Why you should be doing your formatives – especially as a law student !

Disclaimer: This is geared towards university students.

When I was an undergrad, one thing lecturers never stopped reminding us about was formative assessments. Looking back, that advice was gold and taking them seriously was one of the best decisions I made.

Formative assessments do not count towards your final grade so they are almost pressure free. They give you a chance to test your style of writing, get feedback, and understand what specific lecturers are looking for. Some look for more critical analysis while some prefer strict application of the law to the facts.

In first year everything can feel unsettling. You and your friends are essentially the blind leading the blind. The IRAC method (check out our blog post explaining it) is introduced early and it can be quite confusing as it feels very formulaic. Doing my formatives in November of first year really helped boost my confidence. It also more importantly showed me where I needed to improve.

As I said before these are very low stakes. Tutors want you to succeed and are usually more than happy to help. They will often give detailed and constructive feedback which is not always the case for summative assessments.  

If you are feeling overwhelmed or out of time (we’ve all been there), don’t be afraid to reach out to your tutors. Most might be willing to let you submit alternatives such as a plan instead of a full essay. This is at their discretion and will change depending on the university but more are becoming sensitive to student wellbeing.

Formatives helped me improve throughout my degree. Every formative I did led to an improvement of at least one or two grades in my summative assessment.