Midterms and finals are just around the corner, which means it's time to help our students stay focused and prepared. As they navigate their readings and assignments, we can encourage them to keep their “eyes on the horizon.” In other words, in every learning activity they engage in, we can help them keep the end goal in mind: performing at their best on exams. A key question students should consider is: How is what I’m doing right now helping me succeed when it matters most?
If you're unsure about the best ways to support students in their exam preparation, here are three key areas to focus on when meeting with them in the final weeks of the spring semester:
1. Encourage them to do more than just prepare for class. If students spend all their time just reading and briefing cases, that’s only the bare minimum. While it may help them get through daily coursework, it doesn’t guarantee exam success. Instead, if students want to do their very best on exams, they’ll need to understand more than just what the cases are about. The details—the minutiae—won’t matter nearly as much as their ability to extract, understand, and apply the basic rules they got out of each case.
What if they’re behind in their readings? Tell them to at least skim the case, but they should never even think about skipping class! It is important for them to attend lectures to ensure they capture any key takeaways from the case. Once lecture is over, they can go back and read the case to catch up (they will be more focused in their reading).
2. Encourage them to outline strategically. By this time, students have covered enough concepts to begin outlining. Tell them not to delay. Getting their outlines up to speed is easier if they add bits and pieces after each class (or at least carve out some time on the weekend). We don’t want students to procrastinate and end up having to do a massive overhaul toward the end of the semester.
Pro-tip: Everything they put in their outline should be concepts that they have digested and synthesized. In other words, their outline should contain only those concepts that they fully understand. If there are knowledge gaps, students should clear them up first and then enter them in their outline. Two essential strategies for effective outlining include:
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- Focusing on concrete rules. Students should prioritize extracting and clearly stating black-letter law.
- Developing a systematic approach for analysis. Students should structure their outlines in a way that reflects how they’ll analyze legal issues on exams.
3. Encourage them to practice the type of exam they’re going to take. Is the Constitutional Law exam going to be a mix of multiple-choice and essay questions? Will it be open or closed book? Will the Contracts professor allow students to bring one page of notes? Will there be hour-long essay questions? Or short-answer questions?
If a student’s exam doesn’t include multiple-choice questions, it makes no sense for them to be practicing multiple-choice questions for that particular exam. If the professor emphasizes policy, encourage students to look up past questions, ask classmates who have taken that professor, and focus on policy arguments. Then, they should integrate those arguments into their outlines.
(Guest Blogger: Dawn Young – Loyola University Chicago School of Law)
