This book contains everything you need to know to succeed at law school exams. After reviewing several exam writing guides on the market including "Getting to Maybe" and "The 8 Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School" I stumbled across Prof. Delaney's book and subsequently never read anything else. It provides you with instructions on day to day preparation, outlining and multiple methods of exam writing depending on the test question (whereas other books try to use one formula to apply to all tests, which is ridiculous). This will absolutely change the performance of every first year law student. Just before exams I was studying very hard, but I had little idea about how to put my knowledge down on paper as applied to a fact pattern. I ordered Delaney's book just weeks before exams and it was still very helpful, and even more so when I used it in Spring semester. I finished my first year in the top 20% of a top 20 law school. Nothing will substitute hard work and stict class attendance in law school, but this book will put you above and beyond the grade curve during exams.

This book should be REQUIRED for all 1Ls! Delaney offers light at the end of the confusing tunnel. :)

There are tons of material out there marketed to help you ace law school and thus enable you to secure a high-paying law gig after graduation. Some are lengthy, some aren't. Some have bells and whistles. Some include weekend course attendance in some hotel conference room somewhere.

If you buy this book, read it, and apply its simple to grasp time honored principles, you'll do better on your exams. You'll probably even get "A's"

I learned of it from "Planet Law School II" and bought it right before law school began. I honestly tried my best to apply Professor Delaney's approach to my first semester finals and the results were extremely gratifying to me.

Look, first-year grades are vitally important! Why invest the tremendous expenditure of time and personal resources in law school without ensuring you know HOW to do well?

Trust me, your overall intelligence and undergraduate performance has very little to do with doing well on your exams. It's perhaps cliche but nevertheless true to say that just knowing the law is not enough. All your classmates know the law too and you are measured against them, not some vaporous standard. The secret is in showing the prof you have a clue when it comes time to apply it to a fact pattern under the pressure of exam conditions -- and can do so better than the next guy!

This book teaches you to do that and gives you good, solid methods for sharpening this critical law school skill. Go ahead, buy something else if it makes you feel better, but applying and practicing the contents of this book and its companion volume "Learning Legal Reasoning" (also by John Delaney) are all you need to get "A's" IF you also went to class, paid attention, and made yourself learn the black letter law.

Both these books have been around since the eighties, repeatedly freshened by the author and re-published when appropriate. Do yourself a favor: buy the darn things and do what they tell you to do. You will not regret it.

The unusual writing style of the author makes this book hard to follow for me, but it seems to be one of those things that what seems quirky to me could make perfect sense to another person. He uses uncommon english phrases and displays quite a colorful vocabulary.

For sheer readability, I believe that books should be written logically and in a plain english style. It does not flow as well as it could, and I believe he could use the services of a good editor. However, if you can plod through it, it contains gold nuggets of information. I found techniques in this book that I believe will be invaluable, and they're not available elsewhere (I've bought almost every book there is on law school and law school exams). The book is worth every penny and more.