Another key to law school success is time management on exams. This is yet another area where person after person will offer the same advice but in the heat of an exam, many reject it. Here is the key piece of advice yet again. At the beginning of an exam, take note of how much each question is worth and divide your time accordingly. Once you have done this, DO NOT BORROW TIME FROM OTHER QUESTIONS. While it is hard to do, you should get into the habit of noting the time and once you have reached the time on a question, you should stop (even in mid sentence – ok, you can finish your sentence) and move on to the next question.
There are a few good reasons for this strategy. First, you have likely picked up the majority of the points you will gain on the question you are laboring over and the time you will spend will likely not yield many more points. Second, if you do not move on from a question you are stuck on, you may not finish the exam and a blank exam question means a low grade. Third, the subsequent questions on the exam may be easy. When I sat for the NY bar, the last question on the exam was a very simple corporations question. If I had borrowed time from the first few more difficult questions though, I would have missed easy points on that last question. At the end of the day, a point is a point and I will gladly take an easy one that takes me one minute rather than 10 minutes. Finally, you can always go back to a question if you have time. This is a far better strategy and the break from the question may even give you alternate ways to approach the question.
This bit of advice was one of the first that my first law school professor, Linda Feldman, gave the class for our first law school exam. Regrettably many did not listen to her. The exam was made up of two questions and each of them was equally weighted. Go figure the first question was tough and I could have spent the full exam period trying to nail down the question. Instead though, I stopped writing after half of the time and moved on to the second question. The second question was almost identical to a question that the class had gone over during a review of an old exam and it was easy to pick up easy points. I ended up with an A on the exam but many of my fellow classmates left the exam barely touching the second question.
For February bar exam takers, keep this key piece of advice in mind. It will serve you well.
