Did I Fail?

[btl06002]

Hello All,

I honestly think I just failed my crim exam. I'm a 1L at a school ranked in the 50's.

The exam was 4 questions. Question 1 was an essay worth 50%. Question 2 was an essay worth 28%. Questions 3 and 4 were both short answers and were worth 11% each.

I answered question 1 completely, I'm not overly confident in my analysis. I partially answered questions 2 and 4. I failed to answer question 3 before running out of time (literally left it blank). I dont know what happened, the first question psych'd me out and I never recovered, then I started second guessing myself.

I only missed one class all semester and I participated in class. The class is subject to a B median.

Did I fail?

Thanks

[Aberzombie1892]

Most likely, no.

However, be prepared for a C-/D range grade.

[reasonable_man]

Hello All,

I honestly think I just failed my crim exam. I'm a 1L at a school ranked in the 50's.

The exam was 4 questions. Question 1 was an essay worth 50%. Question 2 was an essay worth 28%. Questions 3 and 4 were both short answers and were worth 11% each.

I answered question 1 completely, I'm not overly confident in my analysis. I partially answered questions 2 and 4. I failed to answer question 3 before running out of time (literally left it blank). I dont know what happened, the first question psych'd me out and I never recovered, then I started second guessing myself.

I only missed one class all semester and I participated in class. The class is subject to a B median.

Did I fail?

Thanks

Probably not. Most likely a C- or a D. Sorry man.

[CanadianWolf]

Have you spoken with other students in your class ? It's possible that many did not finish the exam.

[somewhatwayward]

this basically happens to me on every exam. i don't allot my time well and run out of time, and i don't finish. i've never completely left a question blank, but i have answered some with only one sentence, and i got a B+. it all depends on how everyone else did.

[03121202698008]

If you're running out of time by that much, you either don't know the material, or more likely, you need to work on your approach to the exam. Maybe listen to LEEWS?

As for your grade, it depends on what everyone else did. However, it sounds like you left a lot of points on the table. I'd prepare for a pretty low grade. Sorry man.

[howell]

I have seen people do similar things (like skipping an entire page of a 4 page exam) and get in the B range at similarly ranked schools. First, of course, check with your classmates to see if they all finished the exam or if you are an outlier. If your professor holds strictly to the percentages, then you're a little more screwed. I have had professors that allow you to keep racking up points on a question with no proportional limitation - if you can write a novel on one question, you can get an A+ and not have to touch the others. That's a rare grading strategy, though. I've gotten A's on exams where I have bombed a question or two, so the points are there in the 89% of the exam you answered. If you gave a real effort, I can't imagine you failing; you probably won't even get a D. It takes a lot of work to get D/F grades at my school.

Going forward, listen to Charlie Sheen and #planbetter. You have to keep to time limits, at least until you have at least short answers for every question.

[solotee]

Who knows, you might end up doing alright.

[lawschooliseasy]

Who knows, you might end up doing alright.

+1. First rule of law school is not to think about the exam once its over. In my experience your grades almost never turn out as you'd guess.

[jkay]

Who knows, you might end up doing alright.

As a recent participant in a ridiculous crim exam, the above is the proper attitude.

[solotee]

Three situations where I thought I failed out:

Once was when I didn't answer 1/3 of the midterm. Result: A-

Another was when the professor threw a complete curve ball at us with his final, and nobody knew what the hell they were typing, or how to approach the problem. Result: A

The most recent was my con law exam. A few days before the exam, I looked at a hypo for the first time and had an "Oh shit" panic moment when I realized I didn't know what the eff was going on the whole semester. I literally cried a manly cry. Result: A-

To balance this out, I thought I killed another exam..didn't do as hot as I thought.

[wiseowl]

I know someone (not me) who left a question on an exam blank and still got above median.

Curves are funny things sometimes.

[blurbz]

Agreed. The curve is the most frustrating part of law school because no matter how good or bad you feel about a test, it just doesn't matter.

Let us know how this turns out, OP.

[XxSpyKEx]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it's completely possible that you did well on the exam, regardless of not finishing a significant part of the exam, and regardless of whether others did. On my crim exam there was a policy question that was worth 20 or 25% of the exam. I didn't even get to it before I ran out of time. I also didn't get around to about a good quarter or more of the issues that were on the exam, and I was practically writing in haiku. The essay part of our exam was 1.5 hours and I had a good 3,500 words typed out, but felt like I easily needed another 1,000-2,000 words to get to everything. Most people "finished" the exam. I thought I for sure bombed the exam and was hoping for an C-. I ended up getting an A.

Also, if you go to a t14, it is incredibly unlikely that you got anything lower than a C-, and you most likely got at least a C, even if you really fucked up the exam. I'm pretty sure you can just write your name and a few completely incoherent rambling sentences and still get a C at a t14 lol. Seriously, almost no one ever gets below a C-, and even C-s are rare. A degree is pretty much guaranteed by mere attendance at a t14 (and I think there's an ABA rule that requires at least a 2.0 to graduate from an ABA accredited law school).

[btl06002]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to let you know how this all turns out.

Thanks again!

[emorystud2010]

.

[missinglink]

,

[Black-Blue]

I had an exam where I left about 10% worth of essays blank, and only partially answered another 20% worth, and still got above median for that class, at a T1.

[quakeroats]

Never let this happen in the future. Take the percentage of overall points allocated for each question and multiply by the overall time. If you want time to outline initially subtract that from the total before doing the weighting. Try to get the title page with the weighting beforehand so you don't have to do this in the middle of the test. Keep track of all this either on your own timer or with whatever in-class timer you'rE provided WITH. If there are a lot of questions and you can't remember when to go on, you could even write down the total time that will have elapsed when you should move on from each question.

For example:

4 Questions in 4 Hours:

Question 1: 50%
Question 2: 20%
Question 3: 20%
Question 4: 10%

Spend 2 hours on Q1, 48 minutes each on Q2 and Q3, and 24 minutes on Q4.

[soaponarope]

Never let this happen in the future. Take the percentage of overall points allocated for each question and multiply by the overall time. If you want time to outline initially subtract that from the total before doing the weighting. Try to get the title page with the weighting beforehand so you don't have to do this in the middle of the test. Keep track of all this either on your own timer or with whatever in-class timer you'rE provided WITH. If there are a lot of questions and you can't remember when to go on, you could even write down the total time that will have elapsed when you should move on from each question.

For example:

4 Questions in 4 Hours:

Question 1: 50%
Question 2: 20%
Question 3: 20%
Question 4: 10%

Spend 2 hours on Q1, 48 minutes each on Q2 and Q3, and 24 minutes on Q4.

You don't need to write a treatise to explain something so simple and obvious.

[Cupidity]

My torts prof. told me that on an open-ended 3 hour issue spotter, there are typically 120 potential points and 5-10 other points that some students find which he didn't think of and are credited. He said that the high grade in the class is generally 60 points, and that median is roughly 45.

Also, I know a guy who took a 3 hour conlaw exam, which had only 2 essays. He never turned the page or whatever, and only answered one of the two questions by mistake. After freaking out for a month, he got an A-.

If you worked diligently throughout the exam, wrote credited material, and didn't waste any time, you can do fine and still miss sections. While I can't say that you did well, it at least isn't without hope.

[DAJ_Summer]

Never let this happen in the future. Take the percentage of overall points allocated for each question and multiply by the overall time. If you want time to outline initially subtract that from the total before doing the weighting. Try to get the title page with the weighting beforehand so you don't have to do this in the middle of the test. Keep track of all this either on your own timer or with whatever in-class timer you'rE provided WITH. If there are a lot of questions and you can't remember when to go on, you could even write down the total time that will have elapsed when you should move on from each question.

For example:

4 Questions in 4 Hours:

Question 1: 50%
Question 2: 20%
Question 3: 20%
Question 4: 10%

Spend 2 hours on Q1, 48 minutes each on Q2 and Q3, and 24 minutes on Q4.

You just said "Spend time on questions proportional to how much time you should spend on questions" - which is not only tautological, but could have been said in about one tenth the number of words.

[fundamentallybroken]

Never let this happen in the future. Take the percentage of overall points allocated for each question and multiply by the overall time. If you want time to outline initially subtract that from the total before doing the weighting. Try to get the title page with the weighting beforehand so you don't have to do this in the middle of the test. Keep track of all this either on your own timer or with whatever in-class timer you'rE provided WITH. If there are a lot of questions and you can't remember when to go on, you could even write down the total time that will have elapsed when you should move on from each question.

For example:

4 Questions in 4 Hours:

Question 1: 50%
Question 2: 20%
Question 3: 20%
Question 4: 10%

Spend 2 hours on Q1, 48 minutes each on Q2 and Q3, and 24 minutes on Q4.

You just said "Spend time on questions proportional to how much time you should spend on questions" - which is not only tautological, but could have been said in about one tenth the number of words.

The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

[8ballistic]

I would say that on questions of the same type, you should spend time proportional to the grade, but I don't agree with this approach if you're sharing the same time period with multiple choice or short answer questions.

[quakeroats]

Never let this happen in the future. Take the percentage of overall points allocated for each question and multiply by the overall time. If you want time to outline initially subtract that from the total before doing the weighting. Try to get the title page with the weighting beforehand so you don't have to do this in the middle of the test. Keep track of all this either on your own timer or with whatever in-class timer you'rE provided WITH. If there are a lot of questions and you can't remember when to go on, you could even write down the total time that will have elapsed when you should move on from each question.

For example:

4 Questions in 4 Hours:

Question 1: 50%
Question 2: 20%
Question 3: 20%
Question 4: 10%

Spend 2 hours on Q1, 48 minutes each on Q2 and Q3, and 24 minutes on Q4.

You just said "Spend time on questions proportional to how much time you should spend on questions" - which is not only tautological, but could have been said in about one tenth the number of words.

1. Quotation marks work best with quotations.
2. While I didn't say what you've accused me of saying, your misquote isn't tautological. Allocating time as one should allocate it, rather than in some other way, is central to proper test taking. Common examples of rhetorical tautologies would be true facts and free gifts, where words or phrases are repeated with no change is meaning.