Exams are looming… incoming study tips!

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Tran Nguyen
20 May 2024

We are all dreading it but the time has come… We are in the home run and exams are around the corner. Never fret, we are here to provide you exhausted, burnt out law students some exam tips to help you get your exam prep in order!

We are also so lucky to have Thomas Dillon, who many of you will know as our renowned Employment Law STS Tutor, contributing his own two cents!

NOTES AND REVISION

  • Having concise notes that you know BACK TO FRONT will save you an immense amount of time during an exam
  • Preparing exam notes is so important to your revision too – it gives you a chance to review and refine the course and narrow in on focus areas.
  • Study and revise with your own style of study whether that is:
    • Physically rewriting notes and content,
    • Active recall, or
    • PRACTICE QUESTION

PRACTICE QUESTIONS

One of the best sources of revision that your teachers can provide is practice exams and assessments so attempt EVERYTHING!

  • It may seem tedious but it is so beneficial to attempt and understand the types of content that your teacher wants you to engage with to answer the question
  • It helps you familiarise yourself with the way that the questions will be worded – generally, the structure and content will be broadly similar  
  • Even better if you do them under exam conditions to familiarise yourself with time constraints. Thomas provided us with a great example of how each subject will have different time constraints:
    • “I think the best example is Property; the exam is 2 hours in length, and is very time-intensive. It was only after doing multiple Property exams from past years, that I realised an answer which would ordinarily require ~8 sentences on a typical exam would have to be ~4 sentences on Property.”

TIPS FOR EMPLOYMENT LAW

For all you employment law fanatic students, Thomas has kindly shared his advice:

“Specific to Employment Law, I’d advise you to become comfortable with the few topics that nearly invariably come up on each end-of-subject exam –

  • Unfair Dismissal;
  • General Protections (specifically, adverse action and discrimination)
  • Implied Terms
  • The NES

I think that working through past exam questions is best for preparation. Further, both Unfair Dismissal and the General Protections have relatively straightforward, but somewhat lengthy ‘threshold’ issues (e.g., for Unfair Dismissal, whether someone has reached the minimum time of employment requirement, whether someone has been ‘dismissed’ etc.). A lot of this stuff, you can cover off with pre-written slabs of text in your notes (everyone’s favourite in the JD)”

FINAL WORDS

Thomas’ words of wisdom to all students, serving as a constant reminder:

  • “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Rarely do exams try to ‘trick’ students. If there are very small niches in a particular legal area, and it hasn’t been a big focus of the class/subject, it’s probably not at all likely to be tested to a significant extent (or even at all) on the exam 
  • In my experience, rarely do students have a truly comprehensive grip on the subject until the days leading up to the exam. If you’re a few weeks out, and you feel lost, don’t stress; that’s totally normal
  • You do 23 subjects in this course. If you do poorly in one semester – even if it is within all your subjects – that’s nothing that can’t be made up for at a later time”

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