Please see the attached document for registration days and times. 

Pre-registration forms for ALL students must be returned to Student Records by 4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 29, 2009.

Registration materials will be available in Student Records on Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

Everybody is sliding into “studying for exams” mode.  Time becomes a critical variable now.  It is important to find time for all of your tasks.  It is also important to be productive with that time.  This week's tips will focus on how to get more time out of each day and be more productive during studying.

Tip #1:  Evaluate your day for “lost” time.   Look for time wasted in the following ways:  unproductive time between classes; assignment time stretched to 3 hours when with more diligence it could have been finished in 2 ½ hours; delay in starting a project because “I have all day;” inefficient and scattered errand running or other non-school tasks; completion of chores or other non-school tasks during prime study time.  If only ½ hour is captured each day of the week, it nets 3 ½ hours of extra study time.

Bad advice:  You can’t do any practice questions until right before the exam because you don’t know enough.

Why this advice is bad advice:

• Exams are all about applying the concepts and law that you have learned all semester to new fact scenarios or legal problems.
• You wouldn’t go on a black diamond ski slope without lots of practice.  Why would you go into an exam without having worked on several practice questions throughout the semester?
• A multitude of practice questions are available that test your knowledge on sub-topics and topics and not just entire courses.

Alternatives:

• Do some practice questions at the end of each sub-topic to test your application skills.  Can you spot the issues and sub-issues?  Can you apply the concepts correctly?  Can you apply the rules and exceptions to the rules?
• Practice your approach to questions:  how will you analyze the question; how will you marshal the facts; how will you organize your answer; how will you write the answer in the most concise way.
• Become more adept by starting with one-issue questions, then progressing to two- or three-issue questions, then progressing to more extensive questions.  Once you can organize and answer shorter questions, you can practice your organization for longer questions.
• Use multiple sources of questions:  ones handed out by the professor; questions in study aids; questions you and your study partners write and swap; questions from prior exams.  
• Schedule practice question time each week for each course so that you do not forget to practice or put off practice too long.

This week’s tips focus on bad advice that is often given out by well-intentioned students.  Critique these pieces of advice carefully and consider the alternatives.

Bad Advice:  You don’t have to study as hard for an open-book exam because you can look up anything that you want.

Why this advice is bad advice:

• You will have very little time to look up anything during the exam.  Open-book exams are traps for the naïve.
• If you are only generally familiar with the material, you will not have in-depth knowledge to spot all of the issues and to support your arguments.
• “Open book” may have a very limited definition (Ex. code book but no outlines or notes).  "Open book" may have a very limited value-added component (Ex. you may not write in your rule book that is allowed in the exam).

Alternatives:

• Treat an open-book exam with the same reverence as a closed-book exam.
• Study the material so well that you “own it” rather than being generally familiar with it.  Then, you will not need to look up much.
• If it is a code/rule course, you want to have a solid memory for at least a “condensed” version of a code section or rule because you will not have time to look up and read every code section or rule during the exam.
• If a code/rule book is allowed, make sure you have extensive practice in using that source so you are efficient in its use if you must look something up.
• Know exactly what the professor will allow you to bring to the exam and any restrictions on writing in books, etc.  Then, plan how to use those resources most efficiently and effectively and only when necessary.
• Make good and creative use of tabs for code/rule books if allowed by the professor.

This week’s tips focus on bad advice that is often given out by well-intentioned students.  Critique these pieces of advice carefully and consider the alternatives.

Bad advice:  When you have someone else’s outline for the course, you don’t have to make your own outline.

Why this advice is bad advice:

• Having the outline of someone else who did well in a course does not mean that you will do well in the course.  You will only do well if you know the material in-depth and understand it and can apply it.  Having an outline from an anonymous source is even less positive because you do not even know if the student who created it did well in the course.
• An outline matches someone else’s learning styles and may not match how you learn material.  It also does not tell you how to apply the material to new fact scenarios – the very essence of law school exams.
• Outlines of other students are shortcuts that avoid your having to process the information yourself.  Processing the information through your own outlines increases understanding and retention of material.
• Outlines from prior years may not include changes in the law, changes in the professor’s approach to a subject, and changes in textbooks.  Unless you are carefully taking notes and outlining, you may miss important changes since the last time the professor taught the course.
• When each member of a study group outlines one course and then gives her/his outline to the other study group members, the same type of problems can result.  Each study group member will know the course s/he outlined very well.  Each study group member will only have a partial understanding of the other two or three courses.

Alternatives:

• If you have not already done so, begin NOW to process material and make your own outlines.  Use any outlines you have depended upon up to now only as comparisons.
• Consider whether you can condense material before you put it in your own outlines so that you will not have to condense your outlines later.
• Be efficient and effective in making your own outlines: do not include everything – include the important things that give you the bigger picture and inter-relationships.
• Consider whether flowcharts and other visuals will be helpful for you as a way to condense the material and understand the “big picture” of the course.