How To Become A Good Test Taker –By A #1 Law Student Who Scored In the 99th Percentile On The Bar Exam

How To Become A Good Test Taker –By A #1 Law Student Who Scored In the 99th Percentile On The Bar Exam

How To Become A Good Test Taker – By A #1 Law Student Who Scored In the 99th Percentile On The Bar Exam: I am not good at too many things, but one thing I am good at is taking tests. I graduated number one in my law school class of over 200 law students, and I scored in the top one percent on the bar exam. I was certainly not the smartest person in law school or the smartest person taking the bar exam. I also probably did not work the longest hours (though I worked hard in law school and while studying for the bar exam, I also took one day a week off). Here are the best tips on how to become a good test taker. These apply specifically to law school and the bar exam—and I will discuss them in that context—but they could indeed be applied to several different types of exams. 

How To Become A Good Test Taker –By A #1 Law Student Who Scored In the 99th Percentile On The Bar Exam

1. Figure out what is tested.

The first question you have to ask if you want to do well on an exam is: “What is tested on this exam?” This question will make a huge difference in how you study.

For example, law school exams do not test cases. Yet so many law students waste away their semester obsessing over cases and briefing cases (which is completely unproductive!). If your goal is to do well on the law school final exam, you have to realize that 99% of law school exams do not test the facts of cases. They test the law. And they test if you can apply it. And that is it.

So this should be your entire strategy in law school: (1) Learn the law super well and (2) Figure out how to apply it to fact patterns. We have written extensively about this before.

The same is true for the bar exam. You have to know the law super well and you have to know how to apply it. Note that the bar exam in some ways simplifies the law. Present and future interests are simpler (don’t worry about Shelley’s rule or fee tails). You will not have to know the Corbin or Willingston approach to the parol evidence rule. But you are still are going to have to know a LOT of law! And then you will have to know how to apply it.  

2. Learn the material very well.

The next thing you have to do is learn the material super well. Please do NOT skip to practicing questions. Instead, you have to obsess over the material first. It’s a vital step in your quest to become a good test taker.

Note: This is NOT reading your outlines until you feel comfortable with them.

Note: This is NOT being able to explain what the law means.

This is plain, simple, dry, unsexy MEMORIZATION. You will look at one section of your outline, and actively review it. Over and over and over again. Until you can restate all of the elements of law. Then you will move on to the next section of your outline. Later, you will at some point, closer to the end of your study day, review EVERYTHING you have already done. Then you will write it in your schedule to review it all again the next day, the day after that, the day after that, and at least once a week or so in the coming weeks. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And you will start to feel very comfortable with your outlines. You will carry them around like a security blanket. And you will dream about elements of the law. And this is your life now! Yay. But it is all worth it because it will help you become a good test taker!

(For memorization tips, see this post!)

3. Practice, practice, practice.

Some students are tempted to skip memorizing and head right to practicing. (This is especially the case for the bar exam students.) Other students are so scared of exams that they will keep putting off looking at past exams and never end up practicing exam questions at all. (This is especially the case for law students!)

Once you know the law, it is time to practice. This is key to become a good test taker.

If you are taking the bar exam, please don’t waste your time with questions made up by a commercial course, use real MBE questions, real essay questions, and real performance tests.

If you are taking a law school exam, print out as many past exams from your professor as you can and make time each and every week to start dissecting them. Law school exams are a totally different beast than undergrad exams. Knowing the law is not enough. You have to perfect the art and science of taking law school exams. And the best way to do this is to practice! (Check out how to take law school practice exams here.)

 4. There are no shortcuts.

So many students come to us looking for better “strategies.” And the truth is, there are some strategies you can use on law school exams and the bar exam. For example, on law school exams, you shouldn’t be too wishy-washy in your conclusion but nor should you be super confident. You should use words like “likely” and “probably.” You should look for the gray areas and get good at writing an IRAC paragraph that spins out into sub-IRACs and sub-sub-IRACs.

And for the bar exam, you should (for most state essay exams) follow a simple Rule-Analysis-Conclusion formula. State the rule clearly. Apply the law rather than arguing both sides. Arrive at a clear conclusion. Separate each issue into paragraphs. Don’t go crazy trying to spot “gray areas” or spin a beautiful web of sub-sub-sub IRACs. The bar exam is straightforward in comparison to law school exams.

But these strategies are not shortcuts. There are not shortcuts when you want to become a good test taker. Learning strategies will not get you from a D to an A. Learning these strategies may get you from an A- to an A, or an A to an A+ or even a B to an A if you really struggle. But all the strategies in the world won’t help you very much if you do not know the law. You should start fine-tuning your strategies only after you have the law memorized and you have begun to look at practice exams. In other words, this is step 4. Not step 1. 

5. Follow directions.

This may seem obvious, but we see a lot of smart, talented soon-to-be lawyers fail to follow directions and have their test scores suffer because of it. For example, the question will ask the student to discuss three issues, and the student discusses a fourth unrelated issue. The student “fights the facts” and makes up their own facts then applies the law to their made-up facts and in so doing, gets no points. Then, he or she focuses so much on their essay answer that they don’t even realize they don’t have the facts straight to begin with. The student is asked about constitutional claims and discusses the rules of Evidence.

I could go on and on. But the fifth and final step to becoming a stellar test taker is to follow directions! Read the facts carefully. Keep circling back to the fact pattern and the call of the question. Make sure you are doing exactly what is asked of you. Anything else is just wasting time.

We hope these tips help you become a good test taker! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post below!

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