Trying To Get Above 20+ For Legal

[tjones003]

Basically this entire year, I haven't been doing the greatest in Legal.

My school threw me into it because the class I actually wanted to do, didn't have enough numbers and I didn't do it in Year 11 so to say I don't know what I'm doing is an understatement.

I studied for all my SACs and everything to the best of my abilities however, our teacher wasn't the best in teaching content and how to answer questions wise. I managed to pass all my SACs but nothing major if you get what I mean.

When I try to study at home the content, I honestly just don't 'get it' and it doesn't stick in my brain. A lot of students in my class have had the same issues and our class average isn't doing so well considering majority of them did it in Year 11 and averaged A+ and As are now struggling to understand content.

For you guys doing Legal, do you have any advice on how I can magically improve and try to scrape a study score above 20? Any study advice, answering types of questions advice; any advice would be super helpful!

[sah0319]

hi @tjones003

I also picked up legal this year and I have the same issues of content not sticking but I was fortunate enough to have a good teacher.
I may not be the beset person to give advice because my SAC marks aren't that good. (My grades have been pretty average)

but here is what I'm doing to try and study.
What my teacher has stressed the most to us is to complete practice exams and have them marked, it is way more beneficial this way.
Maybe do the first one open book then the last few closed book.

Before starting anything just to get you in the mode to study, what I did was on an A4 page write down everything you remember from the year without your notes/textbook. Use lots of colours, make it fun and just write anything at all remotely related to legal. Then go through the study design and tick off everything you included, that way you feel better knowing that there is some stuff that you know.

I also recommend doing some long answer questions because the exam will definitely have a 10 mark question so have a bit of practice with those.
For long answer questions (6 marks or more) my teacher told us to use the formula: number of marks/2+1= number of points. eg a 8 mark question would be 8/2+1 = 5 points.

Maybe try watching "the legal studies guy" on YouTube if you want more explanations, he's pretty good. or watch the ATAR notes lectures.
since legal has a lot of content I've been using mind maps and mnemonic devices to try to remember.

What I've learnt about legal this year is that your responses are marked holistically. It's not like other subjects where you can pin point exactly where to get the marks from which makes it wayyyy more difficult. You have to know how to apply content to cases and not just repeat what the textbook says (something I struggle with).


I hope something here is helpful and good luck!!

[tjones003]

Thank you so much!

Planning to do some outcome transformers (so writing down information from my notes specific to the Study Design) and I'll try to do 1 practice exam open and the others closed.

With them getting marked I'd have to do that by myself since my Legal teacher well, literally hasn't offered any help and doesn't plan to do so.

It's good to know the responses are marked holistically because to be honest I don't know if Legal is just 'difficult' and 'harsh' but my teacher marks our stuff extremely harsh: for context our class average is 60 and below pretty sure.

We had kids averaging straight A's last year and they are struggling to pass! Kind of messed up.

But I'll give all your techniques a shot thank you for your help!

[blueycan]

For some context I've ranged about 80's all year with hard SACs and am ranking 1 in my cohort – my number one tip would be to just keep writing practice papers and see where your discussions/explanations are lacking through teacher feedback and through examination reports.

To get the information to stick, complete questions open book and try to ensure your responses are as cohesive as they can be with the question at hand. While you have your notes, utilising them to answer the specific question is definitely different then just copying the info down over and over again, so hopefully when you keep answering open book questions you'll get a sense for how to best use the information and thus you'll consolidate your information rather than just memorising it. Closed book answers will also help you locate where in the study design your memory is lacking, so I'd suggest to go back and forth between methods to both test and build your memory.

It seems like our schools are similar– the teachers will be extremely harsh in marking to ensure that your responses are "in line" with what is roughly expected on the exam, which is at a detriment to your SAC marks. If you've passed all year, don't fret, because usually the exam style questions will be relatively more simple and your marks will have a chance to even out. With getting exams marked over, definitely see if you can reach out to your teacher or even another legal studies teacher at your school, as they have the best expertise and will most likely emulate the holistic approach seen by examiners, especially with the longer answer questions, that we can't do simply with the exam report.

Make sure when integrating your evidence into your answers, whether you're talking about a specific case or using Section B material, that you do so early on and use the evidence to build off your explanation rather than chucking it on at the end. This is some advice my teacher has given me and I didn't even notice I was half-heartedly using evidence until after the last SAC– so definitely useful to be mindful of how you utilise your evidence.

Don't be afraid to just keep writing– definitely with the time constraints of an exam or SAC this can be difficult, but when a question is worth a lot of marks, try to put down more points then you think you should (and don't be afraid to go over into the extra writing space). Not saying you should bullshit in your answers, but adding a few extra explanations to your points won't hurt your mark, especially when marked holistically.

Lastly try to incorporate your English writing style into your longer style responses. This might look like having an introduction, points and a brief conclusion to ensure you are addressing everything adequately and in a format that is easy for the examiners to understand. Signposting language is also a must!! (Although, however, this is due to, thus, e.t.c) This just helps your "essay" flow and your ideas get across better. It's definitely difficult to start off with, but even just the use of conjunctions (whereas/however/e.t.c) and breaking your points into paragraphs will help you structure your analysis better and thus get you more marks.

I hope this advice helps and isn't too convoluted– you can PM me if you want me to explain anything else! Good luck on the exam (: