My Top Study Aid Series
With the semester winding down, many law students are seeking out study aids to help them prepare for the upcoming final exams.
Study aids can be especially useful to double-check your understanding of a topic or to update and assist you in the preparation of your course outlines. They can also provide large sets of practice questions, hypotheticals, examples, and illustrations that your casebook might not offer.
Below are are some of my favorite study aid series. (Be sure to check with your law school before purchasing a study aid. Many schools have entered into institutional agreements with publishers of these study aids so that their students can receive unlimited online access to these materials.)
CAVEAT: Study aids are not a substitute for your professors’ lectures, class notes, course readings, or—most importantly—hard work and grit. There simply is no shortcut to law school success.
This is my favorite and the one I usually recommend to students first. The Exam Pro Series are subdivided into two groups: one dedicated to multiple-choice questions, and one focused solely on essays. Questions typically survey most of the material covered in typical doctrinal courses. Questions are also generally categorized by topic, so if you need to focus specifically on the causation element of negligence, you can focus on that concept without sifting through all the Torts or negligence questions. The explanatory answers are detailed, too, fostering a deeper understanding of the law rather than simply providing students with the correct answer.
This series provide a clear and concise explanation of most doctrinal courses. Unique to this study aid series is a checklist format, leading you through questions you need to ask and issues you need to address.
Don’t the title fool you. This series of books are packed with lots of information with you—the student—in in mind. Rather than teaching you how cases and concepts are applied in the “real” world, these books attempt to teach you they need to be applied in the “unreal” world of law school exams.
These books, as the title suggests, contains lots of questions and explanatory answers. Some books include more than 300 multiple-choice questions—some tough, and some relatively easy—organized by topic. The series also contain short-answer questions, which are designed to be answered in 15 minutes or less. The Q&A Series interactive app is also popular with law students.
The Examples & Explanations (E&E) series is probably the most popular study aid on this list. These books provide an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures. Each book in the series contains several hypothetical questions followed by detailed explanations written in an informal, conversational manner that allow you to you’re your knowledge.
So, what’s your favorite supplement or recommended study aid?
