10 Questions about Practice Exams Forum

[nyc2020]

As a 1L, I’ve heard the encouragement to do practice exams. I’ve done 10 so far, but I feel lost as to where to go from here. Here are 10 specific questions I have, the answers for which I haven’t found in my online searches.

Please feel free to answer some/all.

1. Which is more efficient for a daily routine: 1 four-hour exam or 4 one-hour exams?

2. Beyond using the word “because,” are there any useful rules of thumb to know when my analysis is too conclusory vs food enough?

3. How do I know if I’m analogizing from hypo facts to case facts well or poorly? How specifically do I get good at analogizing?

4. How do I move my exam writing from a rote, quasi-mathematical, element-to-fact template (like.. Fact 1 satisfies Element A because Fact 1 resembles Fact X from Case X) to a richer A/A+ analysis?

5. Since applying law to fact is a general (non-course-specific) skill, what should I look to get out of course-specific practice exams after I learn the general habit of law-to-fact analytical writing?

6. What is the smartest step-by-step process for dissecting the quality of an analysis during a practice exam postmortem?

7. How do I identify an error in a paragraph I wrote with enough particularity to log and track it?

8. What is a smart way to prepare pre-writes that are applicable on the exams?

9. Thoughts on pre-writes on doctrines vs pre-writes on anticipated scenario in hypo fact pattern?

10. At what point does the law of diminishing marginal returns really kick in with practice exams? At what point, do other things become a better use of time?