Flashcards aren’t just for elementary school students learning multiplication tables or historical facts. These study aids shouldn’t be overlooked for your law school or bar exam studies.
While it may be easy to dismiss them as juvenile, flashcards are actually research-backed learning tools that can be used to conquer law school finals or the bar exam.
Why Do Flashcards Work?
Flashcards harness the power of the “testing effect.” Simply put, when you quiz yourself, you enhance your retention. Self-quizzing takes effort, and that mental effort pays dividends. You’re more likely to remember the material if you put effort into encoding it into long-term memory.
Every time you look at the front of a card and attempt to answer the question before flipping it over, you are engaging in a mental workout. Research consistently shows that self-quizzing enhances long-term retention far better than re-reading text or highlighting notes. You aren't just looking at the law; you are actively testing your mastery of it.
Mastering the Art of Flashcard Creation
In its most basic form, a flashcard contains a term on one side of the card and its definition on the reverse. You can adapt this basic form for studying legal rules. Here’s how.
Isolate the Black Letter Law
Consider the key information you need to have memorized for the exam. Usually, it makes the most sense to focus on black letter law and begin with core rules.
- Identify the key elements of a crime, the requirements for a contract, or the exceptions to hearsay.
- On the front of the card, ask a specific question or list a legal term.
- On the back, provide the concise rule statement.
- Highlight or underline the key phrases that you’d want to remember word for word when writing a rule statement on an essay exam. This is the specific legal terminology that graders are looking for.
Keep It Simple
A flashcard is not a mini outline. Limit the amount of information on each card. Ideally, stick to one legal concept or rule per card. If you’re dealing with a complicated rule, consider segmenting it across multiple cards. Segmenting the information makes it digestible and easier to encode.
Add a Mnemonic
Tie the rule statement to an accessible mental cue—a catchy acronym, a funny phrase, or a song. Note this cue on the back of the card. When you are under the pressure of a timed exam, that simple mnemonic can be the lifeline that pulls the entire rule back into your conscious awareness for retrieval.
Organize by Subject + Subtopic
If you are preparing for the bar exam, you are juggling multiple subjects. Categorize decks according to subject area and topic—try color coding or labeling the fronts of cards. A subject label is a good start (e.g., torts, contracts), but getting even more granular (e.g., contract defenses) is also a good idea.
Studying related concepts together helps you see the connections between rules. Fact patterns on the bar exam will often require you to recall a cluster of related rules, and organizing your deck this way mimics that cognitive demand.
How + When to Use Flashcards
Think of flashcards as one tool in your study arsenal. You’ll be best prepared if you use flashcards in conjunction with other study methods and aids (like BARBRI’s AdaptiBar bar prep supplements).
Flashcards are optimal for memorization but less effective for your first exposure to the material. It’s best to gain basic proficiency before turning to flashcards. Use flashcards to drill and target recall of the black letter law, but use practice essays and multiple-choice questions to apply that law.
Just know that adding flashcards to your study routine offers big benefits. Testing yourself on rules helps you retain them better than simply rereading them. Plus, the self-quizzing process pinpoints weaknesses before the high-stakes exam, when there’s still time to do something about them.
Strategies for Maximum Retention
Preparing for exams with a stack of flashcards is great, but as discussed, it’s not enough. You must have a system for using them. How often should you review? Which cards deserve your attention today? Enter spaced repetition.
Spaced Repetition for Bar Prep
Spaced repetition is an evidence-based strategy that suggests by spacing out study sessions at increasing intervals, you get a better and more robust memory of the materials. You review difficult concepts frequently and easier concepts less often.
There are many methodologies for applying spaced repetition to flashcards, but one approach is the Leitner system, named after the German science journalist who conceived of the method. You’ll organize flashcards into different boxes based on your level of mastery.
The Leitner System
Here’s how to turn your study sessions into a game of efficiency:
- Box 1: Every new card starts here. You review these every single day.
- Box 2: When you answer a card from Box 1 correctly, move it to Box 2. You review this box less frequently.
- Box 3: Correct answers from Box 2 move here. Review these at even longer intervals.
If you miss a card at any point, it goes back to Box 1. This system ensures that you are spending your valuable time on the concepts you struggle with, rather than wasting time reviewing rules you have already mastered. It forces you to confront your weaknesses.
Don’t have physical boxes? Rubber bands work just as well. And you can make other modifications to this system to fit your purposes. For example, for long-term bar prep, you can add a Box 4 for bi-weekly review and a Box 5 for monthly review. The goal is to push the information deeper into your long-term memory so that it is accessible months from now when you are sitting for the bar.
The Power of Critical Pass
Spaced repetition is powerful, but many students find the manual process cumbersome. If you don’t want to sort flashcards into boxes and keep track of varying review intervals, that’s ok. Critical Pass Flashcards powered by BARBRI use spaced repetition to ensure you're studying as efficiently and effectively as possible for the bar exam.
Critical Pass cards succinctly synthesize the relevant law, providing you with numbered, indexed, and color-coded content that keeps you organized without the hassle. They are large enough to allow for your own notes—perfect for adding those personal mnemonics—but portable enough to study on the go.
Learn more about Critical Pass Flashcards for learning and memorizing.
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