The Washminster Blog during April, May & Early June

The pace of posts may drop in the coming few weeks. There's a General Election on in the UK - and that means I have less time to research and post, and to comment on events here in the UK, France, the EU and the USA

 - but do subscribe, or return occasionally - 

I hope to get some posts published in the weeks ahead.

For students facing exams (particularly on the Open University's W201 course - but I also have advice and information that may be useful, for law and political science students, as well as anyone facing exams) - I will be continuing to post on revision topics.

My "Washminster" posts are aimed at anyone interested in the workings of legislatures, politics generally - and have in the past covered specific elections - not to seek to encourage people to vote in a particular way. However my knowledge and experience comes from a rather long time being actively involved in British, European and US politics.

So if you want to see what happens in elections, and can put up with my partisanship - then you are welcome to follow me on:

 FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/jdavidmorgan

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Jdm_progressive

Unlike the 2001 and 2005 General Elections, or the 2009 European Parliament Elections - and various local government elections - I will not be standing as a candidate myself.

I will however be encouraging all progressives to back pro-EU candidates standing in parliamentary constituencies where they have the best chance of defeating the Conservative hard or passive Brexit supporters (which I think is everyone but Kenneth Clarke).

A guide to voting effectively can be found here - https://www.tactical2017.com - the spreadsheet is based on is available here.

Cases

It can be very useful to look at old exam papers (OU Law Students can access these through 'Elite') - but even more useful to take a look at examiners reports. These often highlight common mistakes that have arisen. If you read a few reports you'll see that the same issues frequently turn up.

One comment I'd like to stress appeared one year (though it is a perennial) - "Some students in fact forgot to apply the law to the facts at all, and simply listed cases; although these were usually relevant ... it was very important...to apply the rules and principles as well as setting them out." 

Cases are important - especially in English Law where precedent plays a key role - but there can be a tendency to fixate on memorising case names and facts. I've known students who have sought to memorise over a hundred cases. (to which I say, how many cases can you discuss in a three hour exam in which up to an hour can profitably be spent choosing the best questions to answer; planning the answers; writing them; and reviewing them?)

Use cases to illustrate a point you are making; to support your argument; to demonstrate different approaches to the issue - but never just recite cases and their facts. 

How should you "revise" cases?

The first task is to select the cases that you plan to revise. As you revise each topic, think about which cases are most important. Clues can also be found elsewhere - what has the manual; textbook; tutor stressed most? (My students will be familiar with me banging on about ...)

[W201] Entick v Carrington; Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza; Campbell v MGN; Carltona v Commissioner of Works; Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury; The GCHQ case (Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service); Porter v Magill; R v Ghosh; R v R (Marital Rape); R v Cunningham; R v G (Recklessness)...

Prepare brief notes. Students, almost since "time immemorial", have used revision cards to prepare for exams. The value of these cards are that they require you to condense the information. This is a (the?) key process in revision - (there are some professionally written cards on sale - some value, but you lose the process of condensing yourself - similarly, copying out from a text or revision book has the same value-deficit). There is some value in reviewing the finished cards frequently.

Consider the application of cases. Cases should not be used as decoration. They are a vital part of legal argument. Consider where and how you would deploy these cases. This is where using old exam papers can come in useful.

Mind Mapping

I've been a long term 'fan' of mind-mapping. I was first introduced to it as a teenager - and have found it very useful throughout my career, first as a student, then as an academic (and also for dealing with the masses of information I was using as a parliamentary candidate). As with any system - it is good to adapt to your own style and strengths. My problem is that I am useless at drawing (I know there are those who claim that anyone can be taught to draw, but is beyond me - I couldn't draw to save my life!). That has meant that I lost one of the advantages of mind-mapping - which is to use all the senses. My "mind-maps" were closer to "spidergrams" - sometimes I used colour - but essentially I used two dimensional diagrams, without drawings. However it has assisted me in studying; writing essays and preparing presentations and speeches. Most of all - it has helped when I prepared for exams.

Tony Buzan, a key developer and populariser of Mind Maps has gone hi-tech  Now I can do it on screen - I have MindMaps loaded on my home PC and on my iPad.

It may work for you - it may not. Each of us has our own learning style. For me it works - and works VERY well. I'm not good at remembering masses of information (and getting worse as I get older). But organising related information by drawing mind maps is a great help. I also find it an invaluable "thinking device".

Previously, I found them most useful for exam revision - thankfully I'm not facing any exams in the near future - but if you are - or you have a friend who is - then it's worth considering whether Mind Maps can help.

If you want further information - press here. It tells you something about the products available. 

But you can do them with pen (though pencil works best) and paper. The link is that you see the relationships between ideas. You can link key ideas in an argument by linking 'clouds' containing the key ideas together in a chain. You can develop different levels of mind maps - for example

* What is needed for a successful Judicial review claim;
* the elements of a specific offence (Actus Reus, Mens Rea and Defences);
* or the key facts of a particular case.

Why not try to list some topics you could prepare mind maps for?

What's the point of revision?

A question I often ask myself! Without it, one is less likely to demonstrate one's knowledge and skills to an examiner. But I want to take the answer to a more practical level.

Revision is about 'training for the exam' - being in 'top condition' for the challenge that the exam sets.  It's about having the key facts at one's fingertips. What are the appropriate legal rules to solve the problem? What are the key arguments around central ideas in the law? What are the key cases in a particular area? It is NOT about memorisation for the sake of memorisations - it is about marshalling the resources you will deploy in the exam room.

Answering exam questions is not about dumping a load of facts, cases and slogans on a piece of paper - it's about marshalling them TO ANSWER THE SPECIFIC QUESTION SET.

So you do need to be able to

- use key cases to advance and/or prove the argument you are making
- set out - and EVALUATE - key arguments (for example about the level of 'Separation of Powers in the UK Constitutional System' or 'balancing conflicting rights arising from the European Convention on Human Rights')
- solve key problems (for example, assess whether a certain set of facts could give rise to a successful Judicial review claim, or a prosecution for a particular offence.)

Single facts, or single cases, are not by themselves key to success - it is the relationships between them.

Rigidity is an enemy of success. I've read many an exam answer which is little more than the dumping of all the facts the student can remember about the subject. That is not the way to success. As stated above, success comes from being able to effectively deploy your knowledge and understanding to answering the specific questions set.

Revision is about

- identifying the key facts, arguments, rules and cases

- recognising the links between your areas of knowledge (it's much easier to remember if you linked your knowledge)

- becoming flexible about how you use your knowledge (so you answer the specific question set, not just dump pre-learned material in the answer book).

- becoming fluent in explaining concepts and making arguments.

I'll be exploring some of these ideas in forthcoming posts.

Exam Revision

Do you (or a friend) have exams coming up? Over the years Washminster has published a number of posts designed for exam preparation - with a particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on Undergraduate Law exams. For my (likely) final group of students on the Open University W201 Law - the Individual and the State course (Constitutional Law; Administrative Law; Human Rights Law; Criminal Law) - I will be re-publishing some of those posts. I will start with general principles and advice for revision - then move on to specific topics covered by the course.

Please do use yourself - (and) / or share this blog with students facing exams. The series starts next Wednesday.