OFFICIAL 1L Exam Prep & Motivation Thread (CSWS) Forum

[Presumption Acquired]

I could use any tips anyone found helpful in studying for crim. My notes suck and my outline blows.. class was taught in a very "random" form. advice?

That sucks, man. I had Harrison and he was pretty good. Didn't teach too many crimes, but was very thorough in his explanation of what he did teach.

I also recommend Dressler. It's dense, but will definitely pay dividends on the exam, I hope.

[005618502]

I could use any tips anyone found helpful in studying for crim. My notes suck and my outline blows.. class was taught in a very "random" form. advice?

That sucks, man. I had Harrison and he was pretty good. Didn't teach too many crimes, but was very thorough in his explanation of what he did teach.

I also recommend Dressler. It's dense, but will definitely pay dividends on the exam, I hope.

Random Alt? lol Well, shit it may be a little late to pick that up lol. would it be worth it to pick it up tomorrow at the book store? or is it a little late for that? And when did you have Harrison? From what I have heard he hasnt taught crim in like 10+ years, so unless your in it this year?...

[Doorkeeper]

Ever since reading period and exams started I've gotten so tired by around 5-6pm. The day just zaps all of my energy.

[Nova]

I could use any tips anyone found helpful in studying for crim. My notes suck and my outline blows.. class was taught in a very "random" form. advice?

That sucks, man. I had Harrison and he was pretty good. Didn't teach too many crimes, but was very thorough in his explanation of what he did teach.

I also recommend Dressler. It's dense, but will definitely pay dividends on the exam, I hope.

Random Alt?

LOL

[20130312]

I'M DONE. WOOOOO SOMEBODY GET ME A BEER!

[Doorkeeper]

I'M DONE. WOOOOO SOMEBODY GET ME A BEER!

Prole.

A real boss would've brought a beer to the exam and opened it as soon as time ran out.

(I plan on doing this when I finish)

[thelong]

I'M DONE. WOOOOO SOMEBODY GET ME A BEER!

Prole.

A real boss would've brought a beer to the exam and opened it as soon as time ran out.

(I plan on doing this when I finish)

Haha, there is a specific rule in our exam guide against bringing alcohol to the exam. I read it and then I figured out why they would have such a rule. I would definitely have brought a flask to my Ks exam on Thurs if I could. Don't want to be sober any longer than I have to once I turn that sucker in.

[Bronck]

Done.

--ImageRemoved--

[Presumption Acquired]

I could use any tips anyone found helpful in studying for crim. My notes suck and my outline blows.. class was taught in a very "random" form. advice?

That sucks, man. I had Harrison and he was pretty good. Didn't teach too many crimes, but was very thorough in his explanation of what he did teach.

I also recommend Dressler. It's dense, but will definitely pay dividends on the exam, I hope.

Random Alt? lol Well, shit it may be a little late to pick that up lol. would it be worth it to pick it up tomorrow at the book store? or is it a little late for that? And when did you have Harrison? From what I have heard he hasnt taught crim in like 10+ years, so unless your in it this year?...

I think it'd be worth it. It really helps with understanding the concepts of law, which is what the class was about. I'm taking Harrison this year. Just been reading Dressler and doing some of the practice exams he recommended at his office hours. I think I saw in a different post that you had him. You a Top (G)unner or a (L)oser?

[SportsFan]

My civ pro final is on Thursday. As I said before, I know all of the concepts and whatnot, but don't have many of the rules memorized or anything (I can recognize them and whatnot when I see them, though). Is it worth it to go crazy tonight and tomorrow trying to memorize rules? Just wondering what everyone else did for civ pro.

[stillwater]

i knew the civpro rules cold but mine was closed book

[shredderrrrrr]

i knew the civpro rules cold but mine was closed book

I knew the civ pro rules lukewarm and mine was closed book as well.

[SportsFan]

My professor has been strongly encouraging us to bring everything we could think of. Not sure if she thinks that people bringing the E&E etc. will help them out or help stratify the grades...

[Blumpbeef]

My professor has been strongly encouraging us to bring everything we could think of. Not sure if she thinks that people bringing the E&E etc. will help them out or help stratify the grades...

Ours said "bring whatever you want. If you have to use it, you're probably fucked not going to do well anyway"

[SportsFan]

My professor has been strongly encouraging us to bring everything we could think of. Not sure if she thinks that people bringing the E&E etc. will help them out or help stratify the grades...

Ours said "bring whatever you want. If you have to use it, you're probably fucked not going to do well anyway"

Lol yeah, thats what I want by saying she might be trying to stratify the grades a bit.
I guess I'll just try to make sure I have all the most important things memorized, and go from there.

[shredderrrrrr]

My professor has been strongly encouraging us to bring everything we could think of. Not sure if she thinks that people bringing the E&E etc. will help them out or help stratify the grades...

Ours said "bring whatever you want. If you have to use it, you're probably fucked not going to do well anyway"

I don't get that though. Sure, if you need to look up what personal jurisdiction is, you're screwed. But for all of my classes, there are so many tiny little lists and rules that I would kill to be able to have down on paper in front of me. For instance, I knew the three different approaches laid out in the Asahi and J. McIntyre stream of commerce cases, but had to waste time memorizing which justice said what. I knew the fundamentals of each approach but had to spend time trying to memorize a pneumonic to remind myself which approach was Kennedy's, which was O'Connors, and which was Brennan's.

My last final (contracts) is the only one where I can use notes and I am SO thankful. I can't imagine trying to memorize the entire flow-chart and each element of each portion.

[LetsGoLAW]

Bro. The night before my K exam I typed my attack/element outline 5-10 times. I had every law memorized. Kids brought in 50 page outlines flipping through it. I brought in a 3 page attack. I looked at it maybe once. Trust me, you save a lot of time. I ended up typing 7,000 words in 4 hours. Memorizing it cold really helps.

[Nova]

Bro. The night before my K exam I typed my attack/element outline 5-10 times. I had every law memorized. Kids brought in 50 page outlines flipping through it. I brought in a 3 page attack. I looked at it maybe once. Trust me, you save a lot of time. I ended up typing 7,000 words in 4 hours. Memorizing it cold really helps.

Nice.

I got my torts attack OL down to 2 pages for Thurs.

CSWS!!

[shredderrrrrr]

Bro. The night before my K exam I typed my attack/element outline 5-10 times. I had every law memorized. Kids brought in 50 page outlines flipping through it. I brought in a 3 page attack. I looked at it maybe once. Trust me, you save a lot of time. I ended up typing 7,000 words in 4 hours. Memorizing it cold really helps.

Dude, if I operated like you do, even for a day, I would go insane. Typing an outline 5-10 the night before an exam? Hell, I'm still trying to nail all the information the day before.

I don't know what you define as an "attack" outline, but I just basically have a 10 page choose-your-own-adventure outline for contracts. It basically is there to tell me, "If yes, next analyze this. If no, next analyze this." Then I added what exactly I'm going to type so I can just plug it in after/before each analysis without having to waste time thinking about it.

[ThreeRivers]

How I did it on my exams... No clue if worked or not
Basically made 3 outlines

1. 20 page (shortest) to 45 page (longest) outline.. which was basically just my notes

2. 7-10 page long outline that condenses my notes a lot, explained some things, but things I had good handle on just listed subject of it

3. 1-3 page "attack" outline. Just included like basic elements, tests, usually limited to like 1 word... just a quick look of "ok need to talk about this."

On exams i basically wrote with attack outline out whole time, glancing quickly as wrote... Referred to 7-10 a couple times each test. Only looked at my "long" outline twice in all my exams (both were a strictly policy question and I had a lot of policy points in my notes).

Seemed to me like I was able to get a lot of info out with this method, in addition... I heard "outlining makes you learn the material." After my first outline I basically had no clue what was going on still, 2nd one I knew pretty well, and felt quite confident after third

Hopefully it all works out... no clue though lol

[minnbills]

I hardly used my outlines on the exams. Probably looked things up 1-3 times per exam.

[SportsFan]

How I did it on my exams... No clue if worked or not
Basically made 3 outlines

1. 20 page (shortest) to 45 page (longest) outline.. which was basically just my notes

2. 7-10 page long outline that condenses my notes a lot, explained some things, but things I had good handle on just listed subject of it

3. 1-3 page "attack" outline. Just included like basic elements, tests, usually limited to like 1 word... just a quick look of "ok need to talk about this."

On exams i basically wrote with attack outline out whole time, glancing quickly as wrote... Referred to 7-10 a couple times each test. Only looked at my "long" outline twice in all my exams (both were a strictly policy question and I had a lot of policy points in my notes).

Seemed to me like I was able to get a lot of info out with this method, in addition... I heard "outlining makes you learn the material." After my first outline I basically had no clue what was going on still, 2nd one I knew pretty well, and felt quite confident after third

Hopefully it all works out... no clue though lol

This except I didn't have the 'medium' outline. Out of the 2 exams I've had so far, only 1 was open book and I referred to my attack outline a decent amount and only referred to my long outline twice (IIRC). I definitely agree that making an attack outline helped me learn the material (which was especially important for the closed book exam I had IMO) more than making a 'normal' outline did.

[Bronck]

I also found attack outlining quite beneficial. Although mine weren't nearly as short as yours (I tried to keep my to around 15 pages) the sheer act of cutting something 30+ pages down to that really helped me learn the material. I did, however, have 1 pg attack sheets for each exam reminding me of key concepts, order of approaching problems, etc.

I'm a really fast typer so I can get a lot of info onto the page. I did reference my outline a handful of times during the exams, but nothing excessive.

[shredderrrrrr]

Yeah, I'm not trying to argue that having extensive outline are good or anything. For all my classes (closed book), I made one outline that covered virtually everything important covered in class with added information from 2L and 3L outlines to fill in the gaps (which, even with careful selection, ranged from 35-75 pages). I then went through those and took hand-notes of all the important stuff I needed to be sure to review (which would normally amount to 10 or so pages). I then used this to memorize. From that, I hand wrote one sheet of paper with the stuff I REALLY needed to memorize and couldn't quite nail yet.

It seems like we all had a similar strategy despite going about it in different ways.

[JamMasterJ]

Bro. The night before my K exam I typed my attack/element outline 5-10 times. I had every law memorized. Kids brought in 50 page outlines flipping through it. I brought in a 3 page attack. I looked at it maybe once. Trust me, you save a lot of time. I ended up typing 7,000 words in 4 hours. Memorizing it cold really helps.

My Ks exam is 2500 word limited and 4 hours. Probably gonna be studying during the thing. LOL