Ask Questions

No matter how stupid a question may be, ask it! The absolute worst is to walk into a SAC having unanswered questions and feeling unprepared. You may as well stay 5 minutes later after the lesson to ask your teacher your burning question, rather than leave it unanswered. It’s such a simple, yet critical part of doing well in your SACs! Also, if you have questions that relate to the area of study but are a bit far-fetched still ask - it can only strengthen your understanding of the topic. Remember your teacher wants you to do well so it is in their best interest to answer your questions. 

Note-taking

Personally, my teacher gave us a set of notes for each dot point and area of study. However, after I received these set of notes, I would summarise them to make my own set of a more-condensed version of my teacher’s notes. I am not very good at memorising and unfortunately in Legal Studies there is a lot of content to remember. That’s why for me, the less wordy my notes are, the better.

Highlighting

After condensing my notes, I would also highlight the key terms and phrases in each section of my notes. Highlighting is often a very overlooked step but for me very crucial. I love colour-coding my notes to make sure certain words and phrases popped out at me. This helped me when I needed to go back to my notes and reference something (especially at the end of the year when I forgot certain terms or phrases). But always remember when highlighting to ONLY highlight the main terms and try not to go overboard.

Mind Maps

After I’d condense my notes and highlight the key terms, I would create digital mind maps for each area of study. The thing I really like about mind maps is that you are really limited in space so you have to make sure everything you’re writing is crucial and relevant. In my mind maps I would write in dot-point form (not full sentences) to ensure all the information was easy to find. I then printed out my mind maps on A3 pieces of paper and stuck them on the walls of my room. Throughout the year I’d have more and more mind maps to constantly remind me of all the content. One piece of advice is to have some fun with your notes. Make them look aesthetic and have pride in your notes. When you make your notes look pretty, you will be more motivated to use them and make more!

Quizzes

I am an avid user of Quizlet. After every area of study, I would create a set of flashcards. I have tried making hard copy flashcards in the past but I’ve always found myself cheating and looking at the back of the card for the answer. The reason why I like Quizlet is because it’s made for you to do it by yourself so you are not reliant on someone testing you. For the 2 weeks leading up to a SAC, I would go over my flash cards every night before bed. A great alternative to Quizlet if you don’t want to make your own flashcards is to do use the Quizzes tool or take a look at one of the websites/videos on Studyclix everyday 2 weeks leading up to your SAC. This will also help you retain content!

Keeping up to date with the news

The news is practically a real-world set of notes! A lot of stories you hear on the news will directly relate to what you’re learning in Legal. In Legal, knowledge is power. Most questions are marked holistically and globally so the more knowledgeable you sound, the better! My teacher was a big advocate of this and often gave us handouts from newspapers or spoke to us about civil or criminal cases going on in Australia. However regardless if your teacher gives you real-world examples or not, I’d definitely follow a reputable news source on social media to keep yourself informed with what is going on in Victoria. When you’re reading stories on the news, subconsciously you will start linking it to what you have learned in Legal and it will reinforce your knowledge on the area of study. To make this less tedious… try and find cases in the news that either interest you or ones that are comical. I still remember stumbling across a case in America where someone raised a civil claim against McDonald’s for not giving them a napkin! When you are answering questions, you will then have the ability to namedrop and reference current day cases which will really impress your teacher!

Practise SACs

Doing as many practice SACs as possible is key to success in Legal! I usually used company paper’s practice SACs so make sure I got a variety of questions. Some schools SACs are easier and others are harder so to make sure you cover your basis, do a large range of company papers. Another recommendation is to do the Quizzes on Studyclix as well to get even more of a variety of questions. I usually did 8 practice SACs in total and only 2 practice SACs before a SAC under timed conditions.

Throughout the year

I believe studying for the exam goes beyond purely the September holidays up until the date of the exam. I like to start studying from the start of the year. After I would complete a SAC, every week up until the day of the exam I would sit down on a Sunday afternoon and attempt all my Legal Studies
Quizlets I had made. This ensured I never forgot any material throughout the year. If Quizlet isn’t really your thing, then once a week I would recommend completing a few quizzes on Studyclix on a weekly basis. In the September holidays, since I was familiar with all the content, I could go straight onto completing practice exams and did not need to worry about relearning content.

Mid-Year Holidays

In the mid-year holidays my teacher gave me some unit 3 practice exams. Whilst these exams were only on one semester’s worth of content, it was still extremely helpful! Whilst I retained most of the content through doing the weekly quizzes, still through doing these practice exams I noticed some gaps. It’s great going into the second semester feeling confident on all the unit 3 content and will really help you out at the end of the year!

Study with you friends

When it came to the September holidays, whilst I was pretty confident that I had retained most of the content from the year, I still thought it was beneficial to do a light revision of the whole year’s work before jumping straight into practice exams. So, a group of friends and I spent a couple hours on the first day of the September holidays and just talked through all the content. I’d really recommend studying with a friend or two because it will ensure you are all on the same page and it’ll make studying more enjoyable. You can only do as well as your cohort so it’s great to help friends because if your school as a whole does well it’ll boost your mark.

Practise Exams

September is obviously the time when you want to start practice exams. I started out by doing practice exams without notes. I would see how many questions I can answer without my notes. After I’ve gone through the whole exam, I would take a red coloured pen and using my notes, I would come back to all the questions I couldn’t previously answer and write down my answers. Over time, I’d notice that less and less questions were written in red since I’d gradually reference my notes less and less. Legal is a subject where it is very easy to lose marks for stupid mistakes or sloppy responses. So, when marking I would be very harsh on myself. I’d only give myself a mark if my answer was perfect. In the end I did a total of 30 practice exams where the last 5 of them were under timed conditions.

Everyone’s different - and my way may not work for everyone - but how I like to tackle the exam is by first doing Section B, then doing Section A and leaving the 10-marker till the end.

I like to do Section B first because I like to read the case studies in reading time, so by writing down my answers for Section B first, I don’t forget the case studies.

I also would recommend leaving the 10 mark question till the end because it is very easy to go off on a tangent and write basically everything you know in that area of study, so by doing this, you are ensuring you don’t go overboard with your answer because you’re more limited on time.

However, I know some of my friends like to do all the questions that seem easiest to them first (regardless of whether they are in sections a or b) to gain some confidence at the start of the exam.