by WSJ.com



Last week, we ran a post in which we asked several law professors from around the country for insight into what makes a good law school exam response.

We enjoyed putting the post together, assuredly, but came away feeling a bit like we’d only done half the job. It’s great to know what type of answer law profs are looking for, but how, as law students, do you go about readying yourself so that you’re able to give them precisely that answer?

So we set out back to work. This time, we asked a handful of current law students serving on their respective law reviews to talk about how they managed to kill it on their first-year exams. Specifically, we asked the students to finish the following sentence:

The smartest thing I did while preparing for my 1L first-semester exams was ______.

Of course, some of these responses might strike you as obvious, others as insightful, others a combination of both. We allowed folks to give names or submit anonymously if they so chose.

In no particular order, here are a cross-section of responses:

Rogan Nunn, 3L at UVA and an editor on the Virginia Law Review: By far the most useful thing I did when preparing for 1L exams was to round up a few people from the class and take old exams. Don’t just go through them, take them — pretend it’s the real thing, time limits and all. Then discuss answers. You’d be amazed how much you miss the first time. It can be time-consuming, but all the outlining in the world won’t save you if you can’t spot the issues on the fly.

Anonymous 3L at Vanderbilt and a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review: For me, the smartest thing I did while studying for exams 1L year was to go through each entire course in successively shorter periods of time. . . . By successively shortening the amount of time spent thinking through the entire course, the goal was to be able to go quickly through and understand all the material in a couple of minutes — to see both the forest and the trees quickly for the entire course.

Max Shifrin, 3L at Brooklyn and a member of Brooklyn Law Review: The most crucial thing to do as a 1L, in my opinion, is start outlining early in the semester and finish [your outlines] early enough to take as many practice exams as possible in real time. . . . [P]rofessors test the exact same things year in and year out. If you do enough exams, you’ll begin to see a pattern which will give you a huge advantage on exam day.

Anonymous 2L at Columbia, member of the Columbia Law Review: The first time I saw what my Civil Procedure professor expected us to be able to do in three hours I almost had a nervous breakdown. But by taking practice exams and going over answers in a study group, I was able to get a better sense of the material that is frequently tested . . . . By test day I wasn’t intimidated anymore and could take comfort knowing there weren’t going to be any surprises.

Anonymous 3L at Vanderbilt, member of the Vanderbilt Law Review: I made sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night. The finals period is already an extremely stressful time, and it is most stressful as a 1L. There is no reason to add to this stress by staying up every night until 3 a.m. working; not only does it add to your stress level, it is not as if the extra hours “studying” are actually beneficial, given that your mind can only take so much studying per day before shutting down.

Megan Murray, 2L at Iowa, member of the Iowa Law Review: [I wrote] out all the “rules” by hand. The act of writing slows your brain down enough to absorb the legal rules, and it gives you time to consider their implication. This is an especially helpful technique when legal rules come in the form of multi-part, or divergent tests. When you read these rules in your notes or type them out on your computer, the words come so quickly across the page that you don’t have time to really absorb and understand them. Writing them out gives your mind a chance to catch up with your keystrokes.

Anonymous 3L at Berkeley, editor on the California Law Review: Perhaps the most important (and most difficult) advice is that you need to move on when the exam is over, either to prepping for your next exam, having a beer, or just generally getting on with your life. You might feel tempted to talk to your classmates about the exam, perhaps because you have nothing else to talk about (as your life of late was probably consumed with studying). Avoid this at all costs; at best you get affirmation in your answers (which could still be wrong), but at worst your start worrying that you missed something, which at this point is totally out of your control. . . . From my own experience and my friends, taking a law school exam can be defeating and leave students with the feeling that their days of studying were not properly translated to the answer they cranked out in three hours. Try your best not to dwell on those feelings.

LBers, any thoughts?