Professor Geier's Exam Taking Tips
In order to help you hone your exam-taking skills, I have compiled a list of tips culled from the weaknesses I have observed on past exams.
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Think before you write and write only complete sentences.
Every once in a while, a student writes a series of phrases or sentence fragments in answer to a question. Sometimes students write in outline form, include charts and graphs in an answer, or include a series of computations. Such stuff tells me nothing and gets no points. Use scrap paper for that stuff. Your answer should consist only of complete sentences in organized paragraphs. (Re-read that last sentence.) Feel free to use abbreviations we have used in class, such as A/B for “adjusted basis,” A/R for “amount realized,” and “FMV” for “fair market value.” Avoid stilted, florid, and superfluous language and especially legalese (in all your writing for that matter, not just on exams). (“As such,” “herein,” “before-mentioned,” and “such that” have been favorites of some past students.) And avoid awkward, pretentious sentence construction. The best legal writing is clear, straightforward writing.
Don’t waste time recopying the facts or copying the statute into your exam book.
I know the facts of the exam extremely well, since I wrote them. Recopying them into the bluebook wastes precious exam time and doesn’t tell me anything of your ability. The facts that are important to your analysis and conclusion should be discussed in the course of that analysis and conclusion, so there is no need to restate them alone up front (as in a memo). The same is true for lengthy recopying of the words of the statute or regs into your exam book. That just wastes time and doesn’t tell me anything of your abilities. You can simply cite the Code section or regulation without lengthy copying.
Your discussion should apply the law to the facts of the exam.
Your answer should not contain a lot of bald recitation of the law, divorced from the facts, as though your answer were a treatise or hornbook. Copying the law not only takes a lot of exam time but, more important, it doesn’t tell me anything at all about your legal abilities. Being able to recite or copy the law doesn’t necessarily mean that you can apply that law to a client’s situation and actually advise him or her. If you find that you are writing paragraphs of abstract legal description of a kind that could have been written even before seeing the exam, you are writing a poor answer and will not get very much credit. Go directly to an application of the law to the facts of the exam, discussing the law as it applies to those facts and coming to clear conclusions, noting uncertainties, if any. This is the most important skill you need to demonstrate on an exam, as it is the skill a lawyer must have. Bottom line: writing a treatise on the law, divorced from the facts, gets very few points (if any). That’s not what lawyers must be able to do.
Don’t write about law not implicated by the facts or discuss matters not asked for on the exam.
This is a variation on Exam Tip #3, above. Again, do not write a treatise on the law. Do not take the “kitchen sink” approach, throwing everything that you can think of into your answer, whether or not the facts implicate the law that you are discussing. I think that students do this when the student is unsure of the issue and the law and writes what he or she knows about. Or the student simply wishes to show me how much he or she knows, regardless of whether or not it is relevant to the exam facts. I don’t give any points for discussions of law that are not implicated by the facts, as lawyers must be able to identify correctly, from their client’s stories, what the legal issues are and what law is relevant to those issues. Sometimes, I’ll limit my question on the exam to the discussion of a specific tax matter. Pay attention to this. When I do that, you should not waste time discussing other matters. In short, answer the questions that are asked.
Read the facts carefully.
Some students write that they need to know an additional fact that was actually provided in the exam. Others write, “assuming the facts are thus and such,” when no assumption is necessary because the relevant facts are given. Still others “assume” precisely the opposite of a fact given in the exam. And still others simply misread the facts in their hurry or nervousness and thereby take a wrong pathway. If you honestly do feel you need to know a particular fact not given in order to answer a question, you must be specific in stating precisely what fact you need to find out from your client and—most important—why you need to know it, i.e., what difference the additional fact would make to your conclusions. Nonspecific statements, such as “more facts are needed to answer this question,” tell me nothing of your ability.
Do not be complacent because the exam is open book.
The exam must be difficult enough to allow me to discriminate the “A”s among you from the “C”s, etc. The best quality discussions of what legal issues are implicated by the facts and how the law applies to those particular facts get the most points. (And the “best quality discussions” does not necessarily mean the “longest discussions.” Very good and complete answers can be quite concise. And very long answers can often be quite poor in quality and completeness. Quality, in other words, is not necessarily related to quantity.) If you need to learn material during the exam, you will not do well as you will not have time to finish the exam. Those who do the best usually are those who know the material and concepts quite well and refer to the Code and their notes simply to pinpoint with accuracy the subsection, regulation, or case providing their analysis and authority. Those who spend their time continually searching through their outlines, the Code, or textbook invariably do very poorly. My exams are open book for the emotional comfort that some students tend to get from that status—not because you will actually have much time to go searching through and reading your materials.
Cite whatever authority is necessary to answer adequately a question.
Sometimes citation to the Code section alone is sufficient as it—all by itself—provides the answer. The Code is always your best authority, as the statute is the supreme law. Some issues, however, cannot be resolved simply by looking at the words of the Code, but the regulations fill in the missing gap. Still other issues cannot be resolved without discussion of pertinent case law or revenue rulings applying the Code and regulations to specific fact situations. Just as you must decide as an attorney what authority is relevant or dispositive in writing your client memos (or briefs), you must decide as a student what authority is necessary to support your conclusions.
Write legibly.
I cannot give points for discussions that I cannot read.
Revised December 2007 (aeb)