Dear 1L: Tips for Test Day on Law-School Exams
Dear 1L, As your very first set of law-school exams draw near, you’ll want to think about planning your test-taking approach now, so that you don’t freeze up on exam day.
The below is simply one approach of many, but it’s based on what I used in law school—as honed during the process of taking and passing three different state bar exams over the course of my career, coupled with feedback from 1Ls who have found success with it after working with me.
That said, there are, of course, many ways to approach and write a successful law-school exam essay. The below is just how I did it. You may find other approaches that suit you better.
🔹 1: I did not read the entire exam at the start. Intead, I started by getting a bird’s eye view of the exam as a whole.
—Resist the urge to read the whole exam in full and to dive right in writing. It will waste your time and make you panic about topics you’re unsure about.
—You first need to assess the exam as a whole, using a measured, pre-planned approach that has nothing to do with the substance of the law.
🔹 2: I wrote down how much time I could spend on each question.
—Time will FLY during the exam, so you need to be disciplined about not exceeding the time allotted for each question.
—There are only so many points available to earn in any one question, so if there are 3 questions, don’t spend 100% of your time on two and never get to the third. That leaves easy points (e.g. stating the elements of a claim) on the table.
🔹 3: I skimmed each question VERY briefly to get a sense of its topics, and I picked the question that I thought would be easiest for me to attack first.
—This approach gave me a set routine—something non-difficult to do right when I opened the exam. That helped to stave off anxiety.
—It also got me started on the question I thought would go best first. I gained confidence for remaining, harder questions after I had completed one in full.
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I’ll write more about essay exams in the days and weeks to come. What questions do you have for me?
If you’ve been through a successful set of exams, what approach worked for you at the start?
Fondly,
💌 Amanda