Exam Preparation: Tools and Techniques

Your professors' suggestions about exam preparation and exam taking are probably the best place to start. Also be aware that students can only use materials authorized by the professor, see Academic and Disciplinary Regulation, Article VII, Section 5d.

Boston University School of Law Exams

Online BU Law School Exams

  • Boston University School of Law Examinations (1965-present)
    Law Ref KF 292 B5 A23 (moved outside copy room during exam period)

    Exams are listed by course title and professor in the preliminary pages of each book. Please note that these books only contain published exams.

  • Banking Exams, BU School of Law (1984/85-present)
    Law Reserve LW 3 BANKING EXAMS

Books on Exam Taking Technique

  • The Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School : A Easy-to-use, Step-by-step Program for Achieving Great Grades!
    Law Reserve KF283 .W45 1995
  • Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams
    Law Annex KF283 .F57 1999
  • How to Succeed in Law School
    Law Reserve KF 283 M86 2001
  • Law School Success in a Nutshell : A Guide to Studying Law and Taking Law School Exams
    Law Reserve KF283 .B87 2008
  • Law School Exams : Preparing and Writing to Win
    Law Reserve KF283 .C35 2007
  • Mastering the Law School Exam : A Practical Blueprint for Preparing and Taking Law School Exams
    Law Reserve KF283 .D37 2007
  • A Practical Guide to Writing Law School Essay Exams
    Law Reserve KF283 .D47 2001
  • Learning the Law: Success in Law School and Beyond
    Law Annex KF283 .F73 1997
  • Succeeding in Law School
    • Law Reserve KF 283 R36 2006

Study Aids

Use these materials to increase your understanding of law school topics or to supplement your outlines. These include hornbooks, which are an extensive overview of a particular area of law, and commercial outlines, which as the name suggests provide you with an outline overview.

Pappas Law Library owns many hornbooks. Some of the most well-known in the first year curriculum are available at Law Reserve:

  • Prosser and Keeton on Torts

    • Law Reserve KF 1250 P73 1984

  • Civil Procedure

    • Law Reserve KF 8840 F72 2005

  • American Constitutional Law

    • Law Reserve KF 4550 T75 2000

  • Law of Property

    • Law Reserve KF 570 S76 2000

  • Williston on Contracts
    Law Reserve KF 801 W532 1990

Then there are less extensive overviews of an area of law which are usually published in series. These are some of the series the library owns:

Pappas Law Library does not carry commercial outlines, but most of these can be purchased at law school book stores and many are now available online:

One of the best places to shop for exam preparation materials is the Suffolk Law School's Bookstore.

CALI Lessons

CALI lessons are provided through the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. Each lesson focuses on a specific aspect of the legal topic and contains dozens of practice questions. A general lesson on exam writing technique is available at: Writing Better Law School Exams. There are also several podcasts including Top 10 Tips for Successfully Writing Exams and Exam Preparation.

Please note that you must register to use CALI lessons. Registration will allow you to create your own password to use the lessons.

In order to register, you will need an authorization code for BULaw. The code is available from the reference librarians during reference hours. Upon request, we will email the code to your BU email address.

First Year topics


Upperclass topics

The CALI lessons page at http://lessons.cali.org/catalog.html has a listing of topics.

Other Exam Prep Tools on the Web

  • Law School Exams Center: By Law Student Paradise, includes links to exams from over 20 schools and to web guides on exam taking technique.

 

Page maintained by Stefanie Weigmann
Last updated: November 2008