Tips of Studying Techniques

Every student aspires to pass in the examination. Intelligent and hardworking students desire to obtain first class or distinction or even a rank in the merit list. To obtain success in the examination following tips are useful to the students. These tips are especially for the Law Students. However, most of the tips are applicable to the students of any faculty. Those who follow the following 11 tips are sure to get at least first class in the examination!

1. While reading books: While reading books, discriminate between what is important and what is not important. Be careful about what to read and what not to read. Acquire the habit of identifying and grasping the essential points.

2. Plan of Studying: Law Course is having Semester Pattern of Examination. Dates of University Examination fall ordinarily in the last week of October for the first semester and the first week of April for the second semester. The student barely gets 3 to 4 months for studying and preparing for the examination. Every student should plan the calendar of his study in the beginning of every term. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail!

3. Memorising Definitions: In Law ‘definitions’ carry importance. In the first month of every term all the important definitions of all the subjects should be learnt by heart. If you memorise definitions of various offences in the Indian Penal Code, you can also state the ingredients of any offence by analysing that definition.

4. Confine study to topics in the syllabus: There is no need to read complete book of every subject. First, go through the syllabus for that subject and study only those topics from the book. Whole Acts and Codes are not prescribed in the syllabus for many Papers. In such cases, confine your study to prescribed topics only. This way you save time. Syllabus of all courses is available on University website.

5. Read Text Books/Reference Books: Studying from the small sized ‘Guides’ or ‘cyclostyled notes’ of a coaching class does not give correct idea of the subject. It is necessary to read, for every subject, at least one text book or reference book of a standard author.

6. Preparing Notes: Student should prepare his own notes while reading law books. First reading of the book should be rapid reading. Notes should be prepared while reading the book second time. Approximately 100 pages (foolscap sized paper) notes should be prepared for every subject. The manuscript of Notes should contain 2" margin in which summary of notes on that page should be written. This summary should be read about two hours before commencement of the examination. If sufficient time is not available for preparing notes and a student owns his own law books, underlining of important points in the book is the substitute. Summary of points may be written in the margin of the book.

7. Law Dictionary/Law Lexicon: A new law student comes across many new legal terms while reading books. Law dictionaries and law lexicons are available in the market. A law student must purchase one law dictionary to find out the meaning of legal terms there. Dictionary containing Latin words and phrases would be more useful as legal topics contain many Latin words.

8. Use of Internet: Lot of important legal material is available on the Internet on various websites. All Central Bare Acts are available on the website http://www.indiacode.nic.in/ Many Articles on current legal topics can be found on search with the help of any search engine like Google. The student should take interest in taking a tour in this cyber world for getting knowledge relevant to his area of study!

9. In the Last Month of the Term: Three weeks before the commencement of the Semester Examination and during the Examination period, you should completely concentrate and focus on your study. If you are serving somewhere, better take one month’s leave during this period. During this period, time should not be wasted in any entertainment, watching TV or any other time consuming activity. But sufficient rest after exhaustive study is essential. Maintain physical and mental health during this period.

10. During the period of Examination: While your examination is going on:
(i) Do not reduce your routine period of sleep for more than two hours for the purpose of study. You forget things if you get insufficient sleep.
(ii) Avoid oily, spicy and heavy food. Prefer light meals and ample use of fruits.
(iii) Keep mind relaxed. Do not worry at all about the result of the examination.
(iv) As far as possible avoid any new medicines. Some medicines may cause drowsiness and some may give rise to allergy. You cannot afford these consequences in examination period.
(v) Avoid any guests or relatives visiting you in this period. Intimate them politely, in advance, about the period of your examination.

11. In the Examination Hall:
(i) Keep your mind completely free of any tension or anxiety. Try to be relaxed as much as possible. Remember, performance is always sub-normal in nervous state.
(ii) Carefully read the complete question paper including ‘Instructions’ in the beginning. Try to understand the scope of question and what is exactly expected in the answer for the question.
(iii) Forget about the whole world and be completely lost and engrossed in writing answer-paper.
(iv) Solve easy questions first and difficult questions last.
(v) Your handwriting needs to be legible. However, do not waste time in writing in very good handwriting, which takes more time.
(vi) The speed of writing should be sufficient to cover writing exhaustively and to complete answers to all the questions.
(vii) Distribute pragmatically the time of two hours for writing all the questions in efficient manner. Occasionally keep a watch on your wrist-watch! Time may be running short.
(viii) If you are running short of time, make up for that in last half hour of the examination.
(ix) In the last half hour, ascertain that you are writing answer to the last remaining question. Time management is indispensable.
(x) Wherever appropriate begin answer with ‘Introduction’ and end with ‘Conclusion’. Wherever necessary answer should contain significance of the topic, case law, amendments.
(xi) Titles and sub-titles may be written in all Capital letters or underlined. Important points may be underlined.
(xii) Lay-out and presentation of your answer should be neat and attractive.
(xiii) Take care of grammar like punctuation, spelling and construction of sentences.
(xiv) How much you write is not important; what you write is important.
(xv) When you have option of questions, make a right choice. Solve that question which contains more points and about the answer of which you are sure what to write than the question which is vague, requires descriptive answer and about the answer of which you are not sure what to write.
(xvi) Write to the point and comprehensively. See that not a single point is left un-stated and that a single mark is not lost from earning. Remember, one mark plus or minus may change your result from ‘Fail’ to ‘Pass’ or from ‘Second Class’ to ‘First Class’ and vice versa.
(xvii) Do not leave any question un-solved. Even if you do not know the correct answer, solve the question. Your answer may be right to some extent and you may get some marks. Even if your answer turns out to be wrong, you lose nothing, because there is no negative marking system. However, solve such question at the end.
(xviii) If you have completed your writing and if some time is still left, go through the whole paper and correct any mistakes which may have been inadvertently made by you while writing answers.

Finally, Best Luck for your Examination!