ATAR Notes: Forum
HSC Stuff => HSC Humanities Stuff => HSC Subjects + Help => HSC Legal Studies => Topic started by: jamonwindeyer on July 12, 2015, 03:36:51 pm
-
Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting a guide that I never thought I would be qualified to write. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I would be getting a fantastic mark for Legal. I was aiming for Band 5, I would have been ecstatic for a low Band 6. I put in lots of work throughout the year, and studied hard, and went into the exam confident… But I never thought I’d state rank. I got 13th in the State for Legal Studies last year, with a mark of 98. Point being, I didn’t think Legal was up my alley. But hard work lead to success; never count yourself out. Here are my Band 6 Legal Studies Tips for the student who doesn’t think they’ll get a Band 6.
It’s All About LCMT
For those who don’t know, this stands for Laws, Cases, Media, Treaties.
Absolutely, knowing your content is super important. But every subject has one thing that distinguishes the Band 6 students. For sciences, it’s usually knowing the jargon. For Math, it’s the practice and experience. For Legal, it’s this stuff. Cases, laws, media, treaties. Know as many of these as you are able to remember, but it’s quality over quantity. The student who knows 10 crucial cases in detail, will probably outperform the student who knows the name and rough details of 25 random cases.
So, make sure you know the key laws and cases for each area of the course. Check all your textbooks and browse online forums and guides, do some research! Pick a handful of cases to understand, analyse and criticise. At the very least, remember the basic stuff, LCMT is what forms the evidence in your essays. It’s like remembering quotes for an English essay, super important!
A quick note on media; there are differing opinions on how it should be included. Remember the purpose of including media articles (or similar), is to portray how the legal issue in question is viewed by society and how this reflects on the legal and non legal responses. Essentially, it shows what society thinks about the issue. So, the marker will not criticise your response if the title isn’t exactly right, or the outlet is incorrect, blah blah, they just want to see that you are considering the societal response to the issue. Don’t stress about remembering titles, quotes, etc, it is perfectly fine to write things like: “Articles in major newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald are effective in promoting human rights issues to a domestic audience,” if you can’t remember details.
Watch the News!
This may sound a little stupid, but HSC markers are looking for contemporary cases and examples. The best place to find these is by watching the news, reading the newspaper, whatever you can do to keep up with the times. If something pops up that is relevant, do a bit of research and add it to your study notes. Markers love it; they hate seeing the same examples as they have every year because it is what is in the textbooks from 2010. Bring in what is relevant!
I read the news the morning of my Legal exam, and there was a story to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation approving new sanctions against North Korea. It went into my World Order essay, easy to remember since I’d read it that morning!
So, watch the news, keep up with the times! It will give you an edge in the exam for two reasons. One, it gives you more evidence to play with. Two; legal studies exams are more likely to ask questions on current issues , or frame them in a contemporary mindset. Someone asked whether I think the Legal Exam for 2015 will have some sort of question on marriage equality in there somewhere; I say YES . It is relevant and current, so very likely to be asked (perhaps in the Family Elective). So, keeping up with the news actually gives you a way to sort of, kind of, maybe, predict questions in your exam!
Study Notes
I think that, by far, the best way to structure your Legal Notes is around LCMT. That may seem strange, and you will probably want a separate section for content for the Crime module (and possibly human rights). But consider this; 75-80% of your mark comes from essay/extended response style questions. The backbone of these responses is LCMT, so it makes sense to structure study notes around them.
For my electives, I crammed all of my study notes into about 3-4 pages per module. These pages listed the important laws and treaties, summarised the vital cases, discussed relevant articles, and formulated some potential arguments. By studying these, the content came naturally! I think this is an awesome way to study, and supplemented with some extra, more traditional notes to prepare for the multiple choice, will arm you extremely well for the exam. I can’t recommend it enough.
Studying for Legal Studies
I’ve already mentioned how I think you should structure your notes. When it comes to studying for Trials and HSC, again, keep in mind the exam structure. 20-25 marks MC and short answer. 75-80 marks extended response/essay. Therefore, you should spend 80% of your time prepping for these longer sections!
The best way to do this is to practice. Try and do as many sample questions as possible, and even more importantly, get them marked! There is no point doing a practice essay without feedback, and the best feedback comes from a teacher, or even a knowledgeable peer. You can even upload a practice essay into ATAR Notes to be marked, how easy is that? The feedback will help you identify areas of improvement.
Beyond practice, you should work on learning your laws and dates. To do this, make a little deck of palm cards, the law on one side, the date on the other. Or maybe, the case on one side, the details on the other. Whatever you think best. This is also a great way to learn the types of crimes, and pretty much any legal studies terminology. There are cool apps you can download for your phone that let you set up similar games.
To learn content, the best thing is to use the syllabus. Go through each section and see if you could confidently answer a multiple choice/short answer question on it. If you can, tick! Move on, otherwise, spend some time revising. To check, do some practice MC questions.
One final thing. When you study for a subject, it is useful to keep in mind exactly what the markers are looking for. Content is a given. In Legal Studies, when your essays are marked, what the markers are looking for is critical analysis . They want you to evaluate specific responses to legal issues and make links between these responses, and how the issue is being dealt with by the system as a whole.
What does this mean? You should devote study time to formulating arguments that you can use in your essays .
Formulating Arguments in Legal Studies
Arguments in your Legal essays are the difference between a Band 5 and Band 6. It is essential that you give some thought to the sort of arguments you can make in all the different exam sections. It is absolutely better to come up with these yourself, rather than trying to copy something really complex that you don’t really understand.
So how do you come up with an argument? Well, you are looking to come up with a conclusion, as to how well the legal system (including non legal responses, where necessary) is dealing with a legal issue. So, the first step is to look at each response and think, “What is it doing well?” “How could it improve?” Think strengths, and weaknesses, and evaluate each response using your LCMT as evidence.
EG- The domestic judicial system has proved an effective mechanism for protecting human rights. For example, in the case of BLAH, where BLAH happened, effectively protected human rights such as BLAH, because BLAH.
So, the case, what happened (very briefly), what was protected, and why is was effective. Use this evidence to make a judgement for each response. Group these together into an umbrella argument. The best of these have some level of complexity, rather than just saying “Everything is good” or “Everything sucks”. An example:
“Though legal responses have proved relatively effective in protecting World Order in the past, they ultimately remain overly reliant on cooperation between nation states, which will continue to prove a hindrance to true achievement of global peace and security.”
This argument says, okay, the responses are doing pretty well, but they could do better, and are rendered useless if a country chooses to be uncooperative. This is a deep argument which, successfully backed up with evidence, could be the backbone of a 20/20 essay.
So, long story short, spend some time thinking about your arguments. Read the news, talk to other students, and come up with an argument which YOU can back up.
Exam Tips
There are lots of tips I can share for doing well in the Legal Studies exam:
- There is a ridiculous amount to do in three hours. Three essays, a short answer section, and a multiple choice, is a LOT. Time management is key; keep an eye on the clock, and make sure you go to the bathroom before the exam. You don’t want to miss a second.
- Spend reading time looking over your essay questions. Use the 5 minutes to decide which elective question you will tackle, and begin formulating arguments for all 3 essays. Pick the essay you feel most confident writing for the electives. No question is “harder” or viewed more favourably. That’s a myth.
- I recommend spending more time on the essays than you would be expected to, based on the marks. Try and do the multiple choice in 20 minutes, and the short answers in about the same amount of time. Spend forty minutes on the crime essay, and fifty minutes each on your electives. Any extra time from any section should go to electives. You want as much time as possible.
- Legal is one of the HSC exams with the most writing for the given time. You want to break this up a little to avoid fatigue. So, I recommend doing the exam in the following order: Short Answer, Crime Essay, Multiple Choice, Electives . This separates the content so you aren’t jumping back and forth between core modules and electives, and gives your hand a break in the middle. It was a god sent in my HSC, and I bet you’ll love the break too.
- During the short answer section, pay attention to the verb. Don’t evaluate where it only wants you to describe. Big time waster, be efficient.
- Same is true for the essays; make sure you include everything they want. If they give a quote (something which happened to me, it could be the new thing ), make sure you refer to it. If they ask for specific inclusions, include them.
- Like all MC, you should answer the multiple choice questions by crossing out three incorrect answers, not by picking a single correct one. This elimination approach will keep you from making silly mistakes.
- Also watch out for tricks in the multiple choice. There will be a few, don’t fall for them. Think everything through carefully, underline key terms, etc
Legal Studies is an extremely accessible subject. The content is fairly easy to understand, albeit quite difficult to remember. Where you distinguish yourself is in expressing your opinion. Think of your own views on the issue in front of you. Why do you think that, based on your study? Get that onto paper in a somewhat sophisticated manner, and back it up with correct evidence, and the marks will come flying your way. Arguments and opinions are so important in Legal, so just consider the subject a chance to vent on some issues about the world that piss you off! It becomes much more enjoyable this way ;)
That about wraps it up for this guide! Do you have any tips for doing well? Feel free to register and share them, or of course, ask questions! All the good stuff which will prove super helpful. There are content guides for Legal Studies incoming, stay tuned!
-
Our Legal teacher tells us to include (CLMDI) which we nickname (Chlamydia) kind of weird haha but It makes you remember!
CLMDI stands for - cases, legislation, media articles, documents and international law, we have to include a variety of these in all of our answers (as evidence to argue our point)
-
Our Legal teacher tells us to include (CLMDI) which we nickname (Chlamydia) kind of weird haha but It makes you remember!
CLMDI stands for - cases, legislation, media articles, documents and international law, we have to include a variety of these in all of our answers (as evidence to argue our point)
I like this acronym! Especially the nickname... I think... Ahaha ;D
CLMDI and LCMT serve a very similar purpose. In fact, since writing this guide, I've started teaching LCTMR, with Reports being the last letter. This puts them essentially in line. The details aren't overly important, like, you don't NEED treaties in a Crime Essay to get 15/15. You don't need Law Reports to get 20/20 in a Family Essay. It's all about whatever you can find to back up your point, and you want to be as broad as you can ;D
-
Thanks for the guide and congrats on your State rank Jamon ;)
-
wow, thanks so much this helped a lot !!! i had a question, is the crime section out of 15
-
wow, thanks so much this helped a lot !!! i had a question, is the crime section out of 15
No problem at all! ;D you'll have 15 Multiple Choice questions on Crime (out of 20 total MC), plus an essay out of 15, so the total marks allocated to the Crime Topic is 30!
-
is it possible to get 70+ in the hsc when your doing not as well in internal mark !
-
is it possible to get 70+ in the hsc when your doing not as well in internal mark !
Totally!! It's always possible if you work hard and really smash your last couple of assessments! The internal mark really doesn't matter as much as your rank, and even your rank doesn't matter as much as your HSC mark (and the marks of your peers). If you want a detailed explanation of how your marks are calculated, click here, but the short answer is YES! You absolutely can, just work really hard! ;D
-
did you do studies of religion 2 unit or 1 ?
-
did you do studies of religion 2 unit or 1 ?
Just 1 unit unfortunately, if you have a question about 2 unit go to our Studies of Religion Question Thread, Elyse did 1 unit but knows the 2 unit content, so she'd be happy to answer your questions there ;D
-
Do you think it's worth using study notes for legal studies Jamon? (in your opinion and if so could you explain why)
-
Do you think it's worth using study notes for legal studies Jamon? (in your opinion and if so could you explain why)
I suggest that it is worth using study notes for legal! There is so much content, I don't know where you'd start otherwise! I wrote mine three times throughout the year. For half yearlies, then re-wrote them and added to them for trials, and re-wrote again for HSC. People think you need study notes to study, but for me, making them was studying! It worked so well for when I was going into the exam that day, and I wanted to quickly revise something I was fuzzy on!
-
Do you think it's worth using study notes for legal studies Jamon? (in your opinion and if so could you explain why)
Agreed with Elyse, study notes are an absolute must for Legal Studies.
For the core, detailed notes are essential, because the multiple choice can test everything and anything in the Crime/Human Rights parts of the syllabus, and the short answer section can vary as well. To be prepared for anything, you should have comprehensive (but still succinct) notes.
For the Options, summary sheets is the way I went. In the Options, content is less important than evidence to form arguments in your essays, so I just made summary sheets of that evidence that I would need, according to the main essay topics (EG - Domestic Violence, Same Sex Relationships, etc).
A whole bunch of my Legal Notes are available for download on this site, I recently discovered an old hard drive with the notes there, still fairly recent (2 years old, some cases could be swapped for newer ones) ;) that said, writing your own is a great way to study, so keep that in mind too ;D
-
Agreed with Elyse, study notes are an absolute must for Legal Studies.
For the core, detailed notes are essential, because the multiple choice can test everything and anything in the Crime/Human Rights parts of the syllabus, and the short answer section can vary as well. To be prepared for anything, you should have comprehensive (but still succinct) notes.
For the Options, summary sheets is the way I went. In the Options, content is less important than evidence to form arguments in your essays, so I just made summary sheets of that evidence that I would need, according to the main essay topics (EG - Domestic Violence, Same Sex Relationships, etc).
A whole bunch of my Legal Notes are available for download on this site, I recently discovered an old hard drive with the notes there, still fairly recent (2 years old, some cases could be swapped for newer ones) ;) that said, writing your own is a great way to study, so keep that in mind too ;D
Thanks Jamon and Elyse
Are there any prelim legal studies notes here (I think I've asked this already) because I can't seem to find any
Once again thanks ;)
-
Thanks Jamon and Elyse
Are there any prelim legal studies notes here (I think I've asked this already) because I can't seem to find any
Once again thanks ;)
Working on it, stay tuned!! ;D
-
Working on it, stay tuned!! ;D
Thanks for the hard work in doing so ;)
By the time you of had already made prelim legal notes, I wouldn't need to make my own ;D
-
this really helped! :D
-
how would you structure an 'effectiveness of the criminal justice system' essay response.. i need immediate help please
-
how would you structure an 'effectiveness of the criminal justice system' essay response.. i need immediate help please
Hey Tahmina! There are many ways you could structure an essay like this in terms of paragraph topics. You could do it in terms of legal responses (paragraph on laws, paragraph on courts, paragraph on other legal responses, etc.), in terms of specific issues (young offenders, partial defences, etc.).
The other thing you could do is set up the response to deal with the rights of victims, offenders and society (balancing these rights is what justice is all about, after all). If you did it this way, you could do one paragraph on protecting the rights of offenders, one on protecting rights of victims, and one on protecting the interests of society ;D
I played with all three of these structures in my HSC, and while the last is my favourite, it's also probably the most difficult to get right ;D have a go with all three and pick whichever suits you well!! ;D
-
thank you your a big help !!! :) :)
-
What's the best way you found to study for the essays? I found studying before my trials for long 25 mark essays was a bit tricky - I knew my content, but dividing it into paragraphs and having enough paragraphs ready for a question on any dotpoint - that was a different matter!
-
What's the best way you found to study for the essays? I found studying before my trials for long 25 mark essays was a bit tricky - I knew my content, but dividing it into paragraphs and having enough paragraphs ready for a question on any dotpoint - that was a different matter!
Hey! Practice makes perfect, but obviously you need to know your stuff to write your paragraphs in the first place!
I made a whole lot of summary sheets like these that crammed all my cases, laws, evidence and other juicy goodness into really succinct pages. These were easy to study, and I memorised them in various ways. Most exciting of all, palm cards and group study, least exciting of all, just sitting there reading them aloud... The least exciting method worked the best but I could never do it for long without getting bored, so I mixed it up ;)
Beyond that, check out this article I wrote on some creative ways to study for Legal, it might break up the tediousness of summary sheets and practice :)
-
Did you do LCMT for every sub topic like 'Investigation process, Trial process' or did you do it per topic like 'Crime, Young Offenders'?
-
Did you do LCMT for every sub topic like 'Investigation process, Trial process' or did you do it per topic like 'Crime, Young Offenders'?
Hey! Every sub-topic, but some will be difficult. For example, cases for the 'Investigation Process' are not really a thing, you'll use more media articles in that section than actual cases that have proceeded to court ;D but I did collate separate evidence for every section ;D
-
Okay a further question, did you choose certain sections of the investigation process such as bail and remand to do LCMT for or did you do it for all? Did you only pick the topics you knew you would include in your essay?
-
Okay a further question, did you choose certain sections of the investigation process such as bail and remand to do LCMT for or did you do it for all? Did you only pick the topics you knew you would include in your essay?
A little bit of selection I think! So for investigation, I know I had a lot of evidence for bail/remand, as well as police powers - Not much at all on the use of technology. As you say, this purely reflects the fact that I'm NEVER going to get an essay on the use of technology in the investigation process by itself. So you can afford to make those sorts of selections, based on the relative significance of each dot point. But you should have at least something for everything - That's the best way to cover your bases! :)
-
How would you write an essay on a theme or challenge like for example discretion?
-
How would you write an essay on a theme or challenge like for example discretion?
Hey! Those are tough, you've got to figure out a way to structure into paragraphs neatly. You could do it around different parts of the syllabus (EG - the role of discretion in trials, in investigation, in sentencing). Or you could do it around the rights of victims, offenders and society. Both are good options. Just figuring out the structure is the hard bit - Once that's done treat the essay like any other! Still need a strong Thesis and lots of evidence, all that good stuff ;D
-
I have so much trouble with time management. Help!
-
I have so much trouble with time management. Help!
I got you - Check out this guide!
I also write a study timetable guide you can read here ;D
-
How many practises essays did u do leading up to your final HSC exam for Legal Jamon?
-
How many practises essays did u do leading up to your final HSC exam for Legal Jamon?
Hmmm, to be honest I couldn't give an exact count. I did a lot of dot pointing essays and practice paragraphs and such - In terms of actual full blown practice essays, maybe a dozen or so? I did one every few days after I'd finished school, from memory, so that's roughly a dozen all up ;D
-
Thank you! This was really helpful :)
-
Hi here is a practice essay I wrote for family law (half yearly prep)
i really want feedback!
-
Hi here is a practice essay I wrote for family law (half yearly prep)
i really want feedback!
You should post this in our feedback section ;D
-
Hello, can I see a sample of your band 6 essays please?