Exams - Preparing and Attacking

This lesson provides memorization tools and techniques for exam success. First, the lesson demonstrates the relationship between memorization and exam success. Next, the lesson explains memorization tools and techniques. After you complete this lesson you will be able to apply tools and techniques and effectively memorize important legal concepts to be successful on your exams.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Explain the relationship between memorization and exam success.
2. Apply memorization tools and techniques.

This lesson teaches you how to select the right answer in a multiple-choice question by better understanding how to identify wrong answers, based on nine specific types of wrong answers.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Identify the correct answer in a multiple-choice question.
2. Explain why wrong answer choices are incorrect.

This lesson teaches a methodical approach for all law school multiple choice questions. The step-by-step approach provides a framework to work through questions so students can more easily eliminate distractor answer choices. The lesson will thoroughly explore each step in this analytical approach.

First-year law students often understand the law and know the right conclusion, but struggle to apply the law thoroughly in order to maximize their scores. This lesson is designed to help law students who may have received feedback that their analysis is conclusory.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Sort facts to law.
2. Apply facts to law.
3. Identify conclusory v. complete legal analysis.

Law students often hear about the importance of "doing hypos" but don't know why they are important, where to find them, how to do them, and so on. This lesson will cover the what, why, when, where, and how of hypos so law students can conquer the material they are learning and be prepared for exams.

This lesson explores one of the fundamental lawyering skills, which is to be able to spot issues. This lesson looks at what an issue is, and best practices in spotting them in cases, with clients, and on exams. Students will go through basic issue spotting exercises to better prepare for exams.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Explain what "issue spotting" means.
2. Demonstrate the ability to spot issues using "attack outlines."
3. Demonstrate the ability to spot issues using facts.

In this lesson, we will provide some steps you can follow to improve your reading comprehension.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. More accurately answer an essay question by better understanding the task and student's role.
2. Spot key words and phrases, thus making better use of this information in the analysis within the answer.
3. Improve speed and ability to navigate a question without sacrificing accuracy of detail.

Creating Study Aids is part of the Academic Support series of CALI Lessons. This lesson introduces you to law school study aids. It begins with a brief overview of self-regulated learning and Bloom's learning taxonomy. Then, the lesson introduces law school study aids by pairing them with learning objectives at each level of the taxonomy. Finally, the lesson concludes with an activity designed to help you reflect on your learning. It can be used as an introduction, supplement, or as review.

This lesson will cover the basic structure of written legal analysis: IRAC. IRAC stands for Issue, Rule, Application/Analysis, Conclusion. There are slightly different versions of IRAC which may be used for different legal documents. This lesson will focus on IRAC for essay exam writing. Some faculty may prefer CRAC, or CIRAC, where the conclusion is placed first. You may also learn CRREAC for writing legal memos and briefs, which stands for Conclusion, Rule, Rule Explanation, Application, Conclusion.

This lesson teaches you why, when and how to create outlines when preparing for your law school exams.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Recognize the importance of outlines as a learning and test preparation tool in law school, thus making the outlining exercise more valuable.
2. Develop outlines during an optimum timeline.
3. Create outlines that offer the student a tool that improves comprehension, synthesis, and exam performance.