Stay strong. Breathe. One segment at a time. You’ve got this!!!
#barexam
Category: Excel in Law School
Jimmy Cliff said it best
Below are Jimmy Cliff’s amazing lyrics, from his amazing song, “You can get it if you really want.” I sang this with students for years -before finals, before bar exams, before all of the great changes they faced. Consider singing it yourself!
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you’ll succeed at last
Look here
Persecution you must bear
Win or lose you’ve got to get your share
Got your mind set on a dream
You can get it, though harder they seem now
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you’ll succeed at last
I know it, listen
Rome was not built in a day
Opposition will come your way
But the hotter the battle you see
It’s the sweeter the victory, now
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you’ll succeed at last
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try
Try and try, you’ll succeed at last
I know it
Don’t I show it?
So don’t give up now
But keep on trying
Optimism is Contagious
It’s easy to get discouraged when studying. Mountains of materials make it all overwhelming. But please remember that education is a treasure; it is an endless gift to be able to spend time learning. Confront challenges and problem solve to dissipate road blocks. And, try hard to put a smile on your face when you are working. It is amazing how inner positivity can have a productive ripple effect.
Taking a Future Bar Exam? Learn the Requirements in Your Jurisdiction!
You will find reliable information in The Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements. According to the NCBE, “The Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements, published in collaboration with the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, provides information on bar admission requirements in all US jurisdictions, including a directory of state bar admission agencies.”
Start with the Comprehensive Guide, then go on to study the website of the bar examiners in the jurisdiction where you plan to take the bar .
Don’t forget to Breathe!
How tense are you right now? How much learning is blocked from coming into and staying in your brain because of nerves.
My constant refrain that I ask bar takers and other students getting ready for exam to tell yourselves is: “Turn Panic into Power and not Paralysis.” That power phrase appears in my books and articles and in most every talk I give to students preparing for high stakes exams.
There are many steps for turning panic into power. Step one is always to breathe. We’ll talk about next steps in future blog posts.
July Bar Takers: Five Prompts for Bar Success Planning, Starting Now
If you are taking the July bar exam, start planning now. Here are five prompts to get you started:
1. Where will you live after graduation?
2. Do you have a place to study that is conducive to learning?
3. Have you lined up all the bar review resources you will need?
4. Have you let your family and friends know you’ll be gone in June and July – and, have you taken care of all summer obligations so that you can either handle them by May or put them off until August?
And, last but not least, for now,
5. Do you have enough money saved to live for two months after graduation without working?
#barexam, #barexamtips, #barsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent
Ten tips to manage procrastination
Many students share that as midterms and finals approach, and during bar prep, they find themselves unusually eager to clean their homes, review and delete old emails, clip their toenails. You get the idea – anything other than studying!
Here are tips if this is your situation:
- Know that procrastination is normal. Lose the self-criticism.
- See some procrastinating as a positive. Sometimes, it does serve a useful purpose – helping re-charge your batteries so that you are all-in when you are studying.
- If your procrastination is paralyzing, rather than positive, seek help from reliable, expert resources.
- Think of an academic goal as a series of finite projects. It is more tempting to avoid something that feels like a huge challenge. Identifying tasks as doable parts of a project makes them more approachable.
- Once you identify the various tasks, ask yourself if any of them feel overwhelming, and see if you can get some help with those pieces of the puzzle.
- List what you tend to do when you procrastinate and schedule specific, limited time slots for those things. Don’t make them guilty pleasures. Make them a controlled part of your day. For example, if you procrastinate with social media, you may find yourself losing many hours. If you know that every day, you have social media “office hours,” you will be less apt to use that as an escape.
- Study first, then take your time “off.”
- Adopt a routine. Being on a schedule will help your body and brain “accept” that you just do particular tasks at certain times. You just do.
- Talk to yourself about how good you feel when you accomplish what you set out to do. And, if it’s helpful, remind yourself how icky it feels when you don’t. Simple example: many people have a habit of never going to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink. No matter how tired they are, they just don’t procrastinate on that one. Why? They find it pleasant to wake to a clean sink and very unpleasant to wake to dirt. They also realize that the task gets more difficult the longer food sticks to dishes. And, they know that a sink for of dirty dishes attracts bugs.
- Articulate why your big goals are important and valuable. And give yourself props for all the hard work you are doing.
#studysuccess, #academicsuccess, #lawschool, #lawstudent, #ASP, #barsuccess
Happy New Year
To all, may the year bring hope, happiness, and health!
To upcoming bar takers, and all facing great challenges, may you embrace that which is difficult knowing that your effort is worthwhile, your courage is great, and your persistence will be rewarded.
For 1L Students
Step-by-Step Guide to Contracts -an interactive workbook designed to effectively prepare students to pass exams. The most heavily tested legal rules are presented in a format that mirrors the way they arise as issues in typical testing fact patterns. Rule statements are set out in easy-to-memorize statements, with a breakdown of the element components and logical steps to take to apply new facts to each legal element. Fluency with the legal terminology is also essential to exam success, so this Step-by-Step Guide includes fill-in-the-blank spaces to help you learn and memorize definitions of key terms as they are introduced, and a glossary of selected terms at the end for further reference. In addition to learning the law and memorizing key rules and terms, success in law school also requires the hard work of deep learning, engaging with problems to test your own knowledge, and working toward gaining a strong command of all testable topics. To that end, this Guide contains short-answer Test Yourself questions. Working through these questions and then reading the answers and explanations to determine where your understanding is clear and where you must do additional work will help you master the skill of applying the relevant rules to new and different fact patterns. In addition to the short-answer questions, this Guide also includes numerous full-length essay questions with sample answers —providing further practice to test your knowledge and deepen your learning.
Sara J. Berman 