04 Oct What To Do With Your Self Assessment
The self assessment is one of the most important tools you can give yourself when preparing for the FYLSE. Many of us don’t do these assessments because we wonder “Now I did it how do I assess it?” It is definitely hard to try to identify where you went wrong when you are not sure about anything, and that is the general state of being in 1L!
Don’t panic! We are here to help you avoid potholes in the road (we already stepped in most of them)! Take the time to write three essays (four if you can) and 100 MCQ’s. This is an entire day that you will have to devote to this but it will pay off in the end. Once you have completed the essays and MCQ’s then sit down and take a look at your MCQ’s first.
If there is no specific characteristic of these questions look at the call. Are you missing only the questions where the call says “if only one were true” then focus on these questions.
Once you have taken the time to identify where you are going wrong then go back to the table of contents in whichever book you are using, and focus your MCQ’s on those specific types of questions until you are reaching 80%.
If you do not have access to a table of contents for the questions you did, for example if you were working in the 1980’s prior test, then you are going to have to work very hard at identifying where specifically you are having issues. This doesn’t mean its impossible, it just means you will have to work a bit harder to clearly identify where to focus!
Now that you have taken a look at your MCQ’s turn to your essays. Hopefully you tried essay’s that you were unfamiliar with or that made you a bit uncomfortable; this pushes you to really see where your boundaries are. Pull out your model answers and review what you wrote against the model answer.
Remember, model answers aren’t always the most correct answer, so if you have an issue that the model doesn’t that doesn’t mean you are wrong. The rule in law is “it depends”. If you see it, if you can apply it to the analysis, elements, and it is in the fact pattern, then argue it!
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Did I spot all the issues?
- Did I get all the Rule Statements Correct?
- Were my issues outlined correctly?
- Was my analysis HBT (Here, Because, Therefore)?
- Did I make a conclusion?
- Did I adhere to the call of the question?
If you aren’t doing 100% right now that is OK, this is the time to not do 100%. Focus on where you need the most improvement now and make sure that you get the most out of your study time left.
