Take-Home Examinations for Law Students

Take-home examinations are often administered during one full day in which the student picks up the examination on campus during the morning, races home to work on the exam, and then returns the completed exam to campus late in the afternoon. Some students prefer this type of exam because they find it more relaxing to work in a private environment and believe that they have more of an opportunity to think about and organize their answers. Other students complain that take-home exams ask so many questions or such detailed questions that they induce just as much time pressure as in-class exams. At any rate, most professors give guidance or limits as to how many words students may use in answering each question. Staying within the word limit is sometimes the most challenging part of completing a take-home exam.

In the third type of exam, the extended take-home, students have an extended amount of time, such as a school's entire examination period (usually one to two weeks), to complete exam questions or write a paper on an assigned topic. Professors often expect the highest degree of organization and comprehensiveness on these exams. Many students prefer these exams because they allow students the greatest flexibility in deciding when to work on them. Other students are less fond of these types of exams because they penalize procrastination.


Knowing about the different types of exams scheduled for each course, some students pick their elective courses to emphasize one type of exam or another. It's best to let your own exam-taking strengths and weaknesses be your guide if and when you decide to make such choices. If you work well under time pressure, you might want to choose classes with in-class exams. Conversely, if you require more thinking and editing time, you might want to choose classes with take-home exams.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), as a One-L, you will have very little choice in which types of courses or exams you take. Your classes, except for maybe one elective, will likely be chosen for you, and your exams will be mostly in-class.

THREE TYPES OF QUESTIONS

As in college, you will complete exams with varied types of questions, including multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay questions. Although some students may question the value of multiple-choice questions, many professors use them precisely because students will face such questions on their bar exams. Short-answer questions allow professors to narrow focus and to hone in on knowledge of specific legal principles or public policy arguments. For example, a professor might ask you to explain briefly why you would support or oppose a proposed change to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Longer essay questions allow professors to test students' ability to apply and combine a number of legal principles in the same answer. Accordingly, most exam questions require longer essay answers.

Essay questions often present a hypothetical set of facts from which students are expected to spot the contestable legal issues and to analyze each of them. Such questions are called "issue spotters." Success on issue spotters requires students to bear in mind the various legal topics discussed in a course while they read the hypothetical facts. Instead of asking students to comment on how the fact pattern relates to a particular course topic, the professor will require students to play the role of an attorney advising a client about his or her legal rights as they relate to the fact pattern or to play the role of a judge issuing an opinion about the legal disputes that would arise from the fact pattern. Therefore, the student must decide which topics of legal issues must be addressed in answering the question.

USING NOTES AND STUDY AIDS

A final consideration worth noting about exam format and structure is that professors allow students to have varied levels of consultation with notes and other study aids while completing exams. Some exams, especially many in-class exams, are "closed-book," meaning they must be completed without any consultation with outlines, notes, casebooks, or other materials. However, most exams, especially take-home exams and extended take-home exams, are "open-book," meaning that students are allowed to consult outlines, class notes, casebooks, and other reference materials as they work. Even in open-book exams, students should bear in mind that time constraints may limit their ability to consult reference materials as much as they would like. Unless told otherwise, students should assume that they cannot consult or collaborate with other students or teachers concerning their exam answers.

PREPARE FROM THE START

Given that so many law students are preoccupied with exam anxiety throughout the semester, it makes sense to start preparing for exam day from the first day of class. There are helpful steps you can take toward this end at every point in the semester-beginning, middle, or end. The following list of tips is offered as a guide. You should, of course, continue the practices that contributed to your success on college exams and consider how your own capacity for memorization, analysis, and recall may counsel against some of these suggestions. However, it's important to recognize that the amount of material you must study in order to prepare for law school exams will often far exceed the amount of material you had to study when preparing for college exams. This consideration alone makes it essential that you prepare for law school exams throughout the semester, rather than trying the legendary last-minute cram at the end of the semester. - Adam Beijin, Indiana University -Bloomington School Of Law