There are different ways to study for different subjects. For the math subjects; it is all about practice questions and remembering your formulas. For the sciences, it’s about the jargon. Knowing your terminology well is the key to pretty much any HSC science exam. For the Arts; well, most of them have major works, but besides that it varies. The humanities sort of get lost in the shuffle a bit, so the question posed is this: How to study for Legal Studies?
It’s definitely a tough one, mostly because the Legal Studies exam demands quite a bit from you. You need specific content knowledge, without a doubt: The multiple choice will punish you if you don’t. For short answers, it’s about having lots of examples and evidence, and then for your essays, you somehow need to blend the two of them together. With sophisticated arguments to boot. Yikes!
This article is going to go through some of my favourite solutions for the problem of how to study for Legal. I got a 98 and a state rank in Legal Studies back in my HSC year, and I had a whole bunch of methods that I used to try and get the content to stick. I recently did Economics as an elective at uni, and many of them made a comeback for that exam, and I learnt some new ones as well. Here are my favourite 5!
1. Palm Cards
Ahh, palm cards. Tried and tested, everyone loves these things. Except, I didn’t. I never actually used them in my HSC. And that wasn’t for lack of trying either: I made them. I just never found them useful. However, I realise now that there were two reasons why.
They were long and boring
They were too big for my pocket
At uni, I’ve become newly acquainted with the palm card art, and highly recommend it to Legal students for remembering key legal terminology, or (particularly) legislation.
Avoid my mistakes and make the palm cards VERY succinct. For economics, I put the term on one side and then a 10-word definition on the other. For Legal, put the law and the year on one side, and then a 10-word description of its purpose on the other. Or, if you suck at remembering what year the cases came out, make one with the name of the law on one side and the year on the other.
The best palm cards let you make bi-directional links between your content. I liken this to remembering division and multiplication tables. Yes, it’s useful to know your times table, but you know the content much better once you can then go backwards with division.
Legal Studies is the same. Yes, it is good to know what a law contains once you see the name. However, if you can instead recall the law based on a description (working ‘backwards’ I suppose), then you know you have a strong content knowledge. These sort of bi-directional links are very easily developed with palm cards. Take the example with the cases I mentioned earlier. On one day, you read the case names and try to describe their purpose. The next day, you try and recall the law from the description. Swapping back and forth will help you absorbed the information faster.
As another piece of advice, one of the reasons I didn’t use palm cards in the HSC was because I never remembered to take them anywhere. To fix that, use a palm card app! There are heaps, but I used Chegg for university, works a charm!
2. Yes, And, Yes, But
This was one of my favourites. When people ask me what the “secret” is to doing well in Legal Studies… Well, I tell them there isn’t one. But one of the most important things is having solid, well developed arguments. Without a good argument, you are done from the get go. And one of the best ways to test whether your arguments are solid is to try and break it yourself.
Yes, And, Yes But – Is a cool game I sort of did informally during my HSC, but recently I’ve tried to formalise it to explain a little easier. It’s pretty simple, pick a broad topic of discussion (EG – Discretion in the legal system).
Start with a piece of evidence that supports some specific view point. Starting simple is good. Say:
Discretion is effective because it allows sentences to be lessened to account for mitigating circumstances. EG – R v Singh (2012).
Then, your job is to take the argument you just made, and break it somehow, or oppose an alternate viewpoint.
Yes, but, discretion also manifests in injuries to innocent persons in the investigation process. EG – The recent shooting in Sydney.
Continue the process. Keep taking your argument, and playing it against itself! Use the same piece of evidence against yourself. Once you get stuck, swap to “Yes, and”, and support yourself the rest of the way.
This is an awesome exercise, and one I recommend to break the routine every now and again.
3. Dot Point Brainstorms
This is a great study method for the Options, where you need to be able to draw on a large amount of information stemming from only small prompts.
It is pretty simple. Take one of the syllabus dot points/headings, say, Recognition of Same Sex Relationships. Then, brainstorm absolutely everything you can remember about that dot point. Don’t write an essay, just jot down your thoughts. Laws, cases, arguments, criticisms, reports, statistics, treaties, media articles, etc. See just how much you remember.
Look at your list after a couple of minutes of frantic writing. It’s my belief that (depending on your style) you need 4-5 nice pieces of evidence in a paragraph to reach a Band 6 response. That makes 15-20 pieces of evidence to sustain an Option essay. Do you have that much for same-sex relationships? If not, then you’ve just identified an area of improvement. If you do, then awesome! You’ve just revised the basics of an entire topic in a couple of minutes.
These brainstorms are an excellent way to test your knowledge in a way that is fast, excellent for when you are strapped for time! You could put your own spin on it: Have a contest with a friend, bounce ideas back and forth, be creative!
4. Watch the News
I mentioned this in my article on Common Mistakes Made by Legal Studies Students, but I want to mention it again, because holy crap it is important!!
The best Legal Studies students are up to date with contemporary legal happenings. They can take the issue they are discussing and link it to something happening right now. So how to study for Legal? Watch the news!
At the very least, keeping an eye on the headlines will give you ideas for cases, and even put some media articles in your pocket. If you are super keen, you can take something you see on TV and write how it relates to the syllabus dot point! I figured this out as a strategy towards the end of the HSC, but it is a fantastic way to revise dot points in a practical way, and practice including case studies in your essays.
If you do spot something great, be sure to post it in our Media Library and help out your fellow peers!
5. Practice Essays
I’ll finish with the tried and true method; and without a doubt the best way to prepare for the essay sections in your exam. Practice.
Writing practice essays is time consuming, no doubt. They are definitely best done in conjunction with other study methods. But writing these essays is crucial for developing the right time management, argument formulation, and evidence manipulation skills to smash your exams out of the park.
They key for practice essays is to get feedback. This is the most pivotal part of the process, getting feedback on your writing and how to improve it. This doesn’t have to be a teacher, it could be a sibling or a friend!
On this note, you may be keen to get involved in our Legal Essay Marking! We mark your essays, with detailed, tailored feedback, absolutely free: It’s like free tutoring! It’s available to all the active members of our ATAR Notes community.
Remember to stop by our Legal Studies forums to suggest your own ideas about how to study for Legal, or ask questions to be answered by a Band 6 graduate!!
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