The Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School
Author:
Whitebread, Charles H.
Edition:
2nd
Copyright Date:
2007
14 chapters
have results for Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School By Charles H. Whitebread
Title Page 5 results
Section 6 - Secret #6: Writing a Winning Exam Answer Every Time 36 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The principal theme of this book is that organization is crucial to success on law school examinations. The paramount difference between “C” exams and “A” exams is not so much how many legal rules and principles the student has memorized, as how well organized is the presentation of what the student knows. Organization and cogent presentation are hallmarks of a first-rate law school exam. The more clearly you can demonstrate your organization the better. Every good examination displays its organization early in an answer and then follows that organization throughout the written response. Nearly all students will spot obvious issues and articulate some rules. Organization and application distinguish the top exams from the run of the mill exams; therefore, spending 15 to 20 minutes evolving a working outline of the answer is essential.
- For most students today the handwriting problem has been eliminated by the growing use of computers to take exams. Some schools require students to use computers for exams. The reason is very simple: A computer-generated exam can be graded much more quickly than one that is handwritten in blue books. Other schools allow, but do not require, the use of computers. (At our school, computers may be used but are not mandated. In my fall 2006 class of 159 students, only six used blue books.) If you are going to use your computer for exams, it is important for you to realize that while computer generated exams can be a joy to grade, they will reveal weaknesses vividly. With a computer exam, missing analysis or improper application stands out starkly—every weakness is quickly evident and you need a clear, cogent, complete outline of your answer before you being to write.
- This next technique for good exam writing may surprise many of you. Do not try to be cute or make jokes on law school examinations. No matter that your professor was consistently funny in class or that the exam questions are drafted in a witty or amusing way. No professor wants you to adopt a flippant or offhand manner in writing the answers to the exam. Fundamentally, law school examinations are not funny: they are not funny for you to prepare for and take, and they are not funny for us to grade. Do not kid or joke around on these basically professional exercises. Make a lawyerlike, professional-styled, no nonsense presentation of what you have to say. It is quite remarkable to me how many students do not understand the dangers of clowning around on examinations. Don’t do it.
- But even if you abridge your External Time Allocation, you will present outlines in answer to the remaining questions; thus, you will have a complete response to all questions even if it is not fully written out. Finally, even if you are so hopeless that you abridge the External Time Allocation forget to outline the answers to the remaining questions, you still should not red flag your ineptitude by scrawling “TIME” at the end of the question you did not have time to complete. Why not? For one thing, it will get you no sympathy or credit from the examiner. Your professor designed the exam precisely to see if you could allocate the allotted time in such a way as to complete the exam. The answer to that is quite apparent: . Like legions of middling law students before you, you have failed the first task of a law school exam—namely, to complete it. That big “TIME” at the end of the
- First of all, write as clearly and legibly as you can. Anyone who has ever graded examinations can attest that grossly illegible papers create a veritable presumption of ineptitude. It is so unpleasant and taxing to read illegible responses that even the most judicious and fair-minded grader cannot help but resent the student who has produced such a sloppy mess and put the grader to so much unnecessary trouble. Furthermore, and much more significantly, sloppy, illegible exams give the appearance of disorganization, something that is always fatal on law school exams.
- Open Chapter
Section 8 - Secret #8: How to Ace Any Unusual ExamYour Professor Might Throw At You: Open Book, Take Home, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, and Policy Questions 32 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Perhaps the most important observation about these types of exams is that they are far more commonly encountered in second and third year law school courses than in first year courses. The overwhelming majority of first year law school examinations will be closed book, timed, in-school exams. It is in more advanced courses and seminars that the open book and take home exams flourish.
- Throughout this book, the primary focus has been the hypothetical fact pattern essay question, which is the classic style law school exam question. In the same way, we have assumed a closed book, no notes examination. However, at many schools today, open book and take home exams have begun to sprout up. Other styles of questions appear on exams as well, such as objective, short answer, and public policy discussion questions. This penultimate chapter discusses briefly those other possible exam and question styles.
- My colleagues in teaching law are sufficiently inventive and clever that I am certain there are several other types of questions they ask on exams that I am neither familiar with nor aware of, but I think we have dealt with what are surely the time-honored formats of law school exam questions. If faced with any other type of question, adapt the guidelines I have given in this book to the type of question you face, remembering that staying calm, organizing your analysis, and allotting your time wisely are keys to success.
- Some bar examinations and a fair number of law school exams now contain short answer questions designed to let you explain a concept, legal principle, or doctrine in a short space. For example, a professor might require you to identify and explain three of the following in one hour:
- One further point with take-home exams, the quality of your writing must be better than what would be expected of you on a timed, in-school exam (whether open or closed book). The professors who use take-home exams do so, I think to try to eliminate or at least minimalize the time pressure on the exam. For this reason, they may fairly expect a higher quality of writing in your answers than is expected on an exam where the students are under a considerable time pressure. So, write nicely on your take-home exam and leave time to edit your answers (especially when you are using your computer).
- Open Chapter
Summary of Contents 10 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Section 3 - Secret #3: Flawless Issue Spotting—The Crucial First Step For Top Exam Performance
- Section 1 - Secret #1: The Three Keys to Handling Any Essay Exam Question
- Section 6 - Secret #6: Writing a Winning Exam Answer Every Time
- Section 7 - Secret #7: Preparation — The Detective Work You Need to Do to Determine What Your Professor Will Test On Your Exam
- Section 8 - Secret #8: How to Ace Any Unusual Exam Your Professor Might Throw At You: Open Book, Take Home, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, and Policy Questions
- Open Chapter
Section 3 - Secret #3: Flawless Issue Spotting—The Crucial First Step For Top Exam Performance 16 results (showing 5 best matches)
- At this point many people who teach examination skills would urge you to begin your ordeal by reading the entire exam. This is wrong. read the whole test before you begin. Why not? Primarily because it wastes time. You already know about the considerable time pressure on law school exams. You do not have time to sit there reading the examination as if it were a newspaper. Therefore, I urge you to start with question one and answer the questions in the order in which they are presented.
- Even if you could read all of the questions in less than one minute, it is still unwise to read the whole exam because it can cause . This probably happened to you at one time or another on your undergraduate exams. You read question one—just what you thought would be asked. Question two—easy. But, oh-oh! Question three—what on earth is that about? Your anxiety over question three may well poison your answers to the first two questions even though you know those topics well. So don’t read the entire exam before you start; just go to the first question.
- This choice point raises a larger issue worth mentioning here. There is a dramatic difference between the atmosphere in which you are reading this book and the atmosphere in an examination room. It is easy in the peace and calm of your own study room to promise yourself that you will use a particular exam strategy. It is quite another thing to stick with (or even remember) your strategy when you begin to get those hot flashes and cold sweats on the day of the exam. So I offer certain choices for you to make while you are taking the exam. The first: If you do not feel comfortable with the first question, immediately move on to the other questions and come back after you have written those answers.
- The call of the question resembles the punch line in a “shaggy dog story” type of joke. It pays to find out where you will be going before setting out. Failure to do so can be very costly. For instance, a few years ago on a performance bar examination, there was a question that presented eighty-five pages of material that concerned several parties and included court rules and complex cases on that ever popular civil procedure issue, certification of defendant classes in class action suits. So that the examinees could complete the test within the time allotted, the examiners restricted the issues to only one party, one-third of the court rules, and one or two cases. The students who discovered the narrowing of the issues before they waded into the eighty-five pages of material passed the exam; those who did not read the limiting call of the question are probably still reading that stuff. Always find out what your destination is before you set out.
- What have we done so far? First, glance at the call of the question. Next, slowly read the first question in its entirety, reading it through to get its general drift. Then reread the question with care. Be careful on this second reading. Examination hypothetical fact patterns are dense. Every sentence, every word, may have significance. On the second reading begin to pick out the legally relevant facts by questioning the question. Finally, a word of caution! A few law professors use trivial trick questions, but most do not. Therefore, most facts are of some importance. You must evaluate their importance relative to the big picture. Attention to detail is a crucial asset for attorneys, but more important is the ability to see the major issues in the case. Thus, most professors do not try to trick you with small details but rather they want to see how you can perform with facts large and small as they appear for attorneys in a typical case. Thus, details are important, but developing...
- Open Chapter
Section 5 - Secret #5: The Hidden Traps to “IRAC” That Most Students Miss 27 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Finally, there is the “C” of IRAC, the . Be sure to make your conclusionary remarks tentative and brief. In our example: The failure of this contract to be in writing is probably immaterial as it falls within an exception to the Statute of Frauds for part performance. A few words of caution about conclusions: (1) never be too conclusionary—leave yourself some room to explore other issues; and (2) never reach a conclusion without going through the other IRAC steps. In this latter regard, a law school examination is a bit like an old high school math test. You cannot get credit unless you show your “work,” ., how the conclusion was reached. The conclusion on a law school exam cannot be considered correct unless your discussion demonstrates why.
- you believe applicable to the issue you have just spotted. Here for example: In certain circumstances, contracts must be in writing under the Statute of Frauds unless they come within a recognized exception to the writing requirement. The rule that you state may be a black letter legal principle it may be a rule of public policy or some related discipline such as economics. Some main points to remember here are that: (1) rules can and should be learned in advance of the exam, but (2) knowing a bunch of rules from a hornbook or outline will get you a high grade on law school exams. Some of your classmates will learn all of the rules before the exam and regurgitate them in an unorganized and thoughtless way on the exam; they will get mediocre grades. The key to success is how well you organize your presentation of the rules you know and, as the next step in the IRAC system requires, how well you show the application of the rule to the question’s set of facts.
- Then, stop here. Reach no conclusion at all. Move on to the next issue and let the reader reach the conclusion. Conclusions are not the key to success on law school exams. Spotting issues and applying whatever rules you assert to the facts your professor presents are the real skills that produce high grades.
- Do not do what I just did in my conclusion—that is, reach such an absolutely positive, inflexible, one-sided conclusion. Why is this wrong? Well, first of all, your professor probably has drafted the facts so that they do not lend themselves to so clear a legal conclusion. Second, and perhaps just as important, when you make conclusionary assertions such as the one above you do not sound like an attorney. Firm assurances are exactly what your parents and other clients hope to hear when they consult an attorney. Clients want their attorneys to say, “Don’t worry about a thing, sir or madam; no just society would ever find a contract on your set of facts.” But that is not what attorneys tell their clients. What assessment do attorneys give? “Well, it could be this way; on the other hand, it could be that way.” This ambivalence is one reason that your parents and other clients are often exasperated by an attorney’s advice. So, when you write “No just society, etc.,” you do not sound...law
- Use the IRAC technique to finish the outline you made using major and component issues. It is especially important for you to master the technique of moving from issue to issue on a hypothetical fact pattern essay question by arguing in the alternative, in the “ ” style. Being too conclusionary early in your answer, so that you eliminate the need to discuss subsequent issues in the question, can result in a failing exam. Discuss every debatable issue unless a particular issue has been removed from the question by the professor’s examination instructions.
- Open Chapter
Section 7 - Secret #7: Preparation—The Detective Work You Need to Do to Determine What Your Professor Will Test On Your Exam 22 results (showing 5 best matches)
- One other study tip: Do not fail to understand both sides of each major issue in the course; this is a common error among first year students. Do not think, as you consider a particular legal issue, “Any fool can see that B is trying to weasel out of her promised performance under this contract and no just society should permit her to get away with it.” Passion may (or may not) have a place in the courtroom, but it has in studying for and writing law school exams.
- The central idea here is that the IRAC system, the rules and their exceptions, and the policy choices underlying the rules may be learned in advance of the exam. By the use of mnemonic devices and other memory aids, you can prepare in advance to know the body of law and theory likely to be relevant for answering hypothetical fact pattern essay questions on the exam. Checklists and other study aids suggested earlier in the book highlight those key areas of the course nearly certain to be covered on the exam. By judicious use of class notes, your casebook, and commercial hornbooks and outlines, you can prepare the “R” of IRAC in advance so that in the exam room you can concentrate on spotting the issues in the hypothetical fact pattern and applying the relevant rule to the facts of that question.
- The first question has been addressed in Secret #6: Writing a Winning Exam Answer Every Time, but there seems so much anxiety and confusion on this point that it may bear repeating. In general, you are not going to use case names or case authority unless your professor asks you to do so or when that case name provides a shorthand way of referring to a particular legal issue, violation. That is why, in studying for exams, you should concentrate on the principles of the course and not the cases.
- How can you find out what your professor is most likely to test you on? There are three ways and you must use all these avenues if the system is going to work for you. First, ascertain what your professor writes about or is involved in. Past and present scholarly interest is an excellent guide to discovery of likely exam questions. Most law school professors do a great deal more than teach class. They are actively engaged in the scholarly tradition of the university. If your Contracts professor has written several articles on consideration and is now working on another, what do you think she is likely to ask on the exam? If the professor must read over and over again a discussion of some issue, it is a good bet that she will prefer an issue—in our example, consideration—that she finds intrinsically interesting.
- As mentioned in Section 4 (Secret #4), I have no more significant insight than to remind you of what every law student discovers early in the first semester: You aren’t taking “Torts”; you are taking “Torts from Professor X.” You aren’t taking “Contracts”; you are taking “Contracts from Professor Y.” I do not know of any other academic enterprise with so much variation from section to section and teacher to teacher within a given course. Different sections of Torts or Contracts will commonly use different casebooks, highlight different topics, and concern different disciplines. One section of Torts or Contracts may be very economically oriented while another is not. One professor may spend three weeks on the issue of consideration while the other section’s professor may gloss over the topic in two class sessions. For this reason it is up to you to tailor the overall system to the particular needs of your experience. You must discover prior to the exam what your professor finds...
- Open Chapter
Section 4 - Secret #4: Organizing Your Answer for Maximum Possible Points 69 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In organizing, make a distinction between criminal law and torts examinations and all other exams. In criminal law and torts exams, hypothetical fact pattern essay questions usually present a series of transactions. In multiple transaction questions, initially organize your answer
- Finally, as a glance at the “About the Author” note will show, I do not teach Contracts. I teach Criminal Procedure; Gifts, Wills and Trusts; and Children in the Legal System. All I recall about the law of contracts stems from my own first year course many (many) years ago. So if something I write about the substantive law of contracts does not jibe with what you have been learning, do not go into a dither. I am not trying to teach you contracts; I am teaching you a technique for writing law school examinations. Don’t worry if some of what I say about contracts, in analyzing our paradigm question, does not agree with what you have been taught. The exam taking concepts are the focus here—not my discussion of the law of contracts.
- In contrast to criminal law and torts exams, other examinations usually present a chronological recitation of facts that are all part of a . In answering these single transaction hypotheticals, immediately organize chronologically
- Second, you must tailor the system that I am presenting to your own professor and your own course. You aren’t really taking the course “Contracts”; you are taking “Contracts from Professor X.” Likewise, you aren’t taking “Torts”; you are taking “Torts from Professor Y.” If your law school class has multiple sections of the same course, you may have already noticed how much variation exists from professor to professor in the same subject. Often different sections use different books and begin and end on dissimilar topics even though the course has the same name. Few other education experiences contain such latitude of difference depending upon the professor’s choices. For this system of exam taking to work for you, you must customize the general concepts to fit the particular course and professor you have.
- Consider the following example, which is considerably shorter and simpler than the hypothetical fact patterns you will most likely see on your examinations. Although this set of facts is easier than you should expect, the concepts of exam writing that I explain in organizing this fairly simple problem will be identical to those you use on more complex hypotheticals. Thus, I can teach the concepts from this simple problem; you can practice with more complex examples by doing the problems in the Appendix to this book or your professor’s past exam questions as you prepare for your exams. No matter how complex the fact pattern of the question, use the same system of organization.
- Open Chapter
Section 1 - Secret #1: The Three Keys to Handling Any Essay Exam Question 11 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The focus on your examinations will be different. Law school exams assume your ability to read and brief a case. Thus, they test your understanding of the legal principles by requiring you to analyze and apply those principles to hypothetical fact situations. This means that as exams approach, you do not want to study in ever finer detail the assigned cases; on the contrary, what you need for success on your examinations is the big picture of the course. You must understand and study the most significant legal issues in the course. Indeed, I have always thought it a great irony of legal education that the examinations bear so little resemblance to what students have been doing in class throughout the semester.
- So much depends on your examination results that you must prepare yourself mentally and perhaps even physically for the ordeal of your first year exams. The sooner you begin looking beyond the minutiae of the casebook to organize your notes around the most important major issues of the course, the better off you will be as exams draw near. Nothing maximizing your scores on law school exams so much as “that instinct for the capillaries,” the obsession with smaller and smaller details at the expense of the big picture of the course. One look at the typical examination format will demonstrate my point.
- Several types of questions could appear on your examinations. Some professors pose objective questions—short True-False or multiple choice questions. Others draft the pure policy question such as “How does the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur act to allocate economic risk in American tort law?” Occasionally, you might get a take home examination or an open book examination. These types of exam questions will be discussed later in this book. Section 8 (Secret #8).
- A word at this point about “legal issues” as I have styled them: These are not necessarily black letter rules of law. They may well be principles of public policy or even principles from which the professor has brought to bear in discussing the ramifications of competing legal rules. Since law orders society in so many ways, legal education draws more and more upon other disciplines to illuminate the policies underlying social and legal choice. Public policy issues and principles of other disciplines such as economics, history, philosophy, and the behavioral sciences may be far more important in your legal education than the pat black letter formulations nonlawyers associate with law. Thus, when I refer to understanding legal principles, I include these fundamental concepts of public policy as well. Indeed, you should be aware at the outset that often these “nonlegal” issues are more significant for success on exams than knowing the black letter rules of your study outlines and...
- Most law school professors seek to test your ability to perform the legal analysis that your clients will require of you. For that reason, the most common form of law school examination question presents a complex hypothetical set of facts and asks you to analyze the legal issues these facts raise. Essentially, the hypothetical fact pattern essay question presents a set of facts narrated in chronological order, about the way a client would present the problem to a lawyer. While there may be considerable variation, most hypothetical fact pattern essay questions are 200 to 500 words long and require you to analyze and understand the legal principles involved. For this reason the most important task is spotting the legal issues—that is, just seeing that these facts present one or more particular legal issues. If we assume, then, the traditional 200- to 500-word, hypothetical fact pattern essay question, there are three principal tasks you must perform
- Open Chapter
Section - Secret #2: Adding Points to Your Score by Making Time Work For You, Not Against You 25 results (showing 5 best matches)
- If, under the stress of exam conditions, you abridge your time allocation, realize that your best bet is to outline your answers to the remaining questions. In any event, you must complete the examination to earn a good grade. The External Time Allocation can get you over the first hurdle to maximizing your scores on a law school examination.
- What have we done so far? As soon as you begin the examination, make the External Time Allocation. How long will this step take? Less than a minute, but there is nothing you can do so likely to improve your results on law school exams as to establish a rigid External Time Allocation. The first obstacle to your success is time pressure. All too many of your classmates will not finish their exams and so will get mediocre grades. You must finish your exam. There is no credit to be had for blank paper. Make the External Time Allocation and adhere to it.
- First, you are probably overwriting the answer if you take twice the amount of time you should have to produce it. Second, many professors take the attitude that other students could have discussed the issues in the first question in more detail had they taken two hours to do it. Third and most telling, many professors grade each question separately so they don’t know what you wrote in answer to the first question when they are grading the other examination questions. There is, in other words, no “Halo Effect” from one question to another on law school exams.
- Finally, even if you are so flustered under the pressures of taking the examination that you both violate the External Time Allocation and fail to outline, you still should not scrawl an excuse that includes the word “TIME” at the end of an incomplete answer. Why? No law professor was ever promoted or given a professional honor based on how he or she grades. Grading is a task that many law professors undertake reluctantly. For myself, I so enjoy teaching and so loathe grading exams that I often view my whole salary as paid solely to grade the exams. Only with each exam viewed this way can I survive the awesome grading process in large classes. Thus, you will have no sympathy from law professors like me for running out of time. The exam was designed specifically to test your ability to manage the time allotted to answer the questions. Furthermore, I teach Criminal Procedure and so do not believe in public confession. Do you see the point? Some examiners read exams so fast, they might...
- For illustration, assume three questions are on a three-hour examination. All questions are entitled to the same amount of time some contrary instruction is given. If, for example, the examiner tells you questions one and two are worth 80% of the points on the exam, then these questions should be allocated 80% of the three hours available to complete the exam, and the third question should be allotted 20% of the three hours. But if I were any good at math, I would probably have gone to medical school, so let’s postulate a very easy allocation: you have three hours to complete an exam with three questions all of equal value. What’s the External Time Allocation? One hour for each question.
- Open Chapter
Appendix: Sample Exam Questions and Model Answers 161 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Alice wrote to Lisa demanding that Lisa have the floor strengthened and cancel the lease with Charles. Alice claimed that Charles was in competition with her. Lisa refused both requests. On July 1, 2006, Alice mailed the top floor key back to Lisa and moved out of the building. She has paid no rent since moving. Lisa has made all reasonable attempts to mitigate the loss.
- In any case, University may be vicariously liable for Elco’s negligence even though Elco is an independent contractor, since the duties assumed by Elco were nondelegable because of public policy considerations. Maintaining elevators in the law school was part of University’s duty to provide a safe place to work for employees, as well as its duty to keep public premises safe for visitors.
- Lisa owns a five-story commercial building. On January 1, 2005, she leased the top floor to Tom for a five-year term at a rent of $500 a month. The lease was in writing and signed by both parties. It contained a restriction that the premises could be used only “as a dance studio and for no other purpose.” It also provided: “Landlord shall not lease space in the building to any competitor of Tenant.” The lease did not contain any express warranties or disclaimers.
- The four-story law school building of University, a private institution open to the public, had a defective elevator which frequently stopped between floors. The elevator had an alarm button which, if pressed, would ring a bell in the hallway and thus alert persons in the building to the fact that the elevator had stopped between floors with passengers inside it. The defective condition did not create any danger that the elevator might fall or otherwise physically injure any passenger.
- Because of the difficulty of establishing the amount of compensatory damages, Coll may either obtain restitution of the amount he has tendered to Art or seek specific performance of the contract. Coll can show that money damages are inadequate because the object of the contract (a painting) is unique, and that mutuality of remedy is present because he has tendered the money to Art. However, specific performance will not be available because the painting is no longer in Art’s possession. Hence, the court will conclude that enforcement of the contract
- Open Chapter
Introduction: Handling the Intimidation Factor 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Often students’ anxiety is caused not by the intellectual enterprise but by what I call the “Intimidation Factor” of law school. At many law schools, the first year exudes intimidation. First, there is intimidation of students by some professors and then, every bit as commonly, there is substantial intimidation among the students themselves.
- The purpose of this book is to undercut and neutralize the Intimidation Factor of law school by giving you advice about techniques for success on law school examinations.
- To show what I mean by the Intimidation Factor, take an example from my own law school career. The very first thing that greeted me upon entering the doors of law school was a large chart presenting the profile of my entering class by LSAT score. I had done quite well in undergraduate college but had not done so well on the LSAT. Imagine how intimidated I felt when I saw that they had had to extend the chart downward to include my less than stellar LSAT score.
- The first year of law school challenges a student’s intellect with a vigor and force rarely seen in American education. Professors try to sharpen the reasoning ability of students by showing them the limits of a particular principle and the relationship of legal principles to values. In an era of public concern for the teaching of values, legal education should pass muster from even the most value-oriented education critic. Because law orders our society, one cannot escape inquiry into what type of society will result from adoption of any particular legal principle or theory. Thus, first year law students must begin to reason and “think like lawyers” while grappling with fundamental concepts of public policy.
- The first year of legal education excites and involves students in a special way. The quality of the educational experience cannot be matched. Yet, no one would claim that the first year of law school is entirely pleasant or even comfortable. Part of the difficulty arises from the subtlety of the material and the magnitude of the educational goal which dramatically changes a student’s way of looking at problems of everyday life. But many
- Open Chapter
Review and Conclusion 10 results (showing 5 best matches)
- IX. In studying for exams, . Concentrate on the Big Picture of the course. Try to understand the policy underlying a legal rule; don’t just memorize a lot of rules.
- To conclude, let’s review the system that will help you to do your best on law school examinations.
- One last observation: No sooner will you pledge yourself to this system, which requires one-third of your time for organizing and outlining, then you will sit next to a person, who from the moment they hand out the exam, begins to write and write and write and write. The table or desk will shake frantically, his knee will pump up and down, and you may be spooked. There he is writing, writing, writing, and you are thinking, “I guess I’ll IRAC; I should outline, but he’s
- VI. In writing your answer, state all the component issues of the major issue. Dismiss the nondebatable issues by application to the facts. IRAC the remaining debatable issues.
- by transaction
- Open Chapter
Copyright Page 2 results
- The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.
- Printed in the United States of America
- Open Chapter
- Publication Date: October 30th, 2007
- ISBN: 9780314183583
- Subject: Academic Success
- Series: Academic and Career Success
- Type: Academic/Prof. Development
- Description: This work teaches the eight secrets that will add points to every exam answer you write. You will learn the three keys to handling any essay exam, how to use time to your advantage, issue spotting, how to organize your answer, and the hidden traps of the IRAC method. Once you have mastered these skills, you can put your knowledge to the test with sample exam questions and check your answers against those provided. A special section on how to do well on other types of exams, such as open-book, multiple-choice, or policy exams, is also included.
