Review and reevaluate your outline regularly so that you gain a stronger understanding of the course materials and reinforce your memory of what you have learned.

Continue to adjust your outlines to meet your needs for each class. After completing a section or two of your outline, look at any old exams you have obtained from your professor. Ask yourself: Does your outline help you to answer the question on the exam? Does your outline contain enough information? Have you included too much detail from cases without fully developing your understanding the area of the law?

Ask yourself whether there are parts of your outline that need to be committed to memory, such as important definitions or elements of legal tests. You may decide you need to create flashcards for these important concepts to make that information more portable and easier to remember.

The more you work on your outline, the better it will become. As I stated in an earlier post, if you approach your outline in the right way, it will be the only thing that you need to study for the final exam. And, most importantly, you will gain a deeper understanding of legal concepts that will stay with you–not only for the final exam but for the bar exam and the practice of law.

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September 28, 2014 · 9:00 am

Effective Collaboration on Law School Outlines

Image courtesy of Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Over the past few days, we’ve explored a lot of important information about law school outlines. First, I explained what a law school outline actually is and answered some of the most frequently asked questions about outlining. Then I addressed the key things to consider as you are creating an outline. Most recently, we talked about different forms that an outline might take, depending on your learning preferences and what feels most comfortable to you. Today, I want to discuss how law students can effectively collaborate on their outlines.

Law students often ask me if they can work with others in creating an outline. After all, time is at a premium in law school. It often feels like there are not enough hours in a day. After you get done reading and briefing cases for all of your classes each week and completing your assignments for Legal Writing, what time is really left for outlining?

Often, when students are thinking about collaborating on outlines, what they are really thinking about is dividing up the outlining duties. In other words, each member of the study group will complete one section of the outline and disseminate it to the other members. If there are four members of the study group, each person only has to create one quarter of the outline. Students especially are tempted to take this approach when they wait until the last few weeks of the semester to start outlining. I want to caution you about using this strategy—it may seem to make your life easier in the short term, but in the long term it will hurt you. As I’ve explained before, outlining is synthesis—it is learning. It is personal, and there are no shortcuts. You should not divide up the outline among members of your study group, with each person only creating one small part of it. The result of that approach will be that no one will know the material very well, except for the part that that person actually created. (A better way to cope with the time constraints is to outline each section of your outline as soon as you have finished learning about it in class. It can also help to tweak your approach to time management—revisit your study schedule to determine how best to incorporate outlining into your day.)

I don’t want you to think that you should never work with other students on your outline though. Collaboration can be effective if you approach it in the right way. For example, your study group could agree that each person will complete the same section of his or her outline by a particular date. Then, once those outlines are completed, the study group could meet to talk through the outline, with members asking questions about things that they didn’t understand. With this approach, each member of the group will leave the meeting with a better understanding of the material because of the discussion. A study group can help students to feel accountable for completing their studies, keeping them on schedule when there are other distractions.

Image courtesy of stockphoto/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of stockphoto/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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September 24, 2014 · 9:00 am

Types of Law School Outlines

In the past two posts, we have explored what law school outlines are and what kinds of information they should include. It is also important for you to consider the type of outline you want to create—in other words, its format. Not everyone approaches outlining in the same way—it is not one-size-fits-all. Instead, many students consider their learning preferences in deciding how to format their outlines. Regardless of which format you choose, I want to stress that the content is the same—all of the things that I described in yesterday’s post should be included in every person’s outline.

So what types of law school outlines are there? Here are several options that you may consider, although this is not an exclusive list:

The Traditional Law School Outline: When we use the word “outline,” people commonly think of the traditional, formal documents that are organized by Roman numerals. For example, in Torts, your first Roman numeral might be “Intentional Torts.” Letter “A” might set out the general requirements for Intentional Torts, while letter “B” might set out specific examples of intentional torts to persons, such as assault, battery, etc. Each of those examples would be identified by number, and lower-case letters would further break down the sub-issues within each type of intentional tort. The result is a tightly organized, formal outline. Once this type of outline is completed, some students may use text-to-audio programs to convert the traditional outline to audio files.

Although many law students do create traditional outlines, there are actually many other forms that also work for synthesizing course material.

The Modified Traditional Outline: Some students like the organization created by the traditional outline but do not like to the Roman numeral system. Those students may use other formatting tools, such as bolding, underlining, tabs, and bullet points to organize their course information. Explore some of the formatting options in Microsoft Word and other programs—you may find a particular formatting tool that works especially well for your outlines. Keep in mind that white space can also be a good tool—too much print concentrated on the page makes the outline hard to study from later. As with the traditional law school outline, aural learners may use text-to-audio programs to convert this type of outline to audio files.

Tables: Some law students use the table function in Microsoft Word or other programs to create organized, visually-differentiated sections. Each section becomes a separate table, and you can even insert tables within tables to further organize information.

Image courtesy of Pakorn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of Pakorn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Flow Charts and Diagrams: Still other students create flow charts or diagrams to organize course information. Translating course materials into flow charts or diagrams, whether in whole or in part, can help you to visualize the process that you will use in applying the law to facts. You can use these tools to simulate the type of analysis you will use on exams. If the course information is too complex, you may need to utilize flow charts or diagrams in combination with one of the other outlining techniques I’ve described in this post.

Mind Maps: Occasionally, students find Mind Maps useful, and they may use mind mapping software to create webs of legal information, presented in something different than the traditional linear form. There are a variety of different mind mapping programs out there, either free or available for a small fee. Like flow charts and diagrams, it is important not to oversimplify your studies with this type of tool though. If you decide to mind map, choose a program which allows you to incorporate more detailed information into the mind map.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Flashcards: You may also create a flashcard system, either as your main form of outlining or as a supplement to another outlining form (for example, you might create flashcards for important definitions or legal tests to make it easier to memorize those concepts). Some students color code their flashcards to signal connections between different cards. Others use flashcards of different sizes to signal that the card addresses an issue versus a sub-issue. If you plan to make flashcards your main form of outlining, it is important to develop a system for recognizing the connections between concepts on different cards.

Experiment with different ways of organizing your outline—you may be surprised about what works best for you. Additionally, what works for one class may not work as well for another. Periodically reevaluate your approach to outlining to make sure you are maximizing your outlines’ potential.

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