8 hours, 100% open anything, 3000 words, small class.... Forum

[Sogui]

That's my contracts exam that's about 42 hours away...

How the hell am I supposed to differentiate myself from 25 classmates when we have all memorized the law, and have a long 8 hours to look up any gray areas, check up on class notes, re-read entire cases for clarity, or just prowl Lexis for useful cases.... and then only 3000 words for 2 questions to sum up our thoughts. We are all smart, the vast majority of us aren't going to drop the ball.

I feel like this won't even be an issue spotter, prof even conceded almost all the A-grade and B-grade exams managed to spot the important issues... what is this test going to be testing anyway?

[GATORTIM]

i don't know

[Aqualibrium]

10 tests can spot the same issues and address them in completely different ways.

[Sogui]

Still, we all know the "rules", we know why the rules are there, and only a handful will "forget" some important fact that slides them down the curve.

Even more nerve-wracking is that even with 8 hours, you can't be sure that you aren't the "type" to let a fact slip off your radar and when it becomes important in your analysis you simply don't apply it. I feel like this is more a test about "who can be really really careful reading the question and make the most quality arguments in 3000 words or less"

[Flanker1067]

Sounds like it is going to test the same things LARW does.

[Haribo]

Just wanted to say it depends on how your professor designs the test - last week I had an 8 hour exam, 3000 words... and everyone in the class agreed that it was ridiculously hard to write about all the subtle issues he included while still staying within the 3k word limit. It's about choosing priorities, and who chooses the correct issues to write about and what to discard.

Everyone I talked to spent all 8 hours working/typing... there wouldn't have been time to look up gray areas on lexus, so still plenty of room to distinguish yourself (note: I'm not saying I did distinguish myself, just that others could have with proper preparation/time management.) Our prof apparently designed it to be a 7-hour exam (with only 5 questions) and he succeeded.

[random5483]

8 hour open book exams?

Most of my exams have been races to get everything I wanted out in 3 hours or so and closed book.

[uwb09]

Still, we all know the "rules", we know why the rules are there, and only a handful will "forget" some important fact that slides them down the curve.

Even more nerve-wracking is that even with 8 hours, you can't be sure that you aren't the "type" to let a fact slip off your radar and when it becomes important in your analysis you simply don't apply it. I feel like this is more a test about "who can be really really careful reading the question and make the most quality arguments in 3000 words or less"

yup