Exam Triage Forum

[jbagelboy]

The reason I'm adamant about not making your own outline is because he has so few days left. I saw several people pwn themselves by outlining up until like a day before exams and just epicaly failing the exams.

Smaugs plan about stitching them together is pretty good and shouldn't take more than a half a day.

I can't imagine putting together a good outline in a day unless you already had great notes.

Yea it takes like 3 solid days minimum to put together an outline for a hardcore class like civil procedure or con law unless your notes are outline quality, which probably means you have nothing to worry about in the first place; as Nony and I suggested, practice tests will be key from now on.

I made my own complete/original outlines for each class 1L year; it's a bloody affair. I stopped doing it for subsequent semesters out of laziness/lack of motivation.

[FSK]

Also, if you can snag an outline from a law review kid, its probably been vetted like crazy (and porbably already an iteration itself), so its more likely to be phrased in a way that your professor would like and be correct than something you could do yourself.

[Tiago Splitter]

My concern is how this guy, as a first semester 1L, is going to go from another person's outline to actually knowing stuff. I definitely knew people who relied on old outlines and got stomped. I also only had a couple classes in all of law school where the prof released more than 1-2 practice exams. But obviously if you can do what is needed with an old outline it's the optimum strategy under a time crunch. That said I don't think this guy is quite as pressed for time as he's letting on, so a bit of all of the above should work just fine.

[FSK]

With OP's up front assumptions (I took trash notes and I basically haven't read), not sure what other choice he has (though I think youre probably closer to right in the dark TIAGO)

OP, you need to make going through old outlines an active activity, for lack of better language. The benefit from creating your own outline can be had from old if you make a concious effort to do as much. Reading them is basically useless after 2-3 readthroughs.

One thing I like to do is take a 30-40 page full outline and condense into a 3 page attack sheet. E.g., my current attack sheet has this information:

Standards of Review
- Rational Basis (R.B.)
o rX related to (any conceivable) legitimate governmental interest
- Intermediate Scrutiny (I.S.)
o Substantially related to important governmental interest
- Strict Scrutiny (S.S.)
o Narrowly tailored to compelling governmental interest, in least restrictive/discriminatory means possible

Theories of Interpretation
- Originalism v. non- Originalism
- Natural v. positive law
- Historical, Structural, and Textual Arguments

Privileges and Immunities Clause
- Limited application, protests rights of citizens of one state to rights in other states (Saenz v. Roe)

I had to synthesize each of htese statemnets, and now I'm working to recall from the larger outline the nuances of each.

[xael]

Bring your answers to your practice tests in to exams (and the answers to the old exams too, if they are allowed).

[smaug]

i have never once understood how someone can create or use an outline greater than like, 15 pages total

there really isn't that much you need to know, y'all

[TLSModBot]

i have never once understood how someone can create or use an outline greater than like, 15 pages total

It's called ctrl-f

But yeah mine have rarely gone above 10 pages

[FSK]

My flawschool's outlines are paper only, so I use control-TABS. The only exam I booked I had a 90 page outline, a 40 page outline, and a 3 page outline, and I used them all during the exam. ITs really whatever works for you.

[xael]

i have never once understood how someone can create or use an outline greater than like, 15 pages total

there really isn't that much you need to know, y'all

Laziness. It's easier to sit there and copy the casebook in verbatim than to actually synthasize it down to a rule.

But personally I would need more in my outline, or a sheet of case summaries. But maybe I just have had professors who really like "this is like in case X".

How an outline is structured, visually/and the order, matters a lot more to me than the length or what is in it, though. I normally have a longer one, then a flowchart/bubble chart/checklist keyed to page numbers.

We can't pull ours up on a computer ETA: I would probably bring a print version in anyways tho

[Tiago Splitter]

i have never once understood how someone can create or use an outline greater than like, 15 pages total

there really isn't that much you need to know, y'all

yeah I think my longest in any class was like 20 pages.

In the end this guy just needs to be able to have a mildly competent discussion of the major issues in class. If you can write a paragraph or two or make a handful of bullet points explaining personal jurisdiction, you'll probably be fine for that topic. Rinse and repeat.

[xael]

Do you short outline people just have amazing memories or a lot of confidence? (Or both?)

Mine are usually around 30-40 pages.

[FSK]

Do you short outline people just have amazing memories or a lot of confidence?

Mine are usually around 30-40 pages.

I was a musician in a past life, so my visual memory is one of my most trained skills.

[smaug]

i have never once understood how someone can create or use an outline greater than like, 15 pages total

It's called ctrl-f

But yeah mine have rarely gone above 10 pages

we have our laptops locked down so no digital version

[A. Nony Mouse]

I stopped making outlines after 1L, or at least, I didn't make them all at once at the end of the semester - I basically took class notes in outline form, and then studied from those (with a little bit of formatting cleanup at the end of the semester, or adding stuff I missed). We were only allowed hard copy outlines so I just used my notes, tabbed to death. So they were super long, but I read fast and write fast, so could get away with that. Not saying it was the best method (esp for anyone not me), I just found that "outlining" was me moving things around and focusing on formatting more than actually learning things, and the time I spent trying to make a shorter outline was better spent using my notes to practice stuff.

I did often create a 1-2 pp checklist kind of thing, though.

[Mack.Hambleton]

Tag . Good thread

[barkschool]

To: everyone saying they never read all semester

What have you been doing all year, and did you actually not read anything?

[xael]

To: everyone saying they never read all semester

What have you been doing all year, and did you actually not read anything?

I don't *never* read but definitely fell behind on readings this quarter and didnt read for about a month.

Life gets in the way sometimes.

[leslieknope]

I also tend to think hornbooks are flame. Maybe find the short ones and read through them in an afternoon. That's good enough for everything other than Civ Pro, where you want the Glannoj and should do the problems.

Question re: Glannon- when you say do the problems, do you mean write them out or just answer them in your head and then check the explanation? I've been doing the former, which is really helpful but takes forever. Is there a faster way to do it?

[sesto elemento]

I always feel enriched whenever I read a DF thread exam post. He teaches me. He teaches us all.

[jbagelboy]

To: everyone saying they never read all semester

What have you been doing all year, and did you actually not read anything?

I don't *never* read but definitely fell behind on readings this quarter and didnt read for about a month.

Life gets in the way sometimes.

Well you're a 2L. As a 2L I would go months without really reading for a class. As a 1L most of us were a little more consistent, although I would still often fall back a couple days and have to play catchup-but I would still try to read it within reason. The people who coupd read everything the weekend before were beasts/suffered less debilitating substance abuse issues.

[Hand]

I also tend to think hornbooks are flame. Maybe find the short ones and read through them in an afternoon. That's good enough for everything other than Civ Pro, where you want the Glannoj and should do the problems.

Question re: Glannon- when you say do the problems, do you mean write them out or just answer them in your head and then check the explanation? I've been doing the former, which is really helpful but takes forever. Is there a faster way to do it?

I just write down like 2 key words (yes, no SMJ, etc.)

[FSK]

To: everyone saying they never read all semester

What have you been doing all year, and did you actually not read anything?

I don't *never* read but definitely fell behind on readings this quarter and didnt read for about a month.

Life gets in the way sometimes.

Well you're a 2L. As a 2L I would go months without really reading for a class. As a 1L most of us were a little more consistent, although I would still often fall back a couple days and have to play catchup-but I would still try to read it within reason. The people who coupd read everything the weekend before were beasts/suffered less debilitating substance abuse issues.

Yeah, as a 2L it didn't even benefit me to read in a number of classes. My evidence text (Saltzburg) was wholly useless, and the prof literlaly just read us the black letter in class, then literally tested only black letter in multiple choice form. To hell doing 100 pages of reading a weak. However, I've never skipped a class if I wasn't interviewing (which my school will generally podcast the class in liue of), and that has generally been enough for me. I've found that 99% of profs don't hide the ball in class - they actually make the ball screaming obvious. If you've paid attention in class and you can't predict what your professor things makes a good exam answer (on the margins that is, no replacement for basic IRAC), then IDK waht the hell you were doing.

[BVest]

My original post was below and not immediately relevant; so I thought I'd add this hopefully helpful prologue. I don't mean to pile on to the OP with anything below the quote, though hopefully he (next semester) and others can learn from his mistakes.

DF's advice is good. Follow it. That's basically how I spent this last two weeks of 1L, albeit with my own (group-made) outlines and my own notes. Also, Nony's advice is also good re tabbing. By each exam, my outline was well-tabbed (my 3M tab budget was probably $20-30/semester).

A finals/dead-week non-exam day for me typically looked like:
Campus by 8:30
Outline an answer to Practice exam question or 2 (not a full exam)
Review model answer and outline as to issues raised by question
Review outline one time through
Lunch
Repeat (possibly with another subject depending on if this was a few days out or the day before the exam, and how I felt about it)
Home by 7:30
Dinner & TV
Look over outline once more
Bed

The morning of each exam, I'd go through my outline one more time and I'd gone through it so many times that if there was some minor detail I couldn't remember (like one element or something), I could have found it within 10 seconds even without the tabs, and could probably tell you where on the page it appeared. I know a lot of people say they never look at their outlines and that if you look at your outlines you're failing, but I often would open my outline to the appropriate page even if I knew the answer. I rarely looked at it other than a quick glance to make sure I'd used the right words or test if there was a similar one that I might confuse it with (e.g. "same transaction or occurrence" vs "same set of operative facts"), but as I was typing it was there and ready.

If you need a study break, consider spending it tabbing (but not too far out, otherwise you might want to modify and reprint your outline); it's a good seemingly mindless way to spend some time, and it actually sneaks some info in.

And as DF said, you likely won't study much in the evening after an exam. That said, if you do feel up to looking at something after a proper cooling off period after an exam, make sure it's another subject! Don't waste any time going back over the subject you took an exam on to see if you got something right. It doesn't matter and takes brain time away from subjects you can actually do something about.

To: everyone saying they never read all semester

What have you been doing all year, and did you actually not read anything?

I understand the people who are way behind on the readings. I don't understand the people who never go to class (even 2Ls and 3Ls). What else do you have to do? Reasons I would skip included illness, interviews, or birth of a child (for which I missed 3 classes, 4 classes, and an entire week, respectively, over my 3 years -- I concede that I benefited from good health, compact class schedules, and interviewing locally). Even if I was going to be late, I would still attend class.

This, though I'd add that when I didn't understand what was happening in class, just a followup question after class or that week's office hours always solved it.

However, I've never skipped a class if I wasn't interviewing (which my school will generally podcast the class in liue of), and that has generally been enough for me. I've found that 99% of profs don't hide the ball in class - they actually make the ball screaming obvious. If you've paid attention in class and you can't predict what your professor things makes a good exam answer (on the margins that is, no replacement for basic IRAC), then IDK waht the hell you were doing.

Looking a little forward, though, next semester attend class and take notes; IMO this is far more important than keeping up with the reading (although it would benefit you to at least google the cases from the reading before class). Like Nony, my notes were always in outline form. Personally, I used (and still use, for that matter) Word in "Outline" view (not notebook view -- aside from recording, that is worthless). While my outlines were from scratch, large chunks were a pared-down cut-and-paste from my notes.




tl/dr: Follow DF and Nony; and go to class/take notes next semester.

[NoBladesNoBows]

[xael]

I miss* a lot of class and even when I go I can only maintain at best attention for like, 60% of the time. I still take pretty good notes though if I try, but there are definitely classes where I took like 3 pages of notes all quarter

*by a lot probably 10-15% of each class, not counting the times I'm there but not really present