Some Tips for Reviewing Exams from the Fall Semester

Now is a good time to contact your professors to review any fall semester exams about which you had concerns. If you received a C+ grade or below in a course, you should definitely consider reviewing the exam.

• Many of the exam-taking skills for law school translate from one course to later courses even though the course material is very different.
• An exam review can highlight study strategies that were successful prior to the exam as well as indicate study strategies that need modification or abandonment.
• An exam review will allow you to track what you did well during the actual exam and want to continue doing on future exams.
• An exam review will allow you to track what you had problems with during the actual exam and want to improve on for future exams.
• Exam reviews for several courses may indicate patterns of success or error that you have repeated across exams.
• Here are two handouts that can assist you in what to look for when you do your exam reviews.The first handout is for fact-pattern essay (also relevant for the most part to short-answer): Download Patterns to Look for and Questions to Ask When Evaluating Fact The second handout is for multiple-choice questions (also relevant for the most part to true-false): Download Patterns to Look for and Questions to Ask When Evaluating Multiple These handouts suggest questions that can help you analyze your exam performance more thoroughly.
• Professors vary in how they complete exam reviews. Here are some variations that you may encounter: a) The professor may conduct exam reviews for students who email with a request, may have a sign-up sheet on the professor’s office door, or may announce some other mechanism. b)The professor may first schedule appointments with students with the lowest grades, then move to the next level of grades for appointments, and so forth. c)The professor may have the student review the exam individually (and possibly the grading rubric or sample exam answers) before meeting with the professor. d)The professor may instead have the student come for the meeting and review the exam together.
• Make sure that you take careful notes during your exam review so that you will know what areas you want to continue doing well and what areas you want to improve on for future exams.
• After your exam reviews, evaluate what you have found out. Look for any patterns across exams and courses. Make a plan for your future exam study and exam-taking.
• If you are unsure what strategies may help you for your specific problem areas, make an appointment to talk with the academic support professional at your law school.

All students can improve their grades by implementing new study strategies and new test-taking strategies. Take advantage of professor feedback to make informed decisions instead of just randomly trying new strategies. (Amy Jarmon)