Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0380: How to memorize information for the bar exam

Episode Date: August 21, 2015

Justin asks about memorizing information for the bar exam. I present a study outline for him to follow during his preparation. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 380. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Justin submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Justin says, I'm currently studying for the bar exam and need some help refining techniques to memorize and encode the mounds of legal rules and doctrines which are capable of being tested. These can range from contracts to criminal law to wills and trusts and everything in between.

I have an understanding of mnemonics and memory palaces, but could really use help in refining the ability to utilize these tools to their full potential. So, Justin, the issue with this project is that things are very likely to be different between states. So your bar exam in your state will be likely to be different from the bar exam in another state, and it's quite a project. It'd be something that I'd be interested in communicating about and working on over email. But yeah, between different states or different countries, it'll be quite different. But I can still give you some suggestions in this episode, and then you can kind of work on them to a further extent on your own or with me if we communicate by email, timothyatmasterofmemory.com. From my research, and according to Wikipedia, most law schools prepare you to analyze hypothetical fact patterns like a lawyer, but they don't specifically prepare you for the exam. So if you've been in a school that is teaching you this stuff, it's not necessarily going to help you with the information that you need for the exam.

So it's kind of interesting to note that you're kind of left to do that on your own. You're left to do all of the prep for the exam itself pretty much on your own, which is a little bit strange. They don't work on that with you in the school. Now, there is an abundance of books and online resources. But for me, I think that having so many resources out there makes the approach to the test seem kind of scattered. Or it makes it more difficult because you have the paradox of choice. You have all these different options for preparing, and you don't have a single system. So what we really need to do, and what I would suggest that you focus on,

is kind of like in the previous episode where you take all the tactics and you just put them together into a step-by-step system for learning a language. In this episode, I'm suggesting that you create a system that you can follow step-by-step so that you can be confident that at every moment along the way, you're preparing the best way you reasonably can. You don't feel unfocused, but you know exactly what to work on at every given time, every given time, at any given point. So again, it's going to be based on your state, but based on the principles of exclusivity and mnemonics, although I won't really go into detail on the mnemonics here, I'm going to present sort of a few-step system, a four-step system, where based on the principle of exclusivity,

and then you can implement the mnemonics on your own, you can just go through the process like a checklist. So here's the first of the four steps. Collect three resources that you think you can depend on. So three resources that you think will be very good guides or very good resources that will tell you what's going to be on the exam. So maybe you'll have one resource that's general and then you'll find two different resources, one textbook and one online, that describes specifically what's on the exam for your state.

Now what you're going to do with these resources is do a quick assessment to find out what areas are most likely to be covered on the test. It sounds like you kind of have an idea because you're kind of talking about contracts and criminal law and so on, but assess these things fairly deeply and assess what you think is most likely to be on the test. That's your first step. Don't do anything else until you're done with that step. Step two, decide on separate memory palaces for these separate areas. Since they are considered to be separate areas and the test will probably treat them as such, it's good to have them in separate places so that you can just put

yourself in a separate mindset when you're working on those different things. So it's good to have a separate memory palace for each of those areas. Before doing anything else, just be ready to separate all of the things that you've assessed will be areas on the test into those separate memory palaces. So choose your memory palaces. You don't have to build them yet. Just go ahead and choose them for all of those topics. When that's done, number three, find the most frequently

referenced topics within a particular area and start memorizing this information, storing it mnemonically in its palace. So let's say that you're working on contracts right now. Find the most frequently referenced topics within that area. Maybe there are, you know, a million terms, but there are 10 that just keep coming up over and over again, or 10 topics that keep coming up over and over again, maybe even 10 cases that keep coming up over and over again. I really don't know how it would work, but you probably in listening to this, you know where I'm going with this, or you know how you can apply it. Find just the few things that are referenced the most and start storing that information mnemonically in the one palace that you're focused on. Now to find these

things, if you're not sure which ones are the most frequent, it may be that if there are terms, for example, the index tactic that I talk about will help you look in the back of the book, in the index at the back of the book, and see which terms are referenced the most. And so that could help. But if it's an online resource, maybe just search the web page and see which terms or which references come up the most. So the ones that are used the most, start storing them mnemonically in your memory palace in very prominent places. If you're working, again, first on contracts, then go to your contract memory palace and put, maybe you have a palace with 20 rooms, put the 20 most used terms in big images

in the biggest, most central places in each room in that house. So again, you're picking just one topic to do that with and the most important 10 to 20 terms or facts within that topic. And then based on how that's gone, step four is simply to move forward based on that. You might go ahead and try to fill in the rest of the information for that particular area, or if after doing it, it seems better, you might just go ahead and find the most exclusive important information in the other areas and treat them the same way you treated that first area. So if I was doing this project, Justin, that's how I would approach it. And again, it may be a large enough project

that you'll want to communicate with me over time by email, and I'd be happy to give you some support that way. Just email me at timothy at masterofmemory.com. For everyone listening, if you think that what I'm doing with this podcast is cool, if you've liked this episode or anything else that you've listened to on this podcast, please share it with a friend or at least leave us an iTunes review. What do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours.

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