Obviously, the goal with law school exams is to one up your classmates and get a higher grade by writing just a little more than they do. What strategies do you all use when you have finished an exam early and can't think of anything else to write?

I would make a big production of getting up and turning it in, just to psych out your classmates.

Submit, then fake a seizure.

Ohh, I like this one.

This only worked first semester.. By second semester, we all knew that the 3 kids that always finished early in our sections were really dumb.. Didn't matter when the fuck they finished their exam.. They were going to help the curve irrespective of their timing.

True. I assumed he was going for this semester.

This. I'd love it if a bunch of people turned in their exams early, I'd know the curve would be that much easier to beat.

If you finish early and can't think of anything else to write, the only useful credit response would be to spend the extra time researching alternative career paths.

For the record, Vanwinkle: You and I seem to both ascribe to the 'sleep is for the weak of heart and mind' exam night strategy, lol.

I disagree. I had some (not a lot, but a little) extra time on my Civ Pro exam. I used to go back and edit for style and clarity.

How early are you finishing? 10mins before time? or an hour?

i.e. you came up with other things to do with the time, which is fine. If you really need The Internet to tell you to check your damn work and/or spot more issues...

I had close to a half hour to kill on a 3 1/2 hour exam. I think I answered all of the questions fairly well, but I want to make sure I am writing more than my classmates and not leaving points on the table.

Sometimes, professors give you the allotted time but don't expect you to use the entire time.

I'm in on that, too. I guess we started late: tomorrow is my first final.

I'm a husk of a man after two and two more to go.

finishing early on an exam? i hate you so much.

Finishing early = you're doing it wrong

Not necessarily. If you successfully identified some of the questions on the exam while studying and pre-wrote answers, it is entirely possible to finish early and knock it out of the park. This is especially common in 2L/3L classes, but can also happen in 1L courses.

I'm contemplating cutting off one of my fingers right now to get an exam variance.

A shade.

Go further down the rabbit trial of the weak arguments? Put in headers, bold elements of causes of action, underline the beginning of new arguments?

go back over the facts and checklist for anything you missed

I did this for one exam but honestly could not find one more freaking issue. Granted, I only had like 15 extra minutes, but by then my brain hurt way too badly to delve back in and start pumping out new issues (I seriously couldn't find any). Another caveat is that I had spotted what I thought were the main issues and had already gone balistic on the reach issues....I hope I didn't miss any large issues. Ugh I hate second guessing myself!

did you dismiss something as a non-issue and not discuss it? Go back and type it in--stay til the bitter in and keep making stuff up to put in the exam (you don't get credit if it's not typed on your exam). Just make up stuff and type it in (the more you have on your paper, the better)