Final Exam Season is right around the corner, and with that comes plenty of preparation, stress, and excitement. The Zief Law Library is here to help and support you through it all. This week, we take a look at some resources geared towards law students and designed to help you manage exam stress and prepare for your exams. Good Luck!
Self-Care and Managing Exam Stress
Law school demands lots of unique dedication and discipline when it comes to studying and exam-taking. If you’re experiencing stress around exam time, you might check out these resources targeted to law school students.
Blogs and Reading Material
- New England School of Law’s How to Deal with Law School Stress in Healthy Ways is a quick overview of healthy habits to incorporate into your busy schedule to relieve stress and anxiety over time.
- Meditate! Professor Rhonda MaGee explores in her article, “Educating Lawyers to Meditate?” the role of contemplative practices in legal education and finds evidence in her students at USF Law.
- Get outside! The Yale School of the Environment discusses time in nature’s therapeutic effects on https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1689769the brain and body, resulting in lower blood pressure, reduced nervous system arousal, and overall improves your physical and mental health.
Audio and Video
- Thomson Reuters’s Surviving Exam Season video gives six steps to surviving exam season in six minutes.
- In this episode of “The Every Lawyer: How to Manage Your Stress in Law School,” on Apple Podcasts, the host asked past guests on how they managed the stress of law school.
Zief Spotlight
- Brixton, Zief Law Library’s favorite Golden Retriever, will be back on the first floor of the library! According to Lauren Powell, a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, therapy dogs help decrease students’ stress levels and achieve a stronger sense of belonging while lessening their anxiety. Give yourself a study break and spend time with your friends and a loveable Golden Retriever!
Preparing for the Exam
Review these resources to find study plans and course-specific materials.
Study Schedule and Exam Techniques
- JD Advising breaks down how to build a practical weekly study schedule and how to answer law school exam questions.
- Read the Law Career Blog’s post to avoid common law essay exam mistakes.
- Find out what to bring to exam day from the Law School Toolbox.
- If you are looking to improve your exam analysis, Law School Academic Support Blog gives an example answer from the Uniform Bar Exam.
Course-Specific Guides and Practice Exams
- The University of Washington School of Law Gallagher Law Library prepared a LibGuide with articles, websites, books, and topic-related blog posts to prepare you for law school exams.
- Thomson Reuters offers course-specific survival guides and free course-specific resources, such as class guides, outline shells, and secondary sources.
Zief Spotlight
- Check out these law school exam preparation materials available at Zief Law Library!
- Law school exams : preparing and writing to win / Charles R. Calleros
- Mastering the law school exam : a practical blueprint for preparing and taking law school exams / Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus
- “One L of a year” : how to maximize your success in law school / Leah M. Christensen
- A practical guide to writing law school essay exams / John C. Dernbach
- Getting to maybe : how to excel on law school exams / Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul
- Reading like a lawyer : time-saving strategies for reading law like an expert / Ruth Ann McKinney
- Law 101 : what law school’s really like : the book and documentary / Chad Noreuil, Clinical Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
- Acing your first year of law school : the ten steps to success you won’t learn in class / by Shana Connell Noyes & Henry S. Noye
- Law school survival manual : from LSAT to bar exam / Nancy B. Rapoport and Jeffrey D. Van Niel
- Law school exams : a guide to better grades / Alex Schimel
Zief Law Library is rooting for you!