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What can I do differently this semester to improve my law school exam performance?

Try learning rules with iconic examples.

Don’t learn rules abstractly — they have no meaning without facts. Why? Rules are meant to apply only to a limited range of fact situations. They are fact specific. Your iconic fact examples should therefore very roughly attempt to illustrate the accepted range of fact situations to which the rule applies — the scope of coverage created by the rule. It is also useful to learn each rule with at least a few counterexamples that illustrate fact situations that are beyond the accepted coverage of the rule, and an in-between example or two that triggers two or three issues Since all rules embody policy interests, remembering the specific interest(s) that is served by each rule promotes the deeper understanding that drives issue-spotting and argument-making skills. Indeed, most professors teach rules as policies writ specific and reward your apt exam use of policy-supported rules.

If you remember rules with iconic fact examples, there is a modest chance that you will see some of these examples in the exam problems, but there is an excellent chance that you will see similar fact examples in them. It is an exciting feeling of recognition. These key facts trigger issues.

Since you see such fact examples on exams, this method of studying and remembering rules matches the form of the exam: from facts to issues and rule application that is embodied in a series of concise cogent arguments. Remember, you are typically given a dense fact problem and you must identify (spot) the legal issues and determine which form of tort, contract, etc., applies, if any, and you must apply the correct rule(s) by interweaving each element with the key facts. In your practice daily after class, you should learn each rule taught that day with such examples. If you do so, you will gradually empower yourself to quickly spot exam issues and resolve them with the concise cogent arguments that get the best grades. One example follows from my How To Do Your Best On Law School Exams (pp. 17-21).

RULE: DEPRAVED HEART MURDER (also called extreme-recklessness murder or willful and wanton murder)

ELEMENTS OF RULE
(1) Act committed with extreme recklessness/
(2) under circumstances evincing depraved indifference to value of human life/
(3) and which causes/
(4) death of a human

ICONIC EXAMPLES
• A shoots into an occupied car, bus, train, or house, or drops
boulders off a roof on a crowded street. B dies. A was trying to
miss in shooting, etc.
• A poisons B’s food but a waiter eats it and dies.
• A sets a zoo lion free to scare the public on a crowded Sunday. B
dies.
• A sets a bomb in a public place. B dies.
• A places heavy lumber on train tracks just before a scheduled
train arrives. B dies.

POLICY
Interest protected: safeguard life from extremely reckless conduct threatening death.

COUNTER-EXAMPLES
• A shoots and kills B with intent to kill (it’s then intentional murder).
• A, a doctor, installs artificial heart in B knowing that otherwise B  is virtually certain to die within a week or two.     B has acute heart disorder and is close to death (risk is justifiable). B later dies.

IN-BETWEEN EXAMPLES
• A, who has sometimes threatened to kill B, kills him while demonstrating how his new pistol works (facts are        ambiguous: did A intend to kill B or was B’s death accidental, negligent or reckless).
• A plays “Russian roulette” with B who dies during the game (depending on factual context, may be argued as   depraved heart murder or reckless manslaughter).