How to Prepare for a Partly Open Book Exam

In my first year, I had a partly open book exam for Public Law. At first, I misunderstood what "partly open book" actually meant. I thought I could bring a textbook into the exam. In reality, I was only allowed bring a few pages of my own notes.

Unlike a fully open book exam, where textbooks can be consulted during the exam, a partly open book exam requires you to decide in advance which information you are most likely to need. It is less about creating comprehensive notes and more about selecting, organising and refining information so that you can use it effectively under exam conditions.

Having initially been confused about the format, I started preparing my notes at the beginning of the second semester. These are the five steps I followed to prepare high-quality notes and ultimately ace the exam.

Step 1: Start Early

The first thing to remember is not to panic about the amount of material you need to cover. A law module may be dense, but it is certainly manageable.

If you have kept up with the module throughout the year, you should already have a basic understanding of the relevant legal principles. Preparing your exam notes is then a matter of putting the pieces together, identifying gaps in your knowledge and deciding what information you actually need to have in front of you during the exam.

Starting early is particularly useful because it gives you time to identify those gaps. It also means you can refine your notes gradually instead of trying to condense an entire module a few days before the exam.

Step 2: Identify what you actually need to know

Before you start compiling pages and pages of notes, find out exactly what material is examinable.

Obtain the list of chapters or topics that can come up in the exam and use it as your starting point. Remember that not everything you studied throughout the year will necessarily be examined, so there is little point spending hours preparing detailed notes on topics that are outside the syllabus.

Once you know what you need to cover, gather all the relevant material: lecture notes, tutorial notes, textbook chapters, case summaries and anything else you have collected throughout the year.

At this stage, do not worry too much about the page limit. Your first priority should be making sure that you have enough information to cover the examinable material.

Step 3: Build your first set of notes

I initially created a large “block” of notes for each examinable chapter. I summarised relevant sections from different textbooks and rewrote important legal principles, procedures and cases.

Using more than one source can be particularly useful. Although textbooks should cover the same fundamental legal principles, different authors explain them in different ways. One textbook may provide a clearer explanation of a concept, while another may include a case or detail that the first has left out.

This stage can be time-consuming, but it is necessary. You cannot effectively condense material until you understand it.

Think of this first version as your master set of notes. You are not trying to create the final exam notes yet. You are creating a comprehensive enough set of material from which you can later select the most important information.

Step 4: Condense and refine (on repeat)

If you already know the name of an important case and are confident that you will remember it in the exam, there will be little value in using your limited space to write it down again.

On the other hand, if you regularly forget a particular legal test, procedural requirement or exception, that information deserves a place in your notes.

The aim is not to cram as much information as possible into the permitted pages. The aim is to make every page useful. As you become more familiar with the material, your large “block” of notes should gradually become smaller. You will begin to recognise what is essential, what is useful and what you already know.

Step 5: Make the notes work for you

Your notes do not need to look like traditional lecture notes. A page filled with cases and legal principles may look impressive, but if you cannot quickly work out what they mean or how they relate to one another, they will not be particularly useful during an exam.

Charts, diagrams, tables or mind maps can be particularly useful for simplifying complex areas of law and showing how different principles fit together. There are plenty of tools that can help with this, such as XMind, if you prefer not to use PowerPoint.

This is also why you should not simply copy your friends’ notes. Everyone understands and organises information differently. Your friend might understand a particular legal procedure perfectly and only need a few words to remind themselves of it, whereas you might need a fuller explanation, and vice versa.

Don’t shy away from asking for help, either. If you do not understand something, ask your fellow students or your module tutor. Someone else may be able to explain a difficult concept in a way that makes more sense to you. If you have a specific question about the module, your module tutor is usually the best person to approach, whether after class or during their office hours. Their insights can improve your understanding of the material and ultimately reduce how much you need to include in your exam notes.

Final thoughts

It could take months, weeks or just a few days (if you are really good at it) to finish your notes for a partly open book exam. The important thing is not to leave the process until the last minute. Time, dedication and ambition are probably your greatest three assets when in law school, so take advantage of them when preparing for exams.