BarBoost ^ Memorization tools

Memorization tools

Survey courses don't give you memorization tools
First let’s get one thing clear. Flow charts and checklists are not memorization tools. They are aids to analyzing an essay to find the issues it contains. Both of these devices are external. That is, they don’t emerge from the facts in the question, but are instead superimposed on top of the question. The danger is that you, like a 3-year-old boy with a mallet, will try to force a square peg into a round hole.

The way to find the issues in a question is to work with the facts in the question. Period. The BarBoost course book gives you this analytical approach. Sure, courses have mnemonic tricks. These usually consist of memorizing a nonsense phrase made up of the first letters of a list. The problem is under the stress of the exam you’ll probably remember the nonsense phrase but not all the words that make up the list. There is no relationship between the memorized phrase and the legal issue. It isn’t organic. It is always best to understand issues conceptually first. Memorization flows from that.

The problem with the memory aids of survey courses is not the aids themselves. It is the failure of the course to isolate what issues are important enough so that you must memorize the legal tests. It is not picking and choosing where your survey course fails you. “When everything is important, nothing is important.”

Are you at risk?
• Were you in the bottom half of your law school class?<
• Did you attend an unaccredited or California accredited law school?
• Is English your second language?
• Were you in the bottom half of your law school class?
• Did you attend law school in another country?
• Do you feel you have mastered an issue once you understand it conceptually?
• Do you do much better on multiple choice exams than on essay exams?
• Are you 40 or more years old?
• Have you been out of law school for more than two years?

BarBoost fills the void
Vivian has isolated the most important issues and she has turned the legal tests for these issues into quizzes. Each question is about a legal test. For example: “What are the elements of an offer?” There are about 50 questions in each subject, then the answers are given. Finer points, like the three kinds of offers that cannot be terminated, and the differences between a UCC contract offer and a common-law contract offer are also given.

You can use these quizzes in two ways. You can make multiple copies of the questions and take the quizzes over and over again. You can also dictate the questions and answers onto audiotapes and play them over and over again. Because these are the legal tests and exceptions of the core issues, you know by heart the vast majority of the issues on any bar exam. Because you have the tests memorized, you can write your answers more clearly and more quickly. You receive the highest essay scores come from reasoning with the facts under a given rule element.

For more info: info@BarBoost.com or phone (800) 949-PASS

Also see these related sites:
The Writing Edge and California Bar Exam Questions and Answers