Writing out practice exams in the single most helpful way to learn to write law school examinations well.  You may be tempted simply to review the questions to see whether you “know the answers.”  But this cannot substitute for the experience of actually sitting down with pen and paper, timing yourself, and trying to plan and draft an answer in the time allotted.  There are numerous books and online resources which provide practice examinations and sample answers.  Beginning law students should try to do at least a couple of practice exams for every course. 

It will be most helpful to practice using actual exam questions that your professor has drafted in previous years.  A number can be found at http://www.nyls.edu/pages/2530.asp.  But if only a few such questions exist for your class, you may find it most helpful to review the questions briefly at the beginning of the course to get a feel for the professor’s style, using other sources for practice questions over the course of the semester, and saving your professor’s old exams to practice on as the semester draws to a close.

If your exam includes any essays, and your professor has none on file, you might look at other professor’s exams on file in the library for that particular subject.  Another alternative is to go on line and look at a number of websites that contain sample essay questions and answers in many subjects taught in law school, especially the subjects taught during the first year. 

Many commercially available supplements offer practice multiple-choice questions. Materials designed for bar preparation can also be a good source of multiple-choice questions for basic first-year subjects.