[blindlaw] Keeping Track of Key Facts on Bar Exam Essays

[Jim McCarthy]

Michal
Others may have a better idea on this than have I. To me, you might be best to bracket the text, if you can do that with braces, brackets stars, some sort of punctuation or symbol you will not regularly see, but one you can search for. I took bar exams using computers, but it was in the days when that was an accommodation available mostly only to those with disabilities and I had the ability to alter the document. I am not sure that still is an option. If it is though, you could also add little notes like (for negligence) or (intent) all between the punctuation mark you choose. I think of the JAWS functions you suggest, place markers may be the most useful. Speech and sound schemes can be helpful reading legislation; I think text analyzer is a good start point in proof reading legal documents you might develop; and skim reading helps for summarizing long documents but I am not sure those work as well for your task. Sending positive thoughts your direction as bar study is a life altering experience for those months one engages in it.
Jim McCarthy

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Michal Nowicki via BlindLaw
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2018 11:53 AM
To: Blind Law Mailing List
Cc: Michal Nowicki
Subject: [blindlaw] Keeping Track of Key Facts on Bar Exam Essays

Hello Everyone,

I am studying for the Illinois Bar Exam, and I am seeking advice on improving my time on bar exam essays. Currently, even with the double time I have for each essay, I can never finish in the allotted time. The problem is that I have not figured out how to annotate the fact patterns so that I can quickly find relevant facts. According to my Barbri instructors, this is an important step in maximizing efficiency: at least for sighted people, who can easily highlight information and jot down margin notes that quickly jump out at them as they skim the passage.

Do any of you have any suggestions on how to keep track of legally operative facts efficiently using JAWS? Some JAWS features I’ve been considering trying out are (1) speech and sound schemes, (2) text analyzer, (3) skim reading, and (4) placemarkers. Have any of you found those or other features useful on the essay portion of the exam? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Michal

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

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