Hello my NCA Exam takers! As we get close to another round of NCA Exams, many students have asked me how I succeeded on NCA Exams. I’ve heard questions like: “How come I study hard and still blank-out in the exam hall?” and “How do I answer a question that instructs me to write a memo? I’ve never written a memo before!” As someone who use to suffer from exam-anxiety I can relate to the tone of nervousness underpinning all these questions.
As a successful NCA grad who wrote 7 exams in 9 months (3 sittings), I’m here to help with my tips and tricks for making your NCA exams a smooth and relatively stress-free process!
Organizing Your Notes
For me, finding and applying structure was the one way to ensure I felt grounded both before the exam and during the exam itself. I’ve talked extensively about how I structured my notes and the binder I bring with me to each exam in past blogs; this is certainly key. Having a disorganized pile of notes with you that you have to sift through in the exam isn’t helpful but having a structured binder with easy to understand information that you can find quickly will make you feel so much more comfortable before and during the exam.
Using Reading Time to Strategize & Time Keeping
Another helpful technique was to tackle the questions and allocate answering time according to their weight. So, during reading time I look at all the questions and rank them by their point value. I then allot time for answering them according to their weight (e.g. a question worth 1/3 of the exam value will get 1/3 of my time, if I finish it early, then bonus!) Once writing time starts, I begin with the highest point question to get it out of the way and maximize my energy on the most important question. I also keep myself to the time commitments I outlined during reading time; this helps you avoid scrambling at the end and if you do have extra time you can always back-track and beef up answers.
Basic IRAC Structure
Today, though, I will focus on how to structure your answers in the exam itself. While I’m sure many of you will have heard of the IRAC answer format, it may still be foreign or intimidating so let’s break it down…
- “I” is for Issue: Identifying the problem / what is the question asking you?
Read the question carefully and figure out what the main issue(s) (or problem(s)) the question is asking you to solve. This is super key and if you get this part right, you are well on your way to doing well on a question. Generally NCA problem questions are pretty straight forward and contain one to two issues per question; you may get a three or four issue question but these will be worth a significant amount of the exam value (e.g. 40 or 50 points / 100).
- “R” is for Rule: What Law should you use to help you solve the problem?
Now that you know what the issue is, you will know what case-law or legislation you need to analyse next to the fact pattern. For instance, if your issue is “whether the police officer is liable for murdering a pedestrian by speeding” you know you have to talk about the elements of murder within the special contexts for police officers who are on duty.
If your binder is properly organized, you should be able to reference the exact sections of your notes quite quickly to find the exact case names and statute sections you need. There’s no need to copy statutes word-for-word or outline everything that happened in a case; don’t waste time doing that. Rather explain why the cases / law apply to the issue using only the key and relevant facts necessary. For instance: “In case X the police officer was speeding while on duty and harmed a child. The Court held that the officer was not liable for murder as he was in hot-pursuit of a known serial killer.”
- “A” is for Application: How does the law interact with the fact-pattern you’ve been given?
Now that you have the case or cases or statute(s) laid out, you can apply them to your fact patter by saying why they are the same or different from your client’s situation. So, using the example from above: “The officer in Case X was in pursuit of a serial killer. However, the officer in this case was merely chasing someone who ran a red light. This may distinguish case X and the prosecutor may argue that the need leeway the police were granted in case X is not warranted here given the suspected criminal here is not such a threat to the public.”
- “C” is for Conclusion: What is the likely outcome of the case / remedies (if they apply)
After you have addressed all the issues with law and application, you can write a short conclusion on how the case will likely end and/or how remedies will be applied. You can also sum-up with a conclusion at the end of each issue if that makes more sense to you (see more on structure below).
Applying IRAC to the NCAs
Many people tell me: “But I find IRAC confusing and/or restrictive” and I sympathize with that too. I used to find IRAC quite clumsy myself. Sometimes it was awkward to address issues separately or to lay out all the rules before applying them to my problem questions. But as I used IRAC more and more I found ways to make it work for me. I’ve outlined my general problem question lay-out below so you can see how I go about it. I think the main take-away here is that clear issue identification is key and should be done up-front; how you structure the R-A-C part of the question can be a little more fluid as long as it is logical.
IRAC applies no matter what the question prompt is. Sometimes you will see questions saying things like “write a memo to a partner on the client’s case”. You can go about doing full memo form if you like, but as long as you use the IRAC format and headers, you will be fine.
Which brings me to headers! Us them to your advantage! Not only will they help ground you (and your nerves) as they force you to organize your thoughts and answer, but they also help the examiner read your answers more easily and signal to the examiner that you answered the question with careful thought.
Multi-Issue Question Structure
If your question has multiple issues it may make sense to alter the IRAC structure slightly. Here’s how I generally outline these types of questions…
- Introductory paragraph - this is where I lay out all the issues I think are in the question. This is a very utilitarian paragraph that simply proves to the examiner that I can and have identified key legal issues in the question.
- Heading for Issue 1 - Under this heading I’ll have a paragraph for the rules and application for to Issue 1 (and issue 1 only!). Sometimes rules and application can get a little mixed together and I think that’s fine as long as the order of things is logical and not scattered. If I think it’s necessary, I may write another paragraph providing a conclusion to this issue, but if my issues are interlinked (i.e the outcome of one impacts the other) then I may leave all my conclusion remarks for the end of the question.
- Heading for Issue 2, 3, etc. - same as above but for each issue you identified in your introductory paragraph.
- Conclusion - whether you used a conclusion within each issue or not, still wrap up your question with a conclusion that states how the case will likely turn-out and outlines any remedies (if applicable)
Single-Issue Question Structure
If your question has one issue only you can pretty much follow the IRAC structure directly. I still use headers, however, and usually put the Rule and Application part of my question under one header. So, you will have three headers in total:
- Introductory & Issue - write a short introduction and identify the issue
- Rules and Application - identify the cases / statutes you need to use and apply them to the fact pattern
- Conclusion (& Remedies) - conclude with the likely outcome of the case and suggest any remedies if applicable.
If you follow these structures, you will not only find yourself calmer but also make it so much easier for an examiner to read your answers thus maximizing your potential for gaining points. If you are new to IRAC, practice with one of the NCA example questions and structure your answer using one of the templates above.
And remember, always breath, reference your materials, and do what you can to stay calm. You got this!
Tiffany is an LLM candidate at NYU Law. and a regular blogger for NCA Tutor™.
-Tiffany