Tactile and Left-Brained

Makes me sound like a dinosaur.

A friend came over last night and brought a book titled How to Learn Anything Quickly. She has been trying to decipher her own style and suggested I do the same since we are both in the enviable position of having to study AGAIN for the Bar exam.

After going through a few quizzes, turns out I'm a tactile, left-brained learner. The left-brain part didn't surprise me much considering that I've always been good at things with words (spelling, writing, foreign language, etc.) However, I didn't realize that I was a tactile learner, although in retrospect, it does make sense.

I take horrible notes (ask my 2 study buddy classmates). See, I don't take notes to read them later---I take them so that I can remember things. That's why I had to go to class in order to learn (law school anyway, not high school or college). If I borrowed someone else's notes, I realized that I didn't learn the material as well.

While studying for the bar, in the last 2 weeks before the exam, I made colored posters of the North Carolina topics and plastered them all over the walls. What was on my posters, I remember. What I didn't write down (like contracts regarding wills), I didn't learn (and consequently received a "0" on that essay on the exam!)

As I slowly begin to get back to studying, I've been thinking about the best way to go about it. Since I *do* have 4 months to study this time around (instead of 2 months last time), I have some flexibility regarding a study schedule.

Things I will do like last time:

• Make posters of main topics (though I already have posters made, it's the making of the posters that helps me, not the mere reading them)
• Write rules on dry-erase board ad nauseum (write rule, erase, write rule, erase)
• Make post-it notes of rules to post around house

Things I will do differently:

• While listening to PMBR CDs (which I did in the car), I will take notes (did not do that last time)
• Find cases that deal with a certain topic of the law (in law school, I loved reading cases that dealt with tough topics for me to handle---putting faces and facts to the rules helped me remember and conceptualize the laws in action).
• NOT sit through another BarBri videotaped lecture and fill out outlines (*not* my style of learning since I only seem to remember what I wrote down and not the whole sentence--some outlines were better than others, but where there were only 2-3 blanks per page, my mind would wander)
• After doing a multiple choice question, write down the rule of law (in a notebook, on a dry-erase board, anywhere) instead of just reading the answer
• Not take off a whole month to study

I put my supplemental application in the mail yesterday. I should get my graded essays sometime next week. Time is going by quicker than I thought it would. Before long, I'll be back into the land of Torts, Contracts, Constitutional law (though, at the rate this administration is going, this will be a moot topic as there will be no constitutional rights that are still honored), and my favorite topic, Property (not really).

One thing about the NC Bar Exam is that you only get your scores if you fail. So, when I find out that I passed in March, I won't know my score. It would be interesting to know if these proposed changes in studying actually make a measurable difference.

I actually love reading about and learning the law. I just don't like studying for the Bar exam. They are not the same thing (as anyone who has taken a Bar exam knows).

Enough about studying...I promise an update shortly about the Durham Beer Fest last weekend. Last weekend was definitely one of those perfect weekends where I truly felt grateful to be on this Earth and in this space that I'm in now---having passed the Bar in July would not have made me any happier.