This is Part II of our series on Memorizing for Higher Bar Exam Scores. Read on for information on how to raise your scores
Memorizing is so helpful that it surprises me how often students ask me to teach them how to memorize. I am also surprised how often they have wrong ideas about what memorizing is and how to do it. People who don't know how to memorize are losing a lot of time in their study process. Memorizing makes all studying quicker and easier. Every grade school teaches students to memorize the times tables. Every school should teach students how to memorize.
The first wrong idea is that memorizing a rule means the same thing as getting the general idea of a legal principle. Not so. Memorizing means committing the words on the page to memory, so that when
you recite the rule, those same words come forth. It is not always easy, but once you have memorized a rule, you can delve deeper into the meaning of that rule. You can learn to apply that rule meticulously. You can learn related rules more easily. You can more easily expand your knowledge of that entire area of law. You can use that rule any time, anywhere.
How do you commit a rule to memory? Students have a whole flood of wrong ideas. Just looking at the rule will not get it memorized, nor will just reading it. Not enough, when the object is to move that set of words into your permanent storage. The memorizing process usually works best when you isolate the rule, perhaps by writing it on a flash card.
Separate that one rule from everything else. Then involve as many of your senses as possible as you memorize, starting with seeing an hearing. Look at the rule, read it out loud, listen to it as you speak it. Next, if possible, add some feeling. Put some emotion behind that rule! Get excited. Jump up and down!
Once you can recite that whole rule from memory, you can put that flash card down and construct another. Then another and another.Now go back and recite each rule in turn from memory. When youdon't know the rule by heart, turn the flash card over and read th rule. Then go through the flash cards again.
Remember that the key to study is repetition. Repetitio est mater studiorum. The real secret to repetition, however, is that it must be light, and it must occur over a long period of time. Most of us have tried cramming before exams, with limited success on those exams.But if we had lightly repeated the same material, over and over again, week after week, that material would have flowed forth easily on the exams.
So with the rules on your flash cards, the best procedure is to carry a little stack of five or ten cards with you and recite them at break during the day. That way, you get light repetition, and you get it everyday, day after day. Add to the stack, change the stack, but keep reciting the same rules, over and over again.
I suggest adding three or four new rules every day when you are studying for the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE). Start with the most important areas of law, which are contract formation and negligence. . . .
Read on, for more information about how to use memorizing for success on the bar exam, after this brief message from our sponsor, BarWrite®. . . .
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Back to memorizing and how it helps you on the bar exam.
When you are memorizing rules for the MBE, add three or four new rules to your pile every day. And every day, go back and recite all of the rules you already have. And don't just recite the rules. Practice going over and over the MBE questions you have done, adding *analysis* each time: This is the offeror, this is the offeree, this is the consideration.
There is now a rich scientific literature on memorization and how to memorize. How often to repeat something to get it memorized efficiently is a key question for these scientists. We all know thatno matter how well we learn a rule, or anything else, often, within a few days, or even within a few hours, we have forgotten it. Question. How much repetition is needed to make something really stick?
Great question. The literature on SRS (spaced repetition systems) deals with spaced repetition, which is key. We are assuming that you will repeat every rule every day. We are also talking here about making your own flashcards. If you have a tech bent, you may prefer using a computer progra for SRS, like Anki. <http://ichi2.net/anki/> According to the home page, "Anki is a spaced repetition system (SRS). It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling flashcards, so that you can learn a lot of information with a minimum amount of effort." The theory is that Anki will keep you repeating something only at the right frequency, and only up to the optimal point, so you will save a lot of wasted effort. I think it is certainly worth giving it a try.
Repetitio est mater studiorum. Keep repeating for success on the bar exam.
MCG
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