Getting to Maybe
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Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams has been the best-selling book on law exams since its original publication in 1999. It appears on summer reading lists at countless law schools, and professors often recommend it in first-year courses. What sets it apart from its competitors is its frank recognition that law exams test legal reasoning and that legal reasoning cannot be reduced to any simple "check the boxes" template. Yet law students give it high marks because it avoids abstruse lectures and instead offers a clear, readable, and often humorous guide to how lawyers and judges deploy legal reasoning in real-world disputes and how law professors test such disputes--and the reasoning required to resolve them--on law exams. It's therefore the best resource available for helping students successfully make the transition from undergraduate studies--where exams frequently call for "right answers"--to law school, where exams reward students for "getting to maybe" and mobilizing persuasive arguments on multiple sides of legal problems. Responding to reader feedback, the authors offer a much-anticipated second edition with new material focusing on exam preparation; drafting successful exam answers while avoiding common mistakes; and tackling multiple-choice questions.
How to Write Law Exams
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Written for every law student who ever wondered how to get better grades in law school or how to ensure passage of the bar, How to Write Law Exams: IRAC Perfected provides students of all levels with a detailed, comprehensive, and practical guide to success on law school and bar exams. What's more, How to Write Law Exams applies equally to all subject matters, making this text an ideal supplement for every law school course.Focuses on law school and bar exams rather than the kind of assignments seen in legal writing class. As such, the book helps students improve their grades in all of their substantive courses, not just in their first year legal writing class, and helps prepare students for the bar in any jurisdiction.Provides readers with a proven and easy-to-implement means of maximizing points on a law school exam. Rather than repeating vague generalities about grammar and style or providing simple bullet-point lists as other writing guides do, this text breaks the well-known IRAC method of legal writing into comprehensible segments and gives students the tools needed to master their law exams.Provides readers with detailed student-written examples of the IRAC method in action. Annotated with line-by-line critiques, these sample essays show readers exactly what can go wrong in a law school or bar exam and how to fix those problems before they appear on a graded paper.
Law School and Exams
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Law School and Exams: Preparing and Writing to Win, Third Edition is the third edition of a popular book whose first edition Bryan Garner reviewed and judged to be "the best on the market." It combines: Clear and comprehensive explanations of study and exam techniques Numerous illustrative samples that are truly instructive Twenty in-class exercises or take-home assignments on everything from case briefs to essay and multiple-choice exam questions. Comprehensive and self-contained, the Third Edition is suitable for use as the textbook for a sophisticated Prelaw course, 1L Orientation, or a 1L Academic Success course. Alternatively, incoming freshmen can work through it independently over the summer to be optimally prepared for law school in the fall. New to the Third Edition: The latest in learning theory, including focus and engagement, spaced repetition with interleaving, and altering surroundings during study to create mental bookmarks; plus, nine topics relating to mindset, mindfulness, and well-being. Expanded sets of exercises and assignments, including new and improved essay exams and multiple-choice questions. New discussion of time management. Professors and student will benefit from: The way the book facilitates a flipped classroom: The clear and detailed explanations and illustrations will enable students to prepare well for class, permitting the professor to provide a quick summary of key points before turning to active learning through brainstorming, problem-solving, discussion, debate, and writing exercises. Clear explanations and illustrations for reading assignments and numerous exercises for in-class active learning Sample answers for all in-text exercises in the Appendix for students to check their understanding A major in-text take-home assignment separate from the other in-text materials that can be used to further gauge student's understanding Teaching materials Include: Teacher's Manual: Notes for teaching strategies Sample answer for the major in-text assignment Two essay exam questions with sample answers that can be administered as in-class exams for practice, or as graded exams
Law School Secrets: Outlining for Exam Success
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This book answers the most-asked questions of first, second, and third year law school students. Exam Preparation: How long should my outline be? What should I include in my outline? What secondary sources should I use? Are study groups effective? Should I swap outlines with other students? How do I prepare for open and closed book exams? And much more. Writing the Exam: What is the best way to read the exam questions? How do I schedule my time? How do I organize my answer? When do I need to assume facts? How do I impress the professor? And much more.
Mastering the Law School Exam
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Mastering the Law School Exam is designed to provide students with a knowledgeable, reasonable, and rational voice to navigate the intricacies of law school exams. This book is practical rather than theoretical where the emphasis is on providing the type of detailed examples necessary to show students precisely "how to do it" and "how to write it." By working with numerous illustrations in the context of substantive law, students learn to: Fill the gap between what the professor refers to as learning to "think like a lawyer" and the actual means for doing so. Create a successful path from note-taking--to outlining--to exam writing. Identify the basic skills that exams seek to test and the precise manner in which they are tested. Become familiar with the general types of law school exams through examples and detailed analyses of sample answers. Use the language of the law in the writing of issues, statements of the rule, and analysis of the facts. Draw appropriate inferences from the facts. Improve close reading skills as well as writing skills. Be pro-active by taking formative assessments in a variety of subject areas and formats. Simulate exam conditions by writing exams under timed conditions. Target assessments according to identified learning objectives. Self-assess by following detailed grading rubrics. Use formative assessment to improve learning through identified feedback mechanisms. Draw appropriate inferences from the facts. Organize their thoughts to write an organized analysis. Develop a facility with adapting the "IRAC" structure of legal analysis to answer multiple-choice questions, write essay answers, and address varying performance test tasks.
Open Book
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Open Book: The Inside Track to Law School Success, 2E is a book that every JD and LLM law student needs to read, either before classes start or as they get going in their 1L year. Now in an expanded second edition, the book explains in a clear and easygoing, conversational manner what law professors expect from their students both in classes and exams. The authors, award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, give students an inside look at law school by explaining how, despite appearances to the contrary, classes connect to exams and exams connect to the practice of law. Open Book introduces them to the basic structure of our legal system and to the distinctive features of legal reasoning. To prepare students for exams, the book explains in clear and careful detail what exams are designed to test. It then devotes a single, clearly written chapter to each step of the process of answering exams. It also contains a wealth of material, both in the book and digitally, on preparing for exams. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Open Book comes with a free suite of 18 actual law school exams in Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property and Torts, written and administered by law professors. These exams include not only questions, but: (1) annotations from the professors explaining what they were looking for; (2) model answers written by the professors themselves; and (3) actual student answers, with professor comments that explain why certain answers were stronger of weaker. As Open Book explains, there is no better way to prepare for exams than by practicing, and these unique materials will enable students to get the most out of their pre-exam practice.
Writing Essay Exams to Succeed in Law School
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Ancillary purchase book appropriate for incoming and first - year law students, law students in academic support programs, pre - law students, and graduates studying for the bar exam. Features: The student answer to the Hayakawa problem in Chapter 4 is now annotated to show key features, such as explanations of rules, explanation of elements, application of sub-elements to facts, and conclusions An all-new Chapter 8 explains how exams are like the real practice of law
CALI Lesson: Writing Better Law School Exams- The Importance of Structure
Please note that the content of these outlines have not been checked for errors by law school faculty or the law librarians. Outlines are intended to supplement a student's own work, not replace it. Please use these with caution.
Westlaw 1 L Outlines
OutlineDepot.com
Some professors place sample midterm and final exams in their canvas classes for their students. Check canvas or with your instructor. The library does not keep past exams on reserve. The library does have practice multiple choice and essay study aids. Stop by the service desk to inquire.
Law Nerds.com: Take a Practice Exam