Memorization is vital to preparing for the bar exam. Memorization is not sufficient by itself, but it is important to the exam-taker's study kit. Every bar candidate must memorize basic rules and mnemonics, if only because memorizing makes writing good essays so much easier. Unfortunately, owing to some grade school teachers' preference for theory over practicality, many American students have only crippled memorizing skills.
Keep in mind that memorizing a rule of law is not a substitute for understanding the rule. You must work through the rule and understand how it applies to different fact patterns. Otherwise, memorizing is just parroting.
Memorizing is like dancing and writing. Some people are better by nature, but everyone can improve. There are methods that work, and there are methods that do not work.
A METHOD FOR MEMORIZING THAT WORKS. Here is one method that works. Print the name of the rule on one side of an index card, and print the rule on the other side of the card, in one or two sentences. Phrase the rule so that it makes sense to your ear. Make sure that your printing is clear, and that you can easily read the rule.
Read the rule out loud, while carefully considering its meaning. If there are words you do not understand, look those works up in your law dictionary, write the meanings on other index cards, and learn those words. Attempt to repeat the rule you are working on from memory, without looking at the card. Check yourself by reading what you have on the card.
Keep repeating this process until the whole rule is memorized. Get help from friends and family. Have someone hold the cards and call out the names of rules, while you try to recite from memory. Children often enjoy helping their parents learn rules of law.
Repeat this process every day. Studies show that we learn better from light repetition over a long period of time than from intensive cramming. You must recite a rule from memory daily, over a long period of time, mentally applying it to new fact patterns, in order to make the rule your own. As you add new rules, make sure to keep reciting the old rules from memory.
METHODS FOR MEMORIZING THAT DO NOT WORK. Here are some methods that do not work. Students have told me they use these methods. Sometimes, they insist that these methods are the only ones they can use. Inevitably, they are frustrated, because these methods do not work. The students wrongly conclude that they "cannot memorize."
First, reading and re-reading the rule of law will not usually result in your memorizing it. Whether you read and re-read the rule silently or out loud does not matter. Memorization simply does not follow from reading.
Second, writing and re-writing the rule of law by hand will not usually result in your memorizing it.
Third, typing up your handwritten notes will not usually result in your memorizing them. It will use up a lot of time, and it will feel like studying, but it will accomplish nothing.
Fourth, tracing the shape of the rule of law in the air--I am not making this up--will almost never result in your memorizing it.
MEMORIZING LEADS TO THE FEELING THAT YOU HAVE A STRONG FOUNDATION. I have been working with bar candidates for nearly 20 years. I have found that once students start to get their teeth into the rules of law that the bar exam tests, they really enjoy their new feelings of mastery. Memorizing is not sufficient for mastery, but it helps to build mastery. It helps a bar candidate go into the bar exam feeling that he or she knows something, and knows how to put it on paper.
Memorizing basic rules and mnemonics will make you a stronger bar candidate and a happier bar candidate.
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