Preparing for Your Exams
Before you begin to prepare for your exams, we recommend the following resources available in the Law Library, in the USC Bookstore, and from online booksellers. You will find these resources most helpful if you use them earlier rather than later in the semester.
As is true for all advice regarding law school performance, if your individual faculty have recommended specific resources or approaches, you should use those resources or approaches rather than the ones listed here.
Similarly, if the resources recommended here conflict with advice you receive from your own faculty, ignore the advice here and follow the advice you receive from your faculty. If you have questions about these conflicts among resources, we suggest that you consult your faculty, Ms. Gabi Ryan or Ms. Rosemary La Puma.
Preparation Resources
Getting to Maybe by Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul. This practical book provides helpful guidance regarding reading cases, preparing for class, identifying and categorizing issues, outlining, and preparing for exams.
Guidance for Improving your Grades. This short memorandum provides practical advice to help you improve your grades.
1000 Days to the Bar--But the Practice of Law Begins Now; How to Achieve Your Personal Best in Law School by Dennis J. Tonsing. This practical book provides helpful guidance regarding both a general approach and specific strategies for achieving success in law school.
Starting Off Right in Law School by Carolyn J. Nygren. This short and practical book provides helpful guidance regarding the sources of law, the stages of trial and the bases of appeal, reading cases and casebooks, and preparing for exams.
Law School Without Fear: Strategies for Success by Helene Shapo and Marshall Shapo. This short and practical book provides helpful guidance regarding approaches to studying law, sources of law, briefing cases, preparing for class, legal reasoning, interpreting language, balancing competing interests, policy foundations and choices, studying and reviewing, and "psychological tips."
Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School; Strategies for Success by Ruta Stropus and Charlotte Taylor. This short and practical book provides helpful guidance regarding reading cases, taking notes, synthesizing material, time management and preparing for exams.
The Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School by Charles H. Whitebread. This short and practical book provides helpful guidance that focuses on examinations. Professor Whitebread is member of the USC Law faculty.
Practice Answering Questions
Throughout the semester, one of the best ways to prepare for class (and for exams) is to practice answering questions on your own--or with others outside of class. USC Law Library has a variety of these materials available to you. They are:
- Questions and Answers: [subject] (Lexis) (multiple choice only)
- Siegels Series (Aspen) (multiple choice and essay)
- Strategies and Tactics Series (Aspen) (multiple choice only)
(Follow this link and enter in the Title field the above titles to find them in the law library.)
Practice Taking Exams! Exams Available ONLINE:
One of the most important methods of preparing for examinations is to practice answering the kinds of questions that are asked on law school examinations. If your actual exams are the first time you experience this new testing format, you will be at a disadvantage. USC Law makes many of its old exams readily available from the quick-links menu on USC Law's homepage, at Exams on the Web. Old exams from other law schools are linked below:
- USC Law School Exams on the Web
- Harvard Law School Archived Exams
- Penn Law Exams and Answers
- Columbia Law School Archived Exams
- More Columbia Law School Archived Exams
- FindLaw Exams and Outlines for Various Topics
- UC Berkeley School of Law
Many practice questions are available from CALI. To get access to the CALI materials, contact the computing specialists in the law library or email Jane Chang at jchang@law.usc.edu.
Go to Computer Assisted Legal Instruction Multiple Choice Questions for the CALI materials.
Preparing for Multiple-Choice Examinations
Professor Rogelio Lasso's How to Take Multiple Choice Exams
Strategies and Tactics for the MBE, by Kimm Walton and Stephen Emmanuel
General Guidance About Preparing for Exams Generally
The following other online resources may also prove to be helpful:
