How to answer law school exams.

To: 1st year law school student.

From: Michael Kusi.

Topic: Answering Questions.

Date: 8/15/2023.

Questions in law school exams can take the form of true/false, short answer, multiple choice and essays. This memo will deal primarily with multiple choice and essays. First, if a professor has old exams on file, you should do them and bring them to the Academic Success Program of your school for them to look at and grade. That way you can get a feel for how the professor organizes his or her essays. If a professor keeps bringing up a topic in the essays, then you can be almost sure that it will be on the exam. List of Supplements that would prove useful.

You can also use case briefs from online to make sure that you are getting it right on your own ?casebriefs.

Quimbee- They have a comprehensive suite of materials.

Kaplan- They have free multiple choice questions.

Barbri- They have free questions.

Law in a Flash- These are flashcards for different subjects and they are very helpful.

The Glannon Guide to Civil Procedure- These are multiple choice questions and analysis.

The Glannon Guide to Torts- These are multiple choice questions.

Core Criminal Law: Learning Through Multiple-Choice Questions

Core Civil Procedure: Learning Through Multiple-Choice Questions

Siegel's Property: Essay and Multiple-Choice Questions and Answers (Siegel's Series)?

The Glannon Guide to Property: Learning Property Through Multiple-Choice Questions and Analysis (Glannon Guides)\

Property (Examples & Explanations)

Multiple Choice Questions- Approach.

1)??? Read the question first.

2)??? Skim the answer choices to figure out what topic areas is being covered.

3)??? Read the fact pattern and underline key topics.

4)??? Try to come up with an answer to the question.

5)??? Go back to the answer choices.

6)??? For each question, the correct answer must be legally correct, factually correct, and logically determinative. It must be legally correct in that it must state the correct law. It must be factually correct in that it must be? right on the facts. And It must be logically determinative in that it is ties to the correct answer choice.

7)??? For questions that say yes because and no because, the answer must be correct in regards to both the yes and the other part of the answer stem.

8)??? Compare the answer that you have come up with to the answer choices that are on the exam. If you are sure that the answer you have is correct, then mark each answer choice as correct or incorrect. For each incorrect answer choice state the rule of law that makes that answer choice incorrect. Oftentimes, incorrect answer choices will state the law incorrectly.

9)??? Pick the correct answer choice and mark it on the exam.

It is good to practice multiple choice questions in order to get the technique done. It is good to do 20-30 multiple choice questions a day starting in mid-September and October and to separate each day to work on multiple choice. One day you could do Criminal Law, one day Property and so on. You could also distill your outline into flashcards and practice, as well as writing down the answer for each flashcard for practice. This is good for short answer questions.

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Essay Approach.

1)??? Read the question first.

2)??? Read the fact pattern and underline key facts.

3)??? Read the fact pattern again.

4)??? Create an outline using IRAC.

5)??? Fill in the outline.

Issue- You could say the issue is whether, or the issue here is whether.

Rule- Make sure that you give the comprehensive rule. Make sure that the rule is in a separate paragraph from the issue and from the analysis that followed. Be thorough about the rule but do not do data dumping where you try to cram everything that you know about the subject into the rule.? Make sure that what you put as your rule statement is what is pertinent to the question. If you are having trouble with writing rule statements you could practice writing rule statements.

Analysis: This is the time to shine. The analysis must mirror the rule, in that if you put something in the rule in a specific place, it must be in the analysis in that particular place. If your rule statement’s first two sentences describe homicide, then your analysis first two sentences must show why it is a homicide. The analysis is where you weave in the facts and tie them to rule statements. So each statement has a little bit of rule and a little bit of analysis. For example for torts you could say this was battery because there was a harmful contact without permission when Abe hit Mary with the cane. You should also bring in different perspectives and try to argue both sides. Finally you could use a RA RA structure for issues that have more than one rule. You could write the rule and the analysis for example, if you are dealing with personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction instead of putting it into one paragraph. You could put the rule of personal jurisdiction and the analysis of personal jurisdiction and then the rule of subject matter jurisdiction and the analysis of subject matter jurisdiction and then conclude by saying whether or not they have PJ and SMJ.

The conclusion statement is where you wrap up the essay. You say who wins and who has the stronger case. For instance you can say that a particular party was not negligent or that a particular crime was not homicide.