CAROLINE WARD - Caroline is a second year Monash University law student. She has already completed a Public Relations degree. She writes a blog exclusively for Lawyers Weekly on tackling another year at law school. more

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BLOG: LAW SCHOOL

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The halfway mark

It’s halfway through second semester, and the notes are piling up. To the point where my constitutional notes are already 80 pages long. Being a naturally thorough person, I find it really hard to keep the content under control.

In law there is always an easy book and a hard book. It usually takes you a couple of weeks to realise this, so you spend the first three weeks trying to tackle the hard book, you sweat and toil over it and then eventually you usually cave in and spend the $70 bucks on the easy book. Money very well spent I think. The easy book translates everything for you in English, as opposed to jibberish. The only downside to easy book, is that it doesn’t really help with the policy section on the exam, but then again, nobody really knows how to answer a policy question anyway. 

Then there is formulating your exam notes, to be honest I still have not mastered this art. I just tend to combine my notes with LSS notes, make sure I’ve done most of the reading, and hope for the best. The cases take up so much room, and I never feel I can chop out the facts of the cases in my notes. It means and extra 25 pages, which, lets be honest, will not be read in exam.

A 90% or 100% exam is a lot of pressure, and midway through the semester you curse yourself for not doing the assignment, which may have taken a bit of the edge off. You sit in the lectures, and watch topic after topic go by, and you start to panic. You wonder how in the hell you are going to be able pull this exam off.

I have finally figured out in second year, that practice exams are key, they are the best thing you can do to prepare for a rotten, harsh, mean question.   Trust me, there are very unpleasant exam questions out there. For instance in the Contract B Exam last year, I thought I was going to cry, and judging by the guy sitting next to me, so was he. So we have about 6 weeks till exams, the notes are piling up and so are the topics. But I am optimistic, as long as I have my coffee, Foxtel and my rice paper rolls I should be set, perhaps with a few less all nighters, a few more quiet nights in, and a little bit of luck…. [Have Your Say]
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